Sounds like an awesome buildup Joe, I have an old Vette so I can appreciate what your going through.....I started out with a L72, had a bunch of work done to the block, but they never pressure checked it before the work, so when I got to putting the block together, and installed in the car, my first run in ended up with steam coming out of the valve cover breathers, after about 3 minutes of running, after 5 minutes we shut it down to find water in the oil, ended up being a cracked block that ran across 3 cylinders on the top side right next to the camshaft bores. Unable to repair it, what a waste, a 4 bolt 427 block, yeh you know they didnt make many of those. Oh well, got a 327 in it now that I'm really happy with.