216s are a far better engine than most folks think. They usually die from abuse and not use. How long would a Ford flathead run in that situation? In the early '60s I sadly watched what had been a pristine '37 Chevy coupe win a destruction derby against a lot of much bigger '50s cars mostly because it kept running. At the end they could not shut it off. They finally brought out a fire truck and sprayed water into the carb.
This video reminds me of that and a story a guy told me about him and his brother trying to rid their family of an embarrassing Studebaker 6 by placing a brick on the foot feed and letting it run wide open in the driveway. When their dad got home it was still running and so were they.
