Why are the 283 small blocks still so popular ?

 

nostalgia

 

They're not. Nobody would build a 283 today except for a car that requires it for originality.

 

When the 327 came out in 1962. No hot rodder spent any money on 283's other than the few that threw the 3.250 cranks in their 283 blocks to make the 307 ci.

I owned a whopping 270 hp 2X4 barrel 283 61 vette. I even installed one of the chevy off road mechanical cams. All you had was a mini mouse that tried to roar

In years past I had a collection of complete motors in my shop and I gave them all away. Because they were taking up too much room. 283's with the top of the line power pac heads and 396 ci BBC. All these motors we had yanked out of cars to upgrade to 327 or 350 and the 396 were getting yanked to stuff in 427's

It was the same thing with Ford and the 289's. I had some of those laying around that got pulled and replaced with the 302 boss motors or the 351 ci

 

Who told you they were popular ?

 

Carroll kept the 289 and got 306hp out of it and 326 tq

 

'Cos they were, and remain, sweet little small blocks. Somewhat sadly, these days it's easier to get your hands on a 350.

 

No they weren't. They had cheesy little crankshafts and rods. Even chevy's best rods. As a high school project and a donor 57 chevy we hot rodded a .060 over 283 with the biggest chevy over the counter off road mech cam small 2X4 tunnel ram ported 461X heads long tube un capped headers. The car came out beautiful all painted and the motor in the high school shop and parking lot sounded bad ***. Well the day comes and we all show up at the local drag strip for it's maiden voyage down the 1320 feet. It was 4 speed equipped. The teacher does a nice burn out and then stages the car in the light beams and the lights come counting down and the rpm level is coming up. I think it might have made it 60 feet when it made a big bang and puked oil and busted parts all over the track. The crank was broken and rods kicked out of the lower block and pan the sorry two bolt center main caps were torn out of the block.

What a waste of time and effort and it was the same thing that happened to all the guys trying to hot rod the small journal 327's prior to something like 1968 when GM came out with the large journal 327 because GM knew that they were faulty designs. 4 bolt mains and larger journals were GM's solution

All I can say is that they were an advancement over the Flat heads

 

That's funny, the first engine I ever built was in high school auto mechanics shop. 283ci with a Holley 4 barrel, never left the test stand as far as I know

 

Just following what i see listed for sale. seems like prices have been climbing for the 283s last couple of years

 

Supply and demand, not many out there anymore, price goes up. Some need them for replacement engines and some run in Super Stock classes where they have to run the original engine.

 

Go find yourself a DZ code 302...(Z28)

 

Some 283's are better than others the ChevyII block usually sonic checks thick enough to bore over 4.020 with plenty of cylinder wall left for safety. Grumpy Jenkins used small journal 327's pretty successfully in his Pro Stock cars in the 70's. The small journal 327 crank was used by Jenkins for a while, it might not live in a NASCAR environment but for drag racing it was great. I wouldn't use a 283 when 350 motors are cheap and plentiful.

 

I have a CE code 302 want to buy it? It's a 69 casting date with a "386" casting number.

 

My brother in law once owned a '67 Z/28. He wishes he had never sold it for $4500.

 

When I was a teenager, now I'm showing my age, my 62 Pontiac Lemans had a 283 stuffed in it with a 57 chev rear axle with .456 gearing. Got it when I was 15, what a blast and did I go through the engines. The bearings would burn up most always from throwing the generator belt and I buzsawed those engines until they would go any faster. You could purchase a dead chevy with a 283 for 25 to 50 bucks. I strip them down to a short block clean and install my original solid cam, heads, dist [dual point], was told the original engine was a 59 fuely, [If all the swaps that had corvette engines in them, they must have made more corvettes than what GM says]. Stuffed it back in and off I'd go again. I know now that the 327s and 350s are better, but back then they where not as available and they were a lot more of a premium. I liked them. T

 

What happens when you install a 283 crank into a 327 block? I heard you got a 302. You know 4" bore with a 3" stroke

 

Technology changes. In 60 years people will ask why in the world would anybody use an internal combustion engine when an electric car can do zero to 60MPH in less than 3 seconds.

 

a 283 will run forever and gets good gas mileage.....

just like ford 289 and the dodge 273... all V8 but smaller displacement.

 

Inappropriately overpowering a base 283 engine is NOT the fault of the engine. It was just built poorly, by not installing a suitable crank, rods, and bearing cap system.

The 283 was likely the best all-around engine...FOR IT'S SIZE...that GM ever made. It was economical, had good power and would rev well. Making it into a 327 produced an engine with similar capabilities, but with MORE CUBES. More cubes equals more torque. Same with the 350.

But, the 283 was (and is) a sweet LITLE V8 engine.