do any of the GM motors share the same valve cover bolt pattern? which ones if any are the easiest to adapt one to another? how? can it be done? there must be some innovative guys out there. we're hot rodders! any ideas?
Do you mean like pontiac to chevy to olds to buick? No. Also dpepedning on the year sbc heads have different bolt patterns, 55-58 is staggered, 59-80ish are straight acrosss and later are center bolt style. there are aftermarket ones that bolt to sbc and say olds, and some have grafted there own. What in particular are you looking for?
your question is too vage. We don't even know for sure that you're asking about a V8 or V6 or L6 or L4 or......
i'm talking about V8 only. i've seen caddy, pontiac, and olds valve covers that look very similar in size. i was wondering if any of these would fit a SBC or if anyone has made them fit and how. i've seen different vintage finned covers that i would love to have but can't buy because they are not SBC. i was wondering if i should buy them next time because i might be able to make em fit with some type of mods. which would be easiest to adapt to chevy small block?
If you are talking about using steel valve covers, you could just weld the other cover on top of the SBC one. Take a SBC cover with you to the salvage yard/swapmeet and see how well they fit on top of it. As long as there is enough clearance for the rockers, you can make an adapter plate to mate anything to the SBC head. They make ones to allow the 55-58 covers to work on 59-up heads. Same principle. I have seen Mopar Hemi, Lincoln, Olds and Mopar Poly covers used on the SBC. How they were attached, I don't know. I think the Hemi ones are a kit, and I've seen the Olds ones in the back of a magazine...
A sbc is a sbc no matter what suit you dress it up in, there has to be about a hundred to one sbc covers compared to the other GM ones out there. Just find a set of covers you like for the chevy and don't try and make something what it's not please.
Speedway makes an adapter to bolt early staggered or straight-across generation 1 covers on center-bolt chevy heads...problem is the threaded holes are drilled in the wrong places..I had to thread some 1/4" aluminum round stock, screw it in the incorrrect holes with some red loc***e and redrill/tap the holes in the right places. Speedway also sells an early Olds-style cover with the spark plug wire separators that bolt on early chevy heads
I don't think you can use any aluminum non-Chevy valve cover on a Chevy except Studebaker if you have center-bolt heads, and possibly ones made for an Olds Rocket V-8, but either of those would be more expensive than Chevy valve covers.
I put sbc chevy covers on olds 455 heads, just to see. They are close in overall size and miles apart in bolt patterns.
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