SBC getting hard to find??? Wow!

Just got a call from my Brother. He's up at the pick-n-pull trying to get a SBC donor for me to build for his Camaro...

800+ cars, and only about a dozen SBC's in the whole yard, and all of them are junk. Wow!!!!

So I made a quick call to a friend of mine who always has a few lying around. Yea, he has a couple, but he's hanging on to them for now. 4 bolt motors with good internals are getting scarce he says... He's got a 305 he will give me... But no dice on a decent builder 350.

I honestly thought I'd NEVER see the day.

 

wow..I just got rid of 3 last year..but as your friend said the ones ive got im keeping..and the few Mopar BB engines i got too

 

I see them on Craigslist all the time, hell I have 3 in my garage right now. Granted, only 1 is a 4 bolt block. I think there are still plenty out there.

 

I got one in my shop right now... I painted it Hemi gold to make me feel better about having it.

 

Hell ,,ya fall over them round here,,4 bolts 283's old 350s

 

What size you want, I got 2 good runners 283, built 305; 1 rebuilt 265; a few great buildables (265, (2) 283's); Crate 350 w/ 350 trans

 

theres a ton of them on craigslist in my area for 100-500 bucks...

 

now that you mention it, the only 4 bolt 350 block I have is 30 years old! The supply might dry up in a few decades.

 

I've seen alot of them scrapped over the years over some minor problem. I guess they were so plentiful it was cheaper to replace then rebuild. I wonder how many went to China this summer when scrap was $10.50 per 100lb. I always spotted one one the pile. It also peaves me why junkyards keep Escorts, Taurus's,Lazers, and other crap.......I went weeks ago to one and couldn't find 2 matching 6 lug old chevy truck wheels...in a 40 yr running yard. Been several decades since a strong small block came down the line too. Factor the equation between us and the average Joe who could care less about this hobby also.........staggering !

 

the reason they are hard to find is because they have all been installed in old fords

yes , maybe good ones ready to install and run may be getting fewer , but i see good rebuilders all the time on ebay and craigslist for cheap prices . i'm talking 283's , 327's and ordinary 350's...not 4-bolts

 

might be a good thing

wait till GM goes under and then they will be even harder to find.

 

Our local junkyard has a few semi trailers full of engines and probably half are SBC's. Used to be you could get good running ones for $100 or $200 but the stock car guys around here ate all those up. Still shitloads of builder motors around though.

It's not even worth my time to pull one out if all I'm going to get for it is $100. Engines are a pain in the ass to pull out and store. That's why I only keep the really good stuff.

 

I've got a "few" of them but I have been hoarding since the mid 80's... Best bet would be to look for a mid 70's 3/4 ton chevy p/u... That's usually where I got mine from, and got em cheap...

 

Why a 4 bolt? Racer? Over 7000RPM? Cuz it sounds kool to say you got it? Those extra bolts make ZERO horsepower. Some of the most indestructable SBCs I've known were cast crank 2 bolt motors. Granted they weren't high compression/high RPM racers but they did see lots of abuse. Want race stuff, buy an aftermarket block, or one of those Jeg's/Summit ready to eat pkgs.

 

If I find em cheap I bring them home. Have several 4 bolt main 350's and 4 or 5 assorted other SBC. Not to mention YBlocks, flatheads, Nailheads, etc, etc. I was at the local PullaPart a while back and there were 8-10 assorted 60's Chevy's with 283's and 327's in them. I did not feel like pulling any of them at the time. Went back last week and they had crushed all the older cars to make room for 90's crap.

 

The Junkyards around here are empty!!! they scraped everything and keep very few cars in them now

 

I've scrapped a few recently....good blocks too.
I tend to sell off any 4 bolt blocks I get....overrated and I get more money from the uneducated for 'em....2 bolt blocks are a tad more durable in the mains anyway.

If you can't find a "buildable" sbc in America....there somethin' wrong with ya....

 

Resale value.

 

i have a 4 bolt 400. i have sittin around.

 

I am glad to see them hard to find and dont care if I ever see one again,its time for other motors.

 

the 4 bolt is also the basis for the ever popular ready to run 383 stroker motor that all the shops offer now.

 

don't agree with you, but that's okay

 

Me neither. I like the flattys, Hemi's, Nailheads and Y Blocks, but the SBCs are the backbone of the hobby (powerplant wise), and when they become scarce, all V8s will likely become very,very expensive!

 

I've got a builder 1955 265 in the classifieds right now.

 

They are not hard to find around here, I am a Ford guy but I have at least 30 SBC's in my shed with 20 of them being 4 bolt mains. I also have forty two 350 cranks with six of those being steel.

 

I saw an article in a magazine, in which you get new main caps and a drilling jig. You go from a two bolt to a four bolt with splayed bolts, actually stronger than a stock 4 bolt, which is stronger than a street motor needs in the first place.

 

Oh well, you guys will have to wait another year for the chinese 350 clones to arrive.

 

A friend of mine from Wellsburg Iowa started buying up every big block Chevy he could find back in the 70s and 80s. He would drive around small towns and see what the car dealers had sitting in the back row...He would buy complete cars with rat motors just to get the engine and trans, and paid very little. He stored them in a dry place. We called him Rat Motor Man (his driver was a '68 Impala SS 425 hp 427 with an M-22 Muncie)

If one has the space to store 'em, it wouldn't be a bad idea to start gathering up any and every V-8, just to keep 'em from going to China and coming back as a cheap piece of junk at Walmart!

 

You can still go to the Chevy dealer and get a brand new 350 crate motor for around $1,500. Swap the cam and it makes great power. I agree with most of the people on here, a different engine is cool. But if you can get a NEW engine that makes 300hp for less than $2k that's hard to beat. With the right valve covers and intake it looks vintage.

 

What, you can't buy sbc's at WalMart?