Nate Nagel wrote:
> >Nowhere near as twisted as the mess over at GM
>> with 3 unrelated 455s alone, not to mention a 454, 472, 500, and at
>> least 3 unrelated 350s.
>>
>
> I count four; Chevy, Buick, Olds and Pontiac.
I couldn't remember for sure if Pontiac had a 350, so I said "at least
3" :-)
>
> Guess which one was the cheapest to make (and therefore most compromised
> in design) and guess which one GM standardized on when they went to a
> "cor****ate" engine program.
Oh, you're preachin' to the choir on that one. The small chevy was a
great engine up to about the 327, but when they had to shorten the rods
for the 350 (and especially the 400 which also required siamesing the
bores) and never gave it the same block alloy that the Olds, Buick,
Caddy, and Pontiacs got.... well, it was not so great. It survives on
sheer numbers, aftermarket parts availablity, and familiarity on the
part of engine builders and machinists. But a knowledgable person can
extract more performance/durability from almost any other v8 engine than
from a smallblock Chevy.
Admittedly the Gen-III GM smallblocks are outstanding engines... but
then not a part from them really interchanges with the small-block
Chevy, either. Apart from keeping the bore-center spacing, they're
pretty much a clean sheet of paper.
> What they *should* have done was
> standardized on the Olds 350 for the "small block" and the Caddy 429/472
> for the "big block" cor****ate engines (in my fantasy world, that is...)
The 472 (or Olds 455 for that matter) would have been an outstanding
heavy-duty truck engine. FAR and away better than the Chevy 454.
As for a hi-performance GM engine, I might have to put myself in the
Buick camp, although Pontiac is close too. Being a Mopar guy, I like the
long rod length, big bore/short stroke architecture of the Buick. Its
the most "Mopar-like" of all the GM engines in those regards, although
the Olds is more like a big Mopar in block rigidity. The Buick's light
weight is nice too (a Buick 455 weighs about the same or less than a
Chevy 350.) But GM never fully addressed its problems- bad oiling system
and a tendency for too much block-flex partly BECAUSE its so light. But
the aftermarket did a good job with both, so it COULD have been done at
the factory.
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