i have an old 140 mercruiser inboard motor and a buddy told me it was basicly a heavy duty version of the old chevy ll motor. he says that these make great little motors for lightweight rods. i've been gathering parts for a rat rpu for awhile now and he's got me thinkin that this would be a viable motor for it. anybody familiar with these little guys ?
probably the best thing about the chevy /merc 4cy is the bell hsg and flywheel pattern is the same as the v/8. i dont know of any decent intake though.
These engines were used in midgets, and kind of took the place of the flathead V8-60. A standard bore 283 chevy pistons, and rods were used in these, Ansen made a custom cylinder head for them, Hilborn injectors, Vertex mags, there was alot of speed equipment made for this engine. The Ansen head is kind of rare, but speed parts can be found pretty easy, if you can hook up with some vintage midget racers. Ed
i,m using a chevy ii with a Merccruiser head in a one man modified that,s under conrtruction . Newport Wipers owner is very knowledgable about em
Great little engine. I have a +.060 Chevy II 4 cyl. in a '26 rpu. Using a Clifford weber intake. Charlie
I hate to say this but about 2 years ago i was givin a boat with a running 4 cyl at least it ran when it was put up and i gave it away What a dumb ass. It even had a sellable trailer.... Sometimes i just forget to think Dave
The Aries Midget Engine, and the Fontana are direct desendents of this engine and are still being run but in an aluminum block version, parts are readily available.
i got a Mercruiser/Chevy banger in the garage. got it from a friend of mine fro my little brother's modified. we got a 3/4 race Crower cam with it, finned Mercruiser valve covers and side cover and a Clifford 4 barrel intake. plus a header. we are gonna cut up the header and use pieces of it but the 4 barrel intake will get sold. we plan to run a couple turbo Corvair side draft carbs on a custom fabbed intake. we have'nt run it yet but i've heard alot of great things about these motors.
I am running the 153 cu in Banger in my sedan with a turbo 350 behind it. just need to find some neat speed parts for it. It's in the sedan that's in my avatar.
Tuff little engines. I'm in the process of buildin one for my '27 rpu. Chevy produced them from '62-'70. This version was the 153 cu. in. (2.5L) and came in the Chevy II. Only 90 HP stock. Chevy also produced these engines for boats. As far as I know they're still usin them. They come in two HP ratings. 120 and 140. The 120 was basically the same as the car engine. The extra 30 HP came from a better flowing head. The valves are the same size. The 140 HP version is 181 cu in. (3.0L) These are the most desirable heads. The intake is 1.94 and the exhaust valve is 1.50 If you have a stock 120 head you can have the bigger intake valves installed. The exhaust is the same. According to the guys at Clifford Performance you can install up to a 2.0 intake. I would not recommend using the stock 90 HP head. The lower end on these little engines are almost bullet proof with 5 mains. Lower end is the same on all models with the excepion of bore size. 283 pistons can be used on the 90 and 120 HP versions. Zero deckin the blocks really makes these engines come alive. Cams are available from Comp Cams. I just got one a couple of months ago and they had it on the shelf. Rochester 2g's come stock on the marine engines and would work great if your not gonna hot rod it any. You can even cut down the marine intake to run on the street. If you're lookin for more performance new intakes are available from Clifford Performance. You can then go with a 350 cfm 2 bbl or a 390 cfm 4 bbl. I have also seen Hillborn units and side draft Weber carbs used. Clifford also has full length headers. In the ignition dept. you can use the stock dist. with a Pertronix upgrade or occasionally a Mallory dual point can be found. GM also made these engines for AMC. These models had HEI units. Great distributors but they're big and ugly. Here's one of the little guys hopped up. Hope this helps. Later Count
In midgets, the hot set up. For those of us who could't afford the hi dollar special heads, was to scrounge up a marine head. It would really wake up the chevy II 4. Having said that. If I had a duece 4 w/marine head. I'd use it. If I were starting from scratch, & wanted a 4. I'd find an Olds, quad 4. Put an S-10 5 spd. behind it & it would make one sweet set up for a light car.
I had heard of these engines when I was a kid, but never saw one in prson..then my cousin bought a US Postal Service Jeep dispatcher with the Chevy 2 engine and 2 speed powerglide/posi rear end. I wanted to buy it from him when he put it up for sale, but the rule he had was "no sales to family"...all I wanted was the engine and trans for a Model A. Never did get one. I found an article not too long ago in one of the Rodding mags about a Vortec 3.0 which is an industrial engine that's a stroked version of this mill. Right now I run a 2.0 1971 Pinto mill in my 28 Woodie. It's a dinosaur, probably easier to get parts for a Stock A banger than it is this mill these days. But it goes down the road. Maybe someday I'll find a Chevy 2 engine for one of the A - Bones...
Description: CHEVY II Engines, parts,pieces bought and sold. We specialize in rebuilding these great midget engines CAE Engines (812)533-0082 www.caeengines.com Person to Contact: Curtis Eldredge E-Mail Address: Curtis@caeengines.com Tell him Roy Caruthers sent ya
Can I get a close up of this Valve cover? I like the way it looks. To me these engines are a highly reliable engine as well as being quite trans swap friendly. I have a Bo Jones Modified that is need of one of these as well as a 5 spd. Killer engines in my book!
Kevin, I don't have any more pics of that engine and I don't know what happened to the second pic. I do however know that the valve cover is a repro FRONTENAC. If you're not familiar with them they made overhead conversions for Model T's and A's. I'm assuming that the builder of this engine made it to fit over the Chevy valve cover. The FRONTENAC valve covers are available from Snyder's. Also take note that the oil fill tube has been located where the fuel pump used to be. This works great but you'd have to run an elecrtic fuel pump. I'll try to repost that second pic. And here's a pic of the under side so you can see the header. I think this is the one Clifford Performance sells.
Hey Count, Thanx 4 the info, Years ago Jim Ewing=(Partner/Founder in the Super Bell axle company until his separation with Vic Leon & Dave Enmark) ran one of those valve covers on a 153ci engine that I believe Brian Bauer supplied fo a totally traditonal looking 28 A Roadster Rod/Custom feature vehicle in a quarterly back in the late 70's- early 80's It is a bitchen banger powered roadster! Looks great with that very same Valve Cover. The funny thing about all of this is that the Chevrolet brothers made the Frontenac head conversions for T-engines in the 1st place & to see this head on an engine of their name is just funny=Take that Billy Durant=lol!
I have a 230 merc. in my 64 II behind it is a glide, getting me about 23mgp. run all day long70-80 no problem. Plus it makes a excellent bet to win. Still have the outboard intake. It's a peppy motor. I'm pleased with it
Correct me if I'm wrong (and I probably am) but aren't the 2.5 4cyls. used in the 80s-90s G.M. S-10s, Fieros etc. based on this engine? I well remember the midgets of the early 70s running the old Iron Duke and Sescos before the VWs, with their low c.g., pretty much put them out of business.
Only came in Chevy II so you won't find one in an auto junkyard. However they are common in boats so look in a boat junkyard. You might even get the 181 CID with crossflow head. Either way, the marine engines had nice ribbed side and valve covers.
Maybe I can clear a couple of things up here. Rootie the engine you're thinkin of, I beleive, is the Poniac "Iron Duke". It is a totaly different engine. The 153 and 181 are NOT an Iron Duke. The Iron Duke has a cross flow head. Secondly, these engines are readily available. I know for fact that they were still being used in boats in the late '90's. These engines were also used in tow motors and generators among other industrial applications. The boat engines usually have front sump oil pans. The early engines have a rear sump oil pan. Here's a link to one on e-bay. http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/Merc...ryZ50442QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem And here's a boat intake I was cuttin down for use on the street, but I've since found a NOS Clifford. Here's the Clifford I picked up on e-bay a few weeks ago.
Count- I stand corrected. Coming up through the 60s and 70s it was all about the v-8s back then and I didn't pay too much attention to the 4 bangers, I just assumed the GM pushrod 4 cyls. were all about the same. Thanks.
The later 2.5L fours are a totally different design, came from Pontiac. The 2.5L shares no components with the older Chevy four -- they are just both in-line fours. Also note that AMC never bought these engines -- Kasier Jeep Corporation did. It was only used in the DJ Jeeps (2WD postal Jeeps -- called "Dispatchers") from 67-71. AMC merged Jeep Gov't Sales and their own General Products Division (for gov't sales) to form AM General when they bought Jeep in 1970. AMC soon replaced the GM four with their own small sixes (199 and 232). The six was later supplemented with the GM 2.5L, though I'm not sure if they started before 1980. The 2.5L was also used in CJ-7s from 1980-83. Prior to 1980 no fours were available in the CJ-7, and after 83 the AMC designed 2.5L four was used.
I am pretty sure you could get these in the nova's all the way up to the early seventies, except few people actually did.
They were available in Chevy II/Novas from '62-70. Then, in a classic display of mental retardation, Chevy dropped it and came out with that gem of an engine that they used in the all new '71 Vega. If they'd kept the 153 instead, at least people would now say, "Yeah, those Vegas rusted out to beat hell, but at least they were reliable!"
In late 1975 early 76 GM did actually pull their head out of the ass for an instance and used a derivative of the 153 ci eng in all Vega platformed vehicles. They dropped the name in 1977 in 1978 called the Kamback wagon a Monza using this very engine as well as a V6. THe damage was done already to the Vega nameplate,but GM still wanted to recoup their investment into that program. Yes this engine is still avaiable through the Goodwrench engine program as an industrial unit. IMHO I think that they are bullet proof and one of the few things that the General has done right over the last 37yrs. The PONTIAC headed 2.5 was also a good engine, but broke many an engine stud & blew head gaskets in the late 80's. I had a 86 Fiero 2M4 5spd. then, I was abusive to that sucker, in fact I had the oil changed @ a shop that left the drain plug loose, It fell out a mile away from the shop, I didn't notice until I drove nearly 2 more miles when I looked @ the dash & heard the lifters begin to make noise. Lucikily I was now home I about freaked, jumped into our truck and followed the oil back the 2mi Picked up the drain plug and went back to the shop & showed them what I had in my hand. The tech drove to the house with oil put the drain plug back in and oil fired it up=no knock I had them tow it back to the shop & pulled the pan & checked the rods & mains for damage while I stood there,-nothing burned or scored. Drove it another 2yrs and sold it to a company that was turning those suckers into Fake Ferraris,They yanked the body panells off that space frame as well as the engine & put a small block chev in there. The took me for a ride in it & it hauled ass!
We had a guy out here that ran a Chevy 2 with 4 banger with a head made by cutting up some small block heads and welding the pieces back together.He ran this car under the name Mystery 4 he had a wall full of win trophies for this car and I saw him beat a hemi powered 47 ford pickup in a 200$ street race!Obviously there was more done to it than the head but i was a young kid then and don't remember all the details
About 30 years ago I rebuilt one of those 153 inch Chevy II motors and sold it to a guy in Missouri(?) to install in his '29 2-door sedan. He called me a few years after the purchase raving about what a sweet-running, quiet engine it was. He also bought a Halibrand V8 quick-change in the same deal. I wonder whatever happened to him or his car.
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