Description
By Ed Staffel, Softbound, 144 Pages, ISBN: 9781884089251, 1st Edition, 1997, SA55
The book for selecting and swapping high-performance Chevy small-block parts
Most folks feel they don't need an introduction to smallblock Chevy V-8 engines. So many people have grown up driving one or building one or racing one, that the car seems very familiar. The most-popular and best-designed automotive engine is still around after four decades of service. More than 60 million smallblocks have been produced and millions of words have been written about how to build them.
Recently, however, the smallblock has changed; it is no longer quite as familiar. The Generation I family of motors we know so well has been joined by the Generation II branch of the family and in 1996, the Vortec line of motors branched in still another direction. And, the 1997 models introduced the Generation III smallblock V-8. Interchanges between these engine branches has gotten a little more complicated.
Old ideas about what will work and what won't need to be updated. Computer-controlled ignitions, transmissions and various forms of electronic
fuel injection are new in the nineties, but so is the amount of performance that the stock production Gen. II and III motors are capable of.
Chevrolet is doing its best with the production engines to deliver the muscle car performance found in some of the high-performance smallblocks produced in the late sixties and early seventies, while still maintaining the environmental controls dictated by the government and delivering good idle quality, low maintenance, less noise and better fuel economy. It is a delicate balancing act that is not easy to do.
Chevrolet and GM/Performance Parts haven't forgotten the over-the-counter non-emissions regulated and off-road parts needs of smallblock enthusiasts, either. The company continues to improve the parts available for Gen. I and Gen. II based engines with new blocks, heads, roller cams, aluminum intakes and other parts to continue to push the performance envelope that was first defined in 1955.
Meanwhile, those of you into older car restoration, racing or rodding can still find everything you need to build a stock 200 horsepower smallblock or a 1,000 horsepower blower motor "set on kill."
Almost anything you could want for a smallblock Chevy is available. Also, the restoration parts market can provide many of the parts no longer made by Chevy, and the aftermarket performance parts industry is geared to provide what you need and to develop new part designs to make more power available.
In this book, you will find information on all of the smallblock motors made from 1955 through 1996. It covers Generation I, Generation II, the Vortec smallblock engines introduced in 1996 and the new Generation III LS1 small-block engines introduced in the 1997 model year Corvettes.
