sbc identification: what do I have?

I just bought two complete sbc engines from an older guy. He told me the one which had a turbo 350 was outta a '69 bel air and the other one he got from somebody and he was't sure what it came out of. He said that the one with the trans had about 55K original miles and that he had taken good care of it, said he would always change the oil as soon as it turned colour. I asked him why he still had it, he said his son rolled the car back in the 70's and he kept it to swap into something but never got around to it. When I pulled the stick the oil looked real clean but I figured its easy enough to change the oil when you're going to sell an engine. Well I bought the engines and I was hoping someone knows the numbers so I'll know what I have. The #'s are:
'69 belair?
om the block by the bell housing 3932386
in front of the pass side head K1028FC
Unknown
on the block 397C010
in front of head V0702X1
I pulled the pan off the one with the turbo today and I couldn't believe it. There was no sludge in the pan so maybe it really is low miles.
The other one was a standard but there's no trans. The bell is really big and heavy, its gotta be cast iron and it has a real strange hose setup going to the therm. housing.
All I've ever tinkered with is fords and olds and I don't really know a whole lot about chevy stuff (except that the parts are real cheap to buy) so I'm asking on the H.A.M.B.

A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush....but if in the bush a fair maiden should stand....a push in the bush is worth two in the hand

 

The unknown; having the "010" casting # and weird hose thing I would guess is a 350 out of a truck. The "010" was always the desirable 350 casting, not always machined for four bolt mains, but in trucks and high horse cars usually were. The number in front of the head, or should I say letters, will tell exactly.

Let me check my book for the casting # on the other one.

 

3932386 crosses over to '68-'69 300-350 horse 350 with 4-bolt mains, '68 327 with 2-bolt mains, or '69 302 with 4-bolt mains. I can tell you for sure it's not the 302 from '69 because they had the DZ letters in the code at the front of the head.

There were no letters in casting numbers, but 3970010 is listed in my book as either a 327 from '68, or a 350 from '69-'79 and had horse power all the way from 185 up to 370, which was the infamous LT1 from 1970.

This info came from "Chevrolet small-block V-8 ID Guide" by Pierre Lafontaine published in 1996. It is by far not the last word, and others will surely be able to decipher the codes for you.

 

Try these sites - http://mortec.com/ or http://www.joesantiquecars.com/Chevrolet-engine-block-casting-numbers.html

You should be able to find what you're looking for

 

Thanks for the help folks, although I'm not 100% sure of what I have yet. I will check the links you posted Fat Fndr many thanks for posting.

I've done some more comparison of the two units and the one with the cast iron bell has a sort of step shaped pan. Also the bell is not the same bolt pattern as the rear of the engine. There is an adaptor plate about 3/8" thick between it and the engine and it has what looks like a canister-type filter that's about 8"-9" lomg. Also the engine mounts are kinda weird too. At the front below the timing chain cover there is a thick steel angle iron type bracket (?) in the shape of a horseshoe with the two ends bolted to the lower block and extending down little further than the bottom of the sump, around and up to the other side like a loop. There's two holes in the bottom of the loop and seeing as there are no regular mounts, I'm guessing that's what this is for. The bell has a big ear cast into each side that has a hole so maybe these are for rear mounts. Oh yes,one other thing, the hole in the bell for the trans input shaft/bearing is approx 5 1/8". One of you said it could be a truck block and that's looking more and more like the case because you'd need a lot of hood clearance if this front mount sat on a regular cross member and I don't ever recall seeing a bell with a hole that big. If its from a truck what would it be out of? My buddy has always had GM trucks and I've been over lending a hand from time to time and the engines in his trucks had normal style mounts as far as I can remember.

The other engine appears to be in excellent condition. I'd really like to know exactly what it can put out because I think I may be able to use it as is. Like I said before I don't know that much about chevy engines but I've been told that the factory would take a regular short block, pop in a hotter cam assy, better manifold and carb etc. to make the higher perf. engines because they were such stout little bottom ends right off the assy line. This one doesn't have four bolt mains but I've also been told they never had them until the late sixties and they were putting out good perf engines long before that.

So I'm thinking I could do just that. Put in a hotter cam, better induction, a decent set of headers and ign upgrades and run it in my coupe and save myself the cost of a full rebuild. Hey I always feel better about my projects if they don't cost me both the left one and the right one.

Anybody have any comments or suggestions? What are my chances?

 

One main reason the sbc became so damned popular is they respond so well to normal hop-up tricks. A fairly mold cam, 750 carb and intake, ignition curve, and headers and an otherwise stock 350 is suddenly in the 375 horse range, assuming it has 350 heads and not some small ports off a 283.

 

Go on mortec and check your head #'s, that will tell you what you really have. most any 350 short block will handle 400 hp if you do a decent rebuild on it.
heads is where you make your power, depending on what you want to do, check the bores in the low mile block you might get away with a just a hone, ring bearing and gasket kit. I'd definately do gaskets at a minimum. new standard volume oil pump and timing chain, cam about .470 - .480 lift watch your duration if you plan on running any power brakes or running a stock stall.
basic short block rebuild.
depending on your heads, you probably have 1.94 valves and with regular '69 heads you might get 9.5/1 comp with a think head gasket, hot tank the heads, grind or lap the valves in by hand if they still look decent on the seats, check your guides, if they are loose but still in tolerance just run umbrella seals to keep oil blow by under control, run the "Z28" spec rebuilder springs and youre good for .480 lift. This should get you a very respectable small block.
Ive rebuilt around 20 sbc's just like this. I used ot buy them 10 at a time from a scrapper, the 4 bolts and blocks needing bored got built to better specs, the decent bore blocks got a "budget" rebuild with file to fit rings for old trucks or driver type cars.
spend the $ on a good hone job and good rings, do a good break in, set your power band max at 5500 rpm if youre using stock heads and you will get a good driver with good power.