After I complete my interior, everything will have been gone through on my car except the engine (heads & block) and transmission. I already know I'll want a manual 5 speed at some point so that leaves me with the engine. I roughly understand all of the mechanics of an engine but haven't built one other than taking my intake manifold off.

Are there some general books out there that would give me a good primer on the Chevy small block and rebuilding it? I'm probably not going to rebuild mine myself, rather I just want to be knowledgable about what the heck the engine builder is talking about.

While this is all just talk at this time, there are some things I think I already know:

#1 - the engine is original to the car. Even though it's a stock 350/270 I guess I'd like to keep it. The LSx engines look nice, but I think there's too many changes needed for what I want. I'd probably go with a 383 and aluminum heads.

#2 - No laughing I'd like my fuel economy to be maximized so therefore I was looking at the TPiS mini-ram for fuel injection.



So back to the books. I'm looking for ones that discuss heads and how one can make more hp than another. How does compression affect everything. Difference between roller rockers and the stamped ones I have. Just how does throwing in a different cam in my stock motor give it more HP. Would be great if it also helped me understand how full length headers give more HP than short headers or the stock ram exhaust headers.

If you have some tips on good books to read for an engine newb, I'd be all ears.

 

My two favorites..."How to Rebuil Your Small Block Chevy" by David Vizard and "How to Hotrod Your Small Block Chevy"...can't recall the author of the latter (I'm not home right now) but they are both great books and absolutely essential for the home rebuilder. The titles pretty much say it all; the "How to Hotrod" book has lots of very useful info about things like head porting, safe and unsafe performance mods, etc.

 

to read, read, read and then when you think you know something talk to people that actually have hands on experience. There are levels of knowledge and/or workmanship and/or power ($). Define where you want to be and what your budget is and work toward that level. Rebuilding the sbc can be pretty basic or incredibly complex. Above all, enjoy yourself and try to keep the marriage together.

Did this help????

Bud.

 

How to Rebuild the Small-Block Chevrolet: Solid book on engine overhauls with reasonably current technology and guidance. This is a good "foundation" book to ensure you understand how all the pieces fit together, which builds understanding of how they interact.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1932494219/ref=s9_simh_gw_p14_d9_g14_i1?pf_rd_m=ATV PDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_s=center-2&pf_rd_r=1YN9T696W6PPTC36991A&pf_rd_t=1 01&pf_rd_p=470938631&pf_rd_i=507846

How to Build Max Perf Chevy Small-Blocks on a Budget: David Vizard is the guy that gets it all - building performance, on a budget and backing up his points with dyno and real-world testing. The only downside sometimes is what I call "Vizard Magic"...he might be able to get a '462 head to flow 260 CFM...but I am fairly certain he's the only one on the planet Again, good foundation to understand the concepts of how all the design decisions work together to deliver solid results. ANYTHING written by Vizard is a good read

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1932494847/ref=s9_simh_gw_p14_d9_g14_i3?pf_rd_m=ATV PDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_s=center-2&pf_rd_r=1YN9T696W6PPTC36991A&pf_rd_t=1 01&pf_rd_p=470938631&pf_rd_i=507846

High-Performance Chevy Small-Block Cylinder Heads: Excellent book on your specific question regarding cylinder heads. These types of books are out of date the moment they're printed, so the list of heads is already somewhat out of date - but there's solid information on how to evaluate cylinder heads written so that anyone with good basic engine knowledge can understand it. Between Vizard's book and this one, you get a good basic understanding of camshaft selection.

http://www.amazon.com/High-Performance-Chevy-Small-Block-Cylinder-Cartech/dp/1932494316/ref=pd_sim_b_6

I have yet to find what I'd consider a good reference for cam selection. There's some good information on CompCams and other websites, but I haven't seen all of it brought together. Vizard has a chart of duration ranges, etc. that's useful as well...but again I don't see a good overall reference out there today - hopefully someone will post one.

 

the late great john lingenfelter wrote a good book and so did Smokey yunick. both are excellent books.