No, we’re not done with kicking out the jams about engine that just happen to have displacements that are also dates. Today we’re looking at the 502ci big block Chevrolet which is unique in our series of stories simply because it was never offered in a factory car. The 502, when it was introduced blew us away. We were kids back then and the idea that there was a crate engine with 500hp out of the box was amazing. Obviously the 502/502 combo is kind of tame in today’s world of 1,000hp engines growing on trees but they are a riot to drive and if you have ever been in a car powered by one, we know you were smiling.
The engine carries a 4.466″ bore and a 4.00″ stroke. It was offered in versions that were designed to be in trucks because of a lower horsepower rating and a brutally strong torque curve all the way up to the 600hp version that topped the crate motor performance charts for a while. The Ram Jet 502 was cool because it shipped with factory fuel injection on it.
There’s not a lot of magical sauce that needs to be laid out about the 502. It was a slightly overgrown big block with decent heads and enough camshaft to start to use them. That being said, you can really wake one of these babies up by getting more aggressive on that end. Like all OEM based products there are parameters those companies want to maintain for reliability and end user friendliness. Looking past that stuff, you can bolt some hair onto the motor’s chest in a hurry.
The 502 was supplanted by the 572ci crate engine on the power front. GM sold those things for a premium and they were fairly limited in their quantity. The 502 was and is a bread and butter engine for Chevrolet Performance. We hope it has a long a happy life. Why? Because you can’t hate big blocks, that’s why!
