SBC is there a preferred year to use?

most don't build 400's due to their lack of THE REAL STORY OF 400 SBC...all the bs about overheating, not revving good ect...build one right and you'll be hard pressed to build another great streetable engine...yeah they have their quirks, but all motors do,,,2 bolt is preferred, factory 4 bolt blocks have the 2 extra bolts running into the bottom of the cylinder wall...built 2 different combo's for my vega wagon over the years..torque monster motors, even with a single 4 tunnel ram ...stick a baby blower on one and ya got morre torque then any 350 or 327 could manage to give ya...and torque is what gives ya that grab you by the ass and pull you thru the seat feeling...this is the motor for my topolino, unless i find and can fund a early hemi motor..but then again, look at the figures for stock hp and torque on the early hemi's....pretty much like a 400 sbc...i feel confident that a well built 400 in my topolino and i should be able to cruise the express way at 75+ mph and at the same time get the front wheels up on a decent surface...best part about my baby blown vega???my shift lite in it is set for 3900 rpm's...not much need to push it past that on the street, it's already boiling the hides by then, but has plenty of more to go past it if it has to...

 

I agree with you on the vortec 4.3 but the question was about a 350. I am almost positive the 96 model year was the first year you could get a "vortec" 350 with the new heads in a pickup. The only reason I remember it is cause my dad bought a new pickup in 96 and brought his little boy (me) with to pick it up when it arrived, and I remember the salesman commenting on how much more power it was gonna have over the 350s prior version.

And I didnt mean to cause a commotion with my comment about the 400s, and I wasnt trying to belittle them either, I was just saying that from what ive noticed, the 350 has got to be one of the most common platforms ever, and the 400 is uncommon to say the least (from my experience). I know there is a stigma attached to 400s that some people cant get over because of overheating issues and whatnot, and I acknowledge that its probably a stereotype.

And Deuce Roadster, thanks for the input on those vette heads and the ZZ4. If I ever run across a set of those heads I should probably take a big consideration.

 

what size stroke did you use to get a 410..? is it a 3 7/8" ? or a little offset ground crank...? i ended up with a 441" sbc a couple years back....nothing stock involved , though , i suspect it would have been a bad mf'r if it was running... 796hp at 6800 and 680 tq at 5500... think it was a 4 1/8 stroke and a 10 over on the bore . it was a tad more " trick " than i needed at the time , though , i wish i would have kept the 15 degree brodix top end...... brandon

 

how did u get 19.5 to 1 compression that would run on diesel if ya wanted!!

 

I mis-spoke before, we have a 410, but it's in a Dart block, not a stock one.

The motor I've got set aside for my '36 is a 407. It's just a stock stroke crank with the block bored 0.030" oversize.

3.75" stroke x (4.155" bore/2)^2 x 3.14159 (Pi) x 8 = 406.77 Cubic Inches

The 410 has a stock stroke with a bore of 4.170" (usually found in alum sprint car motors, 'cause the thick sleeves don't mind the big overbore).

3.75" stroke x (4.170" bore/2)^2 x 3.14159 (Pi) x 8 = 409.72 Cubic Inches

The 434 combination most often used around here is:

4.00" stroke x (4.155" bore/2)^2 x 3.14159 (Pi) x 8 = 433.89 Cubic Inches

There are other ways to skin this cat, obviously, but they get progressively harder to pull off and thusly more expensive.

It's very hard to fit that 4" stroke crank into a stock block. You have to clearance the pan rails, and so you nearly always have to weld the block in a place or two where you've popped through into the water jacket.

We've had to cut the pan rails on the last four 407's we built as well, and had to weld on two of them. They both got about an inch of hard blok in the bottom of them "just in case", but they never gave us any trouble.

That's not to say we never break anything, but rather it wasn't the pan rail's fault.

I've got a set of Brodix 11X heads that I just can't run on stock blocks. They make so much power that they literally tore the last block they were on in half, long ways. Pulled all three center mains out all the way up into the cam galley. Took two cam bearing journals whole, and split the center one in two. Hammered the front and rear mains so hard there was material transfer from the block to the steel cap. It was bouncing the caps off the block because each power pulse stretching the ARP studs just a fuzz. Everything was still at the right torque when we tore it down, but the block was in a whole bunch of pieces (that fit so well together we didn't see what was wrong at first).

Oddly enough, it didn't explode. When it broke the webs, the oil in those passages took the route of least resistance (out the cracks) and didn't lube the mains anymore. At 8000+ rpm, that don't work real well. It spun two mains and locked 'er up tight. Spun me out going into the corner, 'cause the rear wheels just stopped rolling when I came off the throttle and turned in.

I'd never had one lock up that hard before. If the thing hadn't smelt so strongly of burnt engine oil, I would have suspected a wheel bearing or rear gear failure.

That was a damned fine motor while it lasted though. Ran like a mad bastard for about 35 laps.

I guess that old saying is right, "They always run their best, right before they blow . . . . . . "

BIG domes.

Alcohol loves compression. You can pretty much squeeze it as hard as you like and it'll never detonate (I'm sure it will eventually, but for our purposes it won't).

You just gotta be sure you never lean it out. You can run an alcohol motor with fuel pouring out the headers, and it'll blubber and curse and run poorly, but it'll still run, and it won't foul the plugs. But you run it just a fuzz (and I do mean a fuzz) lean, and you'll burn it down in a heartbeat. Run the plugs a little too hot and you'll burn it down.

Methanol is very forgiving in some respects, and a real cast iron bitch in others. You just gotta know where you can push, and where you have to respect its limits.

 

How do you tell the difference between a SBC with Vortec heads as opposed to the motors that just ahd 'Vortec' decals?

How do you identify a true Vortec head?

What is required to change an 88-up 4 bolt 350 to a roller cam?

 

true vortech head has funky casting mark kinda zig zag like a's in a row AAAA, spider lifter retainer and 16 factory hydro. roller lifters and correct push rods.

 

oh ya the mark is on the front of the head like where you would find double hump or power pack casting mark.

 

man coolhand ,you have some cool stuff, the strongest 406 i had only ran about 13.5 to 1 but with off the shelf pistons. we ran alky but never had as good of stuff as you have! do you run imca or late modle? later cobey/om71

 

easy way is there are only 4 intake bolts per side...no middles...

 

oh ya that to! you gave a better answer brandon!

 

pre 86 is what i would use. after that they are different motors in my book.

 

i think alot would have to do with the application...... and the budget...a later roller cam motor wouldn't be that bad , plus , there are a lot of take out zz4 roller cams on the bay...just watch out for the lt1-lt4 (93-9?)style sbc's...they are truely a different breed of sbc... use what ya have or what ya can find in your price range....remember , that 283's and 327's aren't going to be as cheap to rebuild as your basic 350 , but you can make a 350 look a lot like a 283 or 327.....

 

And the bolts are vertical, not perpendicular to the head surface.

A little bit of background - the Vortec was designed by some of the same people who did the Bowtie iron head for Late Model Stock racing. I've flowed a stock Vortec head (with the stock valves and no fancy valve job) back to back with the Bowtie head with 2.02/1.60 Race Flo stainless valves with a 3-angle valve job. The Vortecs were better.

 

They were open wheel modifieds, similar to IMCA, but with fewer rules.

For the first four or five years, we ran under NASCAR, but later on the tracks all dropped out so we were all outlaws. We could run with the UMP guys, but most all other series wouldn't have us. Too fast, too much motor, too wild on the body work, too light, etc. The USMTS guys came to run with us in their first season touring all over, and none of them placed in the top ten. You just can't ask guys with IMCA compliant cars to run with the stuff we were bringing, it just weren't fair.

Honestly though, the money is what ran me out of it. I kinda wish we could go backwards really. The high HP cars are fun as hell to drive, don't get me wrong, and the speed and competition are a real rush, but the costs are ridiculous. IF you don't blow a motor or bend a chassis too badly to fix it, you're looking at ~$50,000 to run a season.

We would spend about $13k-$15k on our motors and we tried very hard not to break them (we spent a lot of time early on working out our formula), but we raced with guys who would spend $35k-$40k per motor and blow three or four in a season. There were two teams that would start the season with a new 4130 chassis, and toss it at mid-season for a new one. Four new tires every night, and on and on and on. There just wasn't any end to it.

I would honestly like to go back to the days when you could pull parts out of the junkyard and race.

If a series came along around here running open wheel cars with crate motors (like a modified version of the FasTrak late model guys out east), hard tires, and a minimum weight in the neighborhood of 2800 lbs, I'd be on it like a pack of dogs on a fat kid, but I'm not holding my breath.

The big problem is that we have a lot of old late model guys who years ago spent their classes into oblivion (when your late model field is the last five guys who can afford to build one, you've spent yourself out of a class). When their class evaporated, they took that money and moved down in classes until they can find a place to race. They landed on us in the modifieds, and ran the open modified class into the ground just like they did the late models. Now, that the modifieds are mostly gone, some of them have dropped all the way down into street stocks, if you can believe that. They're spending a late model team's budget on a street stock effort. Now street stocks cost a fortune to run competitively too. Jackasses.

 

I prefer the large journal 327/350 blocks and the best of those being the high nickel content 010 4bolt main blocks(LT-1 and truck).The 010 refers to the last three digits of the casting number found on the bellhousing flange.These blocks also came with forged steel cranks.
You can make some serious horsepressure with vortec heads on a earlier block.There was an article in Hot Rod magazine about 10 years ago where they pulled a 350 from a late 70's chevy in a bone yard,bolted on a set a vortec heads, changed the cam ,added an intake,and flogged that puppy on a dyno.After playing with timing,tweaking the carb,changing cams and intakes they pulled 396 hp.Somewhere in my mag collection is that article.

 

not all 3970010 blocks were 4 bolt mains and not all had steel cranks. that was a very comon casting number for many chevy sbc blocks in the early to mid seventys. lots had 2 bolt mains and most had cast cranks. in fact i have not seen a steel crank in one yet.

 

yep yer right cool hand, sorry if i was ot guys, but i love to play in the mud and dirt!!! like the real early hotrods thanks for the info coolhand brings me back a few years ago running f/s in joplin mo against guys running full roller 406's and even a couple of 434's it was friggin nuts, I could still kick (a little) ass on a slick track !

 

that article kinda helped start the vortech head movement! not traditional, but it is traditional to use easy to find to find parts to make hp!!! around $500 new pretty good deal!

 

I still blame Johnny Saathoff for that. He was the first big buck LM guy to drop down to Modifieds, bringing a quarter-million bucks worth of equipment into the pits to run for $400 to win (and winning 4 IMCA championships after being an also-ran in Busch All Star Tour). So - I'm guessing your home track is Moberly? Here in the KC area, guys are building $6-8000 engines to run street stocks at Lakeside.

 

Some states dmv will make you put all the emissions required for each year, so later ebgines will be tighter, but thats only if they find out

 

Had to take the motor out of my ' 83 ' vett after the body rusted so bad. You know Wisconsin winters! LOL

 

Indeed. Johnny the Jet was an ambassador for our slice of the sport, but also the harbinger of our doom.

Watched him run at a $10k to win show in West Plains MO. Lots of big names at that one. 145 modifieds came to vie for 24 starting spots. It took four days of heat races and consi's to thin them out.

It was a good race, but when you saw the rigs those big names rolled up in, with two chassis hanging upside down inside, and motors stacked in the nose of the trailer, you know you're in deep shit.

I ran at Captial Speedway in Holts Summit MO until it went under. It's a subdivision now.

Moberly would have been a lot of the same guys, but it went down several years before Capital did. We never went there, as it was another two hours drive farther north for us.

I never did see the reasoning for spending $50k a year and running for $500 to win/$50 to start. Hell, $50 don't pay for the fuel you'll spend to run the feature. But you know how it is. It don't gotta be reasonable to be fun.

 

Why downsize an engine? Play with different stroke lengths and combustion chamber designs and cam timing to create the sweet spot (torque curve) for where you want your hotrod to run (pure power vs fuel economy) or for your dirt track car (track length, car weight and tire traction). NASCAR engine builders are extremely aware of HP/Torque curves and fuel economy - why shouldn't hotrodders, old school or new school?

 

That's funny I've had several of these blocks go thru my hands over the years and they were all four bolt main. I pulled one from a 70 chev 3/4 ton truck and yes it had a steel crank.That block ended up in a friends stock car.

 

I've been told the early 350 blocks ('69 and '70) had a higher nickel content, which made the cast iron stronger than usual. After the compression ratios dropped, they cut costs by using less nickel. Could be a lot of bull though.

 

Sorry if this is a bad place to ask but you guys seem to know your SBC really good. I just bought a '34 Ford truck with a SBC of unknown origin. The # just in front of the passenger side head looks like V0609TBG and the cast # is 3970010. Does anyone know what I have? It also has a strange looking cast iron intake manifold (looks highrise) behind the carb it has a "bowtie" and # 14096242. I am not as concerned with power as I am getting correct parts. Is it a good one?

 

1969 DZ302 rules and the ultra rare 32V Weslake rules them all!

 

According to this online web site

http://www.nastyz28.com/gm-chevy-codes/chevy-engine-codes-suffix-6.php

Your engine started out in a 1971 conventional cab in front of a automatic transmission. It could be anywhere from a K-10 to a 2500 series truck. It was rated at 255 HP.

 

First casting number listed in the link below:

http://vetteworks.tripod.com/casting.htm

Duration is right, I've had both two and four bolt 0010 blocks over the years. They came in cars and trucks for about ten years. When you get one, you gotta drop the pan to know for sure what ya got as far as main caps and crank goes.