Technical 402 Cubic Inches From A 283?

When I was looking for a set of 8 rods I found 6 .912 piston pin rods C5TE and a lot of later .975 C5TE rods which I used the later E3TE rods are not as heavy but same bearing and .975 pin size.

 

chek out dem crank prices over at C RO W E R --->
http://www.crower.com/crankshafts.html?cat=349&p=2

 

How much would the estimated price if a short block done like that be today? One price doing it like they did it, another price doing it with some of the modern parts, starting with a 283 block? The Crower prices above put the crank alone in the $3k range.

 

What about using the 327 block with a 4 in bore already? Didn't some of them share a casting number with 283?

 

You can buy a Scat forged 4" crank for around $600 put it in a 350 block And you've got a start.

 

You'd probably need to Buy a new block also because I don't know of any 327 or 350 blocks that won't need at least a little boring before being rebuilt. However an Engine builder friend of mine tells me a 307 (same bore as a 283) can be bored .125 over and they are dirt cheap because nobody want's them but you'll want to sonic check the block first.

 

Did that.

 

We punched a lot of 307s to 327 over the years.

The 307 actually has a pretty good crank ( generally) believe it or not, they will take revs way farther then they should with proper setup and balancing. If someone wants to build a short stroke 350 and has a good 400 block or wants to build a 327/331 and has a good 350 block they are a cheap way to go. I would not throw squeeze or boost at one though.

 

There was at least one different 400 inch 283 back when...I saw the article on it in one of the small East coast mags. I believe the builder was Iossa here in New Jersey. I do not remember the dimensions, will post'em next time the random havoc of my collection brings me and that magazine together again...
This one was done with huge bore-out and wet sleeves; the article included a shot of the bore before the sleeves went in, and the surviving metal at the top was essentially a jagged row of stalactites of iron with everything below about an inch down just air. It seemed like a disaster of structural loss to me...I don't know if it was raced or anything. Just a datum point.
I'd bet there were a lot of beyond-352 283's attempted...by 1957, everyone had realized that the SBC was capable of lots more power than seemed reasonable, and everyone must have dreamed of a really big one!

 

As I recall one of the biggest hurdles in building one that big was getting the bore to 4 inches..A lot of the earlier blocks experienced the same problems as Ford flatheads in regard to core shift when casting. A second downside was the loss of potential rpm peak with a long stroke motor. Remember that was what made the SBC so popular;it's ability to rev higher than anything else on the market at the time(V-12 Ferraris exempted).
As for the price of the billet crank;I remember helping a friend of mine put together a 394 Olds engine(in a 61 Starfire)that featured a 1/8th overbore and a 1/2 inch stroker crank for 475 cubic inches. The crank was a Mickey Thompson nodular iron crank(featuring center counterweights)and the then new Step Lock aluminum rods. The entire assembly cost $645 plus shipping($30) from New England Speed Equipment in Boston.
It was far from a bolt-in either. One side assembled nicely and the other side the rods not only hit the bottoms of the cylinder walls but the piston skirts were hitting the crankshaft counterweights. Had to pull it back apart and grind the bottoms of the cylinders(thankfully we didn't strike water) and the piston skirts and then have the whole thing re-balanced.
The thing ran beautifully with a Dempsey Wilson roller cam and Mallory Mini-Mag and two E series AFB's on an Edelbrock Competition manifold. Didn't rev much but had enough torque to pull down large trees. Surprised a lot of people with it back in the Starfire.
I got the engine years later and installed it in a 50 Olds sedan and surprised a WHOLE lot more people.

 

Adjusting for inflation $600.00 in 1960 had the same buying power as $4,792.08 in 2015. Annual inflation over this period was 3.85%.

 

Bruce, was it possibly Chevy Power Magazine?
Do you recall the general time period?
I have a bunch of them, but like you, mine are also in quite a mish mash.

 

Long before Chevy power. Probably not far from 1960. I won't know much until I trip over it again!

 

Speed Gems and 'Beaner, you guys just made my day. My newly acquired '56 Chebby has a 307 in it, nice to know that when the time comes there may be an alternate plan for it besides being a boat anchor!
I'm wondering if anyone has done the big bore/long rod/short stroke 350 lately, using currently available parts. Seems like a good idea considering the cost and poor quality of gas these days. With a little update/improvement in the heads and cam that combo should make 450 horses on regular gas. Nice hot rod motor.

 

Was it this one @Bruce Lancaster

 

377, 400 block 350 crank with spacer bearings is a solid proven combo that will Rev like mad. Could do the same with a 327 large journal. I've never built one, just worked on a few circle track cars with them, great on tracks with longer straights.

 

Just be aware that there are risks, just like with going to 3 3/8 or 3 7/16 in a flathead...
Vizard said that going to 4 in a 307 carried a 10% risk of sudden death, and of course there was a significant death rate with 4" 283's too.
No, that's not the article...certainly at least 10 years older, and in one of those East Coast magazines that no one can quite remember the title of.

 

The problem with using a 400 block today is that thick bearings are hard to come by, I think if I rattled enough cages I could probably find a set but that is a crap shoot at best. Spacers work but they have a tendency to make hot spots on the insert. I think you have to make your own these days as well.

I am not sure that I would go the 307 crank to build a dedicated race motor. I had a buddy @ GMPP back in the '90s that said that some of the 307 cranks were exceptional, normally found in truck motors but he didn't manage to tell me how you could tell which ones were better then the others. That said I would not hesitate to use one for a street/strip motor. Most of the fellas here never spin a motor to 7K and certainly not for prolonged periods of time and properly set up a lower end using a cast crank will work fine for short blasts occasionally.

Well probably a discussion for another day. I need to double check a thing or two then it is out to the backyard garage to make more insanity.

 

I guess I can't warm up to the whole 307 debate, mostly because all I can picture is someone's grandma's 69 four door Malibu, unlike "The little ol lady from Pasadena".
I also understand the logical side of the debate, and the 307's bad reputation is due in part to the sour camshafts (soft) GM used and two barrel carburators.
Never owned a 307, but it kinda boils down to the numbers, just put the right combination of parts together, understand those parts' limitations' and your level of "risk aversion", and invest the $$$ your're comfortable in losing when it all comes pouring out the sde of the oil pan when those limitations are exceeded.
Thinking back to when I was just a "lurker" here, I recalled a quite lengthy discussion about the 307 engine and all it's negatives, but the OP of this thread was obviously well versed on this matter and put together a pretty convincing body of evidence touting the virtues of the lowly 307 engine. Not really focussed on the meat of this current thread, but it's still a good read.
Here: http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/threads/puttin-perfume-on-a-pig-307-tech.45615/

 

Hmmm...looks like Porknbeaner is trying to push back the margins of Human knowledge and head for the final frontier. My guess...he's realized that the limit of displacement for a 283 is bounded by those 8 little iron circles!
Limits set by imaginations limited to the insights of Otto and Benz 150 years ago!
My speculation of what is going on in his secret bunker of mechanical insanity:
He has burst through the limits by doing his bore job on a huge vertical mill, exterminating those barriers and giving the 283 a SINGLE BORE on each side, a bore measuring (my guesstimate) about 5" by 21"! The cure for all those little circles turns out to be AN OVAL!! The necessary wet sleeve will be made by crushing a city sewer pipe in a hydraulic press! CSC will churn out a special 4" crank, one with all the rod throws in a SINGLE LINE, an army of 4 connecting rods hanging on to each huge piston!! Presto...a V TWIN Chevy, displacing roughly...oops, I drooled all over the geometry page in my manual and can't read the blasted oval formulae.
Anyway, the available displacement will rock the earth on each power stroke, and lift the car off the ground on the exhaust stroke!

 

This thread was an interesting read for the last few days. I guess all that can be said, has been said.
That was the "jump the shark" moment!

 

Could the magazine have been Cars?

 

WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY COOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL THANKS!!!!!!

 

I haven't come across the how to stroke a 283 out to 482" inches yet but last night i found this article posted in the heritage Gas thread by @Junior Stock on how to buld a 467" engine from a 283 in the '62 ENGINES magizine.

 

1964

Hello,

The question was put on a thread earlier. The safe bet back in the late 50s and early 60s was to be able to have a motor that was deemed safe and could run well on the street and at the local, Lion’s Dragstrip. The Reath Automotive builders and Joe Reath told us that if we wanted to stay with a carburetor powered 283 SBC block, they could help out. They recommended the 1/8th bore and a 3.5 inch stroke.

They had already made several of their famous stroked crank kits for SBC motors, for street and the drags. Some were already in competition and several were on the street. Later on, we knew of one of our friends that was rumored to have such a 352 c.i. stroked motor from Reath.

At the time we were in our 283 SBC Stromberg carburetor stage and a stroked crank motor was a strong possibility. So, after a few months, the opportunity was brought up and Joe Reath told us the most they would recommend for a supercharged SBC motor was an .060 over for a 292 c.i. size. With their help, we moved on to the 292 bore size and started gathering all of our blower spec parts to accommodate the large 671 supercharger we just bought.

All of this was a necessity since we were given a new Isky Gilmer Belt Drive just put out for Chevy SBC motors. It came with an Edlebrock Manifold. We were now in business with a powerful, but safe motor.

Jnaki

But, over the years, motor size always came to the forefront. Our neighbor had a z-28 with 302 motor that was plenty fast going down PCH along the empty coastal areas. But, what of the 56 Chevy with the large motor? Thoughts of how big an SBC block could be started plenty of conversations and in the Drag News, there were plenty of bits of information.

Recently, several things popped up that made those old days come back alive again.
1965
“The small block Chevrolet, either in normally aspirated with 100% nitromethane or blown on about 25% nitro, were still considered a reasonable alternative. To win, the "little" (a misnomer since they often sported more cid than their competitors) Chevys had to be kept extremely light. Their winning came often on holeshots or because the power drunk Chryslers spun their rear tires to extremes. Chevys spun their tires at the start, but within a few hundred feet, that smoke dried up and a good driver could hold on to the finish line before the Chryslers made up ground.” WDIFL

 

Wow, all the money, time and work and all for 402 cubes from a SBC...when all you have to do is use a 402 C.I. Buick, Olds or Pontiac.........

 

4.185 bore .. 4” stroke …440+… “looks” like a 283 on the outside… all iron ….good enough for me.

 

Sure. The thread really started on how these combos were done BITD before the larger CID engines came around.

Have any interesting bore stroke combo examples? Most require owning a machine shop yourself

 

Kerns engine built a big-inch sb. They used what looked like a 1/2 spacer between the block and head. I think for a longer bore. RLS

 

$600 was a lot of money in 1960. That same crank would cost at $3,000-$6,000 today. Nothing special about those Buick rods, though. Considering what he paid for the crank, he either ran out of money for the rods, or there was nothing better available. I'm sure there were better, cheaper options available for more cubic inches in 1960. Whatever floats your boat/spins your wheels.