anyone else caught themselves doing this?

nope

 

I like cars.

 

The most important thing about hotrodding is making whatever you have faster. With that said,

You can make more horsepower with a SBC by accident, than you can with anything else on purpose.

Absoulutly the best motor ever designed, period...

 

that's just not true... if you take the same size engines form the big 3, build them with the same parts, regardless of cost, the Chevy will always come out on bottom. the chevy only make more horsepower per $$

Yes and no... If I notice it's another 350 car, I move past the engine and look over the rest of the car. Most are very nicely done.

Sometimes, if it's a non-chevy car/truck with a 350 and the rest is done up beautifully, I find myself asking the owner why he cut the project short.

ex: "your car really looks great, but why did you cheap out and put a 350/350 combo in this thing?"

that usually gets a rise out of them. Espescially since the cost of ford parts are relatively the same these days. Now Nailheads, flatheads, hemis, and the rest are a whole other story.

I saw a beautiful 40 ford te other day at a show and it had a 302 in it. I thanked him for keeping the car pure, and he said didn't want to be "just another 350"

 

i see alot of guys with customs and cars with hoods answering this, and thats cool, but i guess i should have noted that im talking strictly about open wheeled cars with no hood or fenders and the sbc.

i understand a cool car is a cool car, regardless, but what if cars like the fuzzbomb, billy wisharts coupe, or the live wire had sbc's? i doubt they would have been half as popular.

on the flip side of that, the boling brothers continue to impress me with cars they have built with the most simple sbc single carb motors you can imagine. these cars grab my attention regardless..

 

Chevy is a good motor, but I do get a little tired of all the cookie cutter engines in the carshow cars. An sbc with period correct stuff warents a longer look.

 

I put a SBC in my roadster because I thought it was the correct piece for the time period of my car. I tried to use period SBC pieces. The problem with me on SBC is that so many of them are using exactly the same over the counter parts and after a while you don't remember if you have looked at the cars motor or not. See a car with something other than SBC/SBF and I bet you'll spend more time eyeing the motor.

 

Not really..but I do appreciate the time, effort and money it takes to build something different..the SBC is the cheapest, most reliable, power for the money thing going..you can buy parts for them in remote Mexico if necessary...

 

I'm a Desoto Hemi guy myself. To me small block chevys are so numerous as to be boring. Yes they are a great engine and you can buy anything for em, but imagine if all the women in the world looked the same. They would no longer be exciting to look at. There was a car show at our drag strip awhike back which was all T-bucket types. All of them had big or small block Chevys except 1 which had a blown 440 Mopar. Everyone was checking it out. Wonder why?

 

I tend to find myself passing cool cars with radial tires!!!!! WTF? Im a die hard bias ply tire guy now.....there is no reason why you wouldnt run bias ply tires on a vintage car, my 55 is a daily driver and I run bias plys!!!! As far as SBC, its most likely the most popular motor ever produced...ya cant argue with that?!?!?!?!

 

I love the SBC. Got 4 or 5 327's hanging out in the garage right now. Also have a couple SBF 302's. Both good motors, both cheap, but the 327's have cheaper hi-po parts.

 

Yes...in the past, I would never look twice at a SBC powered Ford. But, now I look closer to see if maybe its a 265, 283 or 327, instead of a 350. I've always been a blue-dyed Ford guy, but I'm starting to appreciate the early SBC's a bit more.

But, I have noticed that the folks that say they don't care what engine is in a hot rod generally have a SBC in their own car. Maybe its a difference in whether you are an engine oriented hot rodder, like me, or if you are a body/chassis oriented hot rodder. I generally first find an engine that I like, and then hunt for a car to put it in. Others find a body, and then hunt for a power plant.

 

Thats the key, "regardless of cost" if we all had an unlimited budget we'd all be running Hemi's or Flatheads. But we don't, so the fact is that dollar for dollar the SBC is best bang for the buck, period. It's been like that since 1956 when the aftermarket suppliers realized it and jumped in. They may be boring to some people but they are still far and away the most popular hot rod engine choice ever. I love em, but I will agree that I like to see em dressed differently and with some imagination built in, that's what hot rodding is, taking something thats just average and making it grab your attention.

 

...I feel the same way about cars with multiple strombergs. who wants to build a car like everyone else?

oh look... 3 strombergs (yawn)

hey , this one has 6... just like the other bunch cars with 6 strombergs at this show. where's the individuality? bunch of sheep just following the crowd. get an original idea for cryin' out loud.

 

regardless of cost, i still wouldnt run a hemi or flatty. id just build a sbc with cooler/more one-off parts....

 

You must get hit in the face a lot.

 

Until I started working on my sons Mustang a couple of years ago I thought that a Chevy in any old car was the right thing to do. Before this, my 39 Ford had a BBC...

Well after building my son's 351/408 I got a thing for Ford engines and re did my coupe with a 351W.... I Got to where Chevys in Fords didn't impress me much...

THEN I started frequenting the HAMB, bought myself a 55 Lincoln, started looking at "cool old engines", rebuilt my LYB in the 55, and now I wish I had picked a "cooler engine" than a SBF for my coupe... damn...

Too far along on the 39 to turn back now (in a practical sense anyway!)... but my NEXT hot rod won't have a SBC or a SBF,,, it will likely have a LYB.. I have a couple of 368s scoped out right now.

Hey,,, cool is cool...

 

Me to!!

 

The small block Chevy got so popular for a number of very good reasons. In most cases, particularly in early cars, they just fit far better than anything else. The oil pan is shallow in the front so usually there is no problem with suspension and steering clearance. They are relatively narrow so the early style hood can be fitted with no problem. They are very light, especially compared with the likes of an early hemi. Parts interchangeabilty is probably the best there is. Speed parts are readily available for cheap. The starters are on the correct side. Transmission choices are vast because the automatics and sticks are virtually a bolt on. There has been strong factory support over the years. In the not too distant past, you couldn't hardly give away a hot rod if it didn't have a Chevy in it. Add to these facts that HOT RODS are supposed to be fast. The fact is that the small block can be made to run very strongly by anyone. You can keep your overweight early hemi's, your slug paced flatheads and the rest of the obsolete boat anchors. Belly button or not, I'll take the venerable SBC!

 

Nothing worse than an engine snob!! They all burn gas, pump oil, and get us where we need to be. Just like the gold chainers, you can have anything you want if you spend the cash. Do what you want, for the money you have, and make it dependable.

Personally I'll take a bulletproof SBC anyday!!

 

It's not the SBC that makes me look away, it's the billet wheels, rubber band tires and easter egg paint that does it. Also something that's blatantly mismatched at first glance, such as the 50's style Merc custom with a tunnel ram and shotgun scoop poking through the hood!

 

with that mindset ,,maybe you should take up knitting

 

I agree I will usually pass by and not give a second glance unless i see some vintage parts on a sbc. I'm a chevy guy at heart I really dont give a rats ass what engine goes in an old hotrod. I just bought a 392 hemi about a month ago and i cant wait to get it built which is going to take a while on a college students income and I know with the money I end up spending on the motor alone I could probably build a running rod but I'm taking my time and building exactly what I have wanted. Either way I agree a vintage engine will get my attention more but I do like seeing a sbc or sbf thats different from all the rest. like I said I love chevy and gm but you start going to shows and 9 out of 10 cars have American Racing torqthrust II's and are powered by a small block chevy. It gets pretty boring

 

The engine dosen't really matter to me much. The engine itself has never made me loose interest in a car. a killer car is still killer even if it has an engine you don't care for.

 

I don't mind seeing sbc in hot rods, but what bugs me is the people who take a sbc and put valve covers from another engine on it. For example the rocket valve covers. If you want a olds motor get a olds motor.

 

I might not spnd a deal of time checkin out the mill, but it doesn't make me ignore the whole car.

 

I'm starting to feel bored with V8 flatheads.

 

Amen to that one. I am gone to the next car as soon as I see the two center exhaust ports close together. UGH. Ice man

 

thinking about it, guilty as charged, but not for SBC's particularly, just crap work in general. if you're gonna run hoodless, be creative; if you're gonna run a donor car engine as-is, shut the hood. beer cans and liquor bottles for puke tanks aren't "trad". i look for oddball things the builder's put in the job; not "screwball" stuff, but details that just seem "right" when noticed, and when i say "noticed" i mean it hits you that that's not what was originally done there, it's something subtle and clean. ah shit you know what i mean.

 

Nah, it doesn't bother me. ANY undetailed engine with a stock carb, stock manifolds, and smooth idle is boring.

Unfortunately, most of the "budget" SBCs people put in their cars to get them on the road are exactly that.

Sure beats the guys putting V6s in their hot rods though...