Lots of people make stuff up - bring a magnet.
Lots of people make stuff up - bring a magnet.
From the GM performance catalog 350 or 400 inch alloy bare block.
How you make steel main caps and alloy block play nice is beyond me.
NOHOME wrote: From the GM performance catalog 350 or 400 inch alloy bare block.
Good fasteners....
edizzle89 wrote: also the LS engines and a few 5.3's had aluminum blocks. They started in '97 so they would be almost 20 years old by now, guess it depends on what 'old' means.
Yah, but those aren't "small block Chevys".
tuna55 wrote: Lots of people make stuff up - bring a magnet.
tuna55 wrote: Lots of people make stuff up - bring a magnet.
I'm a skeptic too. I have seen too many threads on other boards, one guy says his buddy claims to have some car with a powertrain the factory never offered, an "impossible" combination of packages/options., etc. This happened recently on a 2nd-gen Trans Am board where someone said they had a factory turbo with a 400 engine (turbo TA's were 301's).
Then the optimists all chime in with the explanations, it was special ordered by a GM/Ford/Chrysler executive, one-off prototype, showroom stock cheater car, assembly line workers' secret project etc.
Eventually, the OP lays eyes on the thing and sure enough, it was just a matter of the buddy not knowing what he was looking at; or the car has parts from different years/models because it was assembled from different cars, or the badges simply don't match what's really under the hood. Happens all the time and the all the folks who honestly want to think there are unicorns out there waiting to be discovered are disappointed.
I'm not saying rare one-off's actually show up occasionally, but 99.9% of the time people just like to talk.
Mercury Marine used to make aluminum SCB engines in the Stillwater plant for, umm, marine applications. A buddy of mine, when he was an engineering intern there, scored a test mule that was about to be scrapped and it has resided in his '69 Crammit since 1994.
Yah... the funny part is when you're talking to one of these people in person and they keep piling on the BS when you seem unimpressed.
Did you know that an S10 Blazer can melt the rotors and set the pads on fire in one 60-0 stop? Or that you can make an aircooled VW run so hot after the fan breaks that the heads glow red.
Knurled wrote: Yah... the funny part is when you're talking to one of these people in person and they keep piling on the BS when you seem unimpressed. Did you know that an S10 Blazer can melt the rotors and set the pads on fire in one 60-0 stop? Or that you can make an aircooled VW run so hot after the fan breaks that the heads glow red.
This. At some point you know the guy who owns a Ferrari, despite never actually being seen anywhere near one, despite not knowing what model or year it was, despite being very poor, is going to fess up, but they never do.
Other people just want to believe they have something incredible.
In reply to Knurled:
Good point. He works on old cars, have a 318 60' something hemi. Thats the true part.. but there were some moments I had a hard time not slaping him and call bullhollye36m3...
Still he has a collection of cool old engines. I'll check the aluminum unicorn when i'll go to his house. I'll bring a magnet ;)
rob_lewis wrote: So, educated me on this. What's the advantages of an aluminum block other than weight? Are there performance advantages? Better cooling? More power? -Rob
Three advantages: weight, weight, and weight.
They theoretically cool better, but 95% of heat loss is via coolant and oil, so the additional 1-2% heat transfer from the block to the air is not really noticed. As far as more heat being transferred from combustion to aluminum and then from aluminum to coolant, that is primarily handled in the heads so block construction doesn't matter.
No benefits to power. The block just holds stuff together, so if you can successfully hold the same forces together with aluminum, the advantage is weight. The real question is... can you actually hold the same forces together with aluminum?
The answer is, if the shape of the structure is identical, cast iron will be stronger. Up to a certain stress level, it doesn't matter, though.
If able to shed heat faster, should be able to bump compression for better efficiency.
The myth that I have been fed says that exchanging a cast iron head for an aluminum head that is identical will lose power; the alloy head needs more compression to realize its potential. I have never done the fact checking on this.
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