The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area The HiPo Shop Old Chevy hotrodders- - - -attention please!

Anybody remember the "301" engines we used to run- - - -the 283's bored out to 4 inches that Camaro finally called the "302" by fudging half a cubic inch? I'm looking for some leftover pistons from one of those engines, 4" standard bore, with the 1/2" tall dome that brought 'em up to around 11:1 compression or more. If anyone has a source, I want to buy 4 of them for an experiment I'm about to do. Email or PM me if you have a source, please!
Jerry

Jerry, I can't help you with any parts. But I do remember the 301's. That was many years and beers ago.

Goin' up to the "geezer's" Old Race Car shop Sat. morning….. I'll check around
to see if someone's got any.

Those 301's were screamers at the drags back in the (60s) day….. you could rally rev the whiz outta them!

mike

We had a competitor at the Merced CA dirt track who ran nothing but 301's, and revved them to 8K by the end of the straightaway. He usually hand-grenaded about 3 engines a season, but as long as they stayed together, he was hard to catch!

It just happens that 283 pistons fit a Model A Ford engine with a little massaging of the connecting rod bushings, and I've got an old block that's been bored WAY oversize. I believe I can clean it up with a 4" bore job, and a set of high-compression 301 pistons just might make it a "sleeper" if the lower end will hold together with the compression increase. That's the reason for only needing 4 pistons, and I'm not above cleaning up some used ones for an experimental project.
Thanks, all!
Jerry

Jerry, have a friend that does rail racing and has a 283 in the back of the shop. I'll see what it is or if "turtle" has some pistons.

...oh, yeah, I ran the 301 in a 56 coupe back in '65. I always had to "run over my head" as no one with the same "size" engine would run me. I never told what I had till my brother run it hot at Shadyside Drag and it cracked #2 cyl. (while I was in the hospital.) I've never forgiven him!
It was a haint for a long time though.

It took Chevy awhile to recognize the potential of the 4" bore/3" stroke engine, so when they brought out the Z-28 Camaro "302" in the late 1960's they were just catching up to what the hotrodders had been doing for a long time. The true displacement is 301.47 cubic inches, so Chevy had to fudge the numbers a bit.

Interestingly enough, the early 302's with the small-diameter rod and main bearings always ran better that the ones with the 350-sized bearings. Less drag on the rotating assembly, I guess! It's possible to order a new 3" stroke crankshaft from the guys who make billet cranks, and at least one company I know of makes a lightweight short-stroke crank, 38 lbs. instead of the standard 55! That one winds up like a bumblebee on steroids, particularly when it's paired up with a 6" diameter 3-disc clutch for round track use. The crankshaft alone costs $2800.00, though!
Jerry

I can't help you Jerry but I also remember the Z-28 302. Back in 68 or 69 a "rich" friend of mine put a Z-28 302 into a 64 Nova and terrorized my local Shoney's Sat night drag racing crowd with it. Man that engine would scream.

Good luck in your quest, it sounds very interesting, a sleeper Model A

Dave

Remember the 289 Fords? They had an even shorter stroke, 2 7/8". There were a few round track guys who got the hot setup figured out on that engine, and on a short track they really got everybody's attention. It took some creative valve train work, but the 289's could live pretty happily at 8K+ RPM and stay together.
Jerry

Jerry, no luck on the "301". The engine is standard 283. I'll keep looking as long as I know you need them.

Jerry, I can't help you on the pistons, but I love these discussions about hot rodding back when. I remember when a driver (I think it was Donnie Allison) showed up at Huntsville Speedway with a 289 in a mid 50's "stock car". He surprised everyone for a few races. The other fords were running y-blocks and simply couldn't compete with the small block chevys. Like many others, I also ran a 301 in my '55 chevy in the late 60's. It ran great until a large hole opened up in the side of one cylinder. Went to a bored 327 after that.

Close, but no seegar- - - - -it was Red Farmer who campaigned 289's so successfully. The last time I saw him drive was on the 1/4 mile dirt track a couple of miles down the road from Talladega, and he was 80 years old at the time. He was not just motoring around, either, the old boy was hauling butt!
Jerry

BTW, I was working pit crew on a couple of 46 Ford coupes in the "Hobby" class when we ran at Huntsville in the early 1960's. We would tow the cars down from Nashville and race there on Friday nights, Nashville on Saturday, Bowling Green Kentucky on Sunday afternoon, then swap to dirt tires and run at Ridgetop Tennessee on Tuesday nights!
Jerry

Right you are. It was Red Farmer. Were you around when Donnie ran one race with a GMC supercharger driven off the front of the crank? It seems he found a loophole in the rule book that was quickly closed. It was awesome for the one race he ran at Huntsville Speedway. (Please tell me I didn't name this one wrong too. My memory ain't what it used to be.)

The Allison family, Smokey Yunick, and the Earnhardt crowd- - - -"It ain't cheatin' if ya don't get caught!" I don't remember that trick, but they had a lot of them up their sleeves. Earnhardt even had a long, skinny nitrous oxide bottle hidden inside a roll bar tube for a last-lap passing effort. Those were the good old days of round track racing! I've bent quite a few rules myself, particularly when the tech inspectors were too dumb to figure out what we were doing!
Jerry

Couldn't you take a 327 and slap a 283 crank in it? I'm not sure if they had 4 bolt mains though.

Yes, if it was an "early" 327 with the small main bearing journals. None of those engines were 4-bolt, however. I used to make 4-bolt 305's by fitting 350 main bearing caps to them and line-boring afterwards. I was using the 3.1" stroke Monza crankshaft from the 262 V8, for a total displacement of 255 cubic inches. We were required to run a 350 CFM Holley 7448 carburetor, and my tiny engine could wind 1,000 RPM tighter than a 350 with the same carburetor. As long as my driver kept to the high side of the track and kept the RPM up off the turns, nobody could catch us.
Jerry

Hotrod Lincoln, Was wondering if 292 piston would work. It's close to 4 inch and would save a little metal in cylinder bore.
Probably not but wondering, if would work. jbennett

I've looked at the 292 piston, but it has a dished top, and I'm looking for something with a dome to fill up some of that huge Model A combustion chamber. The block I'm dealing with is virtually junk, and has been bored out .060" or more, and then severely rusted. I believe it will need to be sleeved on all cylinders to use a 3 7/8" piston, either standard bore or with any of the usual oversizes. The .125" oversize 283 piston will have the right compression height, and a big dome will increase the compression to where I'd like it to be. If the experiment fails, at least it's an "outside the box" attempt to saving an otherwise useless piece of scrap iron. I'm also thinking about an attempt to fit a Mercruiser Marine 4 cylinder overhead valve cylinder head to the engine, since I've got a couple of them stashed away. If I go that route, a flat top piston would be more appropriate. That Model A crankshaft isn't much to brag about, with no counterweights and a very spindly cross-section. There were several OHV conversions for Model T and Model A engines such as the Rajo and Frontenac back in the 1920's and 30's before the flathead V8 got to be the preferred hotrod engine swap.
Jerry

Get out your welder Jerry. I was reading about guys welding counter weights on Model A crankshaft.

The Chevrolet 151 was a 4" bore - 3" stroke engine, same as the 301. Pistons for this should be readily available.
They may not be available in dome though.

Good idea, Dave, but they're all slightly dish-topped. I did find one that's probably a better fit, and it's almost flat- - - -less than a 1/16" recess. A Sealed Power 405P piston for a MOPAR 360 engine has a 4" bore, a wrist pin that's much closer to the Model A size, and a compression height that's just a bit taller than the Chevy piston. It will be a good choice if I try the OHV conversion, and a 1/8" overbore will bump the compression up a bunch even without the domed piston. There's always the option of milling the head and/or decking the block if I stay with the original head. Thanks for the suggestion!
Jerry

If you can stand a bite in the billfold Egge has flat tops I'm sure. Terrill Machine in DeLeon, Texas also has most old engine parts with a bit better price than Egge.

I can get .125" oversize OEM-style flat top pistons- - - -just looking for a cheapskate alternative!
Jerry

Hotrod Lincoln, have you looked at a sleeve kit for a farmall m
tractor, 4inch bore,,, low cost flat top piston, Just a thought
jbennett

There's not enough block strength to bore it out that far- - - -a wet sleeve kit would require a huge overbore. There is enough cylinder wall thickness to accomodate a 4" piston, or an overbore and a thinwall sleeve job back to the standard size 3 7/8" bore. I was just thinking outside the box with the domed 301/302 Chevy piston for a compression increase. There used to be lots of partial high-compression piston sets stashed away in hotrod shops, leftovers from blown-up drag race or round track engines. I guess I'm just 40 years or so past my shelf life!
Jerry

Why not a piston from a 350" - thats 4" bore.

Speaking of old chevy highperformance, I am doing a cam swap on a Buick Regal that has a sbc in it and backed up when opening the hood to find angle plug heads, the '292' turbo head. First set I ever saw - the owner had no idea about them so I educated him in case somebody tried to take advantage of him.

The 350 piston is made for a 3.48" stroke crankshaft, and will be about 1/4" too low on compression height. Back when the bored-out 283's were popular just about every hotrod shop had lots of partial piston sets from hand grenaded drag race engines- - - - -guess they all went to the aluminum recyclers years ago!

The "turbo" heads were only available over the counter at GM parts departments for racing purposes- - - -no heat riser passages and 64CC combustion chambers. They were never installed as OEM parts. We used a lot of them on Sportsman engines at the Nashville Fairgrounds 5/8 mile oval track in the late 1970's. Good stuff if you can find 'em!
Jerry

Man all of this talk about the 301 brought back memories as a child. Had a friend back in the 70's that had one installed in a 56 Belair gasser coupled to a four speed manual that that would just fly. We would pile into the back sitting against the sheet metal as there was no rear seat the torque/G's was so great you could not lift your back off the sheet metal once he let off that clutch, no matter how hard you tried. Will never forget that experience. The 301's a bad one no doubt.

Jerry, I'm originally from PA, and that's where we did most of our engine work in the day. I'm leaving tonight to go back for a visit. I don't know what my father has gotten rid of lately, but I know we had a set of 302 pistons, but they were like 12 or 13 to 1. Bad part is, I'm pretty sure they were not stock bore size. A guy changed his oil, and his girlfriend took it to town without any oil in it. It lasted for about a half hour. I'll see what's there. As far as Angle plug heads, we should still have a new pair hanging on the wall.
There was an early Falcon named Youngblood that run at our local 1/8th mile track with a 289. Man that thing would scream, untill one day he dumped the crank and everything connected on to the track. Never saw it again.
I'll be back in touch in a couple of weeks.

Thank you! I'm playing around with a trashed-out Model A engine that's bored out way too far to go back together in stock trim without a massive amount of rehab, including sleeving all the cylinders. The combustion chambers on a Model A head have approximately the volume of a Kentucky coal mine, so the combination of a .125" overbore and a big piston dome sticking up into the combustion chamber might make for some interesting performance increases. All that's contingent on the skinny little 3 main bearing crankshaft without any counterweights handling the extra compression!

I'm also looking at a Mercruiser outdrive engine, the 4 cylinder Iron Duke like the old Post Office Jeeps used to run, and wondering if there's any way to bolt that cylinder head to the Model A block. Taking a trip inside my head when I'm daydreaming can be a spooky ride sometimes!
Jerry

Jerry, late to the discussion, however if you need to sleave the block for cheep, I have used cast-iron sanitary pipe to make sleaves

However you could get a custom set of pistons made with the wrist pin in the right location.

Jerry, back in town. We have a set of 302 pistons, but are .030 over. They have very little wear at all on the skirts, and still have the rods on them. Kind of hate to break them up to be honest, but let me know.

Sounds good! Drop me a PM with the details, price, etc., and I might be interested in the whole set. Flattop or pop-ups? If the Model A project goes another direction, I've got a low-mileage 59 model 283 engine with the small-journal crankshaft that would make a NICE 301/302.
Thanks!
Jerry