292 Chevy potential

About how much power could I get out of a 292 I-6 if I add a 4bbl, headers, 1.94 and 1.50 valves, and HEI ignition?


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Even better if you punched it out to 4" and used 350 pistons!

About 75% of what you could get from a 305 V8

I was just wondering 'cause I have an old Chevy pickup with the weak 250 and figured since it's already set up for an inline 6, it would be a pretty simple swap. So anyone think a 250 horse 292 I-6 is doable?
Of course a V-8 will probably still smoke the hell out of it all day long.

actually more things are different between the 292 and the other L-6 engines

for one the biggest is the offset engine mounts of the 292, one is more forward than the other and youll have to find 292 brackets.

these engines have tons of low end low RPM grunt.

an RV cam and milling the head down will do lots for it, and is what id start with.

good luck

Hey, thanks man.
I really am interested in building a Chevy straight six now.
I used to always have F100's with the 300 straight sixes a while ago and those motors is rightious! The 6's are just neat in my opinion.

www.cliffordperformance.net has hot-rod parts for the late Chevy I-6, and Leo Santucci recently wrote a book about modifying them.

Back around 1970, I had a 292 in a '69 Nova that would keep up with a big-block Camaro up to ~95mph, and it had home-made headers, a home-made (from a stocker) intake manifold, and a bone-stock head, complete with exhaust valve rotators. It had pistons with domes so tall they'd beat the gap nearly shut on some types of spark plugs, a 310* Crower cam, and a nasty tendency to shake the flywheel and damper loose on a regular basis.

I paid $200 for that motor, and had almost $200 worth of fun with it for a couple of months before it slung a rod through the side of the block. I'd say go for it, but I suggest a much milder build if you want to spend more time IN it than UNDER it.

The 292 makes a very nice performance platform. It's a much better built engine that it's smaller cousins. It suffers from the paired intakes but there are solutions if you want everything it has to deliver. Two schools of thought here revolve around cutting out the bolt post and putting in a divider; to the Sissel blob port, not it's real name, I just can't think of it. Its a hunk of aluminum made to reshape the bottom of the port for better valve backside entry flow. This leave the ports feeding pairs of cylinders, seems to work pretty well.

No reason why you can't get 300 hp without going to a crazy cam.

Somebody recently came out with a book on the Chevy 6s, try a hunt at Amazon, or Barnes and Noble, it's probably full of interesting stuff.

Don't forget Clifford 6=8 they're out on the web as well.

Bogie

I would add a turbo.

do a web search with "inline 6 turbo"

lots of 292 turbos out there. looks like a simple 300 to 350hp turbo build.

however, 250hp out of a 292 is very doable with a header, intake, and cam. stock hp is already about 165hp, right? a little bowl smoothing just under the valves will help a lot.

"Lump-port" is the Sissell mod.

Glen Self at www.selfracing.com also offers head mods for the Chevy 6.

Awesome. I really appreciate everybody's help! Thanks!

I ran into this while searching for info on the Jimmy 12-port head.

Some good info on various inline 6's HERE.

The Tech Tips are interesting; "These tech tips are just a few of the articles published in over 20 years of "The 12 Port News”."

Thanks I couldn't think of "lump port" to save my life.

Bogie