Building my 283

[OL65GMC]

Assembly pic

[OL65GMC]

Assembly pics

[Warrens69GMC]

Nice job!!

[OL65GMC]

Thanks, it's coming along.. Just slow.

[gvw5400]

Hang in There !!

It is great to see somebody building their OWN build for there OWN truck !
Not following the least common denominator build, Good Job.
All The Best,
Dirk

[OL65GMC]

[QUOTE=gvw5400;8509179]Hang in There !!

It is great to see somebody building their OWN build for there OWN truck !
Not following the least common denominator build, Good Job.
All The Best,
Dirk[/QUOTE

Thanks, I'm hanging in there despite the drag from friends and the "I woukd have put a 350 in it" crowd. However it turns out... I built it.

[OL65GMC]

Here are some before and after spraying primer.

[OL65GMC]

Finished cleaning up the ports on one of the heads. Here's some pics showing the one I worked on and one that I haven't. Again, I just opened up the ports to the gaskets and blended in an inch or so.

[OL65GMC]

Few more... The last pic I tried to show how much material is there to remove to match the gaskets.

[AcampoDave]

I never regret building a 283. Especcially now that we're looking at gas prices approaching $4.50 around here. The "shoulda got a bigger motor" crowd says the same kinda stuff about my V/6 Silverado too.

[68Gold/white]

I am just mentioning this in case you did not know...to run a PCV system with those valve covers you will need to re-use the crank case breather parts that came with that engine. There's that tube part that is under the intake and the piece with a bolt through it by the distributor, that has a hose nipple on it. Then you use a stock PCV valve in line between the carb and the nipple.

The 283 I built in the 80's for my 67 Bel Air never got great MPG, but it did the job. I think I spoke about it in this thread. The logic behind building a 350 is not all bad. These old pickups are heavy and need to utilize the most torque possible, just to move them around. a 283 gets the job done, but a 350 does it easier.A good friend of mine built a small block 400 at the same time I built my 283. It went in a 66 C10. His pickup was a lot more fun to drive than my car, and didn't get much worse MPG than my car...

[AcampoDave]

Not to turn this into a "this vs. that" because I like all SBC's, and I do love a sweet 350, (and had some great ones). This time I chose a 283 because it was unique to me. I built it right and paired it with a good manual tranny. I find it will do pretty well on fuel when driven properly. The thing is, that it's just so much fun to beat on. Flogging it for all its got up a freeway ramp or winding out first and second from a country stop sign is too hard to resist. Being that it's not a "torque machine" helps keep those floggings at a sane level for me, but it's still a thrill because I built that little s.o.b myself (with a lot of help from a good machine shop.)

[OL65GMC]

Back for a small update. Slow but steady progress since last post. Completed one head and painted, one to go. Installed oil pan and timing cover. I also installed the crank hub, or balancer. Few notes on the balancer... As many of you know there are more than a few variables in balancer selection for sbc engines, I'll let you research that. The experience I want to share is that while I chose the correct hub, after installing it the first time I was worried about pully alignment. New hub looked so far away from the face of the timing cover that I was sure I would have to replace it. I pulled it off and did some measuring to make sure it was pressed on all the way and reinstall it. Still looked wrong. Luckily I had not thrown away the original hub so off it came again and I stood the two together on a table and measured. Turns out that the face of the hubs that the pully mounts to were exactly the same but the offset of the hub "wheel" was very different. Moral of the story... Compare and measure before you press and pull your new hub/balancer 3 times. Wish I would have had thought to take a couple of pics to demonstrate. I also got the water pump painted and ready for installation.
Trying to decide on a distributor for my little motor. I know HEI is the go to for bang for the buck but they are so ugly. Pertronix and Mallory make some stock size plug and play electronic dizzys and some others. Pertronix even has a factory look set up. Anybody have experience with pertronix distributors not conversions? Will be choosing a carb soon too. Have a performer to mount it on.

[OL65GMC]

Few pics...

[cadillac_al]

I love this build. I think it is going to run (and rev) very well; especially with the hot cam and head porting (yeah baby, old school all the way). I have always wanted to put a 283 in my Camaro. Camaro tires don't seem to like a lot of torque. I hope I can drive another 283 in my lifetime.

[OL65GMC]

Think I forgot to post a pic of painted parts..

[68post]

Your painting looks flawless !
I picked-up a holley #4011 650 spreadbore for my 307 build, really could use a smaller carb but the little primaries and vac secondaries will work well for what's needed.

That said, I think a 500 edelbrock would be very good to consider. I did use one on a work truck 350 build and it was great for torque and mileage, which was the intention. But there are small holleys that could be considered too.

[Daaaanz67]

Subbed. Nice work. Nice attention to details especially the port matching. Who cares what anyone says if you have any gains with the port work. It’s your pride and the workmanship that at the end of the day you’re satisfied. I have a 64 chevelle that came with the 283 power pack heads 2 barrel. Great running motor.

[Ronzo]

Great work, brings back memories.
And yes, now I want one in my 61 swb...

[68Gold/white]

Originally Posted by 68post

Your painting looks flawless !
I picked-up a holley #4011 650 spreadbore for my 307 build, really could use a smaller carb but the little primaries and vac secondaries will work well for what's needed.

That said, I think a 500 edelbrock would be very good to consider. I did use one on a work truck 350 build and it was great for torque and mileage, which was the intention. But there are small holleys that could be considered too.

When I built my 283 in the early 80's and had dyno pulls performed on it, by engine builder. I used a Holley economaster carb. I am sure they do not make them ant more, BUT those carbs were 450 cfm carbs. It performed flawlessly on my 283...So a 500 cfm carb or around about that number should do well on a 283 or a 307...(mine was .060 over=292 cubes)

[OL65GMC]

Slow progress lately, my daily driver has some coolant hose issues that took a couple of evenings to address, also had some paint color issues. I ordered paint from local autoparts store and they gave me 2 different shades of chevy orange. Didn't realize this until I painted heads and they didn't match. So basically there was some re-spaying of parts that took some days which was a big bummer. Got past that and installed the heads and valve train. In the mean time me and Pops went to a swap meet in Sacramento and picked up a few things for my truck and the shop. Scored a nice little media blast cabinet for the shop. Grabbed a lock set for my truck since Ive only had an ignition key, also some arm rests for the door panels. Lastly I got a distributor. Decided on an Edelbrock performer 600 carb and picked that up as well. Hopefully this weekend more progress.

[OL65GMC]

If you look you can see the head is a darker shade than the other parts.. I still hadn't noticed at this point but I'm almost always working there in the evening light...

[OL65GMC]

Assembly of the heads.

[OL65GMC]

Here's one of of parts sitting on the motor... Couldn't help myself but to get a preview of what it looks like.

[OL65GMC]

Picked out some more parts this time from Jegs... Exhaust manifolds, alternator, and alternator bracket. Should see those begining of the week. I picked up a saginaw 4 speed some time ago so Pops is in the research phase of a rebuild for that. Side note... I almost bought some 4 speed hurst linkage at the swap meet for less than 200 bucks. Sorta regret not picking that up but we'll see if the linkage on it is salvageable.