Hello all and God bless! I've got a 1966 chevelle that has a 350 in it right now. When I bought it last year the guy had purchased a 396 to put in it. (He threw in the engine for free) He thought it was an original 66 model 396; however, when I ran the casting numbers, it came up as a 71 model 402....so much for original. I really like the block and it has all the original parts (heads, cam, crank...even oil pan) but I'm not sure if I want to set it up to original. I've never been behind a Big Block before so I was hoping you BB guys could help me out. My three options are:

Keep it a 402 and keep the factory feel

Turn it into a Hi Performance 427 (a COPO clone perhaps?)

Or go alittle bigger and set it up to be a 454

I want this car to be a roaring weekend cruiser...so I need to go with the set-up that's the most street friendly but still got plenty of ponies. My second question is since this car will be city driven, I want more get-up-and-go then top speed. What's the best set-up to get high torque?

Oh, I think you'll be fine with the motor as is, with the possbility of a cam change. It really depends on which cam is in it now, if its stock, then a change will really wake it up nicely.

The 402 has a different bore size than a 427 or 454, so I would encourage you to keep it as a 402, don't spend alot of $$ on it, run it and have fun. If you "run into" a 454 block, you can resue everything but the pistons for a 427 ci motor. Stick with what you have for now, I'd say.

Anytime you change a cam in a bbc, there is a small probability of a cam failure. That gets ugly quick as the metal flows all throughout the engine. So bear that in mind in your decision calculus. But a nice Lunati A7 or Comp 274 would be ideal assuming stock compression.

You would want to ensure you knew what the compression is, i.e., pull a head ( it'll cost you a gasket), check out the pistons and have the chamber measured. If you havent run the motor, it would behoove you to pull a head to check things out anyway. DON'T ASSUME ANYTHING about that motor. Better to spend a little time now, rather than after its already in the engine bay, right.

I have the same motor. It is a 71 LS-3 from an SS. It is a low compression motor, so to wake it up a little you might want to raise the compression a bit. Talk to a machine shop about your options. If it is an original 71 motor, you have open chamber oval port heads with the small 2.06/1.72 Valves, which are pretty small but will probably work fine on a street machine.