Hot Rods Built 283... anyone remember those?

I used J18y in my 283. Had 59 fuely and a 58 fuely.

 

I run a 383 with an 8-71 bds @ 12#.
Strokers are fine in my book.

 

Let me know when you get ready, a traditional build takes a special shop to work with, and not against you. I know, my 327 for my daily, that i'm doing now woulda been arguement after arguement at most shops(l79 cam, c4b intake, no pcv, 6" rod, splayed caps, ect. oh and mabey on the bottle too) , but there is a guy outside of town(monroe) that does great machine work and doesnt try to sell you on HEI, aluminum heads, modern cams, or any other stuff, infact i personally think he's a machinest, but not a great engine builder, tell him what you want and it'll come back how you want it, but dont expect advice, and he does quality work for good prices out of his small garage.

I'm saying this because on my model T i went around with a couple shops trying to get quotes on putting oversized valves in '57 power pacs, and i got stuff like "run a modern cam instead and it'll make more power" or " just get a set of modern alum heads, they are cheap and you can paint and grind the castings to match" or " we could build a nice 383 for the price of a 283" or "I dunno why you'd want that, it'd be pricy..... how pricy?..... I dunno a grand" Whereas i told him about it and he said yea we can do it and seemed to act like it wasnt a hassle

 

18??!! Man, you wouldn't want to do any sustained WOT with THOSE in there! Back when I ran Champions, I ran 10s on the street! Even Champion recommended 12's for the factory lo-po bread & butter 283s! I guess you sure wouldn't ever have to worry about them fouling anyway...

 

My friend popped his 283 in his C10 one night when we were doing some nasty burnouts like a couple of kids. I found another one on Craigslist. Turns out it was a guy we used to work with selling it and he was more or less cleaning out his garage. $150 later we had a 283, '58 block with '62 (possibly truck?) heads, 327/350 horse cam. He's been driving it for 3 years now almost daily with no problems. Impressive pull out of a little cube motor.

 

The hardest part of a 283 is the head chamber size needs to be super small(small displacement, small cc's) and the cam needs to be smaller than what most places sell(a 283 needs less air than a 350 with the same heads/valves) other than that it is standard chevy stuff. Honestly the 283 has almost a perfect rod lenght ratio, and a bullet proof set up for serious rpms

Little tech tip for you guys, there are 2 differerent small journal connecting rods, one is 265/early 283 and the other is late 283 and small journal 327, the late one of course is beefier and better. Also with the prices of this stuff, they are almost free( i might have a free obo, set or 2 if someone local wants to upgrade)

Anouther tip, the webbing on small joural blocks is supposed to be a weak link, but raceengineering.com has bearing spacers for putting a beefy forged small journal crank in a large joural block..... Just think of this, a 307 block with a forged heavy duty 283 crank, making a large journal 283!!! or like my 302, vette 283 crank in a 350 block!

 

Ran 4:46's in the Halibrand with a T 10 4 speed. It was the perfect gear. It was turning around 6200 in the lights. With the Isky roller and injection, the gear had to come down to 5:34. With that set up the ET's dropped to mid 11's at 7000 through the lights. When I broke a rod, it was bored to 301", Rochester swapped for Hilborns, and the RR8000 Isky was replaced with the latest 550 roller grind. Finally worked that combo down to 11.06 at just under 124 running ballast for legal class weight. Best without all the added weight was 10.86. At that point, with the trend to narrow rims, and ultra low air pressure, the car was hooking so good, the clutch needed replacing after about 8 runs. Another reason why the car was retired. Thought about an Art Carr Clutchflite, but by that time, the weight for class B was droped drastically, and tube frames were legal. I didn't want to destroy the car as a real street legal roadster, so racing was over.

 

Thanks Dean, thats about what I was figuring on. Good info.

 

Pretty sure 31Vicky was talking about the "factory 283 stroker" = the 307 (327 crank+283 block)

 

283 overbored is what I ran in my B/A.

 

283's are great little mills- the Rochester injected 283/283 runs the best with autolite plugs as others have said.

 

Seemed the logical one omitted from the 283,327, _ , 302 chain didnt it ?

 

Have a 327 short block and a 283 block sitting in the garage.Fresh 283 crank and rebuilt 461 camelbacks as well.
The plan was to use the 283 crank in the 327,drop on the heads along with maybe a 30/30 cam to motivate a '55 Chevy sitting in the shed
May happen...may not. I never seem to dedicate the time for it.

 

I ran a 350 steel crank 10-1 comp bow tie 2.02 heads, comp 292 cam 501 lift, shifted around 68-7200 rpm, Motorcraft equivalent of an r43 ran the best. Used a dual point for a few months then switched to a unilite, ran a lot smoother up high. Changed plugs every 2 weeks. No reason to take chances on old plugs when street racing.

 

I also had bad luck running AC 45s in my old 327....350 HP. TRied a new set of ACs in it and it ran great for about an hour........Put autolites in it and it ran great till I eventually sold it about a year later!
Ran a bone stock 220 HP 283 in my 66 impala [ 3 speed with 3.36 rear gears] and LOVED it!

 

Small engines need all the CR they can get. 283's had 60cc heads, the 461's have 64cc's; you may have lost some CR there, but with a .060 overbore, you might have got most of it back. 601, 305 heads have 53 cc chambers, while it's the 416, 305 heads that have 58cc's. Some of the 265 heads had roughly 56cc heads. The bigger port heads can also lead to fuel coming out of suspension, and washing the cylinder walls down, unless you've got your foot in it ALL the time. I really think your valve sizes are too big also. This gives you guys a better idea of what to play with for these small CID engines. I'm guessing flat top, 4 valve relief pistons, that are probably rebuilder type with .020 taken off the tops, and then was the block decked? These things can reflect lower CR also. I'm assuming you have good rings and valve guides? Done a leakdown test or compression test just to see what they might be. Other than that, it's an ignition problem such as the plugs already suggested, weak coil, etc. Just my 2 bits. Butch/56sedandelivery.

 

Butch, if your post was meant for me then here's my best stab at an accurate answer... Like I said the motor sat for twelve years in the basement before I did anything with it and by then my brother had forgotten all that he had done to it. The heads are straight plug, 2.02-1.60 valve, tapered plug heads. Two big humps cast into them. Passenger side has a ps stamped into it. I think they're 461 but I should really pull a valve cover to see. I've been drivin it occasionally with no problems, just an occasional fouled plug which I'd clean and put back. The original intention of this thread was to get opinions of those who'd ran a similar combo and get a different set of plugs that wouldn't foul like the accels were. I have tested compression, less than 1000 miles ago and they were all around 150. 147-150 I think to be more exact. The plugs however were not the problem. Fuel pressure was. Last night I watched fuel being displaced from the inline filter to the carb. Bubbles and all.
So.... I put a regulator on, with a naive hope that it would solve the problem but alas, it didn't. What it did do was mask the leak a few hours so that it seemed like it was running good enough to test drive. Long story short- my 95 ram towed it home. Now I am tryin to decide between rebuilding the carb for the second time this year or... Let it sit until I get a new carb, or let it sit until I have more time and money to devote to it.