Things sure have changed. About ten years ago my wife surprised me with a brand new 350 from Chevy, sold by Jegs. It showed up at my house for $1,395.00. That included shipping and probably no tax. Being an old engine guy and not very trusting, I tore it down to make sure all was as it should be. Found no surprises. Reassembled after a mild port and polish, thin steel shim head gaskets, and took a grinder to the front face of each head. Now they look like camel hump heads in front but have all the mounting holes in the back. Put in a thumper cam and even used the lifters that came in the long block. Got an aluminum intake and a basket case 600 Holley mechanical double pumper, I rebuilt, hand choke and all. Runs great, good torque and a mean idle. With a medium weight flywheel, four speed, and 4.11's in the quick change, it's a ball to drive. Plus a vintage set of Chevy valve covers.
I’m an old guy..”crate”is thrown around way too much. In my day they were bought from dealerships only all new factory parts. You could buy a 283 2 barrel, a 327 375 hp, or a 409/409 if you were buying a Chevrolet. Many 55’s got replacement 265’s because ot the teething pains of a new engine.
talking about crates, this is a shipping crate for a small turbine jet engine for a helicopter from years ago. all steel and you unbolt the top box and your engine is still anchored to the steel bottom style pallet. not like today when someone throws their car engine on a wooden pallet to ship and hope their nail job holds that 4x4 nailed under the oil pan stays secure while tying it on with an old rope that seen better days to secure it. here they can stack whatever on top of it. the bottom box under the engine shipping crate that is partially in the picture is a military box/crate they used for shipping helicopter blades in.
At first, yes, but eventually they all went hydraulic. Chevrolet found that when the owners found out how much the new V8 liked to rev, they were pulling the rocker arm studs out of the solid lifter engines pretty regularly. Hydraulic lifters usually pumped up before this happened. If you compare a '55 cylinder head to a '56, you'll see that the later head had a different casting with increased grip range on the studs. Then came the Mr. Gasket stud pinning kits, and finally, screw in studs.
I remember back in 72, my buddy built a dirt track modified, 37 Chevy body cut all up. Welded together plus a ton of bondo. We jumped in his truck and drove to Fisher Chevrolet and bought a 427 Chevy L88 for about $4000. It was in a crate!
I remember using a PAW crate in a 77 Monza Spyder I autocrossed. It was actually a pretty reliable motor. Really gave me some advantage on the longer SOLO courses.
I bought that one because it was the right outside dimensions. I modified the crap out of the shroud and ring to make it adjustable, front and back to optimize the fan blade placement in the ring. Plus I can remove the ring to get at the fan mount bolts without taking the shroud off. The next risk I took, was to cut down a factory 6 blade steel fan. Cut each blade carefully to match the size. The next trick was to set it centered on my tire bubble balancer. It took some time but it worked, grinding just a tiny bit till it centered. Put together, adjusted the ring to fan blade clearance and gave it a try. Couldn't make the blades to close to the ring because of the rubber engine mounts and torque roll. About 3/4" was perfect. So far she stays at 180 on the hottest day. Next is a coat of semi gloss Krylon.
The Jalopy Journal
