327SBC or 324OLDS Which is better?

yea but I got no conscience.

Mata,
If I had both engines and no money the built 327 would win over the stock olds for me. I do like both engines and I don't believe that one is "more cool" than the other.

Now if I had the cash to build one I would save the Chebby for a light car with a hood and build the Olds. It should have a slant pan hydro behind it is it is stock, they were good trannies (I have the B&M version in the garage as we speak) but heavy pigs. So the olds has good possibilities built but it sounds like the little chebby is already built.

Do you know tha actual condition of either?

 

Good morning Homeboy.

I had the 327 rebuilt like 16 years ago. About 6 years ago I put a 60 over $75 machined crank, no balance, in after the other one cracked in two, you know that motor did get me home about several miles with a cracked crank. When I would give it gas, it would balance out, when I let off, it was was . . . . it was ugly, but it did get me home. This 327 got me 23mpg in my 68 Chevelle until I wreaked it this p*** Jan. SBC is no joke.

The Olds? It's a "running" motor & . . . . that's all I know. Its complete but I do need a driveshaft yoke.

 

Last yolk I saw for a hydro was pricey, one might get lucky and find someone on here that isn't trying to get their kid through med school though.

I think that there are more not ballanced engines out there then ballanced. I prefer to run a ballanced engine but it is a quirk of mine. Like I said both engines are keepers but if one has no bucks and wants to get on the road the better engine is the one that doesn't need much.

 

what years of olds can I the the yoke from? Or other makes?

 

Been down this N0-$$ road many times, when I was younger with new wife & baby... Then with customers, who had big ideas and N0-$$...

Seems there was always an Olds in the mix. Chevy was too costly, (much in demand in '59-'65) but there was this 324 Olds available, 'ran good when parked')

Thin budget installed used Olds, which was smoky, hard starting when warm, noisy valve train, weight notwithstanding. (Hydro was also available, no budget for stick changeover)
The old adage rang true: "There's nothing as tired as a tired Olds".

But I have built some, and have one now. Fast. Torquey. Expen$ive.
But they must be without cylinder taper, excessive bearing wear, and have oil pressure.

 

On the other hand...I would go Olds ONLY if I had some money to throw at it. As I see it 324 is TOO SMALL to justify the weight of the Olds, BUT the tremendous wall thickness and interchange possibilities of the 324 allow it to become MUCH BIGGER and get better heads, too. There are good articles in PHR fully covering this stuff...
I lean strongly towards the Olds, even though I like the SBC, but it needs to have enhanced musculature to go with the cool and that will cost. If I were to dump 700 pounds (and how many more with Hydro?!??) into the front of a light car I would want some displacement.

 

In the real world, how willing are you to spend the extra money and time to bring the Olds up to the same stage the 327 is in now or can be with minimal expense?

Will the 324 need a complete rebuild including bored and new pistons? What is speed goodies going to cost and how hard to find? If you run that hydro how much will it cost to have it gone through and these days who can go through it?

Is that cool factor worth the extra time of having the car down and the extra expense of getting it put together so it is right ?

It's your decision not ours. Myself, I'd do what made me happy and fit in my cash and time bucket and not worry about making a bunch of guy who are probably driving Toyota Camarys to work this morning happy because they thing one engine is so much cooler than the other and most of them have never owned either.

 

This pretty much sums up what I was going to say.

There's a guy out here (H.A.M.B. member as well) that races a coupe with an Olds engine. Pretty damn cool if you ask me.

 

Anything with a slant pan hydro will work for ya, that would be Old and pontiac, Chevy trucks of the late '50s. I am thinking but could be a little off that an olds or pontiac from '53-'56.

Give me a minute and I'll find you a link to a hydro social group and maybe I still have a couple of links to hydro threads. The hydro links are good reading when you have time to shuffl the info and follow the link inside it.

Here is the hydro social group.

http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/group.php?groupid=791

I'll have to really dig through my stuff for the other link.

Te mandare un PM mas a rato.

 

Like it says in above quote. But at the end of the day and after everybody spends 60 seconds looking at your car saying "wow, cool, is that an Old's or what" you go home with an engine that is not as efficient, powerful, easier to work on or get aftermarket parts for. I don't really care, I like an Olds with 6x2's, looks *****in but you gotta do what you're happy with. And no, not everybody has a Chevrolet engine but you gotta admit, it's a damn good engine.

 

324 Rocket!

 

Put the T-10 behind the Olds.....instead of the hydro

 

That's doable. ^^

By the way an olds is not harder to work on then a chebby, it is just a 4 stroke internal combustion engine. It kills me how many questions come up that are not engine specific but they still want the guru from whatever engine to answer them.

 

They are all just air compressors Benno.....some larger than others

 

I would love to. Is it just the right bell housing & flywheel, right? Anyone got those two?

 

You have to work the deal out backwards. Imagine the car in your driveway all finished. You go out for a drive. How are you going to use it? How much power do you need? What kind of gas mileage do you want?

It could be a 4 cylinder is the best answer or it could be a V8.

The Chev is the most bang for the buck but if you use the Olds you won't have to worry about breaking crankshafts or anything else.

 

The hydro weighs another 150 easy and probably closer to 180. I would go weigh mine but I don't feel like I can lift it today.

Exactly, the same things go wrong and cause the same problems in an olds quad four or a Lambo 16.

The end of the day they are all just engines.

 

Nobody familiar with any typical American V-8 will find anything very strange inside an Olds, except maybe the cylinder wall thinkness...
Problem here is that Olds plus 4-speed Hydro is not very far from two 327 Chevies in weight. I would want that Olds bored and stroked to the hilt to compensate. What would that have been in the heyday of CSC...480 CI??

 

Depending on the hey day in question it may have been easier to just start with a tall deck and the extra inches to start with, 394 is a lot closer to the 480 mark.

 

don't think there's a right or wrong here but money does play into it for sure. I'm partial to 4 speeds and 327 and less sbc's.
If running a sbc crate I'd at least like to see is guised up some. There's a 55 in this months rod and custom, 150 60's street race style, most everything is period correct then the crate motor is black and has the cheesey chrome valve covers. At least change them out.

 

After all the enlighting post here I am going to take my 303 out and put a 324 or 371 in I was happy with the 303 but if a 324 or 371 is that much better i want 1. Maybe a 327 with a manefre if i can find the right deal! that would be cool right?

 

Replacing a big clunky ol' 303 olds/hydro with a 327/T-10 is about as traditional as it gets! bet a few of the oldtimers on here probably did the very same thing in the mid-sixties.

 

The Olds has a lot of interchange through its history and extraordinarily thick cylinder walls. Best interchange guide I know of was in PHR, maybe about '64-5, covering about all the bases. There are even some bore and stroke possibilities possible with all stock parts by juggling various year pistons with later cranks...

 

I would be be thinking about the whole drive train here. Not just the motor.
The stock Olds with a stock hydro is a heavy pig for a Model A. And do you really want an automatic in there? The flywheel,bell house, starter change over
etc. needed to go manual is rare and big bucks for the Olds.The chevy 327 is a
better choice for weight, manual transmission selection, and affordable to put
the whole package together. Hey you can always put the Olds valve covers
on the Chevy.

 

No reason for him to run a crate he has a running 327.

 

Yes...I do....and with my mini starter you wont need a starter changeover either.

 

If you want a cheap and easy build 327 all the way! I love the one in my panel wagon.

 

No reason for him to run a crate he has a running 327. porkn******.
I knew he had the 327 and I'm a fan of those and 283's. Just making a point if guys run crates at least do something between the crate and transplant in the car.
Hey is that K&M machine still out your way by raytown?? speaking of I have a 327 built from there I haven't run yet

 

Go OLDS

 

is it what should you do
or which is better?

if it's what should you do,
how the hell should I know, I am not you.

if it is which is better
they are both better