I posted earlier, I have had a few Merkia cars over the years currently, my firebird (87) has a built 400 Pontiac, A good strong small block that got a bad rep because some of the cars with it were under cooled.
I have a lot of work into it, it's a 9 second car (albeit high 9s) and I'm getting too old to crawl over door bars but I want to convert it for American Iron racing, with suspension a cam swap and retiring with some brakes it'll be ready to rock. It sounds easier and cheaper than it is, and I've been dreaming about doing that or a 5.3 turbo swap for a while.
Some of my earlier, a 84 Thunderbird with a 514ci
99 Z28
04 z06
My G8GT was an OZ car but under a merkia brand.