1957 283 power pack cam sec's

[bill k]

PDQ,
The real difference was in the rocker ball seat and the ball itself. They were shaped differently. The ball was also larger in diameter, and
approximately 2 times thicker than the modern rocker balls. The car was a totally original vehicle
when I purchased it so I know the rockers were original. My dad (may he rest in piece) would grind
grooves into the balls to try to keep oil in the ball/rocker during the 50's. Remember these early engines had a basic
oiling system to the valves. The rear cam journal had a flat ground into it as well to help lubricate everything. I am 65 yo now
and have been playing with the small block since Dad brought one home for me when I was 12 yo. It was a Corvette 283 that was
changed out at the dealership because it smoked and burned oil. The Vette belonged to the regional Chevy factory rep. Dad asked if he wanted the old
engine after he replaced it, he said no, dad brought it home for me. Over the next couple of years he also brought home heads, pan,
oil pump, manifolds, a 327 300 horse cam, valve covers etc. Eventually we rebuilt it and assembled it. The only thing I bought new was
a 327 AFB intake manifold for a 1965 Corvette. We Later started the engine while resting on the oil pan sitting on the concrete floor
of my garage. After that I was hooked. I later sold the engine to a classmate who installed it into his 1957 Chevy , replacing the 6 cylinder. Since then I have played with and owned everything from fuely Vette engines all the way to a tri-power 1967 Corvette 435. Sadly I sold the 1969 L88 that I owned. Who knew back then what the future would bring for all the great things in cars we never even gave a second thought to. I know you had fun then just like I did. Happily, I still continue to enjoy and participate in the car hobby. I hope my journey back in time doesn't bore anyone, but it was the root of my interest in cars.
Bill

[bill k]

PDQ,
I too built a 301. It was based on a 1958 Chevy 283 punched 1/8". Cool engine!
I had quads on that one,12.5 compression in my 1957 Chevy 150 business sedan. I could rebuild
the 3 speed Saginaws from that car with my eyes closed. I was always breaking the 1st reverse slider gears.
My dad showed me once how to repair them, after that he left me alone. I never did put in the 4 speed
that I had. A few years ago I built another one based on a 1962 Chevy 327 +.030" block with a 283 crank. The piston
domes are machined down for 10:1 compression. Cam is 30/30, heads are Chevy bowties, Holley Z28 style intake. I am currently
looking for a project to put this into. Any ideas? I already have an LT1 Vega with a 4 speed.
Bill

[SKeown]

In the late 60's I ran a 165" wheelbase dragster with a Hilbern injected 390 SBC (3 3/4" stroke 327) with a GK roller cam, humongus Isky lifters, stock rockers, pushrods and "pink" rods. I dropped the hammer on the JR Fueler's slip clutch at 8000 rpm and never looked back. It never came apart, I finally overdosed it with nitro and bent all the rods, caved in all the Forgedtrues and cracked my new Valley ported through all the sparkplug holes. It was still running though, and the block and Reath welded crank were fine. It's unbelievable what we got away with back then!!

SKeown

[Stan Weiss]

This is a graph of a '67 Z-28 302 - 290 HP. It was used and done with a dial indicator and degree wheel taking reading every 10 crank degrees.

Stan

ab-chevy302-cam-lift.gif

[Stan Weiss]

This is a graph of a Lunati NHRA stock cam for the same '67 Z-28 302 - 290 Hp (circa early '70s). It was used and done with a dial indicator and degree wheel taking reading every 10 crank degrees. Note the lash was 0.010" and 0.012".

Stan

ab-lunati-lift.gif

[kirkwoodken]

I got my first 327 in November of 1961. I looked at the AFB and the WCFB's. Both had 8 square inches of venturi area. I picked the 2X4 setup for my car, the reason being air supply was equal, but distribution would be better, maybe. I raced everyone I could find in the following year and anytime I ran identical setups with the single 4 bbl, I out ran them. Drag race, from a roll, pull in high gear. The smaller 2X4 worked well for me. 55, 2.5, 4.56 posi. I never ran a car that shouldn't have beat me. 22 Corvettes, 5 409's, 3 427 Fords, and one 364" Rochester FI 56 Corvette tuned by my nemesis. He hole shotted me, I caught him in third, passed him in 4th. Those were the good ol days. Those were the ones I kept track of. The fenderwell headers helped a bunch also. The 097 cam with those headers pulled from 1200 to 6200, and that was it. To this day, it's the most fun I've had with a car. Was never on a track, but I would guess it made the low 13's. I beat cars that ran mid 13's at the track. I broke everything from the crank flange back at least once. Sun buzz box tach. I was 19 then. Compared to my present 406, it was a slug.

As I recall, there were at least 2 different 2X4 manifolds. Mine was the 270 HP 283 manifold. I had three sets of them at one time. Sold them for about $60. Wish I had those back. My cousin and I used to do cam jobs for $30 labor. Fastest one we did was three hours, in the street, in the rain. $5 an hour in the late 50's. We were gittin rich quick. I was 13, he was 16. Yeah, I'm 70! All I've done all my life is play with engines. Gas or steam; hasn't made much difference to me. My father had a Stanley steamer that I would hold things up on while he worked on it. I was 4 then. Machined my first set of steam engine castings on my father's Craftsman lathe when I was 13. That was my introduction to CMD#3 as lathe center lube. That steam engine got me my first job working in a machine shop. How's that for a bio.

[pdq67]

You guys have probably read before about me talking about my long gone Buddy Tom that had the '58 Vette rag-top with a hopped up 375hp/327 FI engine 4-speed tranny and 3.08 reg's under her.

Tom got run over in DC while riding his KHK Hog so he was paralyzed from lower back down.

He was a wirey little guy and befriended us kids because he could get us to help him work on his Vette. Tom would say, pick my dead-legged ass up and sit me on the fender so I could R&R my plugs. Finish the plugs and then "pick my dead-ass up and put me on the ground so I can change the oil" and so on and so forth.

His Vette had no more than an old Isky Z-30 cam in it as well as straight down 2.5" dumps off the big ramshorns.

His car was set up with a hand lever for braking it between his legs. Then he had an Orschelen Fork-truck E-Brake break-over lever for his clutch along with a Hog throttle grip on it.

Only deal was that when he wanted to drag, he had onna us kids ride shotgun to shift for him! Tom would say, "watch my throttle hand and when I say shift, jerk hard"!!!

I came back from La Plata, MO withTom late one Sat evening on a 1/2 pint VO run and I said that i needed to get back to Atlanta to my '57 to got see Jeeery over in Brevier, mO. He said hold on and shift and we were running like 160 to 170 mph!!

[pdq67]

You guys have probably read before about me talking about my long gone Buddy Tom that had the '58 Vette rag-top with a hopped up 375hp/327 FI engine 4-speed tranny and 3.08 reg's under her. along with little-bitty 7.00 tires.

Tom got run over in DC while riding his KHK Hog so he was paralyzed from lower back down.

He was a wirey little guy and befriended us kids because he could get us to help him work on his Vette. Tom would say, pick my dead-legged ass up and sit me on the fender so I can R&R my plugs. Finish the plugs and then he'd say, "pick my dead-ass up and put me on the ground so I can change the oil", and so on and so forth.

His Vette had no more than an old Isky Z-30 cam in it as well as straight down 2.5" dumps off the big ramshorns.

His car was set up with a hand lever for braking it between his legs. Then he had an Orschelen fork-truck E-Brake break-over lever for his clutch along with a Hog throttle grip on it.

Only deal was that when he wanted to drag, he had onna us kids ride shotgun to shift for him! Tom would say, "Watch my throttle hand and when I say shift, jerk hard"!!!

I came back from La Plata, MO with Tom late one Sat evening on a 1/2 pint VO run and I said that I needed to get back to Atlanta, MO to my '57 to go see Jerry over in Bevier, MO. He said hold on and shift and we were running like 160 to 170 mph!!

The guys held drags over at Calio, MO usually after dark on Sat. evening on Hwy 36 so I thought that I would go over and see what was happening right at 11 PM.

I got there and everybody was gone except for Tom.

He hollered at me and asked me if I would pull him back to Atlanta using a hay rope that he had in his trunk and I said, OK! You do know what a hay rope is? Don't you??

The next morning we both crawled under his Vette and the only thing left under it was the input shaft !! it even had a small chunk outta the flywheel! Gene shifted for him last night before I got there and I caught up with him at the DX Gas Station and so I asked him what the hell happened.

Gene said that Tom Foster's 350hp/327 '65 Chevelle 4-speed/3.73 regs had Tom off the line going into 3rd gear as Tom motored by it and grabbed for 2nd when she blew at 8,000 plus rpm.

It scared Gene damn near sick as the grenade went off under their feet.

pdq67

[bill k]

PDQ,
When I was in high school one of my friends owned a beautiful black with silver coves 1957 fuely Vette, 283/283.
It was the custom at the end of the school to do burn outs in the student parking lot. Well on one of those days,
Jerry, the Vette owner out did himself. During a full throttle take off his clutch decided to explode. You guess it,
no scatter shield, just the stock cast iron GM bellhousing. The clutch parts came up through the floor, just missing Jerry's
gas pedal foot. More parts tore through the front fender and the upper cowl area of the fiberglass body. Boy was he lucky
on that day. Shortly there after he removed the 283 engine and replaced it with a 409/425 horse engine from an Impala.
I never did understand why he butchered the car so badly to install that engine. He actually cut a hole in the hood for
the dual quads to stick through. Can you imagine the value of both of those engines in todays market for rare engines.
As I said earlier back then they were just engines. If you broke one you simply went and got another one.
We did have fun didn't we. Todays kids sit and push buttons playing video game, they are missing an awful lot.
Bill

[bill k]

Stan,
In looking at and comparing the graphs of the two 302 cams, I cannot believe the difference below the curve on both.
The Lunati came is considerably larger in area below the curve. and this cam was still considered NHRA legal. All I can say is WOW.
Bill

[Lasher...]

Through out the decades NHRA has changed the rules as what is legal for NHRA " Stock " class....... Lunati , Cam Dynamics , Comp Cams and a couple others offered designs specifically for " NHRA Stock " class.... while at one point they did have to be the same lift and opening and closing points as the factory cam , that was about all that they had in common..... most of those cams designed for NHRA " Stock " Class were FAR more aggressive and punishing on parts..... some were " Dwell " designs that opened very fast to near max lift and then " Dwelled " over the nose as long as possible and then slammed closed but were RPM limited and others we much smoother over the nose to allow more RPM out of the valve train and still others were totally different...... despite the name " Stock " these cams were pretty much useless for anything other than NHRA " Stock " classes..... " Stock " class cams were designed to squeeze the maximum out of the lobe within the then highly restricted NHRA " Stock Class " rules.....For any other use everyone had lobes that were far superior to the " NHRA Stock " class cams .... it would be almost suicidal to run one of those cams on the street for any length of time.

[bill k]

Lasher,
Thank you for the clarification on how this was considered legal at one time. The graphs showed two
entirely different animals.
Bill

[mtkawboy]

Did anyone else run into a 58 283 Turboglide crank that had a larger pilot bearing hole then the std one used in a stick or powerglide motor ? I never saw a turboglide but I assume the convertor end must have been larger to fit in the special turboglide crank. What a POS them things were to convert to a stick. Took a special after market pilot bearing. Mine broke in half at 6500 in high gear and we went spinning off into a field of sand

[pdq67]

Bill,

That was what happened to Tom's car that night.

He wasn't bent out of shape over the clutch explosion, but what really pissed him off was that it cut both hood latch cables so he had to take a kitchen ax to his f/g hood to get it open. Later he just glued it back together.

I want to say that Tom installed a 354 Hemi in his Vette. He then bought a '34 Ford Coupe and put the hemi in it. I lost track of him after that because I got married and was still working on the N&W-RR's "Traveling Tie Gang"..

Tom installed hang-down window weight sash chains after the cable cutting deal so he had to have two of us kids around to pull them down so he could get his hood opened.

Paul

[pdq67]

Oh, and btw, a hopped up 409 "W" truck engine will bolt right in a stock '67 350 SS Camaro, 2.5" exhaust manifolds and all.

Sucker looked stock!

pdq67