Any of them can turn 9000 if built right.

Wives tales the 327 will "outrev" XXX ci. motors.
They all can. Longer stroke motors just need to be built a tad more stout to take it repeatedly. They will always make more power, too.

 

That is worse than a wives tail. I've owned some 283, 307,327, 350 powered cars over the years. The facts are that the small journal pre 1968 SBC were very prone to breakage if hot rodded. Chevy knew this and came out with the larger main journal 4 bolt block in 68.

No stock motors were doing 8000 rpm. As technology increased so did rpm in the hot rod world. Production V-8's were kind of made to last. I don't think that they ever made a car back then with a red line over 7 grand? You can't consider 20 run model race cars production either

 

I wasn't talking stock. Years of hot rodding 283 and 327s I know of only 1 person who threw a rod. And I believe that was because the rod nuts stripped.

I remember 327's with a 2 speed power glide that would do 90 mph in 1st gear.

When I built my 75's engine I was surprised at the 6500 rpm recommended limit.

Ralph

 

Your idea of hot rodding and mine are very different. You guys weren't trying very hard or not producing enough power to really blow things up.

The small journal 265-283-302-327 just spit crank shafts on the road. I have blown/broken 4 motors just in my Vette with good aftermarket forged parts. One block I just removed the aluminum water pump,intake, and carb and threw it away.

90 mph in first gear is nothing when the gear is 1.76 in a powerglide That is like second or third in a modern tranny and apparently you never owned a car with a tachometer.

 

Wow, That was cool. Thanks for posting!

 

Slip-n-slide PowerGlide! I had one once in a Chevelle with a 396. shifted from first to second at about 70. I say 'about', because the shift would start at about 68 and finish at about 74. It would make this crazy howling sound at a stop. Could not kill that slush box

 

First that's a beauty, you don't hear anything but what you are supposed to hear when that revvs and it's music to my ears.

I gotta go with gkull though, you probably went through a month's worth of caculations and sourcing parts. I would never de-stroke a motor, especially a 427ci small block.

Years ago the parts were crap and guys destroked the bigger motors thinking the smaller parts would last at high RPM. With the huge leaps in technology as well a precision cnc milled parts over the years you don't need to do that anymore. You don't even need to really break a motor in like you used to. Yeah your pistons would have been small, oil support ring etc. but look at mine and I rev my 427ci smally to 7-7500RPM with the 4 inch stroke and don't even think about it, still old school though and 8,000RPM still makes me nervous. .


One heck of a lotta fun your going to have with that motor though, like I said. it sounds like a machine engine not a miss to be heard, you should feel proud

 

Thanks Motorhead, that's a huge compliment

I also appreciate everyone else's comments and feedback!

I totally believe you guys and I know you're coming from lots of experience and I definately like learning from your feedback. Everything I currently know is from listening to guys who know this stuff when they feel like talking (or writing )

As far as why I destroked, I should have listed my reasons in order of importance instead of haphazardly.

The thing that really drove my decision to go with this stroke was compression ratio and piston configuration. With the longer stroke I would have had to run short rods to get a decent pin - ring landing - piston top combination. I decided I would rather use a bit longer rod and a bit shorter stroke and off the shelf pistons. Yes, I gave up some torque, but I also shed some side load and avoided exotic custom pistons that would have made me pucker everytime I got on it. I have a lot of confidence in this set up in terms of relaibility. I hope my thinking isn't too far off here....


I did comment that the shorter stroke might allow it to rev a bit faster (unloaded), as I wrote that I was thinking parking lots and eyebrows, not circle tracks But that wasn't really what i based the decision on.

Had this been a normally aspirated motor where I could get away with 10.5/11 - 1 compression under aluminum heads on pimp gas, I probably would have stroked it out to 427 as you guys have advised. Heck, the money I saved on the huffer could have gone towards an aluminum sb 455

In the end, you're right. There are a lot of things I could have done. I'm learning all about that as I compare notes and read up here. Hopefully this is one of many and not the last engine I build up.