By far, the two most popular "modern" V8 engines for the majority of hot rodders are the small block Chevys and small block Fords. They enjoy the lion's share of aftermarket product development and find their way into many of our project vehicles. But...are there other alternatives for the home builder on a strict budget? You betcha! Here are but a few more suggestions: Before I get into this much further, let me just state that I know that a few of you will frown upon some of the engine selections I will be mentioning, and snuff them as non-traditional powerplants. My aim is not to try and redefine 'traditional', but rather to illustrate some creative alternatives available for the do-it-yourself hot rod builder who can't afford early hemi, flathead or nailhead power. By suggesting a few clever alternatives, perhaps a few budding rodders will realize their dreams of cruising in some cool early tin on a budget that they can live with. Oldsmobile: The 'modern' Olds V8 is one of the toughest and most reliable performers ever offered in a production vehicle! I'm talking mainly about the "small block" versions, and the 307,350 and 403 versions in particualr. There was also a 260, but it's not a very responsive performance mill. The 455 is also an excellent choice, though it features a taller deck height, different intake manifold and carries a slightly higher price tag. 307s can be scored all over the place, and they really come alive with basic bolt-on speed equipment. The 350 and 403 offerings are even better, and only slightly harder to locate. Edelbrock makes a few different intake manifolds for these engines, and they can also supply you with a matching camshaft package to optimize your manifold and carb selection. A Holley 750cfm vacuum secondaries is the recommended choice here! Headers and a distributor re-curve will further wake these anvil-solid engines up, and they provide enough torque and midrange power to get a fairly big car moving! I've had a few of these Olds engines myself, and they have been the smoothest running and most trouble free motors I've ever driven! As for where to find them, look in the Olds 88 and 98 series land yachts built from 1977-1985. As an example, I just sold a complete and running one of these with a strong 307 for $60 to a kid in the neighborhood who is currently hustling pizzas with it! Why the Olds? Well, imagine that you have a 50s or 60s coupe or sedan that needs an engine. Buying one of these dirt-cheap Oldsmobiles will score you a dynamite performer, along with a battery, alternator, radiator, trans, driveshaft, column, and tons of parts that will help you swap "modern" power into your old iron to give you a very cost-effective way of getting on the road in that old heap sitting in your driveway! "Parts" cars rule for the low-buck home builder! Pontiac: The 326, 350 and 400 Poncho mills are still pretty easy to find for reasonable prices, and not much needs to be said about all of the performance parts and potential combinations out there for these engines. Tri-powers and dual quads are viable options, as well as more common four barrel set-ups. The Pontiac engines found in cars of the late 60s and all through the 70s can provide the basic building block for an attractively priced V8. However, you will want to pass over the 301 and 267 orphans. They LOOK like most other Ponchos, but they are a lightened up and weaker cousin best left alone! The heads use funky intake ports on those econo-junkers, and the cranks are prone to breakage. Stick with the 326, 350 and 400 samples. Again, buying a whole 70s battle cruiser will get you your engine, tranny and a slew of other parts to help you complete the swap for dirt cheap. Mopar: Lots of 70s era Chrysler products came down the pike with 360 small blocks and 400 big blocks. These motors, found in big ol' Mopars, accept speed parts from 340 and 383 engines, respectively. (The 360 is a larger dispalcement small block, and the 400 is a larger displacement B engine big block which shares external dimensions with the earlier 383s). The 413, 426 and 440 big blocks (or RB engines) use a taller deck height, but many other parts interchange with the 400. Intake manifolds are easy to locate for the 400, too...anything from six-packs to tunnel rams and the tamer four barrel options. Same with the 360...it will accept other small block Mopar manifolds, cams, headers, etc. These Mopar mills deliver astounding performance for the buck, and bolt up to the Torqueflite auto trannys (360s take a small block housing, while the 400 requires a big block tranny case) and also accept four speed trannys. The often overlooked 360 small blocks and 400 big blocks represent genuine horsepower bargains for the astute rodder! Ford: Okay, I know many will think me crazy here, but the lowly and hated 351-400M engines built through the 70s do run well with the emissions crap ripped off and some basic performance bolt-ons added. Edelbrock, Weiand and possibly Offy make intake manifolds for these quirky engines, and any 351 Cleveland camshaft will work in them. Headers are also interchangeable with the Cleveland series, as are parts such as the distributor, and many accessory brackets and valve covers, etc. Be advised, however, that the 351-400M uses a bellhousing pattern in common with the 429/460 series, and motor mount dimensions from the Lima series engine, too. (Clevelands use small block Ford bellhousing and motor mount dimensions by contrast). Alot of the big Mercury, Ford and Lincoln barges of the 70s came with the 351-400M engines, and they are the type of engine that you can most likely score for free, since they are grossly misunderstood and ignored by the masses! Hey...a free 400 cubic inch V8 is a cool find for the super frugal backyard builder! While you're looking at those dirt-cheap FoMoCo behemoths, don't be surprised if you see several with 429 and 460 engines as well. These are really very affordable big blocks that you might want to consider, also! Whole cars in running, driving condition are not hard to pick up for $500 or less. **************************************************************************************** So, there are but a few ideas to help you find alternative engines to power your next (or current) hot rod or custom car projects. They won't score you "super cool guy points" with the period correct fans, but they will get your old heap on the road for hardly more than pocket change! Remember, the best way to purchase these engines is to buy a whole, rusty old 70s tank and rob it blind for all sorts of stuff that will come in handy when completing your engine swap. Hell, you can probably unload the shell for a few bucks to the scrapyard, or sell off the parts you don't use. An example: Years ago, I stumbled across a really clean 1972 Torino sport with a blown up 429 in it for FREE! It belonged to a friend who got tired of looking at it, and he just GAVE me the car! Another friend had a 1977 Grand Marquis in his driveway with a busted windshield and bad brakes. The car had a good running 460 in it, though...and I bought the whole mess for $50 and drove it home. The 460 was removed, equipped with a Melling cam, new timing set, dual point distributor, and the intake and carb off of the 429 in the Torino. The swap was a direct bolt-in, and I used the battery and lots of other odds and ends from the Marquis to button up the Torino. But wait...it gets BETTER! A friend heard about my project, and stopped by to inquire about the dead 429 that was now sitting next to my garage. He offered me $50 for the engine before I could tell him just to haul it away, so I sold it for the price of the whole Marquis! Then, a few other guys stopped by...one of whom had a 1977 Marquis that needed a front clip. I woulda sent the one I bought off to the crusher had this guy not stopped by! He asked how much for this, and how much for that. I was busy working on the Torino, so I told him that for $75, he could take the whole car, or just pick off what he wanted. He handed me the money and spent a couple hours robbing the fenders, bumpers, grille and other pieces off of the car. One of my neighbors gave me $40 for the wheels and tires off the Merc, and I called the boneyard to haul away the rest. The tow truck driver gave me $25 for the remaining 'car'! So...one free car, one $50 donor vehicle, and maybe a couple hundred bucks for the new cam and other miscellaneous parts...then raking in $185 for stuff I didn't use! Made the Torino project almost a free car! Now, suppose it wasn't a Torino, which would commonly be reffered to as a "mullet mobile" here! Imagine you had a 1950's Ford two door in your yard with a scattered six popper. Use the same method of locating a dirt cheap 70s donor car and you're well on your way to getting that dead old Ford back on the road! It may ruffle a few feathers, but it's a bona fide, down-n-dirty approach to solving your drivetrain problems, isn't it??!! THAT'S what I'm talking about...being open minded and creative enough to consider other possibilities using the time-honored...and yes...TRADITIONAL way of scrounging junkyards and want-ads for V8 power on the cheap and bolting it together yourself! Sure, 400M Ford engines weren't around in the 50s and 60s...and no, they wouldn't give you a period correct look...but you can bet your ass that if a hot rodder in that bygone era had access to a 400 cubic inch mill for pennies...he'd be hot to use it! See what I'm driving at? It ain't right for EVERYONE, but it's something for budget-limited folks to consider. Just a suggestion, take it as you will...I only offer it as food for thought! A Model A coupe with a 400 Pontiac? Maybe a 47 Ford with an Olds 403? Or a 33 Dodge with a 360? A 55 Mercury runnin' a 400M? How 'bout a t-bucket with a 400 Mopar? Use your imagination!
I'm glad you mentioned your experience with the Ford 460. I'm intrigued by them. They are fairly narrow for such a large CI engine. They are torque monstors that powered a decade of Ford-Mercury luxury barges and trucks, but in a high geared light weight roadster they seem to come alive. With a little bit of performance massaging, cam, carb, headers, even the latest, lowest compression versions can look pretty good. And yep, they are easy to find in running cars for a couple days pay.
i would like to add one more to your mix of engines.. that is the cadillac 472 or the 500 built from 1968 to 1976 with the 500's in eldo's thru the run, and 472 in the coupe/sedan devilles thru 74, after which they too ran the 500's the weight of these engines are around 600 lbs fully dressed, and most of them run forever. most sought after are the 1970 models, followed by the 71's, earlier versions had a poorer oil system, and the later ones went to lower compression(smog) i bought a 1971 coupe deville for 15 bucks at a tow auction, put a distributor in it and drove it home, engine ran flawlessly, smooth and no smoke,, along with awesome power for a boat. pulled the 472, and replaced the aged timing set, put in an HEI from a newer 500, and set it in the 55. pulled the turbo 400, and shortened the driveshaft, which i also used in the 55. removed the rear axle when i found that it had cads version of a posi, it has around 3.07 gears. The plus side is it uses one long axle shaft and one short shaft, so the housing can be cut down and another short shaft can be installed to get a pretty narrow axle, with huge breaks!! installed it also in the 55 after this procedure. pulled the hydropower brake system also and installed on the 55. This was kind of an old car to be using for a donor but it had been well maintained, and ran so friggin strong. these old cads are a dime a dozen, and there are performer intakes available that put the weight of the 472/500 around 25 lbs heavier than an all iron sbc. There are cam upgrades to pretty wild, and now bulldog offers aluminum heads. alot of good parts for a 15 dollar donor car.. bottom line, lots of power with my 71 having 525 ft/lbs torque stock!! just another option, may not be a hemi, flatty or nailhead,,, but caddy's are traditional... right? bob
wow, way too much to read, when one is drunk and it is 1:30 in the AM,,,, I will read it all in the morning... Thanks go to you for your on topic posts, and for your motivation/perseverance to write three awesome topics in the last few days. no really, thanks a bundle... Joe
What a great post,lots of good info,this has something for everyone,just goes to show you,a little hard work and thinking can take you far.Thats the great part about hot rods-build it your way--there are NO-RULES and the only guy that has to like it is YOU!
Just got the Caddy for the monster Cavalier back together tonight, and ran it on the garage floor a few minutes. What does this have to do with traditional rodding? Not much, until you consider the Cav now has the same 4WD chassis that sat under my '28. Mikey stopped over tonight with a new set of valve seals around 7PM, so I finished up the porting on the last 2 intake bowls and we started putting valves back into the heads. I also finished up the ported intake with a new plenum bottom, necessary after grinding off the EGR passage and opening up the plenum to do some internal porting, as well as removing the divider. The intake looks bone stock from the outside, but is now a single plane and lost 16 pounds of unnecessary cast iron, now just 34 pounds. So in 4 hours, we went from a shortblock assembly to rebuilding both heads, bolting them on, getting the valvetrain back together, the intake/carb, pre-oiling it with a tool made from an old points dizzy, and dropping in the HEI and getting the timing set. A fuel pump, a gas can, and the 2 log style exhaust manifolds I made up from box tubing and we were almost ready, I put a couple jumper wires on the HEI and the starter, and we lit it off. Happiness is truly running a motor you assembled in just a few hours with open exhaust and revving it by hand on the garage floor, and waking the neighbors up... Tomorrow we get it back in the Cavalier, and that's one less project to finish up just sitting around here... Oh yeah, did I mention the '54 Kustomsledd is running a Caddy motor too? We're gonna shoot some video and get it up on my website as a movie .mpg file very soon. Mikey has also mentioned he will look into moving my website onto one of his servers, sothere will no longer be page crashes over 'excessive bandwidth' from Angelfire. Every project around here has pretty much been re-powered by getting a complete donor vehicle to rob parts from to make the project more reliable. Why spend thousands for a new GM 'crate' motor when you can get a complete cheap/free donor and have enough stuff on hand to build a reliable project(some dis/assembly required, of course...) I also believe a car can still be traditional if it's an early car , and be safe to drive with a more modern powertrain/suspension/braking system. The '28 was a project combining early bodywork with a later 4WD chassis and a large-displacement powertrain. The '54 is traditional in the sense that I am applying old-school styling tricks to an old Fifties Ford, yet still have my big Caddy power, an auto trans, 4 wheel disc brakes, and modern air ride for smooth cruising and the taildragging look at a show or cruise night. It's also very traditional to me that I do ALL the work on my projects, or at least as much as I can possibly do myself, and that includes body/paint work, the chasis fabrication, the interior, mechanical work like engine/trans installation, wiring, etc. "Back in the day" there were very few places one could get a car built for you, unless you had very deep pockets. Most did it all themselves, and that is where I get all the fun of building, from doing it all myself... Doc
I was going to mention the 472/500 Caddy motors....it seems like old 70s Cadillacs are still dirt cheap, even here in Detroit, and thos engines are pretty light for their cubic inch rating! I remember seeing adapters that allow the use of a Ford 429/460 intake manifold on the Cad 472/500...this opens up alot of induction options....everything from factory Cobra Jet manifolds to tunnel rams and even later model F250 truck EFI rigs if you dare! Another "sleeper" motor is the 350 Buick...lighter than even a small block Ford and 350 cubes! It has a funky bore to stroke ratio (almost square), and performance parts aren't easy to come by...but they run pretty strong in stock form with a factory intake, four barrel carb, headers and a mild cam. Kenne Belle and Poston make specialized parts for them for those who want to take the flyweight V8 even further! A mid 70s Buick Century with a 350 should only set you back about $300 for a rusty runner! While I'm at it (again!), the AMC 304 and 360 V8 engines aren't that hard to locate, as many Jeeps used them. The basic AMC V8 has a coomon external design, so manifolds, headers and cams will all interchange from the 290 cube mills all the way up to the 401 inch beasts! Not the cheapest motors to build beyond basic bolt-ons, but one heckuva reliable performer! I've always thought it would be cool to see a home built three window Duece running a cross-rammed 401 AMC with a four speed! To switch gears a little, there's also the dime a dozen Chevy 250 six bangers, as well as the AMC 258 six poppers, the Chrysler slant sixes, and the Ford inliners! These engines are usually available for free when your buddies pull them out to make room for a V8! Clifford Research and others can supply manifolds, cams and headers for these mean buzzin half dozens, and they're pretty reliable motors by design! As you can see, although the 70s were not a time of exciting muscle from Detroit, that distant decade has left us with a pile of untapped raw material just waiting for clever and frugal rodders to pluck from! Once those smog motors are stripped of their rat's nest of vacuum hoses and their pollution control crap, you'll find a basic engine ready to accept bolt-on speed parts and deliver miles of smile in your low buck rod project! By shopping for pre-smog era factory parts at junkyards and swap meets, these engines can be built for what you'd likely spend on a week's worth of beer! By selecting pre-EGR factory four barrel manifolds, you can spend your money on a good Holley or Carter carb and get a performance upgrade cheaper than shelling out the green for a new intake manifold. Most of these engine designs were around prior to the development of electronic ignitions, so earlier points type of distributors are out there for pennies of free if you're like me and prefer them to electronic units! This also holds true of exhaust manifolds. If your budget isn't quite ready for headers, an early set of manifolds for your style of engine offers a little better performance for next to nothing. (This is especially true of the Olds V8s, which used a cross-over exhaust amnifold after the early 70s, slapping on a set of 1968-72 manifolds allows you to run duals and frees up some horsepower. The manifolds won't cost you more than $20 at a boneyard, and you can likely get them for nothing if you ask around!). Again, it's always in your best interests to buy a whole, running vehicle with the engine you're after. This saves you a TON of money on all the nickel and dime stuff that comes up later, and also keeps you from running to a junkyard everytime you need another piece of your project's puzzle! Also, the donor vehicle can supply nuts, bolts, wiring, bulbs, seats, and many other odds and ends, as well as providing you with a little kick-back if you sell the gutted shell to the scrap yard, or find someone who needs parts off of it for their 70s resto! (Think e-bay...you'd be surprised at what you'd get for odd parts from a 70s junker!). Hey, these ain't glamour motors for sure...but they're cheap as Hell, fun to mess with and most importantly...they can get you on the road quickly! I'd much rather see an old rod or custom being driven with a 70s engines than sitting in a driveway waiting for a hemi or nailhead! Build a few low-dollar "driver rods" and sell 'em off to weekend cruisers who don't care what's in 'em...that'll help you afford something even cooler, and give you some car building experience along the way!
The Jalopy Journal
