Hey guys I'm back, Sorry I haven't been here in a while. I have had to take my son to vanderbilt children's hospital quite a bit for the last 6 months. Everything is fine now, And I'm back working on my 52. Got it stripped down and ready for new motor. I wondering if anyone here has done this: take out the 216 and replace it with a 230/250 chevy. I decided to go with a 63 model 230 instead of the 55 model 235. Thanks Rick
Hi Rick ! Welcome back . Yes , more than a few have done this , you'll find the Chevy thinwall 230 CID engine to be a good lightweight unit , not a lot of torque (that ' grunt' off idle) but it'll be peppy on the road once it winds up a bit . Good fuel milage too but it won't last forever like the " Cast iron Wonder " does . Wanna really blow their minds ? go find a '66 ~ '70 Pontiac Tempest with a 6 cylinder engine , it's the modern thinwall design but displaces........ 216 Cuibic Inches ! if you go this route , you can tell folks is still has a 216 in it and you'll be honest.......
Well the reason for the question was this. What kind of frame motor mounts did they use. I found a cross member from cp but they say it's for a v-8 only. I thought it might work but they say no.
Bill : I'm talking about the regular old thinwall OHV InLine 6 banger , not that OHC piece 'O crap ~ Ihad a Tempest wagon , a '68 IRC with this 216 engine , it was great . The OHC engines were boat anchors from day 1 in my view .
I had a 68 firebird with the OHC engine that was junk. I had a really well built 235 that I put in it to replace the OHC engine. I got a lot of funny looks cause that was back when the guy at the gas station would actually check your oil. They would pop the hood then stand back and look at the car. Back in the day we called those hybrids. So see, I was way ahead of my time. Gater
Going from the fat engine to the skinny one is sure not a quicky. We always fab our own side mounts but I believe they are available now. There are several pluses like rocker stud and ball where the adjuster nut stays still while being adjusted and it take just a couple minutes to replace a worn one that's also cheap but, by far the biggest plus is the back of the engine takes any modern chevy transmission from a Power Glide to the new electric overdrive and of course all the standard bell housings also. Good little engine (stay away from the integrated head one) but as stated, not as durable as the old fat ones.
Late Model 4 Liter W/ Integral Intake You'll find that GM re designed the heads as nearly all of them cracked so by now you should be able to pick a good one up cheaply and rely on it 100 % . We used to have a whole fleet of these and _all_ of them cracked their cylinder heads between 40,000 ~ 60,000 miles . once replaced there's no further trouble . I still hate integral cylinder heads but what the heck .
