This is to sayman 1, Im not trying to be a smart ***, but in your big block list you forgot the all important 400 BIG BLOCK marketed in 1975-76 in taxi cabs and station wagons. And thank you for the information on the 409 and 348 engines,we just had a discussion about them at work this past Friday Bill

That's because the 400 was a small block...................

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NO NO NO Poncho, I worked for a Chevy dealer during that era (23 yaers) and there were 400 big blocks

Maybe a Buick, Pontiac or Olds engine in a Chevy.........they did a lot of what they called "Corperate " engines then..........You are going to have to prove that one.

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hey ponch,like I said I am a chevy tech for many years,so i know my engines as well as you being in the same age group,i think the engine was only put in wagons from 75-76 because of over stocked low horse 454"s them marketed as 400"s because of U.S. insurance. I know of no source of info on this poss. an old motors manuan? but I will look..The reason i know this is TRUE is the dealer I worked at serviced a fleet of taxi cabs and we removed a half dozen or so and replaced them with 350"s paid us 26 flat rate hrs for the conversion.I think thee came from your Canadian plant? and they were also part of the infamos MOTOR GATE story from G.M. I lso have been building big and small chevy drag and marine racing engines for 30 pluss years,so i KNOW they were not the other anchor motors you spoke of....Bill

Ok...but did they look like a BB Chevy?....I know that the 70-72 396s were bored .030 over to 402, which a lot of people referred to as 400s............some of the 402 pickups even had 400 badges on the fenders, I have been told.

Never heard of what you are talking about. Would love to hear the thoughts from some of our engine experts, of which I am not.......although, I think i know my Chevys pretty well.

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In a recent Car Craft Magazine{Feb '08} 409 buidup (481 cu in), the writer claims that "Chevy never employed four-bolt main caps on the 409".
Since I don't really trust those 'rag' tech writers, I was just curious if that was really true..

Anyone ever weld up the journals on a 283 crank and drop it in a 400 block,That lil sucker should rev.

Shane

Pretty sure CC is correct. From what I can tell, even the Z11 427 W motor was a 2 bolt affair.

the 396s bored 30 over to 402, but 1970 models were listed as 400bb chevy. ive seen a couple of 70 impalas that were all original from factory that had the 400 badge on the breather. but it was really a 402 bb.

i have heard of 327 cranks in 400 blocks for circle track.

As said in the early 70's in station wagons and trucks some had the 402 bb chevy engine, however the fender badges did say "400" and if you asked the person that owned it what engine it had they would say a "400 big block"
It seems somewhere along the line this is what these were known to be called by the public. This has came up on this board now on several occasions. The 402 was badged as a 400 so I guess the name stuck.

I think American Muscle car on speed TV did a show on this also. pretty interesting stuff

No that would take a .264 inch overbore, you'd discover water. Chevy, like everybody else doing thin wall casting uses different size cylinder cores for 305s and 350s so they don't spend so much money on unnecessary material.

Gone are the days of 1/8" or more overbores on factory blocks, anything newer than the early 1970s (for Fords its the early 1960s) just won't support super overbores, these days you can do .030 as a max pretty safely. Beyond that, sonic testing is required, you might find some blocks that will go .060, But that's really about it.

Bogie

Actually Ed Cole brought what would become the Chevy Small Block with him when came over to Chevrolet from Cadillac. It was something the engineers in the back room had been working on that was considered "too cheap" or "cheesy" to be used in a Caddie.

Sometimes you don't know what you've got till it's gone.

Bogie