Your Old 350 Block Sucks

We Tested It - and Four Aftermarket Blocks that Don'tThere's a limit to what you can do with old-school GM passenger-car parts, and the breaking point is relatively low when it comes to the Gen I small-block Chevy cylinder block. Sure, you can bore the block to within an inch of its life and fill the water passages with concrete before stuffing a 4.00-inch stroker crank into it and make decent power for a while. The fun won't last long, though, when the block cracks, leaks water, or flexes enough to pinch the main bearings or lose the head-gasket seal. To find the beef of the stock 350 and the aftermarket alternatives, we had Pfaff Engines sonic-test six different blocks with 350-style main journals (some are available with 400 main journals) and standard deck heights to see how far they could be bored and how thick the decks were. We also put them on the scale and called every manufacturer to find out how much work it is to drop a big arm into each one. The results were surprising, but we are savvy small-block Chevy shoppers now.
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Photo Gallery: Chevrolet 350 Small-Block Comparison - Your Old 350 Block Sucks - Hot Rod Magazine

Photo Gallery: Chevrolet 350 Small-Block Comparison - Your Old 350 Block Sucks - Hot Rod Magazine


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