Sitting with my brother at his house talking about whatever came up and his room mate comes in. Travis is a gearhead and he also tinkers with a 68 Ford half ton he got from his uncle a bunch or years ago. He's telling me that he has a line on a 429 Super Cobra Jet that he's thinking of putting in this truck. Now,this old pick up has seen a lot and has had it's share of work done on it. The only issue that Travis has is why of the Big Three,Chevy small blocks are so cheap to build. Well,that's because Chevrolet engineers got it right when they developed the 265 small block Chevy,After all almost every other type of car in North America had a V-8 when Chevrolet decided it was time to build one. It required less castings,9 major and 3 minor to manufacture while another manufacturer required 22. And weighed in 41 pounds lighter than the 235 inch inline 6. Now,I'm not saying that the first small block Chevy was just slammed together just to get it out and into production. It took 3 long years or designing and testing before it was in production. Ok,enough of the history lesson. What it boils down to is that no other engine has the ability to be modified and hot rodded like the small block Chevy. The Small block Chevy has gone into more vehicles than any other engine ever built.
The Second Generation LT1 was the pinnacle of small block Chevy development. With 300 net hp at 5000 rpm and 330 lb/ft of torque at 4000 rpm. As a result the V-8 powered 92 Corvette was the fastest production Chevy to come of the assembly line at that time.
After convincing Travis of other benefits of the Small block Chevy I could actually see the gears turning in his head. He was considering scrapping the big block Ford idea and thinking about putting his money into a 350 Chevy. After all,he could build a much more streetable engine,with decent power for less money and get better fuel economy to boot! Nobody can argue that the original 283 Chevy was better on fuel than the 289 Ford. Same with the 305 Chevy compared to the 302 Ford and the 350 Chevy compared to the 351. I have yet to see or hear of a 96 Ford regular cab pick up getting the same or better mileage as a 96 Chevy regular cab pick up with all things being equal. Of course that brings up another very viable point,if your building an engine for horsepower,who cares about gas mileage!
