Im picking up a 54 Belair with a 235 straight six. I have a 354 hemi with 727 sitting around. Should i put it in the car? I dont have much in the motor and trany and they are both rebuilt. Think i would have more money in buying a SBC and trany. Not sure of how it would fit in the engine bay either.
One of the cleanest swaps I have seen was back in the mid-60's... a 53-54 chebby with an EarlyHemi. It looked like it grew there. That said, today I would probably use a 455 Buick. The 354 has the 'look', but the 455 is cheap and powerful. .
Ill pass on the 283. Im a mopar guy at heart but just seemed wrong to waste it on the chevy but I have it and figured any things better than another small block chevy. I might look for an olds or cady engine.
Purely out of necesity ,I put a 331 hemi backed by a cad/lasalle in a '50 olds coupe. The olds had a broken crank and I had the hemi in my garage to go into a '51 Merc my sis and I drove to highschool ,the flatty in the merc. was running fine and she told me to leave it alone. So I picked this clean little olds and for transportation to college ,I stuck the hemi in the olds. It wasn't a real sceamer,but you should have seen the look on gas station attendants faces when they checked under the hood ! "Geez man ,ain't an olds good enough for 'ya?!! You may have guessed this was in 1959. So I say,and do with what you have and dare to be different !
The steering box is probably in the way, and you'll have to do some other stuff to make it fit, but it sure would be neat to see it done.
There's lots of Chevy guys out there that''d probably give you way more money than that car is worth; then find a nice Mopar (or open wheel car as someone suggested) to put that nice engine in. I've never sat behind the wheel of any Chevy that felt right...
Running exhaust on them has always been a pain. You really didn't see too many of them with anything ohter than the stock 6 in them way back when, probably partially because of the steering exhaust issue. Like I said earlier I would shove the hemi in there and never look back. But you have to realize I have certainly done things that the rest of the world thought was just wrong more than once. It would certainly be different.
I have 55 291 hemi I am putting in my 1958 Impala. I say do what you want, that is what Hot Rodding is all about. Go with what ya got!!!
I donno if weight is a consideration or not. I used to have a 331 hemi and that engine was at least 100lbs heavier than anything else out there back in 1970 or so, the heads ya know. If memory serves me, I think it weighed over 700lbs. Steve
697, but that's with the OEM starter, huge generator/PS, A/C? unit on it. A Hemi makes anything cool, even a Chevy!
I would do it... if thats what ya have, i could think of a 100 worse engines you could put in there, like say a suzuki 3 cylinder lol
There was a 57 Chevy in HotRod magazine about 3 or 4 years ago with an early Hemi in it. Everybody seemed to be ok with it? Run what ya brung! Although it would look much better in a 47 plymouth coupe...
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