Ben Harold: haroldbr@muohio.edu Tom Harold: harold2@iquest.net

The Project Car History Engine Vortec Heads Transmission
Differential Suspension Steering Interior Racing
Street Machine Nationals Dyno Test

The Old One

The original 283ci engine in the Chevelle has a little over 100,000 miles on it, and is still 100% stock and in surprisingly good condition. Unfortunately, this engin would not suffice for our weekend drag racing habits, so we built a 355.

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front end off front right front left
No more grille No more engine
lifting old engine engine me as the engine
Lifting the 283
at 3:30 A.M. 		The 283
resting comfortably 		An alternative
powerplant

The New Block

We acquired a 4-bolt 350 block from a friend of Tom's girlfirend Kathy. It came bored .030 over, and included the stock steel crank (it was a truck engine), rods, & pistons. We took the block to Schmidt Automotive to have the lower end assembled and balanced. Throughout the process, Dwane, our machinist, presented us with the following problems: Luckily, there was a costly solution to every problem. Mental Note: Never ever get an engin partially machined or assembled.
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short block torquing down heads turning the engine over
The short block Torquing down the heads Turning the engine over
midway through assembly mostly assembled mostly assembled
The 355 midway through assembly The 355 "mostly" assembled
355 installed engine front our sister
The 355 Freshly Dropped In Look at the piece of crap master cylinder in the upper corner Our sister Kate "working on the fan"

Lubrication

We got a high volume oil pump and a pickup from an engine entrails shop here in town. I got the pickup on by making a half-circle angled drift out of a piece of aluminum tubing. After getting it in, we set the clearance. We found the proper height by placing a 1" tall socket on top of the pickup and then placing the oil pan on the engine, and adjusting as necessary. After finding the correct location, we removed the spring from the pump, and had the pickup brazed on. The spring can be damaged by the heat of the brazing process. The pump came with a steel driveshaft collar, and we nabbed a driveshaft from a local junkyard. There are apparently two models of rear main caps for small block Chevy engines. One style accepts a deeper bolt than the other. Because we did not want to risk using the wrong bolt, we bought a stud instead.
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an oil pan
Our glorious oil pan

Circulation

We got brand new heads from a shop in Abernathy, Texas. They are the Vortec heads with 64cc chambers. These heads have required a bit of work, but are finally turning out all right. Because of the complexity of setting an engine up with them, we've set up a very informative Vortec heads web page.

Inhalation

The carburator that sits atop our Edelbrock Performer RPM Vortec intake manifold is a 600 cfm vacume secondary electric choke Holley that we picked up on ebay. It's in excellent condition. The Performer RPM Vortec is a square bore manifold designed for our heads. It's operating range is from 1500 to 6500 RPM.

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new carb old and new aspiration performer RPM vortec
Our Holley on
top of a Torker II 		Which do you
think breathes better? 		Our Performer RPM Vortec

Combustion

To burn the fumes, we've got a GM HEI setup to get electricity to a set of Accell shorty spark plugs. We used the short ones because of header clearance problems with the 45 degree boots on our Spiro Pro plug wires.

Exhalation

As far as headers, we aquired a set of DynoMax 1-5/8" headers which will fit on any '67 Chevelle, no matter what options it has. We did however have to beat the passenger side header up a bit to avoid melting the number six spark plug wire. We also used a bit of header insulation wrap as extra anti-melting insurance. The car came with a brand new stock 2" dual exhaust system, which we will not bother upgrading. We're gonna unhook the pipes from the headers whenever we race anyway.

Final Specifications

Unfortunate Incident

We had to build this thing twice. Our valve springs were too stiff, and they forced the lifters to grind the cam to pieces. HELPFUL HINT (save $$$): buy your whole valvetrain in one big kit.

The Project Car History Engine Vortec Heads Transmission
Differential Suspension Steering Interior Racing
Street Machine Nationals Dyno Test