Cheers SixGunner, here's a pic of the manifold side and, I seem to have a pair of heads that end in 848 - one follows up with GM3, the other is this one - GM17? What makes them the better choice?
Monkeybiker, You lucky son ofa... That's a factory 53-54 Corvette dual exhaust setup. A very spendy piece.
Are you sure? Someone has bolted it to a single carb manifold? Pity he threw away the good bits if that's the case...!?
There has been 30 almost competed wayne heads sitting at the shop I work at for about a year. I think that Wayne is having money problems and they wont be completed untill there paid for.
Holy cow I'd love to get my mits on one of those. How do they look? I'm guessing you work at a foundry/machine shop....
They were available at Chevy parts counters for several years after the Corvettes went to a V8. Maybe somebody ordered it, but couldn't afford the intake as well.
Ah - cheers for that. That might make sense. The engine seems to have been an abandoned install in an imported truck. Put in but nothing connected. Built out of a collection of red/orange painted parts on a blue/black block. Even had new spark plugs and core plugs! Who knows what I'll find inside. Only spiders so far... Anyway, what makes the 848 casting a better head? I'm going to take one of them in to have seats put in for unleaded fuel, and maybe new valves too if I can get them.
Thanks again! Over here, early Chevy stuff seems a tad scarce. V8 bits less so. As far as the valves go, is there anything from the small block that can be adapted?
www.chevsofthe40s.com has been good to me a little pricey but they've got a lot. Langodon's is a good place to for help every time I've called he's been ready to to talk, even while on vacation!
OK - told you there was something screwy with this engine - here's the head off, and... it hasn't been run. New gasket, new exhaust valves. I'll pull one tomorrow night, to see if the seats have been done - y'never know. Also, new pistons. Unfortunately, as it sat dry no. 6 bore has suffered. I was planning a top end rebuild - might be the bottom end instead. I'll drop the sump next and see what lies beneath...
Jay-- just a quick nit-pick, although it probably doesn't matter....the early engines (thru 36) were three main bearing engines. You can see this by looking at the cylinder spacing, notice in the pics of the 29-30 engines the cylinders are grouped in 3s, not in pairs like the 216-235.
No problem Squirrel, that's why I bumped it. It seems at least once a week someone posts a Stovebolt question, and I figured we could get most of the "common" questions answered here... so when they do a search ( ) the info will be in one place. I agree, someone needs to get that Wayne stuff out of hock and finished. But at the prices they wanted, it'd be a hard sell. I understand about how much foundry patterns and casting and such costs, it's just too bad the price can't come down. Jay
Mine: This was shortly before dropping it back in, the pic has rochesters but I ended up using carter yf's. They work great. Manifolds are both Fenton. I'm a huge 235 fan.
Anyone here ever fill in the pockets in the head for more compression? My valves are sitting right on top of my pistons as it is but that's still a big *** combustion chamber.
They used to do that, in the old days pre-domed pistons, but it was a very labor intensive operation that sometimes ended up cracking the head.
Many of the Wayne heads that are sitting have been paid for in full for years by some unfortunate inliners. If you look at the cost to do a limitted production on something like this I think you'll find the price is not out of line. In fact the production cost probably was higher than the selling price and that may be why the whole deal fell apart. For a really good ported and polished compe***iion valve job you can pay $1000 and higher at places that do race car work. I paid in full for one of the 12 port Chevy heads and waited for a few years for the deal to get settled and finally worked out a deal with Wayne Mfg for some other equal value parts. I'm now within $50 of being even. MY ADVICE IS ONLY DEAL WITH WAYNE MFG FACE TO FACE, PARTS IN HAND OR C.O.D.. As far as the speed parts for the 235's & 261's, stuff is not as hard to come by as has been mentioned in some of the previous posts. Look into the Inliners club and some of the other dealers that were mentioned. Once you start talking to people you'll find plenty of stuff available. There's also stuff at swap meets periodically. You can easily modify the 216 intakes for the 235 with something as simple as a drill press and a hole saw to open up the ports for the alignment rings. Not high tech but I've done it in the past and everything came out fine. Also the full pressure 235's and 261's will work fine even at highway speeds as long as they are put together properly. I've buzzed my 261 right along with traffic all day long on numerous occ***ions going to events even w/ 3:73 gears. A 5-speed would help even more. Don't be scared away from these engines they are just old, typically need a thorough rebuild and unfortunately will cost more than a small block to build if you want to do something hipo. Cam, intake, headers, HEI conversion and you'll have a peppy, good running engine though if you're really looking for speed you may wish you had a V8.
50john, I totally agree. I just wish there could be more people into Stovebolts, therefore driving the price down... But I guess it's the price you pay for wanting to do something different. So, it sounds like you're the only one in the thread to have the actual part. Would you mind telling us what you think of it? From the press package I got, it looks like a pretty nice piece. But I don't have one to fondle, either. Jay
Jay, As mentioned in my post, after waiting a few year I decided to settle with Wayne. I got them to send GMC stuff instead of the Chevy. The GMC stuff was made by Aries maybe 10 years ago with all their stock being bought up by Wayne a few years ago when Wayne started with the Chevy heads. Unfortunately there are still a number of people out there that I believe still have gotten nothing from the $ they sent to Wayne for the Chevy heads because of an inter**** dispute that has everything tied up. A few heads made it out if they were ordered bare but as far as I know none of the ***embled heads were released. John
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