1966 L79 Valve Cover Decals

[Steven J.]

I'm getting ready to put new "350 Horsepower" decals (correct water transfer type) on my alum valve covers. All the decals I can find at the usual outlets have in small print at the bottom right corner "Printed in U.S.A."

I don't believe the original decals had the "Printed in U.S.A".

Does anyone know if there is a current source of decals that don't have this ?

Will the decals with this earn full points in Flight Judging ?

[Gary B.]

Steven,

If you search the archives you’ll see this same observation and implied question was asked in 2006 and in 2019. No one in the 2006 or the 2019 thread mentioned a reliable supplier of decals w/o the Printed in U.S.A. text. So this has been an issue for almost 20 years.

As to a deduction, on the Mechanical judging sheets there are 5 originality points for the line item “Decals, Stickers & Gaskets”, associated with the valve covers. The sticker refers to the 2-letter engine code sticker on the back of the passenger’s side valve cover. Gaskets, of course, refers to the two valve covers gaskets, and decals refers to the two water transfer HP decals. So, a total of five individual items. One might assign one point to each item, in which case the two HP decals would get 2 points. I think the extra “Printed in U.S.A.” text would be a configuration variance, worthy of a 20% deduction. For the 2 points assigned, the deduction would be 0.4 pts. Which would round down to zero. Judges might make a notation of the non-original text, or they might place a dot on the far left of the judging sheet if they use the sub-one-point deduction, dot accumulation system. Personally, I would not take a deduction and I have stopped using the (unapproved) dot accumulation system.

Just one person’s opinion.

Gary

[Steven J.]

Thx Gary - appreciate your reply & insight.