One of the things that gets in my craw about vintage cars is how every Chevelle was a Big Block and every Coronet had a 426 Hemi. Coming from someone who had a garage background, I always saw this as totally lame. For me, it’s the history of the car that matters. The motors that I saw when these cars were still on the road where much more mundane appliances. Just a short disclaimer: this is meant to be fun. It is not scientific and it is a product of my experience and biases. On top of that, I spent at least half an hour thinking about it. So, let’s get the party started!
Chrysler Spitfire Six
We hear all about the Ford flathead V-8 and the Chevrolet competition but rarely if ever the Chrysler Spitfire Six. My exposure to it was my Dad’s 1949 Chrysler Windsor with Fluid Drive. It was so smooth you couldn’t feel it run at its like 450 RPM idle. The Spitfire never had the kind of oil burning problems for which the Ford flattie was known. The rings would last the life of the car, unheard of in a Stovebolt. The Spitfire was so good five of them were arrayed around a common crankcase to make the Chrysler A57 Multibank, a true Frankenstenian device.
Small Block Chevrolet
The SBC gets too little respect. Yes, it leaked like crazy but it revved like crazy, too. Circa 2010, GM made it’s one hundred millionth SBC. They are still making them. The SBC introduced millions of kids like myself into the world of easy to wrench on go fast. Why anyone would crap on such a proven and successful design is beyond me.
Volkswagen EA827
So, how many bazillion of these did VW produce? The EA827 is not really known for romper-stomperism like the EA888 but it was a lovely motor. It, like all VW motors, is smooth, flexible and has a huge aftermarket. It just go overshadowed by later stuff like the VR6 and turbocharged motors.
Chrysler 318 2BBL LA
Note the exact description. The good old 2BBL 318 was in millions of Moparmobiles. It was about as reliable as a stump. The I never saw one that wouldn’t run. I used to rebuild them while they were still in their M body chassis. This was only necessary at huge kms and I only ever did two. On one, I pulled the heads and saw it needed a valve job, so I did just that. The other needed rings at 750,000 km.
Ford 302 2V
The Boss or K-code is famous but I never saw one. I did see a gazillon 289s and 302s with 2V carb as Ford called it. I was never a big Ford fan but the low power 302 was a good, reliable motor for Ford. The same could be said for the FE. Then Ford did wonderful stuff like the Triton three valve.
Please have fun in the comments. Please also remember this is not serious. It’s just about having fun, sharing some ideas and looking at some pictures.
You say they get no respect, but (at least from me, and likely MANY others) the 302 Ford, the 318 Mopar, and of course the SBC in all its iterations like the 350, get the utmost respect from me.
Having had a 5.0L (Ok, 4.9) in an ’88 T-Bird and having absolutely NO trouble with it for 236,000 miles, I’ll always be a fan of that 302.
From this group of fans, for sure these motors are going to be much respected.
The SBC gets slagged by Ford people all the time. They focus on the few soft cam motors made in the late 1970s. They also malign the SBC’s leaking propensity, which is a valid point.
The 302 is a motor, compact motor, at least 60 lb lighter than a SBC. They do consume more fuel in my personal experience.
I owned and drove Chrysler LA 318s that had no business performing as well as they did. One weakness was the “silent” timing chain drive with its plastic gear teeth. If they wore out and broke off, you would also get a valve job while fixing it. Other than that they seemed indestructible and I owned several into the 150,000 mile range
The most impressive one, I did not own, but drove while on a part time job with a university. It was in a 1970 Plymouth Belvedere, equipped like s taxi but with an AM radio and air conditioning. It just got up, dug , and WENT when asked to. Maybe the shop mechanics had bumped up the timing a few degrees? The Valiants in the fleet had Slant Sixes. The Belvederes were everybody’s favorites and I was assigned this one for my four months there.
Like (seemingly) everyone else I also owned small block Chevrolets, both 327s. Their best qualities were that they revved like crazy which was probably why Chevrolet could stick with their hoary old Powerglide so long, and parts were cheap. But it did seem to me thatvthey wore out more quickly than their Chrysler competitors. One if mine which I had since almost new was burning oil at under 50,000 miles.
A lot of the bad press the SBC gets is due to bad maintenance. I like to use the example of my dad’s 1979 Impala 350. It was ordered new but of course, dad couldn’t keep a car longer than five years.
It got regular oil changes, twice a year in the 100,000 km it went before being assigned to taxi duty. It went well over 1,000,000 km. The only repair we ever did was valve guides at 500,000 kmish. The 350 had better materials and lasted quit a lot longer than a 305. It also used 25% more fuel.
Even a common, garden variety 305 with 2bbl carb would go 500,000 without opening one up, which was pretty much the same as an LA.
I bought a new 1973 Dodge B-200 with the 318 and stick, and in 1979, at 60,000 miles, I had to replace the timing gear/chain because the teeth fell apart. Pulled the oil pan and found most of the vinyl teeth were clogging the oil pump pickup tube. Went on to drive the hell out of that van and put almost 250,000 miles on it before the body rusted out.
Yes, everyone trashes the 318 (both the LA and Poly) but they did run and move the car down the road smartly enough and were super reliable. True the later ones didn’t run happily with the emissions devices that were foisted upon them, but not many American engines did.
I’d take a 1970 Coronet with a 318 any day.
In my experience the LA version of the 318 was significantly more energetic than the older poly version. But both were certainly durable. I can tell you that by the late 80s listings in the mass market parts books (and non-shared parts stocks) for any 318 earlier than 1967 (when the LA replaced the poly) were getting rare.
There wasn’t much of an aftermarket for the LA, at least when compared to GM and Ford.
Hrr? For as long as I’ve been aware, there’s been a big enough range of aftermarket upgrades to bankrupt almost anyone looking to upgrade a 318. I’m sure there’s an even bigger range for SBCs and SBFs, but how many dozen different intakes, heads, headers, distributors, camshafts, timing chain and sprocket sets, etc, does one have to be able to choose from before we stop saying there’s not much of an aftermarket?
+1 the 340 and 360 have a considerable aftermarket from what I’ve seen, and it all works on the 318.
Again, this is all about my biases. I never did an LA build, nor had anyone ask for one.
I did about 1.9 shittons of SBC builds and about 0.7 shittons of Ford builds.
Chevys and Fords are more common and kept those engine families going in their *cool* cars until their replacements(the LS series and Modulars). Only places you found LAs in Chrysler products in the 80s and 90s were M bodies and trucks, but anybody hopping up a dart or Duster is probably hopping up either the LA 318 it came with or a 340 or 360 or Magnum(which is basically an updated LA).
Ford 390s and Chrysler 383s in regular gas 2v guise seemed to get little respect. Both were down on the power relative to displacement. Neither liked to rev. Yet both provided gobs of smooth torque at relatively relaxed rpms. These were more like truck engines converted for cars than car engines converted to trucks. If you didn’t try to make them into something they weren’t, these engines were super reliable. They were just the ticket for what American drivers wanted in Mercurys and Chryslers. I’d also give an honorable mention to the Buick nailhead for the same reason.
Good points. I talked to my former prairie farmer friend about this article just a few days ago. He pointed out they had a 3t grain truck with 330 CID FE and how it was absolutely indestructible. However, the same can be said about a Big Block Chevy 366. Both motors had tiny carbs and didn’t make a lot of power. Hence they lasted forever.
The 383 was definitely a great motor. My uncle had one in a 1968 Newport. He constantly got speeding tickets in it. His previous car had been a 1963 Meteor, with six cylinder and three on the tree.
Between these Ford and Mopar engines, I’d give the nod to the latter. More specifically, the entire RB series, which came in 383-400-413-426(wedge)-440 sizes. For many, the RB Mopar V8 was the big-block engine of the day, second only to the Chevrolet Mark IV (396) big-block. The Ford FE was a distant third.
I might go the other direction and say it was the smallest displacement small-block V8s that get no respect. From Ford, it was the 221. Chevrolet had the 265, and Chrysler had the 273. They were all solid engines that were the beginning of the larger, more common displacements mentioned in the article.
With that said, I very much like the addition of the old Chrysler Spitfire Six. Virtually no one in this day and age remember how good these old Chrysler sixes were, relative to the competition.
It’s too bad there wasn’t room for the the old Chevrolet six, as well. There’s a reason Chevrolet was able to overtake Ford back in the day, and the availability of a reliable (and smoother) six than the Model T’s four (which, ironically, put out similar horsepower as the Chevrolet six) would seem to be a factor.
For some odd reason, ‘Crazy’ Henry Ford had an extreme dislike for six-cylinder engines, and refused to allow development of one for his cars for decades, instead trying to engineer whacky stuff like engines with an ‘X’ configuration. Radial engines worked well in aircraft. But cars? Not so much.
Old had the 262
“the smallest displacement small-block V8s”
“Chevrolet had the 265”
“Old had the 262″
Chevy had multiple engines of around 265 cid, the original in ’55 (3.75″ bore, 3” stroke, “265”) Same stroke as the later 283, 302, and the L99.
The emissions-choked “267” of late ’70s, early ’80s. (3.5″ bore, 3.48″ stroke) Same stroke as the 305, smaller bore.
and the L99 in the ’90s. (3.736 bore, 3″ stroke) Same bore as the 305, smaller stroke. I don’t know how it was advertised, but the actual displacement was 263.
But these weren’t the smallest Chevy Small-block. That dishonor goes to the middle-’70s 262, (3.671″ bore, 3.1″ stroke) smallest of the production Small-blocks by 10cc but using entirely different bore/stroke dimensions than the second-smallest, L99. I had a 262 in a ’75 Nova.
Olds had a 260. (3.5″ bore, 3.385″ stroke) (if Olds offered a 262 it would have been the Chevy-design.
The Ford 221 “small block” (3.5″ bore, 2.870″ bore) was such a disappointment that Ford did not keep it for the entire ’62 model year. Replaced mid-year by the less-disappointing Ford 260.
The Ford 221 wasn’t a “disappointment”. And it wasn’t replaced mid year 1962 by the 260. The 260 was just a more powerful option. The 221 was the base V8 in the Fairlane for all of 1962 and 1963.
The market was changing quickly and buyers wanted more power.
Oooops. You’re correct, the 221 made it all the way through the ’62 model year, and most if not all the way through ’63.
I was wrong.
What source says it didn’t make it all the way through the 1963 MY?
The revised (spring) 1963.5 Ford brochure still shows it available on the Fairlane, along with the 260.
http://oldcarbrochures.com/static/NA/Ford/1963_Ford/1963_Ford_Brochure_2/1963%20Ford-a07.html
” the L99 in the ’90s. (3.736 bore, 3″ stroke) Same bore as the 305, smaller stroke. I don’t know how it was advertised, but the actual displacement was 263″
The 1994-96 L99 was advertised as 4.3L and 265 cubic inches, but was as you said it was actually 263 cubic inches. This was not unlike the past when engines were advertised differently from their displacements (Ford 427, Chevy 402). I think they advertised it as 265 to play up the nostalgia of the original 265. Jon Moss with GM performance even built a ’55 Chevy with a L99 engine powering it to celebrate the SBC’s anniversary in 1995.
And don’t forget the original Chevrolet 288 cu in V8 engine! That’s not a typo, I said 288, not 283!
The SBC gets no respect? Is that why it’s installed in 90% of hot rods? It basically replaced the flathead Ford V8 as the engine of choice.
Fred,
It is meant to be fun. My best buddy constantly slags the SBC because he’s a Ford masochist. He’s fine with a change in brake pads mid-year, for example.
That’s where it comes from.
I feel for your friend, all those hot rot Ford’s with junk yard 350s in them, it’s humiliating. Maybe he can take some solace that there are lot’s of Chevy’s with the 9″ Ford rear end.
I will join you, Fred – in what world does the SBC fail to garner respect? It’s at the top of almost every publication’s “best engines” countdown and it has been the coin of the realm for aftermarket performance for pretty much my whole life.
A shoutout to Toyota’s later SOHC R-series fours. Chain driven camshaft, crossflow hemi head. A long stroke and long-lived engine but not a revver so it never got much respect from car guys.
Since the R motor don’t get no respect, I didn’t give it any.
That said, the R motors were amazing, except I destroyed on taking a loaded Toyota 4X4 up the Great Bear Hill on the Coquialla highway, while towing a trailer.
I had my foot to the floor for like an hour.
I had one in my 6000lb motorhome. It traversed the Ike/Johnson tunnels and Vail Pass without complaint, foot to the floor, mostly in third gear but down to second on the steep bits.
Except for timing chain guides they’re pretty indestructible. Toyota made bazillions of them.
How about the Toyota R22? It went into many U.S. Toyota pickup trucks, as well as various RWD Toyota cars. Never very powerful, but torque-y, reasonably fuel-efficient, and quite durable.
I was also impressed with the later 1.6-liter 4A-FE, found in the FWD Corolla/Prizm and other FWD Toyotas. Not as glamorous as the racier 4A-GE, but smooth, tractable, exceptionally fuel-efficient, and impressively reliable.
When our 7AFE (1.8 liter) Corolla was rear-ended I got a Quad4 Olds Alero as an insurance loaner. There were a lot of bad things about that car, but I liked the engine. And I know the Quad4 gets a lot of hate but it seemed fine in that car, or at least overshadowed by the car’s poor ergo’s, massive torque steer, and a lazy transmission. And the Quad4 had some racing success, so maybe it belongs somewhere on this list.
Well, at least that took car of the Toyota 7A-FE oil burner.
care, not car…
(Gah, that was supposed to be “22R” not “R22.”)
Another Rodney Dangerfield engine is GM’s Iron Duke. IMHO, the early carbureted ones weren’t anything to brag about, but the later Tech IV version with throttle body FI were pretty decent. Sure, they weren’t the smoothest or the most powerful engines on the market, but a well-maintained one could give many miles of reliable service.
Another engine that doesn’t get enough respect is the humble Ford 351 Windsor 2 Bbl V8. Was around a lot of early 70’s Fords in my youth and these were head and shoulders above their 400 CID Ford brethren in the reliability department. (Especially for cars that had reached cheap end-stage beater status.)
I was waiting for Duane Hayes to chime in on the Iron Dud. I put it in my bottom five engines. The reason for me is this: I was used to driving VW Rabbits with the EA827 and K-Jetronic fuel injection. Coming from this to an Iron Duke was quite a switch. The EA827 was smooth, torquey and made decent power for the day.
The Iron Duke was none of these.
The Iron Duke produced more noise and vibration than power (at least until they finally added balanced shafts, i have no experience with those), but its durability has been proven in hundreds of thousands of postal vehicles in stop-and-start driving, so I’ll give it a modicum of respect. But only a modicum…
By the time its 221 came to market in fall 1961, Ford had been able to learn from the other V8s that had debuted since its own Y-block in the early 1950s. Still, I’m always happy to see its light weight touted–thus its use in those British sports cars—as well as the precision-casting efforts of its (Cleveland) Foundry. As production precision and consistency improved, they could cast for larger displacements, hence 260, 289, and eventually 302.
[Popular Mechanics, December 1961]
The list is interesting. I am fully on board with the Chrysler Spitfire and will defer to your experience on the VW. But to me, the rest of the list is self-refuting. Anyone who fails to respect any one of those three will automatically sing the praises of at least one of the other two. And don’t those three get us to within rounding error of 100% of the aftermarket performance market?
As expected, I go a different way and will nominate three others in replacement:
1) The Chrysler 3.3/3.8 iron V6 – It was almost the perfect minivan engine, with decent torque and incredible durability. Of course minivans don’t get respect either.
2) The 1955-56 Packard V8 – Everyone forgets about it because of its short production life, and those that don’t turn their noses up at some of the teething issues that every great V8 had out of the gate, with the only difference being that the Packard didn’t really have enough time or money to work through them.
3) The Studebaker – – – wait for it – – – Commander 6. Stude fans love the little Champion 6 and the mega-stout V8, but even Stude fans ignore the Commander 6 that powered the pre-war and early postwar Commanders and was offered in trucks as a big, torquey flathead six up until 1960. Everyone forgets about Studebaker, and those who don’t forget about this engine.
A great variation on a list like this would be to break out engines on different criteria, like durability, performance, economy, and more that I am not thinking of right now.
Jim,
It is all in fun. It is a product of my experience and innate biases.
JPC: I don’t “know” the Packard engine at all beyond this SAE-report document, but if you don’t have this story of its thoughtful development process, I’d be glad to pass it to you somehow:
I would submit the Chrysler 2.2 and 2.5 Fours. Quite a bit of worthy merit in them, but no respect because K-car haw haw haw.
Considering my recollection of the 2.2 is 5 year old K cars driving around with rod knock so bad they sounded like diesels, these deserve some credit for sheer stubbornness. The turbos were genuinely quick as well
Not rod knock, no; it was piston slap. Noisy but pretty much harmless.
When I was a Mopar service advisor, we did loads of head gaskets on the 2.2. The 2.5 was better but not by much.
I had a gf whose mom had a Lebaron GTS with the 2.2 Turbo II. Once you got past the horrible turbo lag, it was pretty peppy for the day.
The small block Chevy only needed a decent designed valve cover and gasket to take care of the oil leaks, it only took GM around twenty YEARS to finally fix it.
My list would include the Ford 300ci (4.9L) inline six that was produced for 32 years (1964 – 1996) and was last used in the F-Series trucks, full-size Bronco, and E-Series vans.
You had to try really hard to kill those beasts. No timing chain – the cam was driven by a gear. In an F150 it might not have gone as fast as the optional V8 of similar displacement, but man could that thing pull from a standstill. It was a torque monster!
I’m gonna toss in the G180z Isuzu engine that was in my Chevy LUV. Over 330K miles with nothing more than regular oil changes and 2 head gaskets, like all bi-metal engines.
The 2.5L 5 cylinder mill that powers my 2007 VW Rabbit as well as many U.S. and Canadian-market Mk5 and Mk6 Golfs and Jettas is one of these. It is to be sure a big iron lump of yestertech, and while it solved the power deficiency of the “2.Slow” four-banger it replaced, the old-fashioned solution to increasing power (more cylinders and more displacement) led to the old-fashioned problem of disappointing fuel economy. But everything I read online suggests these are crude, rough, and noisy, and that’s just not the case. It’s quite smooth and generates only a distant low-volume and low-pitched white noise and little vibration or harshness. It does get a tad raucous at high revs, but that’s utterly irrelevant because it’s so torquey down low that there’s rarely a need to rev it up. The 6-speed automatic mated to most of these (in an era when 4- and 5-speeds were more common) also ensures the revs stay low. And now that they’ve been on the road for 16 years, it’s become apparent they’re also very durable and reliable, something that can’t be said about some other VW Group engines.
I had a test drive of a Golf with the 2.5 motor. It was a really nice unit and very VW in character. This means it has lots of low end power, making it fell more powerful than it was.
Never drove the 2.5 litre VW, it came out after I bought my current (’00 Golf) but probably would like it; unfortunately VWs have gotten heavier with time such that they needed a bit more power. My good friend used to joke about bigger displacement 4 cylinders as being “big blocks” (but he knew better).
All my cars since 1981 have had the EA827 but 3 different displacements (I’ve only owned VWs and don’t buy cars often), my ’78 Scirocco had the 1.7, my 1986 GTi had the 1.8 with CIS E, and my ’00 Golf has the maligned 2.0. I’ve found them dependable, though I don’t much like the configuration of the timing belt driving the water pump on the 2.0 (and then putting plastic vanes on them that can break and jam not just the pump but the timing belt). Plus, you have to remove the motor mount on the passenger side to get the belt disengaged (since it circles the mount). The 2.0 isn’t interference engine, so you won’t break a valve, but it will strand you . All mine were 5 speed manual.
My Mom learned to drive on a ’51 Chrysler Windsor with fluid drive, that my Grandfather bought new. He used it to stock his store (he owned a small mom & pop grocery store) for items that weren’t delivered. My Uncle inherited it and drove it through 1969, when he was graduating from college, the head gasket went and he didn’t have time to mess with it, so he replaced it with a new ’69 LTD. They didn’t have any real garage (they lived on top of the store) and parked the car in a rented former barn. I never drove the car (too young when it was given up) but rode in it a fair amount. Interestingly my Dad bought a new ’56 Plymouth Plaza with the flathead before he met my Mother; it only had a heater, and the lack of an automatic is telling, my Mom never was comfortable driving a manual. The LTD he bought had the 302.
My Dad had a ’78 Chevrolet Caprice Classic wagon that had the 305, guess that was a small block Chevy.
As for the 318, I’m pretty certain I must have driven a car with it when I worked for Hertz as a transporter in ’77 and ’78; they mostly had Fords back then but a few Mopars, lots of Dodge Diplomats, and one Dodge Magnum. A friend had an 87 Ramcharger which had the 318.
I tend to like cars that don’t have the latest/greatest engines (though I was an early adopter of fuel injection being a VW owner, they seemed to feature it in many cars). My current Golf with the 2.0 fits that category. They’re pretty straightforward to work on, which I like. So I guess I’m a customer for engines that don’t get respect, in that they do their job but are almost taken for granted.
“… On top of that, I spent at least half an hour thinking about it… “
That made smile.
But so far, nary a defensive comment about the Chrysler Spitfire 6.
Why? That’s probably because all of the fans of these engines are going or gone, or don’t know how to use the internet, or it’s their nap time.
But not this up, alert, and computer savy CC reader – dag-na-bit! Why just recently a very pretty Doctor wrote the following about me in her notes (he’s AOx4). So there!
Anyway, where was I? – Oh yea – My Spitfire 6 fluid drive 1953 Chrysler convertible suffered from a number body rust issues, snow and rain water leaks, electrical weirdness, and an opaque back plastic window, but that Spitfire motor was (as you so correctly say) “… so smooth you couldn’t feel it run at its like 450 RPM idle…” .
It just ran and ran, slowly but steadily, on and on. Kinda like me.
I drove my dad’s regularly. I’d like to show up at a girl’s home with it for a first date. If I got away with it on date #1, I’d show up for date #2 with my BMW R100/7, for example. Best ever was the Windsor on Monday and my RZ350 on Tuesday. I got the girl, too.
I took dad’s car up the Malahat drive outside of Victoria, BC. It is pretty hilly but the Spitfire just ate it up at 50 MPH-but uphill and down!
Saying the small block chevy gets no respect is the equivalent of saying the iPhone gets no respect. its absurd, its the most common V8 engine ever made with a massively broad variety of applications and a massive aftermarket still supporting it to date, for all the “lack of respect” it sure seems prominent. People pointing out its flaws who arent willing to say its the best engine design ever(which it isn’t) isn’t a lack of respect, they just don’t put it on a pedestal. Literally every other GM V8 doesn’t get enough respect compared to it.
There are at least a couple displacements of the SBC that qualify as getting ‘no respect’ but, AFAIK, may otherwise be okay engines. The two that spring immediately to mind are the 307 and 400. The former of those two got put into a whole lot of 1968-73 Chevys, and the latter even more from 1970-81. They weren’t speed demons like other variations and displacements, but for a workaday V8 that was reliable and ran well-enough for the average Chevy driver, they were good enough.
Don’t forget the 267. I have never read anything good about it that I recall. My experience with it in my 43 years of owning my ’79 Malibu has been nothing but good. It leaks oil like all of the small blocks I have owned, but the only repair the engine itself has required was a rear main seal about 20 years ago. It has 168,000 miles on it. It seems more powerful and responsive that what others have noted about these. I figure it gives that impression due to the manual transmission. She did a lot of burnouts when new.
Having owned two vehicles with a 350, a street rod and an El Camino, I really feel that it is the best V8 engine ever produced. This coming from a Ford guy.
Good call on the 267. Of that whole series of small V8s at the time (Pontiac and Oldsmobile also each had one) which were lambasted for doing nothing well other than meeting emission requirements (which was mostly deserved, particularly for the lame Ford 255), the 267 was still a SBC that retained the inherent qualities of that engine.
Even more than the 307 and 400, if I had to pick the SBC that gets the least amount of respect, it would be the 267.
I’ll agree on the Dodge / Chrysler 3.3L V-6. It may have only made 158hp on a good day, but the low end torque (some 204 ft-lbs I think) could make it cross an intersection with some stoutness. No, it won’t ever win any stop light races, but it was a good match for the mass of that minivan. Even in spite of that Ultradrive 4 speed. Our’s is a 2000 Grand Caravan SE with 167,000 miles AND it’s original Ultradrive. I always liked the loafy low end tractor-like power. Oddly enough, I miss driving it. Always thought the 3.3 would make a nice little V-6 for a long range touring car. Something you just kinda get in and -go- somewhere.
Ironically the 302 in my 76 Mercury Comet is the only engine the had a catastrophic failure of all the cars I’ve driven. Dropped a valve at about 190,000 miles so I guess it wasn’t a bad motor. The 302 in the 68 Galaxie I had was still running when my dad scrapped the car at about 180k because the frame was rusted so bad he was afraid to drive it. Have had good luck with all the small block Chevy’s I’ve had, and a 400 Pontiac that was our family car back in the early 80’s in a 73 Catalina had well past 200k on it when it got to the point it didn’t have enough power to move any more. That engine was overheated many times – the radiator leaked bad and no money to replace it. I’m sure the cylinders were no longer round!
Weather I like them or not, I’ve never heard of SBCs or Ford 302s having no respect. As someone mentioned earlier most of the hot rods at shows have SBC engines, personally of the ones I’ve driven the 327s are head and shoulders above the vaunted 350s, but I probably drove too many heavy smog equipped cars and trucks.
And differentiating between the SBC and a 2 barrel Ford 302? An engine family vs a very specific version? I will say this though, all the 289s I’ve driven have been dogs. It seemed the slight stroke of the 289 to the 302 and the accompanying torque increase really made a difference. And early 289s had oil pump problems.
Now the 318s I’ve driven have been very forgettable. Never owned one or even drove one long enough for a good feel, but my limited experience suggests it’s at best forgettable. Odd since the 340s are so memorable. But not the 360s. OK, I’m rambling, I could go on for a while and we’re not even talking about our favorite engines yet!
Great disrespect was heaped on the EA827 when its neutered version landed at AMC. That motor was the best part of my 79 Spirit. It made a half dozen round trips from navy base to home and commuted 2 years of school. It was north of 200K miles when we parted ways. I wished I’d understood more about that motor. I’ll just stop at the oil build up in the air cleaner because of the jackass intake and rest of the B.S. that poor EA827 was saddled with. All that time it was crying out for its Jetronic FI.
That was a totally different engine family; it was the original Audi engine designed by Mercedes from the mid 60s, and then updated with a SOHC head for the Porsche 924, the VW LT and AMC.
The EA827 engine started with the smaller Audi 80/Fox, and then used in the Golf, etc.
We have owned each of the V-8’s all except one in light truck applications.
’57 Chevy 210 with 283 2bbl
’64 283 2bbl slightly modified in a ’71 C10 pickup
2000 350 “Vortec” in the current K2500 pickup
’66 Dodge A100 with 273 2bbl
’69 Dodge A108 with 318 2bbl
’86 Dodge B2500, 318 2bbl, nearly impossible to pass smog checks
’74 Ford E100 with 302 2bbl, same smog check problem
’94 Ford F150 with 302 EFI, gutless, especially at altitude
1. MoPar “Polyspherical”, mid 1950s to mid 1960s. Ok, this is three (related) engine families, each with two deck-heights, and multiple displacements. The first two, the Chrysler Poly and the Dodge Poly, were essentially first-generation Chrysler, and Dodge Hemi short-blocks, with “cheaper” single-rocker-shaft cylinder heads and attendant parts. The third, which started out as Plymouth’s first V-8, called the “A” engine, was later revised, lightened, and lowered into the “LA”; which itself was revised into the “Magnum” Mopar Small-block. The Polys were perpetually in the shadow cast by the Hemi; but were entirely adequate engines in their own right. International’s “SV” V8 owes a debt of gratitude to the Mopar engineers; as does the Chevy “Mystery Motor” of ’63 Daytona fame and it’s progeny, the “Chevy Mark IV” Big-Block and it’s descendants–the Gen 5, Gen 6, and Gen 7. And without the two Mystery Motors being sold to Ford in ’63, there maybe wouldn’t have been any of the Cleveland or “385-series” canted-valve FoMoCo engines. The MoPar Polys cast their own shadows.
2. GM “Trailblazer/Envoy” Atlas 6 cylinder, 2002–2009. Also installed in corporate cousins from Buick, Isuzu, and Saab, and a 5-cylinder version in mid-size pickups such as the Colorado. DOHC, aluminum block and head. Everything a six-popper should be. Power, performance, smoothness, reasonable economy, wonderful durability. Why these things aren’t retrofitted to older Jaguars is completely beyond me. Biggest single failing is the exhaust manifold which has a sad history of cracking. Installed in a vehicle other than an SUV–a stylish sports car, for example, in front of a proper manual transmission and rear-wheel-drive, folks would have sang their praises. The only “American” inline six cylinder that made power, AND made sense. A “world-class” inline 6 engine. (The NoPar Slant Six made sense, but not power, and the Pontiac OHC 6 made power–for awhile–then had reliability problems.)
3. Buick/Olds aluminum 215 V8. 1961–’63 as a GM product, (some applications from Olds were turbocharged) later sold to Rover and developed over the course of decades. Eventually sold as a FoMoCo product when Ford bought Jaguar/Rover. Started out at the leading-edge of GM materials and process technology, and was troublesome in part due to the aluminum casting process which also involved cast-in-place iron cylinder liners. Rover used press-in iron liners to good effect. Developed into a Formula 1 racing engine by those crazy Australians; and also sold in specialist sports cars such as TVR. The Aluminum V8 was downgraded into the rough-as-a-cob iron Buick V6; the rights and tooling then sold to Kaiser, which transferred to AMC via Jeep, and then bought-back by GM. Developed over the course of decades into an adequate engine, in naturally-aspirated, turbocharged, and positive-displacement supercharged form. Also, the Aluminum V8 was modified into the “Buick Small-Block” cast-iron V8 starting at 300 cid, then 340 cid, and finally the very-familiar 350 cid.
4. Second-generation AMC V8. An amalgamation of first-generation AMC V8 design (same bore-center measurement of 4.75″, for example) and Buick V-6/Small-block V8 design (aluminum timing cover/oil pump, front-mounted distributor, shaft-mounted rockers) For an “independent” manufacturer with economy-car roots, the 390 and 401 made reasonable power; and the 304 was sold to International when they needed a cheaper engine than their tremendously-sturdy, over-built, in-house “SV” 304.
5. Buick OHV inline engines from nineteen-oh-shit until the advent of the OHV V8 Nailhead (or Nailvalve, depending on who you talk to) in ’54. When “everyone” including but not limited to Pontiac, Olds, Chrysler, Packard, Ford, even Cadillac was pushing Flathead crap on the public, Buick built nothing but Overhead Valve engines since the beginning. (Chevy, too, babbit-pounders that they were.) Kinda telling when the OHV Ford inline 6 was every bit the equal of the “famous” Flathead V8 in production trim; to the point where higher-ups at Ford proposed dropping the V8 altogether.
Honorable Mentions:
Packard OHV V8 from the mid-50s. Moderate displacement from enormous physical size and weight–but lots of potential for growth. When Packard folded, both GM (Chevrolet) and FoMoCo considered buying the tooling. Chevy almost got the “Mark III” Big-Block V8; Ford wanted to build the V-12 version that Packard envisioned but did not produce.
Ford “Pinto” Lima 2.3L. Exactly the same as, but completely different from the Vega 2.3L. Not enough cylinders, rough and uncivilized, lacking power. Overhead cam in an iron cylinder head, belt-driven. Immensely more-practical than the linerless aluminum-block Vega. Ford had no business cramming the Lima Four Popper into anything with the word “Mustang” in it’s title, but with the low-aspiration, low-expectation, low-inspiration Pinto/Bobcat it’s a perfect fit.
International “SV” V-8. A true “truck” engine; little hot-rod potential without major expense, and supercharging–but durable as dirt in pickups, farm trucks, school buses, and so forth. For example, the aluminum pistons had an iron insert for the top ring, so that the ring groove has an approximate half-life of infinity. And–similar to Pontiac’s V-8–developed into a pair of large-displacement slant-four engines for International’s small “Scout”.
“The ring groove has an approximate half-life of infinity.”
Ha ha…Schurkey, this might be the comment of the day. 🙂
The VW was a nice engine to drive but not that fun to work on in my experience. I had a 2.0 and my father had a couple of 1.8’s and so did my sister. Very annoying when things go wrong. My father also had one throw a rod bearing at less than 150k miles.
The thermostat on my 2.0 required the removal of almost all the engine accessories which just seems dumb. The 2.0 was nice to drive had great torque for the displacement ran out of steam higher in the rev range thou.
318, love them owned a couple. Other then some lifter noise solved with some rislone every few oil changes I never really had engine trouble with them. Like a few people said they just keep going and going. Ive had a few marine versions apart side by side with chevy small blocks and the Mopars always looked better inside. The main bearings seemed to hold better and I never saw a bent rod (seen several in 350’s). I also like the rocker shaft arrangement better than GM’s post arrangement. Plus my favorite Easter egg before that was a thing, the Penta Star shaped oil pump.