I have always liked '56 Chevys. I've had a few over the years, the last was a Nomad that got sacrificed in the late '80s. A buddy decided to thin out his herd and offered me his '56 210 for a decent price so I bit the bullet and bought it. So far it's bitchin'. It has the usual SBC for power and it runs great. He didn't know exactly what it was, so I jotted down the ID numbers and hit up my favorite engine ID website. No matches found. Hmmm. The numbers stamped on the pad are 11L129819 and T0118CCC. The block/pad is painted but the numbers are pretty clear. Can anyone tell me what it is? Or direct me to a good Chevy ID website? Thanks.
They like power pack heads and a mid 70's Z28 spec cam and small 4 barrel though. Basically a stroked 283 with factory parts.
Never saw one that went bad unless the owner/user purposely abused it. Sips gas if not modded too heavy, easy on the wallet, even used in trucks for 6 figure miles without fail. There's a bad thing about them though. Absolutely no "romance" about it since it was a bread n butter engine, but it does have a 327 crank in it.
It seems to me 307 has been the ugly stepsister of SBC's only because it was introduced in the early days of smog motors and suffered from low performance as a result of the poor cam, carb/ignition specs. But, being an SBC, it should be able to be capable of ordinary SBC virtues with simple upgrades. Is that not true? Ray
I have a steel 3.25 lj crank downstairs that came out of a 307 in a Canadian built 1/2 ton pick-up...
Absolutely true. It's sort of like hopped up later 305s. They got 350 cranks and you just work around the small bore. Some of those combos will make shocking TQ/HP.
I worked in a Chevy dealer and replaced MANY 307 camshafts, blocks, crankshafts (broken) and complete engines due to inferior metals and excessive wear. The 305 is a completely different setup.
I like the 307 I have in my '38 Ford pickup, got it for free. Came out of a low mileage '68 GMC pickup that had been used on a farm and was beat up and rusted to pieces. Engine only had about 30,000 on it. The ones in pickups got a better cam, I think, because it is a strong pulling engine. The ones in cars had a nylon tooth cam gear, and they were bad about jumping time and chewing up the nylon gear. A good double roller timing set fixes that. I expected to find the nylon gear when I took the timing cover off, but it had a steel camshaft gear. I did put the new double roller timing set on it since I'd already bought it.
Fwiw, I will step over a 305 while packing a 307 out the door. It's only because the 307 has a 3-7/8" bore vs the 305 that is a schosh under 3-3/4". Slightly better breathing and the shorter stroke 307 will rpm a tad easier imho. pdq67
Ditto, well said sir. I wouldn't build a 305 on a bet, and why would anyone give a shit 50 yrs later if 307s (and 350s, in those years) had soft cams??
For the record, I didn't mean to tout the shear brute force (color indicative of excess sarcasm) of a warmed up 305, rather, if those turds can be well built (they can) then a 307 could be considered an even better choice. Sorry about the mistake in context. Carry on yo...
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