I see alot of CE engines and hear alot of stories about how "the original engine in this 19__ _______ blew up shortly after it was purchased" etc. Were people any harder on engines back when these cars were new than lets say an LS1 Camaro? Were the engines pretty sloppy or were they just as tight as they are today?

Thanks.

When guys bought HIPO cars back then, they ran them, especially the solid motor cars. You have to put it in context. Prior to the muscle car era that was well into full swing by '65 - '66, there had been nothing to compare it to. Think about it. What were the hot cars of the 50's and what kind of motors did they have? Then GM, Ford & Chrys up the ante - significantly in the 60's. You are now able to buy factory hipo cars like you woould buy an econobox 4-banger today. Guys were coming home from Nam with a let it all hang out attitude and living life on the edge. Everything was done to the edge - including how the cars were driven. I was a young teen at the turn of the decade ('70) and was witness to it. Will probably never be another time like it. You want to know why motors blew up, tranny's broke, rears were destroyed?? Everytime you start your car up and take it for a drive - thrash it like you hate it - you're now back in the 60's.

I agree with Grn69 completely, the mid to late 60's and the early 70's were the years of Muscle car street drag racing. We had 1/4 mile markers setup just outside of town on I390. The local police knew this and really didn't care, as long as it was done safetly. Every Friday and Saturday nights, you would see at least few drags. Once in a while, you would see the big guys meet on Main Street, drop a few hundred and go down and run the best 2 of 3. We would have 100 or more people down there on the interstate watching these. Demons, Dusters, Chevelles, Camaros, Corvett's, Super Bee's, Chargers, Mustangs, and every other car use to roam Mainstreet looking for a car they could run (and beat). In 1971, the Chevelle that I now own, already had the engine gone and a built 427 in it's place. That dam 69 car was really what got me into Chevelles. It looked like the front wheels where bouncing up and down when the owner reved up the engine. Every year, one of the crew would go down and Paint new white lines on I390, one time it was me. But by the late 70's you could see things were starting to change. The locals starting setting up patrol cars on Fri and Sat on the markers, and it started to die off.

Fred.

That makes sense. I have heard that the engines were pretty sloppy however. Is there any truth to this?

I think that some of it has to do with that new cars have rev limiters as the 60's and 70's did not. Obviously important with a manual trans car.

They were good quality engines, especially given the technology available at the time. Every fake L78 or LS6 car on the market has a CE block and a BS story about exploding the original engine to go with it.

That makes sense. I have heard that the engines were pretty sloppy however. Is there any truth to this?

Yenko,

That's really an interesting question, if they were, I never saw one that was, and I have had a lot of small blocks apart. The reason I find it interesting, is that I have heard that several times also. Even the guy at the local machine shop has made reference to it. Some of engines, I have taken apart were very low milage, like a 20K 327, and several 283's that only had 40K or less. On the other hand, not that many chevy big Blocks. But I can say this, of the 69 396, a 69 402, one 74 454, and a 197? 454 they were all in spec, except for normal wear. Same with every small block that were low milage, and didn't lose an oil pump. Take a look at an old Chiltons manual and look at the spec's. Then compare those to the engines made in 1990, not a lot of difference, as I remember. I have seen a few factory mistakes, but at the rate they put them out, I'm not too surprised. It will be interesting to see what others have to say on this topic.

Fred.

I have heard that the engines were pretty sloppy however. Is there any truth to this?

I wouldn't say "sloppy" is the right term...
Technology today is much more advanced in numerous areas than it was in the 60s/70s.
Materials and metals are of a higher quality, machine tooling is much more accurate, casting processes have been refined, actual manufacturing procedures have been improved, even oils and lubricants are more sophisticated. Durability has improved greatly with tighter, more consistant tolerances and better designed bearing/ring types.
Back in those days it was pretty rare to see an engine go 100K+ miles without major overhauls.
Nowdays, 250K+ miles is commonplace.

fuel injection is the big key to make engines last longer, no more stuck chokes, people pumping the sh** out of the gas pedal before starting the car. My wife cant even get my chevelle started ( you have to do what to the gas pedal before turning the key?) I had to laugh at that one.
And with computer controled engines - tamper proof rev limiter to the average person. Its no wonder newer engines last longer. my 2 cents

Dustin

I wouldn't say "sloppy" is the right term...
Technology today is much more advanced in numerous areas than it was in the 60s/70s.
Materials and metals are of a higher quality, machine tooling is much more accurate, casting processes have been refined, actual manufacturing procedures have been improved, even oils and lubricants are more sophisticated. Durability has improved greatly with tighter, more consistant tolerances and better designed bearing/ring types.
Back in those days it was pretty rare to see an engine go 100K+ miles without major overhauls.
Nowdays, 250K+ miles is commonplace.

I agree with Bill, the engines now will go alot further before needing any major work "usually"
BUT, when the new ones do break down you are at their mercy.

I wouldn't say "sloppy" is the right term...
Technology today is much more advanced in numerous areas than it was in the 60s/70s.

Back in those days it was pretty rare to see an engine go 100K+ miles without major overhauls.
Nowdays, 250K+ miles is commonplace.

I think it has a lot to do with modern overdrive transmissions that have motors spinning @ 1,500-1,700 rpm's at 65 mph as oppossed to the earlier cars that were taching up around 3,000-3,500 at the same speed, the motors spun twice as far as their newer counterparts going the same distance, if that won't wear out a motor, nothing will. Lubricants have come a long was as well.

Gibby

Absolutely...two good points!
Sure, fuel management and computer controlled timing/transmission functions aid in the longivity of today's modern engines.
For that matter, eliminating the lead from gas greatly reduced nasty contaminates and oil breakdowns from the crankcase. Exhaust systems last a heck of a lot longer, too.
I guess my point is... it's not that lousy motors were built in the 60s/70s.
It's just the today's technology allows us to make a better product.

I see. Thanks for the insight.

I agree with Grn69 completely, the mid to late 60's and the early 70's were the years of Muscle car street drag racing. We had 1/4 mile markers setup just outside of town on I390. The local police knew this and really didn't care, as long as it was done safetly. Every Friday and Saturday nights, you would see at least few drags. Once in a while, you would see the big guys meet on Main Street, drop a few hundred and go down and run the best 2 of 3. We would have 100 or more people down there on the interstate watching these. Demons, Dusters, Chevelles, Camaros, Corvett's, Super Bee's, Chargers, Mustangs, and every other car use to roam Mainstreet looking for a car they could run (and beat). In 1971, the Chevelle that I now own, already had the engine gone and a built 427 in it's place. That dam 69 car was really what got me into Chevelles. It looked like the front wheels where bouncing up and down when the owner reved up the engine. Every year, one of the crew would go down and Paint new white lines on I390, one time it was me. But by the late 70's you could see things were starting to change. The locals starting setting up patrol cars on Fri and Sat on the markers, and it started to die off.

Fred.

Fred, Its nice to know that I am not the only one forom the rochester area on the board. I was a little kid in the 70s so I was not racing on 390 then but... I my father has told me stories that they would race on Main street Rochester in the late 50s and early 60s. I would hate to think that you guys would race the much faster cars of the 70s down town. Did you actually race downtown or was that just the meeting place?

I'm in the fuel injection camp. I just replaced heads on a '94 model S-10 Blazer with the first of their Vortec engines. Plain old swirl ramp no flowing heads, not Vortecs as we know them now. You couldn't catch a ridge at the top of any bore with a needle and couldn't feel anything with bare fingers, period. Smooth all the way to the top just like a fresh block. Hone marks were visible in 4 of the 6 cylinders. This is at 150,000 miles. I'd never have believed it if I hadn't done it myself. I was kinda leary of replacing the top end on an engine with that much mileage but I think now that as long as I don't dog it and keep oil changed, 300,000+ miles is actually pretty realistic. No cylinder wall washdowns, no fuel past the rings poluting and diluting the protection provided by the oil. Waiting for a reasonable priced option for my current 502 build is the only high priced item holding me back. I think that if you were to use a Gen 5 CNC Bowtie block - super hard cast iron, ask any machinist who's worked on one - and used it in a big-inch fuel injection setup with high quality rings and bearings, blueprinted throughout with high quality synthetic oil and put it in a mean prostreet type street-strip cruiser, there's no reason to believe it would ever need to be rebored and first freshen wouldn't be due until the 250,000 mile mark. IMHO, fuel injection has given lightweight production castings the ability to last for the life if the car. Of course, we tend to dispose of 'em after 15 years or so anyway, but that's pretty impressive when you consider that 30 years ago, 100,000 was a whale of a lot of miles to expect to get out of an engine.
Once the electrics get here, a motor will be a 15 minute swap and the old one will go back to the factory for a rebuild and OTC sale in a parts store.
I believe I'll keep my dinosaur juice burner.

These have all been excellent points brought up so far in this thread. Another thing to remember is that with hot cams came stiff valve springs. At moderate revs that means high contact loading on the cam lobes. With a high performance engine back in the day, built economically on an assembly line (roller rockers were exotic or unheard of then) there were compromises in the longevity of the engine made in favor of high performance. Things like stiffer valve springs, looser tolerances, high DCR with the attendant higher loads on the reciprocating assembly. Of course when you’ve got a maniac banging shifts and running 4.10s out back you know that the engine may have a short but brilliant service life. 40,000 miles if you were a hot shoe, but if you were sane 100,000+ miles. I’ve heard of original GTO 389s going 200,000+ miles, only to be torn down, measured and found to still be within spec. New gaskets and paint and you are good to go.
I’m surprised nobody has mentioned the part that the cursed Muncie shifter played in grenading engines due to missed shifts during exuberant bursts of acceleration. Miss a shift while attempting a powershift and your revs will go to the stratosphere. Valve float and major damage likely would be the result. The solid lifter big blocks used stiff single valve springs, but 1970 & later high performance big blocks used double valve springs.
Actually Chevy used pretty good hardware and metallurgy for the day, but Oldsmobile would install valve rotators for longer life whereas Chevy only put them on thier heavy truck engines.

It would have been nice to see just how bad the damage actually was to all those motors that got replaced back in those days.

Imho, us Chevy guys back then beat h-ll outta our motors!! End of conversation!!

ANd it's still the same nowadays.

Look at Ford owners, sure they drive them AND some race them, but not like us!!

As for the old MOPAR crowd, most of them are just restored!!

Very few around that beat on them, imho....

And again, imho, fwiw, now that there is better metallurgy today, the blocks and rotating assemblies are better, therefore last longer!!

Blocks have more contaminants in them like chrome, plus more alloys like nickel and tin and this stuff makes them harder which translates into better ring and longer cylinder wall life Just like the old Cad. 472 and 500 motors were made back then in the first place. BUT cheap GM sure wasn't going to pour good, hard Cad. cast-iron into cheaper Chevy blocks!!!

Only the not so common, Chevy 010 and 020 blocks got better CI poured in them and this shows up b/c we look for them!!

pdq67

All were not bad....some just wanted the engine after warranty said they could replace it. The ones that did blow was because of the small no stick tires and non-stick shifting drivers.

My 68 Cutlass still has the untouched (other than timing chain) 350 in it.Has 83K or so on it.Doesn't use or leak any oil.Well built? I guess so.Runs like a clock.
Frequent oil changes and sensible rpm limit is what helps these motors (old and new) live.

I run the s**t out of all my engines. I have yet to have one last more than 30k. When you redline an engine constantly it won't last, new car or old car. The only reason new cars last longer is people do not abuse them like the muscle cars of the past. They are lucky to see 3,500 rpm.The overdrive definately helps.

I dont know man, next time you ride along in some of the 4cyl cars, pay attention to the revs at 70mph, they will likely be above 3k. On top of that, those cars will see 5k in acceleration very regularly. The chevelle with 2:73's and th350 did near 3k as well. My 87 regal turbo does right about 2k @ 70mph. I think the new model motors benefit the greatest from the fuel injection and lighter rotating assembies. When I pulled the heads off of the '72 truck 350 in the chevelle it had been burning oil at highway speeds and had low oil pressure at idle. Very profound edges on the tops of the cylinders. But that was the first time the heads had been off in over 30 years!

As a side note, I fully expect 200k miles out of the 3.8, regardless if I'm running 20lbs boost....I wonder how the metallurgy compares with the old 350, the 3.8 and the new model 4cyls...