Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => The O' Club => Topic started by: NUTTZ on July 09, 2004, 11:58:21 PM
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would you choose IF you could ONLY pick one to drop in your car, AND WHY?
and what car did a 372 Cubic Inch come with?
My pick is torn between the 409 and the 421.. Being a Pontiac man I would pick the 421. not too sure if it came with the plastic covered timing teeth , but easily replaced. I had a friend who had the 428, I wasn't too impressed, although It might have been the crap from the drive train.
Most impressive engines: Mopar 318 little engine big output, and you just can't kill em'. Chevy 327, same reasons. and the ol' reliable 350, you can start them without a carb, And they are in everything!!!! Including some sex toys
Most unreliable: 305, 351 windsor, not sure if i really wanted to add the windsor but personal experience and all that metal in the oilpan.
NUTTZ
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My personal choice would be a 427 side-oiler, of course I aint got $15-20K for a used motor. The 351W is a very strong block, basically the size (physical and internal) of the venerable SBC-350 but with the main bearings of the BBC-454. But like almost all Ford engines, the head choices for the 351W were weak, and thats being generous.
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If money was no object I would go with a Pontiac 455, or maybe a 400 with one of the crank and steel rod stroker kits to turn it into a 455.
But only if I was doing a Pontiac.
For anything else I Would go with a big crated chevy motor.
like this one
(http://www.morethanjustpower.com/part_pictures/upload/14_1.jpg)
572 cubes for 620 HP. 12 grand.
you just can not beat Chevy's crate motors for the money.
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Heck for 4700 bucks you can pick this up right from a chevy dealer
383/425 HP
(http://www.morethanjustpower.com/part_pictures/upload/56_1.jpg)
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I'd take the 455 if it was the 455 SD
IIRCC it only came out in the 73'Trans Am and the lemans or lemans sport coupe GTO.
But that info is a decade and 1/2 old on my original HD and Im still using gas tubes as well
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Wildcrd,
I am fairly sure the SD 455 was only put in 73 and 74 firebirds.
I could be wrong though hehe
72 should have been the last GTO. The 73 was so smurfy It hurts to look at, and the 74 was a POS nova!
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I liked the Chevy 327, but I'm no gear head.
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Olds had a 455. I owned an olds w/ this motor in it.
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of the choices u gave i would go with a 421 it is reliable can be built some, 455 is one of the first smog motors so no, my dad had a 421 in our 65 bonneville it ran well of course u know these are the weakest of the big blocks? 372 dodge good luck
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Steve,
Buick, olds and Pontiac all had 455s, they were all different motors too. The Buick 455 was pretty cool!
The SD 455 was a rarity and pontiac only made a few and put them in firebirds. The 73 SD 455 firebirds would do mid 13s off the show room floor. In 73!
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Ok... the car that came with a 371.. That is easy, it was the 57 olds. There was a J2 version that had a tri power and 312 HP. I put one of these in a 57 chevy I had the heads shaved and it was 60 over.
I own a 327 in my Healey (331) it is a good motor. I also have a 454 (468) The new gen big blocks are about the best tho. crate 572's
440 mopars were very good as were the hemis. The SOHC 427 Ford was a monster. Pontiac allways made old tech perform... 421 was a good motor as was the 455.
There are lsi motors that are getting up to 406" and 550 HP. This is an all aluminum motor. Blown or turboed they are getting 700 hp on the street. Fairly cheaply too.
you can buy crate motors that are blown with 1200 hp for the street.
Big blocks are for making big holes in the air. you don't need a car that looks melted to punch holes in the air if you have 500+ ftlbs of torque.
lazs
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Ahhh, Edbert, the consumate Ford Man. :)
I have to agree, the 427DOHC side oiler is the tops, and many experts have stated it is the engine that had the most potential, but the lack of number produced hampered it from reaching full potential.
The Boss 429 was quite the powerplant, as were many of the 429 line.
dago
He Edbert, send me your emai if you still have mine.
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the pontiac 421 /428 are the same bore /stroke 4in x 4.012
the 455 is a 4.25 stroke .
now what you do is either drop a 421/428 crank into a 455 or bore the 421/428 out .030 and intall a set of trw 455 forged pistons in it (ok the 455 piston has a higher pin height )
this will set the piston at .108 down the bore when its at top dead center . Now you can take the 72cc cylinder heads and drop them on ... this ussually puts the compression ratio around 9.5 / 9.75 to 1 , (you can even run the closed chamber "670" heads on this without detonation ) use a 505 isky cam or a little larger and you will have a mid 11 sec car (@3000-3400lbs) and it will run on cheap pump gas .
ive built tons of these combo's and they work great
but beshure you use at min polished and pinged rods , corillo's or a set of SD / forged rods .
if anyones interested Ive got an extra set of super duty rods .
i perfur using the 421 block because of its nickle content and thinkness it will go .090 over size and up to .120 if massaged and tested correctly
Just to clarify the 455 didnt truly become a smog moter til 75
as for hot rodding the pontiac 400 well thats a different story but i did put one together that ran 9's and buzzed 8500+ and hung in there for three seasons
mostly these days all i see is rat /mouse crate engines ,and alot of those 302/408 small block fords .
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(in mot a gear head) but.................
As a kid i had a buick ELECTRA 225 with the Buick 455 and possitrack rear end that car was excellent! I also had a Ford Lincon Mercury with a 460 in it (1 legger)
But ild take that old Buick 455 any day! only thing was it cracked the block after the waterpump went out on it! My grandpa (it was his old car) walked me thru replacing the Water pump @ 16 yrs old only to find out the dam block cracked and it kept overheating after about 10 min (no cooling system pressure) and i couldnt find anyone who knew how to fix it! Damn for a boat of a car that fugger was fast and could light em up very nicely!
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The 427 Ford was a SOHC, not a DOHC. I've worked on one before, they are rare. It was developed to compete with the hemi, but NASCAR declared it illegal before it ever showed up. Interestingly, Chrysler was working on a DOHC hemi. Work stopped when NASCAR declared the 427 SOHC illegal.
I'll take the 409 myself, since I had one. It was a 63 409-425 in a 64 Impala SS. It ran 7.00 in the 1/8 mile. With two Carter WCFB carbs and gears anywhere between 3.08 and 6.17, it got 6 MPG.
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Just so everyones on the same page
The optional 455-inch four-barrel engine isn't much of a performance engine and actually offers little more for the enthusiast than the base 400-incher. The SD-455, however, is something else. It pumps out 310 net horsepower.
BIG differnce between the 455 and the 455 SD
excerpt from a 73' magazine article about the LeMans GTO and 455 SD:
And, it's actually no less economical to operate under normal driving use than the consumer-oriented 455 four-barrel engine. It can be had with air conditioning, full power, 3.42 limited slip rear and a choice of M-20 four-speed or three-speed Turbo Hydro transmissions. Features that make the SD-455 a genuine performance engine include four-bolt main caps; screw-in oil plugs; provision for dry sump lubrication; nodular iron crank; forged steel rods with 7/16-inch bolts; forged aluminum pistons with high-rev rings; HD oil pump; flow-bench-designed heads; high-lift cam with big valves; big headers and exhaust pipes and a revamped Quadrajet intake system.
source (http://www.pontiacserver.com/c73gto_4.html)
Personally I prefer the 73' Trans Am that came with the 455 SD
A buddy of nime took a 455 SD and dropped it in his 79' Trans Am with some added modifications that car ran like a bat outta hell.....till his wife tottaled it :-(
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Acually it was an Astra, I know I own one o' dem POS.
NUTTZ
QUOTE]Originally posted by GtoRA2
Wildcrd,
I am fairly sure the SD 455 was only put in 73 and 74 firebirds.
I could be wrong though hehe
72 should have been the last GTO. The 73 was so smurfy It hurts to look at, and the 74 was a POS nova! [/QUOTE]
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My Dad owned a 62 pontiac catalina w/ a 421,, What a BEAST!!!!!!!!!!!
fastest production car of it's day.
NUTTZ
Originally posted by demaw1
of the choices u gave i would go with a 421 it is reliable can be built some, 455 is one of the first smog motors so no, my dad had a 421 in our 65 bonneville it ran well of course u know these are the weakest of the big blocks? 372 dodge good luck
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WE HAVE A WINNER!!!!!!!!
Grown up thats what we joy rided in a 57 olds. I remember the oil breather tube under the motor always blew smoke out.
It's still in the neighborhood.
NUTTZOriginally posted by lazs2
Ok... the car that came with a 371.. That is easy, it was the 57 olds. There was a J2 version that had a tri power and 312 HP. I put one of these in a 57 chevy I had the heads shaved and it was 60 over.
I own a 327 in my Healey (331) it is a good motor. I also have a 454 (468) The new gen big blocks are about the best tho. crate 572's
440 mopars were very good as were the hemis. The SOHC 427 Ford was a monster. Pontiac allways made old tech perform... 421 was a good motor as was the 455.
There are lsi motors that are getting up to 406" and 550 HP. This is an all aluminum motor. Blown or turboed they are getting 700 hp on the street. Fairly cheaply too.
you can buy crate motors that are blown with 1200 hp for the street.
Big blocks are for making big holes in the air. you don't need a car that looks melted to punch holes in the air if you have 500+ ftlbs of torque.
lazs
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The Pontiac version of the Nova was the Ventura, I had one with a 307 Chevy in it. With some work it went 9.00 in the 1/8 mile. Stupid drunk woman hit it and ruined it.
The Pontiac Astre was a Vega. It was a good place to put a small block Chevy. Bolts in with V8 Monza mounts. Use an early Nova rearend. Built a bunch of V8 Vegas.
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The 427 Ford was a SOHC, not a DOHC
Yeah, you're right. My mistake. The DOHC is the engine series the new 427 is modeled upon. Something like 590 horses now I think.
dago
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I always eard many good things from the chevy 350s.
My formula 1973 has a 455. 250HP and 370Tq, stock. I doesn't seem much, but this torque is amazing. You can be in a slope and still burning rubber accelerating like a maniac.
I was thinking to get this setup (http://www.carcraft.com/techarticles/116_0306_pont/)
But I don't know much about engines. I targetting the 500HP/600Tq range. The car is my daily driver, I don't want to spend millions on the engine, nor refuel after each burnout.
The Tomato came with a Ford 302, we are putting a 351W build to 580HP. that's all I know for now:)
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Avoid magazine engine build ups like a dose of the clap. Those clowns are as full of crap as a Christmas turkey.
If you build a Pontiac, buy aftermarket steel rods. Stock pontiac rods, with the exception of older (pre 1960 or so) engines and the 455 Super Duty have cast steel rods. These are by far the weakest parts of the engine, and the most likely to fail catastrophicly. For anything other than stock usage, forged rods are manditory if available.
If you are worried at all about fuel consumption, don't build a big engine.
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Originally posted by Captain Virgil Hilts
Avoid magazine engine build ups like a dose of the clap. Those clowns are as full of crap as a Christmas turkey.
If you build a Pontiac, buy aftermarket steel rods. Stock pontiac rods, with the exception of older (pre 1960 or so) engines and the 455 Super Duty have cast steel rods. These are by far the weakest parts of the engine, and the most likely to fail catastrophicly. For anything other than stock usage, forged rods are manditory if available.
I'll agree with alot of the articals on pontiacs are junk .. but as for the rods yes there the weak link .. the 59-62 forged rods are good ,then most of the 455 sd rods are great (note there are 2 batches that were forged that are junk, i think it was the "d or E" castings but do the research the years have made my brain soft ) as for everyday street performace and red line respected racing well the nunzi peened and polished cast rods will work great up to 550 hp
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Something about the 351 Cleveland. Ahh, that's a beautiful engine.
Karaya
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well... Hot Rod just had their pump gas drags... if you didn't get into the 9's you weren't competitive.
There were 3 mopars in the top ten and all were 500 inch crate hemi's originaly. The winner and most of the rest of the 50 cars were all big block chevy with a scattering of small blocks and a few fords.
The Big block chevy is still the best deal around and getting even better. You can dump one into any GM body. For big inch motors you can build anything but your best bet is allways the big block chevy. Crate motors are making mor HP than we could build back a decade ago.
Small block fords and chevy's are cool too... I am seriously thinking of building one of those 427 chevy small blocks or an ls6 406 and six speed for the Healey but... the 327 is so darned nostalgic... I even have an old manafree 4 2's manifold for it and, at 2200 lbs the puny 400-450 hp it puts out makes for a decent ride.
lazs