Some time ago, I lucked up and found one of John's killer prepped, full roller conversion fuel injected small block engines for sale near me.  The final price of the engine included a free 1988 IROC-Z (with a melted 700R4 tranny) thrown in for the asking. 

After several years of playing with it on the street and then not really doing anything with it, I yanked it out of the IROC-Z it was planted in and put it into storage for later installation in the 1989 Pontiac Firebird Formula 350 that I was chasing at the time.  That project came and went (not without a lot of fun in the process) and while the '89 Formula 350 is gone (having been replaced by the '86 TA), the 406 remains, homeless, like an old vet. 

Now, saying that a 406cid Lingenfelter small block is rare redefines the term "understatement".  There were only a finite amount of 400 cubic inch small block Chevy engines built and what few 406s that were produced by Lingenfelter were built up from seasoned (i.e. "used") blocks (like most of his engines).  LPE never truly produced very many 406 engines, probably only a handful or so making them some of the more rare (and powerful) offerings from LPE.

I even foolishly tried to sell the engine one time, on Ebay of all places, a year or two before John died but no one really knew what the engine was, how rare it was, or who John Lingenfelter was.  Needless to say, most people weren't interested, at the time.  After John died, everyone and their mother beat my door down to try to buy the motor but I had wisely decided to keep it for later use in one of my GM projects and more importantly as a piece of automotive history. 

Picture gallery

The black 1988 IROC-Z, originally a factory L98 car with T-tops,  converted to the 406 cid LPE small block by its previous owner.  The car was on its third 700R4 transmission and the current tranny was failing badly.  The 406 is not kind to 700R4s with its nearly 500 ft-lbs of torque.  The car was, however, still on its original, un-rebuilt 9 bolt Borg Warner posi rear with rear disc brakes and 3.27 gears.  I'm a big advocate of the BW rear ends.  I've seen a lot of GM 10 bolts fail in these cars, I have yet to see one Australian 9 bolt let go but that's just personal experience.  Your experience may differ.  Anyway, I'm not much of a Camaro man, I've always liked Pontiacs and the Firebirds.  I kept this IROC-Z in one piece just long enough to campaign it on the back streets for a few dollars on Friday and Saturday nights, lost interest in it, yanked the engine and sold the whole car (minus the engine and custom PROM chip).  I don't think I've thought about this car twice since then, the motor was all I wanted.

Pictured, circa 2000:  Working on my three hi-perf toys at one time; black 1990 5.0 liter TBI Pontiac Firebird Formula, black 1988 406cid LPE IROC-Z and black 1999 Pontiac Grand Prix GTP.  The IROC-Z was sold (minus the 406 engine and custom LPE programmed PROM chip) in the Spring of 2002.  The '90 Formula was sold the following Fall.  The Grand Prix GTP was sold in August of 2005 (right before Katrina hit South Mississippi).  Picture quality is rough because these are scans of old real photographs, I had the IROC-Z and the TBI project car long before I had a digital camera.  I picked up a 1989 Pontiac Firebird Formula 350 in the Fall of 2002, it is not pictured above as it was purchased after the '88 IROC-Z and the '90 Formula were long gone.  For looks, it was an identical twin of my '90 Formula except that it said "Formula 350" down the side instead of just "Formula".