ML: I bought a Pantera. It was a labor of love eventually. I ended up spending a lot of money on that thing. My third motor was a 420 Windsor block that made about 600 horsepower. The first motor had 30,000 miles on it and was clean as a whistle. Completely stock, and the guy said, “I’ve never even had the valve covers off.” And I was like, “So you never adjusted the valves?” He goes, “What?” So sitting at a red light—rump, rump—one of the valve hats broke off, the piston hit the valve, split the piston, split the block, and she died at the light. Just at idle. So I built a Boss 351 Cleveland; basically the same motor with a roller valvetrain. I spent five grand on it. I didn’t want to go crazy. I put it in the car, and I was disappointed in the power. I was like, “You cheapskate!” But there was nothing wrong with it, so I couldn’t justify taking it out. So I did a track day in Vegas in the summer when it was, like, 120 out. I was like, “I’ll just go to this track day and I’ll keep pounding laps until this motor pops.” Round and round and round . . . then I hear this pop! But it keeps running. And one side [of the engine] is just pissing black smoke. “Okay,” I thought, “she’s burning a little oil.” So I drove it from Vegas all the way back to L.A. I stopped at a gas station and bought a case of oil and I used every bit of that oil to get home. Pulled the motor. A piece of a piston right on the dome on the corner had come off, slightly smaller than a Hershey’s Kiss, made it past the valve and out the tailpipe. I could not find it.
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