Junker engines punching above their weight

[Steve.k]

Yes I believe all what you say.! They all beg borrow and steal. Just don't believe it was a clean slate like most have you believe. Im sure its gone the other way many times also.

[PackardV8]

Yes I believe all what you say.! They all beg borrow and steal. Just don't believe it was a clean slate like most have you believe. Im sure its gone the other way many times also.

Just that GM kept the Gen I SBC 4.40" bore center proves it wasn't a clean slate design.

FWIW, I spent a week with near-genius-level people in a think-outside-the-box-clean-slate-brainstorm session. Turns out, the laws of physics and generations of human physiology and behavior and the currently available technology are why products and services are the way they are. Just wanting something to be different doesn't necessarily result in better. There were many ideas which made existing products/services better, but no breakthroughs.

Bottom line - the LS is same-old-same-old, just the best pushrod OHV8 we know how to build today.

[cab0154]

a few years ago a couple of my buddies had a little wager going on who could build a better pump gas deal for a street car.

my chevy buddy build a 383 for his 65 buick A body. flat tops, some dart heads, a solid flat tappet cam.....anyway it ran 8.20s in the 1/8th on motor. nothing special.

my other friend who built the ford used a stock crank and rod, 351 9.5 deck windsor shortblock with some 4.040 cast pistons. he put some D1 casting closed chamber 4v cleveland heads on it. probably around mid 9:1 compression. a 255/261 solid flat tappet, around .600 lift. a 9.2 deck single plane restrictor plate oval track old ford racing intake. the ports at the flange were quite a bit smaller than the head, the mismatch was at the floor, so it was a big step from the floor of the intake to the floor of the head. got it running, at first it was very carb sensitive. tried a box stock holley hp 750 and that worked best with the secondaries unhooked. 7.30s. put an AED 750 HO modified on it, untouched and it went a 6.98@96 on motor in the 1/8th. took the 3.5" flowmaster single chamber race mufflers off of it and it went 6.88@97. on 125 shot it went 6.40s@105. pretty good for a $2500 turd that he made a valley tray and adapters to get the intake to fit.

[bosco]

Junker road race LS1 story:

We purchased a near stock dyno mule LS1 motor from a well known LS engine builder for our road race SCCA stock car. (ex ASA National tour Monte Carlo, Howe chassis 2800 # with driver.) The short block had stock crank, rods and Mahle flat tops with valve relies. The heads were stock 706 LS heads with better valve springs. The cam was something like .600 lift with 230 ish/240 ish duration. Compression was around 10.5. Induction was GMPP 4 barrel intake with Bo Laws 650. Headers were stepped Howe 1 3/4 to 17/8. With Bobby Kennedy (part time Trans Am driver) shoeing, the car lapped Daytona in 1:56.9 with a top speed in the tri oval of about 182 mph. This was back in 2011 on a day where the temp was about 95 degrees.

The motor raised hell between 3000-6500, then would puke at 6501. I think the 5.3 706 heads with the little 1.89 intake valve just had done all they could.

Great lil motor we ran for three seasons and then took apart because, "it must need freshening", we found nothing really wrong with it.

Cost vs performance: best road race motor we ever had.

[PackardV8]

Waaay back when, there was the winter off, no money, but we were young, antsy and had to do something on the race engine. The 283" block was bored to 301", every casting bump and knob was ground off inside and out, valves, rods and crankshaft were polished, everything balanced to a gram, including the new Jahns 13.5:1 pop-ups. About two months into the season, Bobby was points leader and we were congratulating ourselves on all that work paying off; then on Saturday night in Montgomery, it broke a rod and ruined most everything.

Racing four times a week, he needed to be at the Birmingham fairgrounds race Sunday afternoon. Tom Gloor, the track promoter and local Chevy dealer had his parts manager meet Bobby at the dealership early Sunday morning and give him a '61 Corvette short block. We threw in the Chet Herbert roller, the good heads, Enderle injectors and Joe Hunt magneto. Bobby didn't need any practice, but firing up for the heat race, he was pretty much resigned to being back in the pack, because the 10.5:1 283" didn't make anything like the bark of the 13.5:1 301". With no tuning or practice, he won the heat and was second in the feature.

[Keith Morganstein]

My favorite junker was just that, a scrap pile of used stuff I had around.
A 307 short block with a re-ring, and bearing job. 1.94/1.50 humps, a used crane 113941 cam and lifters, a Z-28 type intake and an AFB carb. A used set of cheapo headers. This in a crappy, beat-up 72 Nova that just flat got it (for what it was)

[KnightEngines]

Many years ago when I had a fresh trade ticket in my hand I had a HZ holden that I bought from a mate's brother for $500, it had a dead 350 in it, T400 & 3.36 geared diff.
I had no $, had just got married & bought a house.

350 had had a bolt dropped down the carb & split a bore, if was real tired before that anyway.
I sleeved that 1 bore, bought the cheapest set of cast flat tops I could find & bored it .030" over. Didn't balance it, didn't size the stock rods, did pretty much nothing else, just threw it back together with fresh bearings.
Cam was an old Crane hyd I found under a bench at the shop I was working at at the time, I dunno what it was, 28x or something like that. New cheap lifters, stock pushrods, stock rockers.
Heads were smogger 883's with 1.94/1.5" valves, I did a basic valve job & pocket port & made them flat. Springs were second hand LT1, stock retainers etc.
Intake was a shit old Torker I picked up cheap & I stuck a swap meet 650DP holley on it, it had a dual Mallory dual point distributor (oh the joy of setting that prick of a thing up!).
I even re-used the stock morse timing chain & old oil pump.

Dumped it back in the car along with a 2500rpm converter I got for $50.

It was surprisingly quick, ended up running a best of 12.9 @ 108mph, knowing what I know now I probably could have tweaked that heap into the mid 12's, but back then a high 12 sec street car was quick around here so I was happy. I daily drove it for a few years then sold it.

[rfoll]

I have a junker 400 SBC that I have been using for a couple of years. I have been pretty lucky finding these engines with the bores in real nice shape for $200 or less. The pistons are the ones without the chamfer on the od allowing some semblance of quench. With a standard rebuilder head gasket and a set of Vortec heads, compression comes out to 8.8:1. I used a performer rpm and a Comp XE268 cam along with the factory QJ, and put it in my 79 Impala. I pulled the 2.41 10 bolt rear and installed a 3.42 cop car rear axle. The header were a $30 swap meet find that I removed from the race car when I exchanged them for something with larger primary tubes. At 4200 lbs. These cars are not what most think of for hot rod material, but it is my daily driver. The car ran 13.20 @103 mph, and was a blast to drive on the street. The converter was stock, and the cam had enough lope to make it a little nervous at a stoplight, but as soon as you stabbed the gas, the tires would go up in smoke all the way through the first 2 gears. It also got 15 mpg if you could keep your foot out of it. When gas got over $4/gallon, I pulled the engine and replace it with a freshened L31 350. Last June I pulled the 402 out of my 71 C20 and installed the 400 using the aforementioned Crane 113941 cam. The 400 is a huge improvement over the big block. It has much more low end and midrange torque, and I picked up 2 mpg in the bargain. I think the ready to run engine was about $500, mostly because I shop hard for good used parts