If you’re a regular reader of this fine publication, you’re quite aware how much we love time-lapse engine builds. A process that can typically take a few hours on the short end and an entire day on the long end gets boiled down to just a few minutes of what appears to be a well-choreographed ballet.

In reality, we suspect the vast majority of these builds involve plenty of cursing, a couple of hammer tosses, spilled oil jugs, runs to the parts store, and other things we don’t get to see, since the entire process is sped up and often people disappear from the frame for long (relative) stretches of time.

In this particular video, we see what appears to be a father and his two sons starting with an empty small-block Ford 302 engine hanging on the stand.

Through the miracle of the time-lapse–and YouTube–in just two minutes and fifty one seconds, they manage to hang the crank, install the piston and rod assemblies, torque all of the fasteners, and wrap up the short block before moving to the top end of the engine.

We notice that the video switches perspective a couple of times, day turns into night, and one of the perpetrators disappears from view–maybe that aforementioned parts run, for a missing fastener or twelve? Regardless, by the end they have a completely assembled small-block Ford engine wrapped up and ready for installation.

We can see what we think is an early 60s Fairlane hanging out in the background of some of the frames, but it’s difficult to be positive. We even asked ’round the office here and nobody could give us a “for-sure” answer on the vehicle.

One thing we do know, however, is that every young man in this country should have the opportunity to put together at least one engine before graduating high school; maybe then, we wouldn’t have a legion of McDonald’s workers looking for fifteen bucks an hour. Check it out!