Which 283 can go .125??

I had heard from an oldtimer once that some of the 283's could be punched a full 1/8". He said if you popped a frost plug out and couldn't stick a pencil between the cylinders these were the ones that could be bored. Any truth to this????

 

Dunno about the freeze plug trick, But i was told it was the early ones... '57~'62ish.

Be carefull & have it Sonic tested, Those Cylinders arent as thick as they were in the '60s due to rust & corrosion

 

We have the parts to do one here, but yes, sonic test your combo to see if it will work.

 

on some of the 283 you could thats how they made the small journal 302. the 283 that i'm referring to is rare and came in chevelles in mid and early 60's

 

i have one stashed i bought a few years ago.....was fresh and bagged in 72 or so....with brand new 11 to 1 302 pistons.....needs new rings from sitting but for the price ....i couldn't replace the pistons.... going to tomorrow to try and deal on a pair of older bowtie phase 2's for it....the block is a 61 ....possibly corvette....or maybe even a "rare" truck block..... brandon

 

Grumpy Jenkins told me 62. I think that means 62 and up. In 62 they made them with the same water jackets as a 327. It's basically a 327 with a sj crank and a smaller bore.

 

Me thinks since tomorrow is half-price day at the old Pick & Pull, I'll give the old frost plug trick the eyeball... there's two 283's in the yard. Gotta check 'em for forged cranks, anyway. 'Course, that's after I snag the 400 SBC (509 block) nobody else seems to have found ))

 

All small blocks had forged cranks from '55-'63.

 

Mines a 63 block. I wouldn't mind takin it out to the 4.o inch bore.

 

I had a 59 block out of a vette, Paid $10.00 for a rebuilder bored it to 4" and drove the p--s out of it for 13 years with no problems. It went 6000+ hundreds and hundreds of times, and still served as dependable transportation.

 

around 57-64 we built a lot of these, they were called 301,s then.

 

66 nova blocks are sought after for super stock motors, very thick and high nickel.. willl easily go 301 or even 327 inch, or use a 307 piston and a 327 crank and you get a stump pulling 316

 

283 Chevs have been punched 1/8" for 50 years now - thin blocks are so rare that I certainly wouldn't worry.

 

307 piston with a 327 crank is a 307. Stock 307's have the 283 bore and a 327 stroke. 316 sounds more like a 60 over 307 which would be the same thing as a 283 bored 60 over with 60 over 307 pistons and a 327 crank.

 

I heard some thing about this from an old timer that i know.He told me that early Canadian 283's could go 125 plus 60 .I have no idea if its true or not since he gets carried away when he has had a few beers...

 

I'm no help here.. but i'm buying a 283 so i'll check the numbers and check back here for more info! haha..
-Anthony

 

Personally I wouldnt bore a 283 block any farther than what it took to clean it up. 283 blocks are getting more rare every day. Bore it .030 if it will go then it can be bored .060 later and run another 100,000+ miles. If you want a 301 then find a small journal 327 block that will bore and use the 283 crank. .030 over would then make it a 306 and .060 over would be 310 cu. You have to pay a premium for the pistons for this combo too if you can find them.

 

the chevyII 283 are the ones to look for so are the as said 65-67 chevyII 327's

 

The pencil trick is memory drift from another engine...that applied to early 396's, some of which could be bored to 427.

 

Well hell, since nobody else seems to have anything more then speculation and "Uncle Jim's best friend's cousin once said..."
I've heard it was the truck blocks, and '62 was the last year for the thick wall castings.
And I'm hanging onto the 283 from my '62 Suburban for just this reason! But like a couple other people said, I wouldn't punch it out more than needed to clean up...what's the benefit? 301ci is smaller than 305, 307 and 327. Higher RPM? Well, a 283 bored .30 will rev that high. For the extra 11 or 12 inches you'd get, I can't see the benefit. Especially since we're not racing heads-up these days. Back then, every little bit helped because it was all heads-up, and if you were half a tenth slower than the competition, you went on the trailer.
-Brad

-Brad

 

why? I'd find another block. the walls will be pretty thin

 

The motor will make just as much power at .060 over due to cylinder flex, although I ran a lot of 301's back in the old days. DO NOT use a turboglide crank, the pilot bearing hole is a different size {larger}

 

283 aren't too rare i have 6 of them and 1 is original to my 58 apache and another is original to my 64 bel air

 

the reason to punch out the 283 is to have the bore of a 350 and the high winding of 283. i've built a couple and the 302 is mean engine.

 

the chevy 2 blocks are worth way to much to restorers these days. nice thing about those blocks is they can't be "faked" the location of the oil filter tells all. last 3 283 nova cores i had netted $800 each and the 327's were being fought over at $1000. the ones i had had been sitting in storage and were left with a pile of junk that i cleaned out years ago. anything chev 2 is worth dragging home

 

If you do run across a Turboglide engine, the last I knew, NAPA still sold a conversion bushing in their Balkamp line to use a standard transmission with it.

 

For those of you who want to find a Chevy II block ... look at the oil filter boss ... it is recessed back up into the block.

The Chevy II block was also the first SBC to get a spin on oil filter from the factory. They also have the clutch Z bar mount in a different location.

 

The most desirable 3 7/8 bore blocks were 62 to 67 chevy 2 blocks had a cast no of 62.. this was cast on the side of the block. They had a thicker webbing in the main brg area and the lifter area. Grumpy Jenkins said that was the best one to build. I had one that we bored to 4 inch 1500 laps 2 rebuilds later we cleaned it up to 4 plus 030.. It blew a rod out the side in about another 500 laps. I hope this clears up the 62 part.. Bobby..

 

this is not 283 but factory 4 inch bore blocks. gm made these blocks with intentional variation in the thickness of the cyl water wall jacket.. this is worst on no 8 and no 1 distorts the least. the 4 inch do not have constant thickness. so as was said by mtkawboy that cyl wall flex will kill power... All 283s have constant thickness.. In later years on the dyno I have a 283 60 over make more power than a Z28 302 everything else the same but blocks and bore size and main brg size. I was a long time ago more than 10 HP differance and the torque was almost the same.

 

I don't know why everyone does it the hard way.

Buy a 327 small journal block and use the 283 crank. Then you can just buy oversize (i.e 4.030) pistons.