Oh, I'm listening.
Here's an update:
I pick up the car today. I'm going to have the RR on the stand either this evening or tomorrow morning and flip that puppy over to see exactly what happened. All in all, I don't see myself being able to drive the car for very much longer this year (the winters here tend to vary, so I could be wrong), so if I can just fix the RR for now, I will do that and take my time building up my DET/VE/Whatever else to drop into it after the winter weather backs off a bit.
I'm REALLY wanting to put a VE head on my DET block, so I don't want to put it into the car right now. Fixing seems to be the way to go for now so I can have a running car AND a project engine for the winter. I'm crossing my fingers that he didn't ruin the cylinder walls....