I hate small block Chevys

[freebird12345687]

Yup you read it right, sacreligious or not i despise them with a passion. I honestly do feel that small chryslers and even small block fords (ducking) are far superior pieces. Plese someone fuel my hatered with input. i wouldn't put a 350 in a Chevy.

[DPelleti]

I consider most small block chevys to be boring. Sure you can make decent power with them, but there are so many more interesting engines to choose from my eyes glaze over looking at yet another small block chevy powered street rod.
Despite this, the Chevy small block is a decent motor and some of them are truly worthy of respect - for example;
- 327 L-79
- 302DZ Z-28
- 350 Corvette/Camaro LT-1

The LT-1 is the pinacle of small block chevy development. With its forged crank, 4 bolt mains, 11:1 compression, 2.02 heads, solid lifters, aluminum intake and 780 Holley, the LT-1 is worthy of respect.
I am a big block kind of guy, but when I made a list to go musclecar hunting, one of the only small blocks on my list of 25 cars was a 1970 1/2 Z-28 LT-1 with an M-22 rockcrusher and 12 bolt posi rear.
The LT-1 is at the very top of the small block "musclecar" horsepower list along with the likes of the 340 Mopar and W-31 Olds.

Cheers,
Dave

[freebird12345687]

I agree with you on those 3 but i do have some comments no those. Aside from 327's which i feel are Chevrolet's best small block ever, the 302 was so limited in its run i don't feel it should be counted, jsut my opinion. 302 was said to have made 400 horsepower however the RPM at which this came about was so high and it made no low end torque, aside from a road racing stndpoint its pretty useless such is why it was replaced byt the 327 in the Camaro. The LT-1 is impressive but lets look at it this way, 11:1 compression no good for todays pump juice, solid cam who wants to readjust there valvetrain everyday, and think about this. What if the mean 340 had 11:1 compression and a solid cam? It woulda owned that LT-1. I think that a 340 powered A-body would have nailed a LT-1 camaro anyway. (340 dusters were tested as fast as 14 seconds flat in the 1/4 with 3.23 rear ends and 3 speed manuals using the 14 inch tire/rim combo) A 4 speed and a set of 3.55's or 3.91's and a 4 speed you could have easily seen 13.5's or so. It just escapes me the fact that Chevy had to use such aggressive cams and massive heads to make any power when our mopars were whipping them on a weekly basis using slightly warmed over smog heads and hydraulic cams. Yet everyone insists they're the best thing since sliced bread. Just my opinion.

[DPelleti]

Some good points. A couple of comments;

- a 302DZ may have made 400hp in full race trim, but not stock (see below) It definitely suffered from a lack of low end, but hey what do you expect, it's only a 302.
- The 327 didn't replace the 302, in fact the 327 was made first. The 302 was a combo of a 327 block and a 283 crank to get 302 cubic inches which was required for SCCA's maximum 305ci displacement limit. The Boss 302 was made for the exact same rules.
- I agree with you that the 340 is an awesome engine and that it produced some fearsome numbers despite relatively mellow stats.

In closing, I'll quote from Musclecar Magazines list of small block engines;

- #1 tie - 350 LT-1: 360hp Boss 351: 360hp
- #2 Olds 350 W-31: 350hp
- #3 Ford 351 4v Cleveland: 340hp
- #4 Mopar 340 4bbl: 320hp
- #5 tie - Boss 302: 310hp 302DZ Z-28: 310hp

Note these are supposed to be the real hp ratings; factory ratings were often incorrect.

Dave

[freebird12345687]

I realize that the 327 was made first, what i was geting at is thats why the 327 or was it 350? that replaced the 302 in the Z28 package. And about those ratings, i've seen stock 340's do too many things i.e. run off from a boss 429 uphill to beleive that 320 horsepower was really waht it was rated at. I think its a prime example of lets screw the mopar guys like every other magazine seems to do.

[George]

Considering that 90% or rods have a Chevy,most "general interest" mags. are 90% Chevy,& the way the TV announcers fawn over the Chevy drivers, an "any-thing-but-Chevy" outlook is reasonable. Show me a rod with a Hemi,Cleveland, or a Nailhead anyday!

[DPelleti]

Freebird;
- the 302 was replaced in 1970 with the LT-1 in the Z-28 due to SCCA's lifting of the previous displacement ban. For this reason the Challenger T/A 340 6 Pack and the AAR Cuda were born; unfortunately SCCA promptly banned multiple carburetors which effectively eliminated the 340 6 Pack.
As far as the 340's horsepower goes, I have never dynoed one, so I have no first hand information. On one hand 320hp seems reasonable given the stats of the engine: valve sizes, relatively mild hydraulic cam, no excessive high compression ratio, etc; on the other hand, there definitely seems to be lots of 340 "David and Goliath" stories out there. Anybody reading this dynoed a stock 340?

Cheers,
Dave

[freebird12345687]

on one hand i can understand why they are liked, they're cost effective to build. However i don't usually see them last quite as long as most small block mopars and fords i've been around. But when it comes to magazine tests why is it that they always use a vortec heads orsomething on the 350 and smog heads on the 360s and 351s. They always seem to purposely handicap the fords and mopars. Are they afraid that people will know the truth? It just irritates me so much. And yes i do realize that the aftermarket is way more chevy friendly. But i'm just never that impressed, aside from the LT-1 Ford and Chryslers to the best of my knoweledge have stronger bottom ends and better valve angles especially the mopars.

[OldIron]

Cool thread. I've read the article on the actual hp output that DPelleti posted also. I've read a few different places that the 340's ouput was at 300-320hp depending on the 4bbl or six-pack version. They were an awesome little engine. A friend has a 74 Cuda with a 340 that was basically 1970 spec and it ran very good when in tune. He got outran by "slower" cars when something was a little off with the ignition or carb though just like any other car would

It's no surprise that a 340 ran off and left a Boss 429, at least on a short run with both cars being in good tune. Same as the Hemi vs a 440. The 440 was usually a more consistent stronger street engine.

http://www.musclecarclub.com/musclecars ... tory.shtml

http://www.carmemories.com/cgi-bin/view ... nce_id=438

A couple of different sources there but you can see that the Boss 302 Mustang was faster at standing starts because the 429's were hard to launch for one reason but I've also seen documentation that the Boss 429's were detuned alot from the Nascar bound version. There were two different Boss 429's. S Code and T Code but I've no idea the differences but would like to know. As usual large valved/large port engines are often a little more unresponsive on the low end and better for high rpm breathing.


Ok...enough rambling for now !