The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area Engine Shop Testing The First Big-Block Chevy, An Interview With Bill Howell

Neat history ... http://www.chevyhardcore.com/featur...st-big-block-chevy-interview-bill-howell

That's an interesting article. I remember Junior Johnson running away with the 1963 Firecracker 400 with one of the Chevy "Mystery engines", and then every Chevy in the race blew up within about 20 laps of each other. Some of our friends in the race business told us later that a postmortem on the engines found sheared-off oil pump drives on all of them. Too much oil pressure! Those were the Mark II engines he talks about, 427 cubic inches.
Jerry

I think Howell is a little off on his dating of the "flow box" for head work to the 80s. I was running a flow box in the 60s.
Also, we used high speed photography to record valve train motion. Had a mechanic that made plastic cockpit covers during the war, and he made things like plastic rocker covers for us.

I can't recall Bill Howell, but I did do some projects with Vince Piggins.

That was interesting, thanks for sharing.

-W

Good article. John, thanks. Would have been a gear heads' dream to work on designing those engines.