leleva's 66 chevy 2 daily

[leleva]

Well in a turn of event, the plan to build a six cylinder for this car has been put on indefinite hold. The 6 cylinder I was going to build would require some fabbing up of something for the Z bar to work, which I could do. However a gentlemen left a note on my car while I was at work claiming to have a 283 out of a 66 Chevy 2. After a few weeks of haggling on a price, it followed me home along with a spare bell housing.


There are a couple things about the motor. The first was that the rear flange of the crank is the same shape as a 327 would be, but has the short stroke of a 283. There are coolant drains on both side of the block. Some one did break off a valve cover bolt in one of the heads, then drilled it out way to big.


Lastly I think the motor has been balanced? there are different numbers stamped into the head of the pistons.


which is kind of odd for a motor that has a cast crank, and a 2 barrel on it. So my plan is to tear it down, clean it up, and check my tolerances. I'm hoping to be able to re-ring it, and put some new bearings in it. Rebuild the power pack heads (after fixing the bolt hole). Put a mild cam in it, find and aluminum 4 barrel intake. drop a Q-jet on and go. Exhaust will probably be headers, with true duals. On my list of other things to get, will be a v8 radiator, a front sump oil pan, a V8 engine harness ( will probably just get an HEI one) and some new suspension rubber for the front.

[DanStokes]

Have fun with that! On a related note, I just sold all my Chevy Six bits so that warehouse is empty.

Dan

[Deaf Bob]

IF it was balanced, there will be material removed from the rod caps..
Likely it was balanced by heaviest pistons to lightest rods. Still a good way to go.
Love the meat between your exhaust ports in the center!
An area to check is the clearances to run the large HEI cap to the firewall..
If you can, change the motor mounts to an earlier clamshell type.. The rubber stays on the car, a rubberless part goes on the block.. If you ever rip a mount on the type on the block now, it can/will flop..
There is a guy who ran a screaming 283 in his derby car.

[leleva]

Have fun with that! On a related note, I just sold all my Chevy Six bits so that warehouse is empty.

Dan

I've ended up acquiring so much 6 cylinder stuff since starting the endeavor, all for nothing now. Maybe I'll have to buy another car to use this stuff on.

IF it was balanced, there will be material removed from the rod caps..
Likely it was balanced by heaviest pistons to lightest rods. Still a good way to go.
Love the meat between your exhaust ports in the center!
An area to check is the clearances to run the large HEI cap to the firewall..
If you can, change the motor mounts to an earlier clamshell type.. The rubber stays on the car, a rubberless part goes on the block.. If you ever rip a mount on the type on the block now, it can/will flop..
There is a guy who ran a screaming 283 in his derby car.

I should have room for the HEI, might be right up against the fire wall like in my 78, worst case scenario I'll running a points dizzy with petronics. The only thing I worry about with the clam shells is the bolt hole center line to back of the block height might be different , as well as I'd definitely have to change the frame side mounts as clam shells are a lot wider than the style I have. Thanks for bringing it up though as I'd never though of the rubber side on the engine possibly breaking. I could always chain that side in.

On another note, the fuel pump I swap in this past may, failed on me. For some reason this car goes thought them, just about every 6-18 months. The cam lobe looked ok, they just stop pumping.

[Deaf Bob]

Had several GM with the rubver on block type and they always ripped and sent the motor forward, dropping the driveline out..
Demolition derby is different than street.. Solid mounted motors break stuff.
I have seen some like your style that had a bolt hole drilled in one part, tapped in the other part. The bolt was put in with a lock nut, keeping rubber softness and the bolt kept it from coming apart.
You may want to consider cable instead of chain, being deaf, I'd use chain but hearie folks might go nuts from the rattling..

[Huskinhano]

You also have the wrong oil pan. That one is blue. GM started with blue engines in late 77. The Chevy II would have a front sump an and a different oil pick up. IIRC there was something different about the Z bar stud location on the Chevy II blocks as well. I use to work in a Chevy parts dept in the 70's.

[Deaf Bob]

Might have been out of a 66 chevyII, got put in a pickup, maybe? Then now back in another II. The Z-bar ball is under the freeze plug on this one..
Best way to really tell is the nbrs on the right front head mounting surface..

[leleva]

[QUOTE=Deaf Bob;n1177602
You may want to consider cable instead of chain, being deaf, I'd use chain but hearie folks might go nuts from the rattling..[/QUOTE]
I'll just trim the exhaust back, till I can't hear the chain rattle. I'll see what the aftermarket supplies for V8 conversion motor mounts, I know they sell the hole kits.

You also have the wrong oil pan. That one is blue. GM started with blue engines in late 77. The Chevy II would have a front sump an and a different oil pick up. IIRC there was something different about the Z bar stud location on the Chevy II blocks as well. I use to work in a Chevy parts dept in the 70's.

Not sure what is up with the oil pan, and why it was stored with out the oil drain plug. It's a chevy 2 block, but here's a comparison to another 283 from in the shed.


I kind of wonder how many chevy 2 blocks are out runnign around, and people don;t know what they have.

[Deaf Bob]

I know the heads are desireable in the derby world due to the meat between the 2 center exhaust ports.. A little bowl work, not always larger valves as they tend to burn the seats when larger valves are put in. One thing I do is have fat seats on my derby heads. The older heads do not warp when they run waterless 30 minutes a pop. My daughter's motor now is a 400 with early 327 heads..

Back to blocks, the oil filter bosses are different, the ball hole on the blue block is above the filter

[corvettedad]

Just another tidbit about the early 283's, you could bore them out to a 4" bore basically ending up with a 302ci. I built two of them and they were screamers! Of course back then we had 100 octane gas so compression was practically unlimited, well somewhat anyway.

[leleva]

Just another tidbit about the early 283's, you could bore them out to a 4" bore basically ending up with a 302ci. I built two of them and they were screamers! Of course back then we had 100 octane gas so compression was practically unlimited, well somewhat anyway.

My Dad has a set of 12:1 pop ups for a 283 that I've been tempted to buy from him, but that doesn't seem like a logical choice for a daily( which may change soon)

So a little update: late October I had another fuel pump go out. Also the little sheet metal tab that is threaded for the air cleaner finally pulled out of the carb. Since I drive dirt roads a lot I was worried the air cleaner would fall off, so I drilled, taped, slipped some set screws in and ground them off.

In January I started noticing some steering issues, mostly the front end was pulling, which lead me to realize my tires where also wore on the inside.

Both upper A arms had the front bushings wore almost to the metal ( the rear was still centered on both), my Idler arm rubber was gone, as well as the strut rod bushings where non existent. So swapped in some new energy suspension A Arm bushings, and moog rubber parts for the idle arm and strut rods and I was back on the road.

Borrowed some turn plates from a buddy.

Bought a caster camber gauge.

I ended up having trouble setting up my alignment with the turn plates and ended up taking them back, and just using the angled cuts as a reference on the gauge. It took me a couple times to get the alignment where it felt right ( I think it's still a little off, but I'm not wearing tires)
My float finally gave out, fortunately I had a spare.

A few weeks after driving around I started to take notice of the little power loss surges I would get under a hard load I figured that I hadn't set the float right. then it slowly started happening under lighter loads, and I knew it was the fuel pump going out. So I bought some carter fuel this time as opposed to the airtex/delphi's I had been buying.
With in a week it was leaking fuel through the center bolt

So I bought another carter, and it did the same thing before I even pulled out of the drive way. So I swapped back to a delphi.
The water pump started to make some noise so I swapped that out.

Splurged for an antenna for the car, only to find out my am radio is popping fuses. At least I filled the hole in the fender.

[Dan Barlow]

Looking good , the car I mean .