I got a 350 4 bolt main come out of a 86 or 88 14088548 is it l05 or l98 help

 

If the block hasn't been decked then the vin may be readable on the pad in front of the P/S head. That's the only thing that would tell you what it came from. They used that block for a lot of applications I'm sure.
I don't see how it matters. After 30 plus years it could be anything from a previous life rebuild. Its a 4 bolt so that's a bonus. Does it have roller provisions machined in, that would be optimal. The stuff that's in it could be anything unless you identify each part.

 

Probably not either.

The L05 didn't appear until 87, and would have been a 638 casting most likely. There were VERY FEW L98s before the 638 block as well, since the only ones were in Vettes. Yours is probably not "out of a Vette" (not that it makes any difference if it was) and probably earlier than the L05. Probably was part of one of the last 4-bbl motors they put in trucks, whatever L that was.

Doesn't too much matter anymore now though; it's none of those things anymore. Doesn't matter which one it was. Once you take off the heads and pull out the cam and pistons, it's a block, not a motor; and a block is a block is a block is a block is a block, no matter what motor it used to be part of.

What heads are on it, if any?

 

Cast aluminum 880 heads and a 11 n big letters b4 number 14079261. A146. And got aD, D and a 4 stamped around on the little pads where gasket goes

 

Don't know of any 880 SBC heads. Ever. There's a 880 block though, a later-model 350. Maybe 90ish or thereabouts and newer.

There's a 261 truck head casting in the mid 80s but it's not aluminum, it's cast iron. A pretty ordinary truck 4-bbl low-perf low-compression basic common head. I'm betting you'll find it's that "special" kind of aluminum that a magnet will stick to, and that comes off with Permatex 4MA and the car wash. There's another 14079261 casting from the mid 70s that's gotta be one of the worst deep smogger castings EVAH, but it's not real common. Let's hope it's not that one. Not that the 80s one is "good" or really even "not as bad" or maybe even not any different at all, but only that the 70s one is TERRIBLE.

The block casting # is in the rectangle in the photo below. The date is in the obround casting just to the right of that. The "clock" looking things tell the shift and the mold that it was cast in, and have little meaning after more than a few hours after it was cast. The records they kept just weren't that good or detailed or accurate. A date number like, say, D236, gives the casting date: D = the Dth (4th) month, April; 23 = the day of the month; 6 = a year ending in 6. Yours then is A146, which would have been cast on Jan 14 of a year ending in 6. You have no way of identifying the decade except by other features... if it's 76 it will have a 2-pc rear main seal, and if 86 it will be a 1-pc, for example. I doubt if you'd care whether Leroy or Bubba or Samir was the shift lead as that molten metal was being poured, or if it was 6AM or lunch time or 11:30PM or whatever, or even if the supervisor was on vacation that day (night) and everybody was drunk / high / stoned / criminally insane / whatever, or if it was cast in the 5th mold down the left row or the 8th one down the right, or anything, sorry. My long decades in factories is killing my soul. Still, after all these years.




Yes that block in the photo is what you think it is, let it go.

Yours sounds like a mid 80s truck block with 86-ish truck heads on it. A typical "rebuilt" motor; kinda just, whatever was laying around at the moment. Not that it's good or bad, just, that's The Way It Is with rebuilt motors. It could conceivably still be an intact factory motor in which case it's about a 86 truck one. Not anything unusual or special or any of that. Not really anything even particularly worth choosing as the base (core) for a modern "performance" build in 2020, although, 20 - 25 yrs ago it might have been sort of OK if not the 1st choice even back then.

Why do you care? Not as an attack or anything, but that is, if you KNEW FOR CERTAIN that your block was, ... whatever, WHAT WOULD YOU DO DIFFERENTLY (besides throw the heads in the dumpster and set it on fire before anyone had a chance to observe you), as opposed to some other equally certainly known casting? What actionable useful informative information do you think those numbers contain? What do you REALLY want to know? What are you REALLY trying to find out? (besides some kind of self-pleasuring stimulant)

 

There were no 880 aluminum heads that I can find. The part number you posted are iron smog era heads. Those heads are pretty low performance. Guessing that no one would swap those heads on willingly it's probably a truck motor. I couldn't make heads or tails of the rest of the numbers you posted. It's probably a small flat tappet cam and terrible heads that had a quadrajet on top. I still don't see how it matters.
and Sofa beat me to it. Fast fingers tonight!

 

Why does it got a 55

 

 

Why do you care? Not as an attack or anything, but that is, if you KNEW FOR CERTAIN that your block was, ... whatever, WHAT WOULD YOU DO DIFFERENTLY (besides throw the heads in the dumpster and set it on fire before anyone had a chance to observe you), as opposed to some other equally certainly known casting? What actionable useful informative information do you think those numbers contain? What do you REALLY want to know? What are you REALLY trying to find out? (besides some kind of self-pleasuring stimulant)

Sorry, I can't really read any of what's in your pics. Photos of castings tend to be like that... VERY dependent on casting the light across the crusty numbers, and so forth.

 

399147637 piston number

 

Why do you care? Not as an attack or anything, but that is, if you KNEW FOR CERTAIN that your block was, ... whatever, WHAT WOULD YOU DO DIFFERENTLY (besides throw the heads in the dumpster and set it on fire before anyone had a chance to observe you), as opposed to some other equally certainly known casting? What actionable useful informative information do you think those numbers contain? What do you REALLY want to know? What are you REALLY trying to find out? (besides some kind of self-pleasuring stimulant)

Although, I do see a 207 behind the timing cover, which would have been a 2-pc RMS one from the early 80s. Not the 880. Since it lacks the cast-in roller provisions it can't be 880 so it's probably actually a 14010207.

 

Non roller provisioned block. In this man's opinion it's essentially good for scrap metal.

One can easily buy a good condition Vortec L31 and be much, much better off with all the roller parts included and the block properly provisioned.

And +100 what Sofa said. It doesn't matter. A block is a block. And being a non roller block makes it worth..... less IMO.

GD