Guest

Do you know how to identify a hi-nickle 350 block? Thanks for any info you can throw out. Tom

jackdaroofer

Curious also

there's one advertisd in my local trading post

What's the deal with these?

:seeya


[Modified by jackdaroofer, 10:41 PM 6/1/2002]

BBA

You mean a high tin block. Well, for one, it will NOT be a 3970010 casting, and for another, it WILL be 'Made in Mexico'

I avoid these blocks like the plague. They break/crack too easily.

The Green Rocket

What I look for is the following numbers cast into the end of the block: 010 and right below that: 020 The "010/020" refers to the alloy.

Thomas

Kevin 88

Nickel was used to harden the bore surfaces so the ring seal is better. Tin was used to make the block heat and cool more evenly. Tin and Nickel are shown as percentages in numbers cast into the block under the timing chain cover.

A "high nickel" block will have either "010" or "020", which indicates 10% and 20% nickel, accordingly.

The best blocks have both tin and nickel, and show two numbers: 010 and 020, which means the block has 10% tin and 20% nickel.

I found this pic which shows the casting numbers: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg...04#reader-link

Lack of any 010 or 020 numbers means the block has no significant percentages of either tin or nickel.

My 400 small block has 010 and 020 cast just like the pic above, and it was NOT "Hencho en Mexico".

My information comes from the Chevy Small Block V8 Interchange Manual by David Lewis - it is an excellent resource for casting numbers and other small block facts.

BBA

I don't know about the nickel/tin combo...but the '010' mark by the freeze plugs is the standard heavy duty block. It is also the last three numbers of the 4-bolt ( 350ci ) or 2 bolt ( 327ci ) casting. Thats why everyone likes the 3970010 casting. They are also a dime a dozen in junk yards because almost evey 350 truck had one from the 70's to 80's, as well as GM putting them in Corvettes and camaros.

Bill Chase

It will usually have a dart machine llc logo, or a bowtie logo from gm, if it doesn't it isn't a high nickel block, this is a myth and total bullshit. Only 100% way to know the nickel content of your block would be to remove small pieces of it from a few places and send to a lab, even then each sample will likely have different nickel content as casting technology wasn't as good, and metallurgical content from batch to batch was likely all over the place. And if anyone tells you otherwise they are flat out wrong, do not know wtf they are talking about, and are merely regurgitating a myth that's became urban legend over the years. Ask any of the top 5% of "real" engine builders, and most will tell you the old blocks were heavy, inconsistent as hell, you'd have to do sonic tests on every bore to know if you have a good block with thick walls.and the 880 roller blocks are almost always good to .040 over and in general a better quality casting. That's not to say the old blocks were junk, they just rarely were at blueprint specs, had lots of core shift, and had extra weight where it was not beneficial to casting strength. Ask anyone who is using cnc equipment and has sonic tested 1,000's of sbc blocks. They will verify what I just said.

Bill Chase

Buy a 880 roller block from an l31 vortec truck engine, dime a dozen, most the time will clean up at .020 or so, commonly bored to .030 just because pistons are more common in that oversize and readily available.

Sleazy Rider

wow...a 19 year old thread resurrection.

Vette5311

Soooo much misinformation out there on this. Who knows what to believe?

drcook

Bill Chase

Lmao, it was in the front page of this subforum, or at least I thought it was, sometimes on my cell it does weird things while searching this site. Thought I was responding to a current thread. Sorry guys

TA

That has to be some kind of record.

CorvetteRules

Patsgarage

Go fourth and sin no more.

drcook

I explained him about turning off "related threads" and "infinite scroll". That has bitten lots of folks, maybe even myself, since that was implemented during a forum software upgrade. Having worked with web programmers in the past, sometimes they do dumb a** things. Actually some web programmers caused a medium sized project to be delayed. I told them what they were doing wouldn't work, it didn't work, they got b*tch slapped by management and had to rework their software. It was a web connection (read that internet banking) for big money trusts at a major bank where I was a system's consultant at. I worked on the old school mainframe side of the house that did the heavy duty processing, they were building an interface.

It would be best if the forum administrators would turn those off by default as they have caused nothing but grief and ridicule to newcomers who stumble into the graveyard.