questions over unmarked AMC engine

[AMC>othercars]

First off, I have an unmarked AMC engine I believe to be an early 290... It's also painted gold which I don't quite understand.
I was wondering if late model 360 heads would fit a 290? It appears that the valves will hit the top of the cylinder walls but I'm not positive on that.
I was also wondering if the balance was in the flywheel or the torque converter?

[donsjave]

First off, I have an unmarked AMC engine I believe to be an early 290... It's also painted gold which I don't quite understand.
I was wondering if late model 360 heads would fit a 290? It appears that the valves will hit the top of the cylinder walls but I'm not positive on that.
I was also wondering if the balance was in the flywheel or the torque converter?
The unmarked engine is somewhat unusual in that almost all the blocks had the cubic inch displayed in the spot beneath the motor mounts. To find out for sure what the cubic inch is to the measure the bore with a micrometer. Bore sizes differed with each cubic inch displacement of the engines except with that of the 390 and 401. The answer to the question about 360 heads fitting the 290 block is that they wont unless some work is done to the block to allow for the larger valves to open. 360 heads uses larger valves than the 290/304 heads and they do beathe much better than the smaller valved 290/304. The question of balance is somewhat confusing, I am assuming that you are talking about the engine balance itself. The balancing of the motor is accomplished by the balancing the crank, the vibration dampner, and the flywheel/flexplate. The torque converter is a non player in this. When the motor is balanced by the shop, they need the crank along with the rods and pistons, the vibration dampner, and the flywheel/flexplate to balance all of the componets together as a single mass. This is commonly called "Detriot Balancing". Without any of the three componets (meaning if you have to replace any of the three after intial balancing) will require rebalancing of the componets. It's kind of pain in the you know what, but thats what AMC did and we will just have to live with it.
All AMC V-8 engines were painted gold prior to 1968 I believe.