Sell me on your favorite big block V8.

Pete. (l33t FS) said:

In reply to Curtis73 (Forum Supporter) :

My former employer was commenting that LS engines were going to put his machine shop out of business.

 

A lot of why I don't like them is that there's no.... can't think of the right word.  Romance? Poetry? Gentlemanliness?  It's a big fat easy button and after years of 500hp SBCs being a far off pipe dream, it just seems so uncouth. 

 

Time marches on, I suppose.

I remember magazine writers saying that the NSX lacked the soul of an Italian sports car.  Sure, they were just as fast, and everything worked, and they didn't burn to the ground, and you could buy parts for them, but where is the fun in that?

Streetwiseguy said:

Pete. (l33t FS) said:

In reply to Curtis73 (Forum Supporter) :

My former employer was commenting that LS engines were going to put his machine shop out of business.

 

A lot of why I don't like them is that there's no.... can't think of the right word.  Romance? Poetry? Gentlemanliness?  It's a big fat easy button and after years of 500hp SBCs being a far off pipe dream, it just seems so uncouth. 

 

Time marches on, I suppose.

I remember magazine writers saying that the NSX lacked the soul of an Italian sports car.  Sure, they were just as fast, and everything worked, and they didn't burn to the ground, and you could buy parts for them, but where is the fun in that?

Legends are not born, they require time and feats before they are established as heroes. Trust me, the LS will go down in history as a legend.

As for engine rebuilding shops? For general automotive, I forecast they will fade away since the tooling investment is too high and the skill requirements are hight  with low pay.  Industrial might keep some going.

L5wolvesf said:

Curtis73 (Forum Supporter) said:

The Beach Boys had to come up with something to rhyme with "409" but "perfunctory" or "just ok" didn't fit anywhere in the lyrics.

"She's real fine" was very apropos 

Compared to the Mark IV, W series is "apropos" without the "pro".  a  pos

Curtis73 (Forum Supporter) said:

Oh, and before you bring it up.... they actually do pretty well in the MPG category as well.  The 390hp/600tq one that went into an 76 C30 dually got 16 mpg empty on the highway with a pretty heavily modified Qjet.

Impressive.  That's about what my 7.3 diesel dually gets....on a much more expensive fuel.  At least where I live.

The other budget friendly not-an-LS option for making budget big block power without a big block is this: take a junkyard Magnum generation Mopar small block out of a pickup (either a 318/5.2 or a 360/5.9).  Add boost.  Tune very carefully and be nice to the pistons and you should get somewhere in the 500 - 600hp range without issue.  Beyond that, the pistons will get sad.  By 700 or so, the cast crank is a concern, and somewhere in the 700 - 900 range (depending on how high you rev it), it's time to worry about the block doing like a Ford 302 and cracking down the middle.  Under boost, a 318 might take more due to the shorter stroke.  I know at least one stock one has lived a while at 18 psi.  At lower power levels, the stock bottom end will spin to 6200 or so pretty safely, 6500 has been done. 

Just heads / cam / intake on one of the 360s will get you in the 350 - 450 hp range depending on how aggressive a cam you run.  Getting beyond 400 even with good heads will start to make it not very docile at all and you'll be pushing the limits of what you can do without more compression.  Stock is just over 9:1, smaller chambered heads can get you up closer to 10:1, but you're not getting past that with the stock soapdish pistons in a 360 (probably also true for the 318, as they're just shy of 9:1 stock, but have flat top pistons and the same heads). 

wheels777 said:

L5wolvesf said:

ShawnG said:

Big block / small block implies physical size differences therefore:

409 = not a big block, just a wheezing truck engine with a bad chamber design. Don't let the Beach Boys fool you.

The W is considered, at least by some, the first gen of the Chevy big block motors. Besides bigger displacement than the 396 and 402 it shares some identical block dimensions for instance – cylinder bore spacing (4.84”). I will leave further research to you.

W motors suck.  Fords FE made them extinct in short order.

And that's saying something, because the Ford FE was not a stellar engine either. I like them, they're cool, they have a lot of heritage, but they aren't a great engine.

A 401 CJ said:

Curtis73 (Forum Supporter) said:

Oh, and before you bring it up.... they actually do pretty well in the MPG category as well.  The 390hp/600tq one that went into an 76 C30 dually got 16 mpg empty on the highway with a pretty heavily modified Qjet.

Impressive.  That's about what my 7.3 diesel dually gets....on a much more expensive fuel.  At least where I live.

Part of the allure is that the truck could run 3.42s since the torque peak was so low.

Just don't ask what it got towing 10k lbs 

Pete. (l33t FS) said:

In reply to Curtis73 (Forum Supporter) :

My former employer was commenting that LS engines were going to put his machine shop out of business.

 

A lot of why I don't like them is that there's no.... can't think of the right word.  Romance? Poetry? Gentlemanliness?  It's a big fat easy button and after years of 500hp SBCs being a far off pipe dream, it just seems so uncouth. 

 

Time marches on, I suppose.

No sense of individuality is why I avoided them for so long.  Everyone LS swaps everything.  Then I really started looking into them and it's hard to avoid them for all the benefits they actually provide.

The LS that is going in the LeMans is getting those cast aluminum fake valve covers to hide the coils.  If I don't like how it looks, I'll relocate the coils to inside the valley under the sheet metal intake.  Basically doing anything to camoflauge the fact that you open a Pontiac hood and instantly recognize an LS.

wheels777 said:

W motors suck.  Fords FE made them extinct in short order.

You are giving Ford a lot of credit.  I'd bet some intelligent engineer at GM went into the office one day and said, "Which one of you morons invented this pile of E36 M3 that is making us invest in a billion dollars worth of tooling to build something nobody can fix?  We are not German, for chrissakes!"

NOHOME said:

Streetwiseguy said:

Pete. (l33t FS) said:

In reply to Curtis73 (Forum Supporter) :

My former employer was commenting that LS engines were going to put his machine shop out of business.

 

A lot of why I don't like them is that there's no.... can't think of the right word.  Romance? Poetry? Gentlemanliness?  It's a big fat easy button and after years of 500hp SBCs being a far off pipe dream, it just seems so uncouth. 

 

Time marches on, I suppose.

I remember magazine writers saying that the NSX lacked the soul of an Italian sports car.  Sure, they were just as fast, and everything worked, and they didn't burn to the ground, and you could buy parts for them, but where is the fun in that?

Legends are not born, they require time and feats before they are established as heroes. Trust me, the LS will go down in history as a legend.

As for engine rebuilding shops? For general automotive, I forecast they will fade away since the tooling investment is too high and the skill requirements are hight  with low pay.  Industrial might keep some going.

Engine rebuilders are mostly gone because of modern engine oil, computer control, and good metallurgy.  They would invest in the tools needed for modern standards, except they don't need them often enough to pay for them.

Plus there are junkyards full of crashed cars with perfectly good engines out there now.  Way less risk buying used now than 30 years ago.

wheels777 said:

W motors suck.  Fords FE made them extinct in short order.

I've known wheels777 for about 16 years. This is the harshest thing I've ever heard him say. 

I still don't understand the upside-down, parallel universe that is Chevrolet.

The magical land where 383 cubes is somehow better than 400 cubes.

Where all of GM EXCEPT Chevrolet uses the same bellhousing, allowing nearly any engine / transmission / car combination imaginable, unless you want to put a Chevy motor in it, then you need a different transmission.

Where every engine is a Corvette motor.

Where every SBC only weighs 350lbs.

It's like the inmates are running the asylum.

We all know the best big block is the Ford 300 big block six.

ShawnG said:

I still don't understand the upside-down, parallel universe that is Chevrolet.

The magical land where 383 cubes is somehow better than 400 cubes.

 

The reason the 383 was more popular was because 400s were a unique siamesed-bore block that had a larger bore than what you could typically take a 350 block out. A lot of them had issues with blocks cracking and then when you could find a block that wasn't cracked, people wanted a mint for them. Since there was scads of 350 blocks around, and boatloads of 400s with cracked blocks but good 3.750" stroke cranks, it was easier, cheaper and safer to just to put a 400 crank in a 0.030-over 350 and get you most of the way to a 400.

Except for when the 400 is actually a big block and it actually displaces 402 cubic inches but is still called a 396 if its in a car. That one always confused the E36 M3 out of me. Seeing 400 badges on a truck could either mean it had a 400 small block or a "400" big block

ShawnG said:

I still don't understand the upside-down, parallel universe that is Chevrolet.

The magical land where 383 cubes is somehow better than 400 cubes.

Or the 302 that made billions of hp and spun to 15,000 rpms and beat every big block ever.  As if 302 cubes were somehow specialer than 502.  A 302 is just a displacement-handicapped small block that you have to rev for it to make the same oomph.

In reply to Curtis73 (Forum Supporter) :

Lol, exactly.

The 302 was built to fit a rule book, just like the Ford 302 and Pontiac 303.

Might as well argue how awesome truck arm suspension is because NASCAR uses it....

This thread definitely needs to get into discussion truck-arm suspension.  

I've never done the Gambler so what do I know, but I think NoHome has the right idea; what's the need for big block weight/power/thirst/etc for this sort of event?  I thought the point was a safe cheap turd car out off pavement somewhere.  I think I'd go prowling around for a GM H-body, the FWD stuff from mid-80's to mid-2000's, and a used set of snow tires to fit, and figure out a couple inches of spring lift along with maintenance and call it done.

wheels777 said:

L5wolvesf said:

ShawnG said:

Big block / small block implies physical size differences therefore:

409 = not a big block, just a wheezing truck engine with a bad chamber design. Don't let the Beach Boys fool you.

The W is considered, at least by some, the first gen of the Chevy big block motors. Besides bigger displacement than the 396 and 402 it shares some identical block dimensions for instance – cylinder bore spacing (4.84”). I will leave further research to you.

W motors suck.  Fords FE made them extinct in short order.

How about the MEL engine, the "big block FE"?  Same valvetrain type, same oiling system, but the same flat head decks, angled block decks, and heavy pistons as a W.

ShawnG said:

I still don't understand the upside-down, parallel universe that is Chevrolet.

The magical land where 383 cubes is somehow better than 400 cubes.

The 400 had larger mains, which got closer to the main bolts, weakening the block further.  There were no 4 bolt 400s.

The siamesed cylinders hurt cooling in a cylinder head design that already presented cooling issues....  and the larger bores made bore distortion from the center row of head bolts even more of a problem.

Cut the crank to fit in a 350, maybe a large journal 327 if you happen to have that block, and you get more than half the displacement increase without any of the 400 problems.

Streetwiseguy said:

NOHOME said:

Streetwiseguy said:

Pete. (l33t FS) said:

In reply to Curtis73 (Forum Supporter) :

My former employer was commenting that LS engines were going to put his machine shop out of business.

 

A lot of why I don't like them is that there's no.... can't think of the right word.  Romance? Poetry? Gentlemanliness?  It's a big fat easy button and after years of 500hp SBCs being a far off pipe dream, it just seems so uncouth. 

 

Time marches on, I suppose.

I remember magazine writers saying that the NSX lacked the soul of an Italian sports car.  Sure, they were just as fast, and everything worked, and they didn't burn to the ground, and you could buy parts for them, but where is the fun in that?

Legends are not born, they require time and feats before they are established as heroes. Trust me, the LS will go down in history as a legend.

As for engine rebuilding shops? For general automotive, I forecast they will fade away since the tooling investment is too high and the skill requirements are hight  with low pay.  Industrial might keep some going.

Engine rebuilders are mostly gone because of modern engine oil, computer control, and good metallurgy.  They would invest in the tools needed for modern standards, except they don't need them often enough to pay for them.

Plus there are junkyards full of crashed cars with perfectly good engines out there now.  Way less risk buying used now than 30 years ago.

The machining on newer engine designs is also much better.

Engines like the small block Chevy weren't "machined" like flycutting the decks like a machine shop would do.  They were rammed through a broach.

This is why, say the decks are rarely perpendicular to the crank, or the same deck height front to rear.  And they were almost always over, because less machining work to do meant the line could move faster.  It also meant compression was lower than spec.

So you'd take your engine and send it to a machine shop, where they would cut the decks properly, make sure the cylinder and lifter bores were in the right place, main and rod clearances correct, etc.  

Modern engines not only are not manufactured like that anymore, but emissions standards, longevity standards, and sealing technologies wouldn't allow it.  THAT is the real beauty of newer engines: they're machined correctly, from the factory.

NOHOME said:

As for engine rebuilding shops? For general automotive, I forecast they will fade away since the tooling investment is too high and the skill requirements are hight  with low pay.  Industrial might keep some going.

They're already gone and have been for about 20 years.

We used to have huge ones around here and they've all closed up, like the machine shops that supported them.

The machine shop I've been dealing with for years, as recently as 2010, had 4 crank grinders, 2 cam grinders, 2 cylinder head guys and 2 delivery guys. It's now down to one grinder for cams and cranks, a delivery guy and the owner. And he's done better than most.

Pete. (l33t FS) said:

Modern engines not only are not manufactured like that anymore, but emissions standards, longevity standards, and sealing technologies wouldn't allow it.  THAT is the real beauty of newer engines: they're machined correctly, from the factory.

Yup.

That and electronic controls.

Thank the Japanese for that in the automotive world.

Pete. (l33t FS) said:

wheels777 said:

L5wolvesf said:

ShawnG said:

Big block / small block implies physical size differences therefore:

409 = not a big block, just a wheezing truck engine with a bad chamber design. Don't let the Beach Boys fool you.

The W is considered, at least by some, the first gen of the Chevy big block motors. Besides bigger displacement than the 396 and 402 it shares some identical block dimensions for instance – cylinder bore spacing (4.84”). I will leave further research to you.

W motors suck.  Fords FE made them extinct in short order.

How about the MEL engine, the "big block FE"?  Same valvetrain type, same oiling system, but the same flat head decks, angled block decks, and heavy pistons as a W.

Didn't those also have the same astoundingly stupid vertically-stacked ports as a Ford 292/312 Y-block as well?

In reply to NickD :

No, they had them equally spaced laterally.

I know there was a dang good reason for Kettering design engines to be EIIEEIIE (run exhaust heat through the center of the intake manifold, for intake manifold heat for good economy with a carb) but it is interesting to me that Ford had none of it.  And nothing explains the goofy-ass Y-block other than Ford having built nothing but flatheads and DOHC tank engines for a couple decades, they had no idea how to pushrod.

Here's one that is way underrated and hasn't been mentioned.  I'm not sure if it's truly a big block or just a larger cubic inch version of the only block they made: IH 392.  Even the little sister 345 punched way over its weight.  A 345 Scout would outrun anything else in its category powered by a 350 or 351 cubic inch engine.  A 392 fits anywhere a 345 lives.  Does anybody hot rod these?  Not that I know of but it'd be cool to see. 

A 401 CJ said:

Here's one that is way underrated and hasn't been mentioned.  I'm not sure if it's truly a big block or just a larger cubic inch version of the only block they made: IH 392.  Even the little sister 345 punched way over its weight.  A 345 Scout would outrun anything else in its category powered by a 350 or 351 cubic inch engine.  A 392 fits anywhere a 345 lives.  Does anybody hot rod these?  Not that I know of but it'd be cool to see. 

I've similarly had dreams of building a hot rod/rat rod with one of those huge GMC 60-degree V6s they put in their trucks in the '60s. They came in a dizzying array of displacements, I think the smallest was a 305 and there was a 351, a 401, something that started with a 5 and a bunch of others I'm forgetting. They sound really cool, they have a weird rumble at idle. They also stretched the architecture into a 60-degree V8 and a V12