I pulled over to the side of the road and popped the hood, thinking it might be a pump but, no, everything was dry under the hood. So I got back behind the wheel and drove home, finding that if I kept the engine rpm under 2,000 there was no smoke.
Once I got it home, I checked compression and found it to be acceptable and decided that I must have a blown gasket or a cracked head. Rather than tear the motor apart I decided a couple of cans of Moroso Ceramic Seal was the answer and I went through the procedure recommended on the can. It apparently fixed my problem.
I didn’t drive the car much after that as I then went into the two-year paint drama. I would occasionally warm the engine up in the driveway without any fluid coming out of the engine or pipes. 
Fast forward two years to when the Elk was finally painted and I was ready to drive again. It was an early spring day this year. I was finally, finally finished with the Elk and I decided to take it on a test drive on a winding country road to Highway 61, where I would see how long I could hold the pedal down before my nerve gave out.
Everything went well: road oil pressure good, water temp 180, no death smoke … all is well in the Burkster’s world, or so I stupidly thought.
I pulled El Camino Nitrouso out on the highway and stepped on the pedal. She moved out smartly. Perhaps I will give it a shot of nitrous when we get up to speed, I thought as I turned up the sound on the cassette player that I had just plugged my copy of the Doors’ Morrison Hotel into. Ah music, ah horsepower, ah the open road…ah shit! What is that smoke I suddenly see in the rear view mirror? I glance down at the temp gauge; it is pegged! I look over at the oil pressure…can you say ZERO!
A litany of Anglo-Saxon epithets escaped my lips. I drove for a few miles and pulled over so that the engine and the Burkster didn’t kick the rods out at the same time. After a decent cooling off period I figure that I’m about 10 miles from my house if I take the back roads. I contemplate calling AAA for a minute then say, “To Hell with it -- I’ll call ‘em when the damn rods weld themselves to the freakin’ crank!”
Amazingly, I drove the car home with an occasional 20 lbs of oil pressure and the temp gauge pegged at 250! Equally amazingly, I heard no death rattle, no lifters, no bearing knock.
After I made it safely home, I was brave enough to try driving it again a couple more times and I discovered it will go from my house to the office (about four miles) before it pegs the temp.
Which brings us to the current state of the Elk. I had my buddy, who owns the general repair garage behind the Phlegm Building, Abe Simpson take the engine apart. Abe was the guy who installed the Painless wiring in the Elk. This time we found that although the engine was indeed fresh, there was one slight problem: The cylinders were egg-shaped and a dingleberry hone didn’t fix that. At anything above 2,500rpm, the crankcase got pressurized, as did the cooling system.
So, I now have the engine apart down at my racing buddy, Matt Johnson’s shop, and I bought a standard bore 396 block and bored it .030. And (hopefully) by the time you read this we will be building the new engine complete with a set of GM aluminum heads and a steel crank.
In the meantime I just look at the Elk in my driveway every night, pour myself a tall Crown and Coke and marvel at the joys of this thing we call hot rodding! See ya in the spring!