I was on a service call on a farm and in the bush
behind the jhon deer tractor i was working was a
old chevy truck 1965 2T flat deck.

open the hood and wow look like a 409 but no its a 348 is that block any good ?

or shud it stay in the bush ? they will sell it !
is there any reason to rebuilding this old monster...what are the good side to it ?
any ??

thank you for any comment >>>>>
alain

IMO, jump all over it. they are the best motors, IMO. they are super rare. they made them from 59-63 i think it was. they were in the belairs and the impalas and such. great motors. buy it and put it in the chevelle. ( a plan i have, if i can ever find one). good luck.

they arnt as great as the popular 409, but they could be, if u woked it a little bit.


aaron

I like the old W motors (348, 409) I had a 425 horse 409 in a 56 chevy it was a cool engine different too. If I were closer I wouldnt mind having it, I think somewhere in my collection of junk I have a tri power manifold for a 348. It would be a good buy if it were cheap

Alain;

I don't think you will get the same power for your money you could get with a BBC, but just for old time sake, it would be fun.

There is a guy here in the Denver area that is very knowledgeable on the 348/409. If you decide to go with this, let me know, and I can find his address for you.

Good luck with what ever you decide.

Ken Gasbarri

Don't the 09 works fine but the 348 is not as powerfull as a 350 and parts are really hard to get.

^^^^^^^^Yup, but the valve covers are funky in a cool way. I think one of those would be cool to put into a 55 Chevy, or even a pre-55 Bel Air, dropped, chopped, with an air suspension and custom mexican blanket interior. graemlins/thumbsup.gif :cool:

Or better yet, a dropped and chopped 30s Fenderless, Hoodless Coupe. Show off that W Block Chevy.

Sell it or put it in a 58-64 Chevy Impala.

I am going back to replace the expansion valve
on that jhon deer next week.. i will ask the owner what he whant for it.. i belive he was loking for $200.00 cdn OR 20.00 US ..JUST Joking

Im shure the 567 club here will be interested


any body with a 62 63 0r 64 that need restoration for sale ?? that we be a good home for that block.. Ilove the 2 door Btop

This guy has alot of usefull information about 348-409's. And he's canadian to boot.

http://www.bruneauperformance.ca/

I think the truck heads are going to be the big negative on this motor.

Originally posted by accontrol:
i belive he was loking for $200.00 cdn OR 20.00 US ..JUST Joking
You'd be surprised, $1 is only worth $1.30 CDN these days!

You do know that the old "W" motors have some small block in them, don't you??

The fuel pump, timing gears but not chain, cam lifters as well as the balancer will fit a small block..

They do take a taller distributor so don't grab a SB distributor or it won't be long enough to turn the oil pump tang....

I gotta half a notion that a tall block BB distributor will fit but don't know for sure???

The old 348 is a good motor and if you are so inclined, it can be bored and stroked using BB cranks to a pretty healthy size if I recall right.

I do know a 409 can go to above 475" if not mistaken.. You have to turn the mains down as well as the snout so the balancer will fit.

Years ago, the BIG BOY'S used to do just the opposite and put the shorter stroked "W" motor cranks in the bored 427 BB blocks to make some of the highest reving BB's of all time until the 500" Pro-stock motors came out. AND I'm talking about above 10,000 rpm's here for the 390" motors!!! BUT I'm sure there are guy's here that know just exactly what those old, super high reving motors were really sized at if I am off...

pdq67

The 348 while only made a few years, was a real dog for it's displacement. Sluggish motors. 409's were runners, but hard to keep together, blew up alot. I persoanlly when through 3 cranks in mine.

Originally posted by Joeks:
409's were runners, but hard to keep together, blew up alot. I persoanlly when through 3 cranks in mine. My brother had a 64 409/400 in 64 and he wanted to blow it up, get the replacement under warrenty. At 135+mph, 4.10 rear and both the tach and the speed-o burried, it didnt blow. He decided it would make a good race motor then. Just my .02 cents and memories of the old days.


As for the 348, I would build it just for the wow factor of popping the hood and seeing those heads in there. Bet a lot of people wouldn't have any idea what it is or where it came from. Kind of like having dual quads, tunnel ram, etc, I like the idea of having that motor in any car, let along the coolest cars on earth, CHevelles.

Chris

I dearly loved my 409's stock, chrome valve covers and great big dual snockle chrome topped breather that once I modded the tri-power 348 intake to fit three big Rochesters wouldn't fit..

That chrome topped breather musta been 15", maybe 16" in dia.????

pdq67

I don't know where all the information came from people seem to have on the 348 as to reliability or performance, but they weren't weak or slow.

It took Chevrolet until 1969 to build a production 350 with as much power as the top '61 348 option had, and another year to top it. It has the same main and bore spacing as todays BB. With a 4.125 bore and 3.25 stroke, it was like a destroked 400.

It's biggest problem was it was too small to match up with the options from Mopar, Ford, and Pontiac, so Chevy bored and stroked it to 409.
Just like today, the thinking that "mine's bigger than your's" prevailed in the showrooms.

As pdq67 alluded to, 348 and 409 cranks found their way into many Modified Production and Gas class cars that ran destroked 396-427. Although a few of those engines tended to have some spectacular failures, it was caused not by inferior crankshaft design, but the failure of the engine builders and camshaft designers in keeping valve train together at extreme RPM.

go to 348-409.com theres plenty of guys that can inform you. In the next couple of years i will be rebuilding my 409 and probablyl stroke it. also there is a guy on the above website that has a 409 in a 66 chevelle. I would think he would be a wealth of information on that swap.

Greybeard
Do you have any information on swapping the 409 and 348 crank into a non w big block. I am wanting to swap my cranks.

todd

Yes, I think that's the same guy that is/was on this board. I think his screen name was Mr409. He had a neat page about shoe-ing the W motor in that car. I do recall he said he had to do without power steering, as there wasn't a very simple way of doing it. I believe there were space issues involved.

I like the look of those engines. If I had one I would put it in a street rod.

Originally posted by TH:
Yes, I think that's the same guy that is/was on this board. I think his screen name was Mr409. He had a neat page about shoe-ing the W motor in that car. I do recall he said he had to do without power steering, as there wasn't a very simple way of doing it. I believe there were space issues involved.

I like the look of those engines. If I had one I would put it in a street rod. I did a search and found a recent post by him: http://www.chevelles.com/forum/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic;f=21;t=004519

hmm, if its the same bob im thinking of, he owns/works at a local chevelle store called Lehigh Valley Chevelle, down in Bethlehem Pa, (where im originally from). he always has wanted signs for 348/409 pats and engines dead or alive, in his shop. pretty cool dude.

aaron

How did they get the valves to be spaced like that (looks like BBC canted-valve design), yet the lifter valley looks a lot like a SBC (imho, from the pics at least)?

I love those heads, they just look so funky.

Hmm, nevermind, i think I can see the slight offset there, and judging by being able to see almost the whole cam from the top-side, this must've been where the BBC design originated from?

http://www.348-409.com/images/ref61.jpg

http://www.348-409.com/images/ref49.jpg

http://www.348-409.com/images/ref50.jpg

Stolen from www.348-409.com (http://www.348-409.com)

It seems like its a SB/BB hybrid, it'd be nice if someone made a head like that for the SB, but then the lifter valley issue..... plus it doesn't have the BB exhaust design. Still cool-looking IMHO. :cool:

yeah it def is awesome.

what is up with the large hole in between the lifter bores? ive always wandered about that? where as a SB is all solid.

and is their any peformance gain in thse type of heads (shape wise)? becuase they just look badass. i think AFR should make a set for the BBC's, then i would def build a BBC and put dem dur heads on em.

aaron

I have mouthed about this before but I would dearly love to install a set of 409 heads on a BB AND use a custom set of pistons that would have to have the tops recessed into a figure-8 so the chamber would actually be in the piston top!!

I bet it would be quite a power producer, kinda along the lines of the HIGH CR. Fueling Engineering BB truck, torque heads Fueling sells that allow running high CR's on 87 octane in a WORK TRUCK!!

Another onna pdq67's stories a commin' on!!

I was allowed to drive my buddy's '58 Imp, 250hp/348, three speed one time between towns and lost him b/c he lift early in an old '48 Ford coupe he had bought and I didn't see him turn right and I turned left to go towards home 30 miles away..

Anyway, something happened AND I got a call at the local gas station back home waiting for him to show up that we all hung out at to come back and get him ASAP!! That old 348 powered Imp. floated over the hills running 125 EASY that day...

He later demolished the front-end on the old Imp. twice and finally the cam went flat and he had to put an electric fuel pump on her.

I ended up with his brand new stock, fuel pump for my SB motor for helping him.. I also bought the tires and rims off the Imp. for the old '51 or '52 Chevy 5-pass. coupe I later bought off him for like $75 that ran like new!!!

Yes, that was back when a kid in or just outta highschool back in the mid '60's could buy a great running common old car for anywhere from $25 to $250, EASY!!!

pdq67

Aaron, power-potential wise, i think the BBC head design is probably better than the W-BC design. The W-BC design is like a canted-valve version of the SBC head, with some signs of the BBC combustion chamber showing up. As you know, the flow capability of the BBC is what allows it to eat SBC engines alive (talking similar equipment. Like a 400SBC and 396/402BB with same cam, compression, header tube size, induction system etc). As you can see on the W heads, the two middle exhaust ports still run next to each other, as opposed to the superior desing used on BBCs/CleavlandFords/LS1/etc, where they are spaced out equally and all the chambers/runners for each cylinder are practically the same as the rest of the cylinders.

This is a head design that's probably superior to the SB but still inferior to the BB, but i still think it LOOKS way cooler than both of them.

**EDIT**

Aaron, I've also wondered why the SBC is all solid in the middle of the lifter valley. I know the Wblocks, BBCs and Pontiac engines (at least the 400 in the junkyard i saw) all have the big slots ope above the cam. The BBC and Wblock share the canted-valve, which is why I first thought the BBCs have that open, but as far as i could tell, the Ponchos have standard-style valve design. Maybe one of the BBC gurus will chime in and tell us what's up with that.

According to Smokey Yunick in his 3 volume book, the Mk IV big block as we know it was designed because the 409 wasn't cutting it anymore, power-wise, in NASCAR. Smokey thought they should've enlarged the cubes of the small block instead. He had some running examples of large small blocks that would get the job done but GM wouldn't listen. He thought the '63 BB "Mystery Motor" wasn't too bad but was not happy with the final product (396) when introduced. He said the bean counters got their way and ruined it. He told GM it was a P.O.S. I think he wasn't happy with the size and weight it ended up at.

All GM had to do to the old 409 was to take the combustion chamber out of the block by casting the block so it had enough meat in it so they could mill the decks flat and not angled 16 degrees if I remember right and then install a set of BB heads on it and they woulda had the motor they were after!!

To me, the ideal, big bore at 4-5/16" x 3.50" short stroke, high winding motor!!

pdq676

The 348 used fairly small valves, unlike the hottest 409s. The small valve heads were also used on the 409/340 horse engines and maybe the 1st 409s in '61 (have to check).
The 348 went into cars from '58 - '61 but continued in the series 60 & 80 trucks through 1964.
It sure would look neat with a 6-jug manifold & an army of Stromberg 97s, although a hot small block would make more power with less fuss. Somebody with a '58 - '61 Chevy would probably love to get their hands on it just for the nostalgia factor.

thanks for the info guys. i dont know much about big blocks, but i know some. i know more about SB's cuz thats what i was raised on, and also worked on all the time.

i woudl love to get my hands on a W mtor, i wouldnt care if it was a 348 or a 409, it would be just for the WOW factor. put it in a say.. 64 chevelle, with a solid axle in the front, and lifted in the front, and rear too as well, an offy intake, and idk maybe some stromburgs or some crazy set of carbs. it would be so killer.


aaron