Eastside Cruisers

It's been a while, time for an update on the cobweb car... for a while it's been 1 step forward and 2 steps back, but I'm finally heading in the right direction...

My Uncle had this stock 2-bolt 350 Chev that he removed from his '69 Impala... the plan was to shout it some bearings and gaskets, plonk it in the car, and go cruising. Back on the road nice and cheap!



But a quick mock-up of my extractors (lucky I checked this before starting) - revealed no spark plug clearance. My pipes were hand built to suit angled plug heads, BUGGER!! The block also turned out to be 0.060" up already, which didn't worry me, but it became too hard. Even using my old heads after having them repaired wasn't going to give me decent comp without changing bottom end parts... so it defeated the whole purpose of this "cheap" exercise....



Next please....

Deb and I cruised down to see Milan (who owns the MENTLE Camaro) and picked up this beauty for only $350... a virgin bore 2-bolt 350 010 complete short block, looked mint:





Engine machinist seemed real happy with this too, but after a kero wash, he found some cracks in the valley, DAMN!!! We also found lumps of melted alloy and blackened components... turns out this one had been in a decent fire. Oh well, not to be.

Next please...

Luckily Milan is a top bloke and immediately said he'd swap it for another block... another road trip with the family....

D'oh - no more 2 bolt blocks left with 2 piece rear mains.. the gods are against me

Hang on, the gods are WITH me - this was my excuse to upgrade to a 4 bolt block, haha! What else was I going to do... so a slight upgrade of cash, and we set off home yet again with block # 3:

This one's a virgin bore 4 bolt 350, in MINT condition:





Barely needed a bath in the hot tank this one, super clean water jackets, perfect bearings... should be a real good starting point. And should clean up at 0.020" too which means future rebuilds are more flexible too....

Turns out it's a later model 'crate' style block - exactly like what you'd buy from Eagle. Couple of minor things we have to suss out - check out the shape of the sump mating surface for example where the dipstick runs - both sides have the curved shape.

So that's where I'm currently at. Trying to choose my new engine components at the moment. It'll be another 383 - tough, but very mild.

good strating point mate, way better of getting the 010 block.

will you be using your heads with some dome tops to get comp up?

nice work on getting the 4 bolt

Nice work Brett! It's great to see some progress for ya! Can't wait to finally line you up next time at a drag day!

Yeah Adam I'm using my old heads (the 200cc Iron Lightnings - now known as RHS heads). A new valve seat has been inserted, the guides have been honed, and some or all of the valves (haven't decided yet) are getting replaced for new ones.

The only drama is they have huge chambers, so yeah it's either fit dome tops, or run flat tops and go crazy decking the block, heads, thin head gaskets etc... investigating piston choice at the moment to work it all out.

Matty, we should be up for a good race actually! You'll have more comp and bigger cam than me, but a couple less cubes... bring it on! haha. Can I have a small head-start?

Thats great, will be awesome to see LXCHEV out cruizin again

So when is a rough goal date for you? This summer?

Weren't you always talking about putting a better stall in there as well? LOL. Time for a nice TCE one I reckon!

I'd love a TCE convertor, but I can't justify it when there's nothing wrong with my current one (it's a 3200 Holroyd from Wholesale Automatics, never given me any problems), so it's staying for now! With the mild cam I'm using, I wouldn't really want much bigger than this anyway. A while ago I was keen a bigger stall (4000 - 4500) with the solid cam, but I'm no longer chasing 1/4 mile times, I just wanna cruise.

Dave - I'm hangin' to drive this thing again

Ps. Yeah definitely by summer is the goal.