ok if anyone even needed to know how much abuse a chevy can take without breaking well here it is, i bought an 87 iroc with the 350 tpi 5.7L the engine had low oil pressure other than that it was good, lots of power no knocks ticks nothing except the fact the bearings on the bottom end needed to be replaced in time.
well the story is i guess the guy who owned it before me beat the engine and i mean alot, well when i went to replace the bearings on the bottom end, i found there was alot more wrong, the cam and bearings were all completely spun the crank needs bearings and needs to be turned the pistons we cracked and even had big chunks of them missing and the heads need a rebuild, so im rebuilding the engine. but what is amazing, is that i even was able to drive it, if you didnt take it apart u woulda never known there was something wrong! the engine ran great. well hows that for a chevy story lets see ur ford do that. :P

 

Better yet... a ford 302 with the TRW forged pistons probably wouldn't have degraded so bad, even if it was beat on. I think it still says something about the fact that your SBC was running strong, but it was a timebomb.