Chevy 302

Knurled wrote: You should see what people do to make sub-290ci engines with 4.155" bores. Me, I like the idea of 4.3 V8 rods and crank in an LT1. 4" bore, 3" stroke, and since the 4.3 and 5.7 share piston pin height for whatever weird Chevy reason, you get mega-long rods out of the deal along with standard pistons. This doesn't help at all if you're just putting something together, of course. I vote just keep the 327 a 327, fine engine right there.

i was going to build that LT1 based 302 when i had my Nova.. i had the LT1 out of my 94 Caprice just sitting there, and i had visions of picking up a Caprice 4.3 for the bottom end, using the HOT cam kit with LT4 heads, and ghettocharging it with a pair of thunderchicken tubocoupe turbos and backing it with 4.56 gears and a TKO500 trans... this was back before the days of Megasquirt, so the plan called for using LT1edit on the stock 94 Caprice ecm and either making the most awesomest rev happy Nova that also gets killer mpg's or blowing E36 M3 up in magnificent fashion..

would keeping the 350ci of the LT1 intact make more sense? yeah, probably... but what fun would that be?

I like recalcitrant engines that idle at about 5" of vacuum and sound like they're going to attack your neighbor's dog. Possibly the kids too.

I was thinking something like a stiff roller cam in the 270 @ .050" range. Thsoe drive pretty tame in larger engines, with EFI, so putting one in a smaller engine should provide the nastiness I so desire, along with a torque curve that won't demolish the tires every time I breathe on the throttle.

Plus, cheap heads that are merely okay for big engines turn into super performance heads for smaller engines. Win-win!

Good rods and good rod bolts and good valve springs. Run the 327...

Appleseed wrote: 400 blocks aren't exactly common anymore.

this is the unfortunate truth......they have kinda dried up around here. It used to be you couldn't go through a junkyard without tripping over them, because everyone back then cast them off due to most being 2bolt mains(70-72 are 4bolt, 73-80 are 2bolt)......Now, they're next to impossible to find. Every once in awhile I come across a 70's caprice in a yard that has the 400sbc....

Casting #330817, 3030817, 3951509, 3951511 are all various years, but all 400's.

I have one of those 4.3 v8 lt1. And several 5.7 lt1 too.

I want more info. Please.

stan_d wrote: I have one of those 4.3 v8 lt1. And several 5.7 lt1 too. I want more info. Please.

what info do you want?

the 4.3 L99 has a 3" stroke crank (compared to the 3.48" in the LT1) and 5.94" long rods (compared to 5.7" in every other small block except the 400, which had 5.565" rods), which means you can put the L99 crank and rods in an LT1 block with cheap and readily available 350 pistons to wind up with a 302" motor with a big 4" bore that allows the valves to move tons of air without being shrouded by the cylinder walls. it will be down on torque compared to the longer stroke 350, but will rev like crazy thanks to the short stroked.

as far as the practicality of such an engine: one of the writers for Car Craft Magazine has (or at least had) a non LT1 based 302 in a 65 El Camino with a centrifugal supercharger that made something like 500hp at the wheels and got close to 30mpg when driving nice...