I didn’t have an engine to copy when I started my 1/3 scale model. I stopped at American Cylinder head in Oakland in 1997 and asked if he had a scrap engine I could have. The old bird wandered over to the pallet rack along the fence and came back carrying this four bolt main block. It was this rusty from being stored outside in the East Bay environment after being hot tanked. It doesn’t have a ridge in the cylinder so I thought it had been bored, and possibly decked as the numbers on the water pump boss had been hand scribed. At the time none of the provenance mattered since I was just measuring it for my patternmaking, but twenty five years later from lurking here, I’m curious as to what it was built for and installed in. And whether there is any value that makes it worth saving. I'm led to believe the rust can be delt with for a price. I have gathered some of the tin, also to copy so building from a short block could be done. I never asked what was wrong with it since during my excursions to the wrecking yards had only yielded prices in the $250 range for similar pieces. I am not sure why it was saved, perhaps non payment at the time, since there was a big pile of scrap cranks, heads, and manifolds next to where I backed in. 4 inch bore A207 on the right bank 776509 G34 behind the timing chain cover 14815297 left rear bank CB 88 19452 on the water pump boss VO 622UJK on the water pump boss Any thoughts?
80-85 truck 350. The 207 block was used in those. UJK is 1981 350 4bbl 165 HP in a C30/3500 truck. It's a 4 bolt main block, but it's missing the caps. That makes it worthless to me. CB.... means Chevy Truck, 1981
Do you have the main caps? If not you will spend more than it's worth for a motor that is not going in a numbers matching vehicle. Good Luck. Pat
She must have been a strong old bird Only useful as a mock up block. What they said. By the time you’ve sorted it you could’ve bought a whole core engine.
I have all the bearing caps, but don't expect it has any special desirability. Tim, Ah lost in translation, the bird was a guy, and yes he was strong. Didn't bother with a cart. Just packed it over and threw it in the pickup. I used it to make the patterns for this.
Doesn't have any value as being from a special vehicle, but there are still some people building 350s (or 383 strokers, etc) that might need a block. This one has a design change from the 1979 and earlier ones, though, since the oil dipstick tube hole is on the pass side, it requires the "later" oil pan.
Sandcrab, please tell us more about your baby block! It looks incredible! Is the engine finished yet?
My line of thought is that if he had a machine shop, had already hot tanked that block and it was sitting outside on a pallet gathering rust there is somethign wrong with that he figured made it only worth scrap price and was willing to give to you for a project that didn't involve building an engine with it. Before I spent a nickle on it I'd be having someone who really knows what to look for damage wise go over it with a microscope.
That's why I'm always suspicious of very clean but rusty cylinder heads at swap meets. I'd rather buy a pair of dirty, greasy heads that look like they've never been touched.
Did you ever finish the 1/3 scale SBC motor? I would love to see pictures of it, and a video if it runs.
Try this: I started the build in 1997 and it first ran in 2004. This particular video was from 2010 at the Goodguys show in Pleasanton, CA. This is running engine has a cast iron block, heads, water pump and oil pump. I made double shrink patterns originally, so I flopped the working pattern from aluminum to cast iron and poured the aluminum block above in the same scale to go in the Willys.
Have you ever dynoed it to see if it puts out 1/3 the HP of a SBC? Would be interesting. That sounds so cool.
It is not a simple ratio, but the cube since it is by volume. Actually, heaven forbid it is actually a 305 in scale. Since I wet sleeved the cylinders, as I bored the fire deck for them, the material between the openings approached a dimension I did not believe could hold up to the machining. I had settled on .080" wall thickness for the cylinders, so with a 1.25" bore times 3 yields a 3.75" bore in the full size. So the 11.3 cu.in is 1/27 th of the 305. I'm happy to answer question, but I'm not sure this is the venue.
That is so frigging cool!! I wish I could afford to have one built along with a scale Muncie and Dana 60.
Every time I see those midget engines I think, jesus, those guys are the strangest of all. Dazzles me how y'all do it, I'm another who'd like to hear more about it.
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