So I finally got around to rebuilding a '63 260 I picked up a few years ago. I had the heads on my work bench to lap the valves and put new seals in when I noticed the combustion chambers appear different. Both have casting numbers C30E. I'm pretty confused... Is it possible they are different cc's? I did some googling and saw listings for heads that have suffix letters after the C30E but mine do not. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Well, it's pretty obvious they're different. The 'C3OE' casting number is pretty generic, that merely identifies these as being '63 parts off a Fairlane engine (the 'O' being the Fairlane identifier, the 'E' for engine), this partial number won't differentiate between a 221, 260, or 289, or a six or V8 for that matter. I would suspect that one head was replaced somewhere along the line, either with a junkyard head or maybe a service part. Check the CCs and the valve sizes, I suspect one of those is for a 221. You really need a matched set.....
That's kind of what I was thinking. Pretty lame. What's the easiest way to check CCs? The valves are the same size.
Yep, Like Steve said. C3OE is simply the raw casting number. What was actually machined from said casting into a finished product could vary a lot. You need a measuring kit. A cheap one will involve a large syringe and a couple of plexi-glass plates.
You can get a syringe at most any farm store, and rigid sheet clear plastic at craft stores (think cheap picture frame). Use a bit of grease to seal the plastic to the head, and drill a small hole at one edge of the plastic for filling with liquid. It appears you have one 221 head and one 260. Are you sure you have a 260? The 221 has a 3.5" bore, the 260 is 3.8". Finding a matching head may be tough these days, you can use a later 289/302 set of heads on a 260 but be aware of both chamber size and the differences in the valve train.
The Jalopy Journal
