307 chevy fans ?

sorry...not much love here... I had ( sorta ) built one in my 3rd street stock car ( as a 17 year old kid ) had a chevelle with 70 ish thousand miles, that the cam was bad... so I cleaned everything up, & put a new "3/4" cam in the engine, got the chassis ready, motor was running really good, put fresh paint on the car, & then threw a rod out the bottom end, putting it on the trailer going to the track the 1st time...

I know, there are all kinds of things I probably didn't do right... my 3rd car, but the 1st motor I did any work to ( in those days, you ran what the car had, as equiped ) my 1st was a 63 Buick Lesabre with a 455 Wildcat... a great car to learn in, as fast as anything on the track at the time, & heavy enough, that I didn't get pushed around... 2nd was a 66 Mustang with a 289... too light, was always pounding out the body... I drove the Buick one year, then passed it on to my 13 year old brother, drove the Mustang for 1 year, & it was beat to crap... built the Chevelle only to drag up & down the driveway, never making it to the track... anyway... it was probably all my fault ( though I never had the bottom end apart ) but I have a sour taste in my mouth, when I think of 307's... yet the 283, gives me a smile, & is another story... I think there are probably enough people with memories & storys like mine with the 307, that it has the reputation it does...

 

Built one a few years ago for a WISSOTA mid west mod using stock rods and crank JE 9.5:1 pistons, angle milled 441 casting heads custom ground cam with a stock a 055 manifold and holley 4412 carb we made 365 H.P. with a set of cross over headers running 98% ethanol

 

The only large journal steel cranks came out of the 68' corvette and c60 and larger trucks.

 

I have a 307 in an OT '69 Nova. 86K miles on the car and it still runs perfect. Took it on HRPT in 2010 and averaged over 22 mpg with the PG trans. For straight highway cruising and weekend cruise-nite cars, they're fine.
Yeah, I have a 283, a couple of 350s, a 327 and a 450 HP 454 if I wanna tear up the place, but for normal driving I have NO PROBLEM with the stock 307.

 

Hmmm. Interesting... I OWN a large journal steel 3.25 crank that came out of a 307 that my brother PERSONALLY pulled out of a black '68 chevy long box 1/2 ton pu. And I saw the truck. So I guess I gotta call bullshit on that one. Oh wait, Maybe it was a "corvette" 307...

 

Had a 307 in a 72' nova i drove when i was in college.....However i stuck a rod through the bottom of the oil pan on the way home one day.....Replaced with a 327.

 

Its pretty rare to toss a rod out the bottom unless something is wrong or you've been whooping on it really hard (which by the way creates something wrong)

Do you guys attribute that to some strange voodooism of rod ratio or bore to stroke ratio of the 307?

 

That could be a possibility. Speaking of 'Voodoo' my Lunati voodoo cam'd 316 (307+.60) 305 H.O. headed, deep dual plane, Holley 600 vac, powers the Bubble top quite nicely. Matching components to intended purpose (daily driver with some umph) nets maximum power. I'd do another one in a 'heart beat' (d!) fer sure.

 

Well if a rod let loose and that resulted in a 307 turn off it must be something.
More than likely it was teen age foolishness.

They had steel shim gaskets and 0.04 ish quench from the factory. Now if some cam grindings were going at the bearings, or timing gear pieces doing the same,,,,, see where that's going? At high rpms with loose bearing the piston could kiss the head.

Or running lean on the top end ,,,,

Funny thing is, engine doesn't always let go when the damage is done. It may be over reved today and not fly apart till next month. Folks forget about the abuse and when it let's go they are acting normal.

 

I had a couple novas with 307s ran decent one had cam and 4bbl headers other was stock 2bbl, duals and turbo mufflers. suprised more than one stock 5.0 stang at old hang outs (they didnt like losing to the 4dr). Never got why people didnt care for them never gave me any trouble.

 

Ooops, my bad i was thinking 327's NOT 307's

Sent from my DROID device using the TJJ mobile app

 

It seems no one wanted the cast "327" cranks in the engines I was selling. They were decent standard size,but a guy building a good engine is gonna get the crank machined.So a lot of guys will just use a 350 crank,get the extra cubes and be done with it.

 

Even a 307/327 cast crank can handle 5800-6200 rpm if it's balanced and prepped right...

 

Yes, i remember them as dogs. But you cana teach dogs new tricks. I wonder if anyone ever put a 305 or 350 crank in one, to get more stroke? I'm just thinking off the top of my head here, but maybe a set of 400 rods would keep the pistons below the deck with 350 crank. I know it's not an optimal arangement, but for a street driven car, if might work well enough?

 

Ha! Try more like 7500+

 

Got one with a good bottom end, rebuilt mid '70s with no miles (maybe 1000) since. Good compression with the factory heads. New cam and a free set of 305 heads will be installed and ready to go for spring. Got a 3-2 setup that I might as well run as let sit.... setting it up to run hwy speed with 3.78 rear gears, so the sweet spot will need to be in the 3200-3400 range. Thinking it gonna be all I need, and cheap is even better.

 

had one in a bone stock 70 c10. good power, very reliable, I have an extra low mileage one that I will use just as soon as I have a need for it. they are not hot motors just smooth , reliable , and generally fine usable everyday type engine.

 

I don't think I would twist a "cast" crank that high up on the rpm range... Maybe if I was using synthetic oil....

 

I would, and have...

 

Got the little engine fired up today.
Broke it in, got it all dialed in.
Sounds awesome , runs perfect, couldn't be happier.
Very responsive on the throttle.

I fired it on 100 octane cam 2 fuel, there's no pinging, runns cool as a cucumber. I'm going to add some 87 and bring the octane mix down to about 93 and see how it does on pump gas.

 

Nice!! What cam did you go with? Getting ready to order, and I'm on the fence.

I've got a good rebuilt 307 lower end and a set of stock 305 heads. I'm running 3.78 gears with no O.D., so I need it to run in the 3200 - 3400 rpm range all day to keep up.

 

I went with a comp XE 262 straight up and matching springs, steel shim head gaskets. Pulls 10 inches of vacuum at idle. Nice lope 185 cranking compression. Was 140 stock.

 

185, sounds like you nailed the cam selection. Good job.

 

well guys ive been wanting to build this glass willys ive got for awhile now.ive just now decided im gonna build this 307 ive got in the floor for it.this car being super lite already that 307 should make it a nice little screamer.stay off my ass about the glass.i cant afford a steel willys to build.!! but i got it and its just sittin in the shop with a 307 in the floor so.....here we go!

 

We used to run .060 over 307 blocks with a steel large journal 327 crank in D.I.R.T. 318 Sportsman Class(See the 12 car in my Avatar).
With a good set of heads they made a surprising amount of power and were cheap to build.Less than $2000 to put one together in the late 70's.

 

i built a 327 using a 307 crank and 350 block. lots of fun.

 

Thanks man.
I just did some investigation and used available free software to pick it.
Any hot rod would be proud to have an engine to runs like this one.

 

Great, thanks! Glad to know I was on the right track. It was between the XE 262 and a 268H I was leaning to the 262, glad to have some confirmation.

 

I use Performance Trends Engine Analyzer Pro the same way. Tweak the intake closing point and mech. compression ratio to get the cranking compression to where I want it on the computer, go from there.

 

Had it out in the parking lot under its own power.
All I can say is WOW!!
This thing runs so nice. Really responsive on the throttle, Revs up FAST and back down to idle almost as fast as you move your foot. It sounds awesome and just plain flat out bad ass!
Its extremely powerful for its cubes. Just a little throttle will slip the tires, a little more and up they go. 150' burnout and I wasn't even trying.
Very happy.

I have to get a you tube up but I've never done that. If I have time to figure it out I will, us there a help for YouTube?