Are these bangers so obslete that I can`t find anything to hop em up! Ido havea Merccruiser head.Any suggestions?
Ron, Clifford Research still offers a 4 barrel intake and headers. http://cliffordperformance.net/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=CTGY&Store_Code=CP&Category_Code=C4C Comp Cam can do the camshaft. We ( Sealed Power / Speed Pro / FelPro) still offer the engine parts, pistons, rings, bearings, etc, etc. Back in the day, a guy named Larry Crosby bored his to 4.000 and used 327 pistons in his. Put it in a T-bucket, 4 speed, 12" wide slicks and wheelie bars........flat spanked everything.
As I remember, the Mercruiser head was used a lot with side draft Webbers and the Bristish SU's.......the automotive intake wouldn't work with it...The valve cover was a cool aluminum casting.... Also, the Merccruiser crank was stroked....Boat yards still have this stuff as I understand.... I never did get one of these Nova engines..my cousin had a Post office Dispatcher Jeep with posi, the Nova 4 and a 2 speed Powerglide. I wanted to buy it to get the power train for a Model A, but he wouldn't sell to family...I should of sent over a stranger with the cash....in retrospect... And the later Iron Duke was a metric engine as I recall with the similiar design....and eventually was later modified with a crossflow head. I was too busy playing with motorbikes back in that day and never got one of them to play with. I remember a fellow sailor in the navy who had a new 77 Pontia Astre station wagon (it was a Chevy Vega clone), but his was powered with the Iron Duke engine. As I understand it's still available as the Vortec engine. I forgot where I read this lately....it fits to a Early Ford V8 trans with a common Chevrolet bellhousing adapter, and is actually shorter than a Ford 4 Banger.
I've been a noisy promoter of this engine here on the board. The 181cu.in marine and industrial versions are based on the old 153cu.in. Chevy II motor. The Iron Duke is follow-on developement that shares few parts and as abonecoupe31 pointed out was eventually converted to a crossflow head. It is the largest displacement OHV 4cyl that is readily available used (marine version) or new (both marine and industrial). It's basically one half of a 350 SBC. with a 4" bore and 3.6" stroke. I have heard that the crossflow head from the Duke can be used but I have no direct personal knowledge of that. REJ's turbo giant-killer bucket uses this engine and very light weight to achieve superb performance but the regular marine engine and even the industrial version would result in decent performance in a light car. Clifford sells a header and a manifold for the 153 Chevy II motor which presumably will fit a 3.0 but boy are they proud of them. $339 for the header and $289 for the manifold which requires a $48 carb adapter for a cool $676 total. You're unlikely to need either item for a motor with a stock valve train but using the bulky marine intake manifold is not a good option---wouldn't be too hard to fab one though. The new-build industrial version comes with cast iron intake/exhaust manifolds that will take a 1bbl. carb. but could be adapted to a 2 barrel without trouble. The new versions are labeled as Vortec 3000 motors presumably referring to the head. About a grand worth of hop-up on this engine could get you 180-200hp and matching torque. REJ's engine builder's estimate on his turbo motor is upwards of 300HP and supposedly the stock bottom end will take it no problem. Newly built industrial motors come with intake/exhaust manifolds, water pumps and HEI ignitions and basically need only a carb and 12 volts to run. Marine versions come with a pump and ignition but no manifolds. The industrial version can be had for $1750 and the marine for about 4-500 bucks more. Marine takeout possibilities are abundant but they frequently are fairly well used up by the time they become available used and frequently need rebuilding. Add rebuilding costs and the h***le of acquiring and adapting an original marine engine and the new industrial job starts to look pretty good.
I've got a 153+.060, 10:1 forged piston, Erson cam, twin side draft with a home made lakes style header with a T50 5 speed in my '26 track roadster pickup. Had out Labor day weekend and wiped a com bearing. Just got the block back today for re***embly. Ran strong but still fighting with the webers. Charlie
When these engines first came out, Ansen saw the potential for them to be a poor man's sprint car engine and made an aluminum crossflow head for them. They actually did quite well against the Offys.
Nice 6 cylinder KIRK, but I think he meant 4 cylinder as he used the term "banger". Remove the 2 cylinders and the parts count for bolt-ons gets pretty hard. I've been trying to find an Ansen crossflow head for 20 years and gave up and put bigger valves in an iron head. Charlie
The 1st one of these engines I saw in a hot rod was when I was like way young. Bo Jones did a now very famous narrowed modifed (presently in Roy Brizios collection). It was powerd by a 153 ci Chevy II eng & ran lke stink! Had Kelseys, dirt track tires in back & ribs up front Orange in color & a big 27 on the rad. I always liked that car. A few years back,Don Small-(owner of Bell Auto Parts-trade mark) tell me that he just bought a Bo Jones T Modified project- that was being built by Bo himself. "I say gotta see this". Yep, it is his style of work & mostly everything from friction shocks to gas tanks were Jones'd . this one being set up for a 4.3l V6, I ended up with this for Kenia (now ex-gal pal) I have been looking for a 153 for it. I may have found one . Jake Jacobs ran one of these in a 33 C-Dan when was building the Niekamp & 28 Panel that he drove to Peoria in 70. He finally took it out & put it in 28 Mail Truck beater in like 81 which he traded to Tony Piner for the 28 Tub that is Jake-o-pouged. Coincidently The 34 Fo-Doo that Jake owns & drove to the Round-up was bought from the Carl Johansen who nows owns Jakes old Mail Truck. It's a small world -Just a lil history there. To me,that is a very nice power plant & parts are available @ most local parts stores if you know what is compatible. Great post,dig this engine info.
Great info--keep it coming! I've got a postal Jeep ch***is with a 153/PG. And a late teens Buick cowl........ Budget speedster??
how about pluggin the head bolt holes in the block and redrilling to a smallblock pattern, sounds too easy to me . if its performance you want, yer not gonna get it from the stock head . ****py design
in addition to all the good information above, remember that for a while these were the engine of choice for midget racers. roundy-round guys prolly have lots of goodies for those things hanging from their rafters, since they've been obsolete (in the eyes of racers) for years. i have a friend who built two model a hot rods (a PU and a sedan) back in the 70's when gas skyrocketed to $0.85 per gallon. he's put about a million miles on both of them since then. AND he has a restored chevy II midget racer that runs really hard. i bet about everyone on here either knows someone like him, or knows an old midget racer, or knows someone who knows someone like him. parts are out there; you've just gotta make a couple of phone calls to find them. also, if you don't know the bo jones car, you gotta do a search and study it. bo dumped the whole can of cool on that car.
Yeah they are still out there but probably outnumbered quite a bit by 181s. From reading marine boards most who re-engine older 153 powered boats go with 181s--far more available rebuilt. 181s have been put into zillions of boats in the past couple of decades. They still are. Likely a hell of a lot easier to find than a 153 motor, car or boat, unless you just happen to know where one is. And of course there have been a vast number of 2.5 (actually 151) Iron Duke motors built. A 4 cyl. S10 donor gets you a complete driveline from engine to axle suitable for a light roadster. You can also bolt a 181 onto the front of that driveline as well. No replacement for displacement.
...actually the 3.7l Mercruiser is bigger. It uses a Ford 460 head, pistons and rods with a Mercruiser specific block and crank. They make a TON of torque, especially when equipped with a 4 barrel carb. They're around in well used condition but are getting harder to find than the 2.5 and 3.0l Mercruisers. They're also harder to adapt to road use than the 2.5/3.0 motors. -Bigchief.
True they are available used, not sure how "readily" compared to 3.0s, but for sure not new. I saw a rebuilt long block for a 3.7 on the web and they wanted $3500 bucks for it. A couple of others for 2K plus. Seem to be adequate supplies of parts for them though. As you point out harder to adapt but it seems plenty have done it.
Yeah, from '62-'70, although I've seen one '70 Nova four cylinder car in my life. I never understood discontinuing a bulletproof four cylinder engine in 1970, then bringing out the Alcoa s**** engine in Vegas the following fall.
Its easier to find a whole boat and get it for the engine. I have seen 3 boats on craigslist in M***achusetts in the past two months for free that had these things in them. I just have nowhere to hide the boat until I get the engine out. Durn neighborhood rules...
If one does not have an engine yet I would vote for a 79-80 Monza 151 4 cyl. They had non-computer HEI, a crossflow head, were available with 2bbl aluminum intake and had the V8 belhousing bolt pattern. They also had a rear sump oil pan. The Chevy II 153s had a front sump 62-67. The 153s were rare after 64 and really rare 68-70. The postal jeeps had rear sumps.
However misguided they were going for light and cheap in the Vega. They went too far is the general consensus. If they'd used the 153 the car would have probably weighed a couple hundred pounds more than it did. Plus the linerless block was supposed to "save money". They took a big techo step backwards with the 151 Iron Duke but at least it was more reliable. What wasn't?
I read that the undersquare, *** backwards aluminum block/cast iron head engine was Ed Cole's baby, and he wasn't about to let common sense get in the way. In DeLorean's book about his years at General Motors, "On a Clear Day You Can See General Motors", he said that the Chevy engineers had designed an aluminum head/cast iron block hemi four cylinder for the Vega that looked very promising, but Cole vetoed it in favor of the dog engine that it ended up using. DeLorean said that the engineers were so pissed that after that, you had to beg them to design anything for the Vega.
Now I'm going to have to check this book out from the library. My 1st ever driving car was given to me In June 1979 by a friend, I was 15yrs old,had a very hot girl friend & was doing good in school. I guess that you could that I was on top of the world. This car was a Vega that used a Alcoa liner less bock, In a nutshell, the engine was far from performance oriented. Did I make the mistake of keeoing that car long-no,I did the V8 thing with it & made it a cool lil ride,Hot Rod Mag had a project car @ the time that was the Don Hardy deal & I follwed along with that. I did drive that car for close to 2 yrs with the Banger though, I will say she liked oil, but no big deal! she still rand very good! I bought a 72 GT Kamback with some of my girlfriends baby sitting money & that car had a banger in it, I put another in & drove it for like another yr until I finally got wise & bought a 68 GTO 4sp conv,4 yrs later I bought another 74 Hatchback Vega, & did a Buick V6 transplant using alot factory stuff. That car I never did finish due to the fact a Stingray entered my life & the lil Vega had to, The Vega I always wanted though had the Cosworth twin cam engine in it & it coud haul *** with the right tune & 5sp unit. would like to see that engine in a cool rod I always knew of the Delorean Pontiac-GTO & Chevy Corvette Connection but knew nothing of the Vega under his watch. Ed Cole did a lot fine stuff while @ GM, but I will admit that the Vegas power plant was no way an answer to the impending import infusion,but more of a grave mistake.It took them 6 yrs to fix that & by that time word was out & these cars were dying right on the vine.
I have seen it done a few times on Midget engines, parts are out there CHEAP hell you could even run a dry sump if ya want. The guy I saw do the cross flw head was from Chicago named **** Pole, saw a few others but cant remember exactly who. Saw a few 200 CI ones J.J. Yeleys dad Cactus Jack used to runn 200"ers all the time, so did a few other west coast guys, Try Fontanna engines if ya want some real go fast parts for em, hell he even makes his own aluminium blocks. Personally I would rather have a SESCO or a Gaerte if I was gonna go this route.
Are the front wheel drive 151s from the early 80's the same as the earlier rear drive iron dukes? these should still be plentiful
One of the guys I work with has had a couple Cosworth Vegas over the years, and they were pretty cool cars. What killed them (besides the Vega mystique) was the price--$6600 in 1975. That sort of money bought you a base Corvette back then!
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