Im going to be dropping in a chevy 350 into my 88 trans and wanted to know if the bolt pattern for the 700R4 bellhousing will match up with the block. My friend dosent think it will match cause its a pontiac but i told him that they used those trannys in chevys and pontiacs alike.

By trans I assume you mean transam, in that case it'll already have a chevy smallblock in it.

The V6 cars came with the 60* bell except for the turbo TA that came with the BOP bell.

Trying to think of a nice way to say this, but your friend is 3rd gen ignorant.

As long as the engine/transmission in your car now is a factory-type V8, the transmission will bolt right up to a Chevy 350.

Yea its all factory. I figured as much but wanted to make sure before i yanked out the engine. My friends a ford guy so that would explain it lol hes awesome with cars though.

do all small blocks have the same bolt pattern for the bell housing or are there pre 87 and post 87 styles?

The bell housing bolt pattern has been the same for all Chevy V8's since 1955.

LSx introduced a slight wrinkle (one less bolt hole), but the pattern is still the same.

Actualy the same number of bolt holes, they just moved the passenger side upper bolt to the very top of the bellhousing It has to do with the LSX motors rear most surface being moved forward by nearly half an inch, there is no room for that particular hole to exist without going through the rear P side cylinder wall.

And yes 57kid means ALL chevy V8's, including every gen of big block.

The 4.3 V6 uses the same pattern as well, just remember that by the time the 3rd gens came out nearly all GM motors were "corporate" motors meaning Pontiac, buick, olds and caddy had all lost any special make specific engines.

The exception would be the 3.8 V6 that is all buick/olds and uses the BOP pattern until about 87-88 (and some TTA's using leftover motors into the 90's) after 88 it was changed to use the 60* bell pattern for FWD and still used that pattern for it's RWD revival in the 4th gen.

Yeah Caddy had it's craptastic 4.1/4.9 motor but it used the 60* pattern along with the northstar, the ecotec broke away from the 60* standard for 6 and 4 bangers and has a specific pattern, same goes for the various versions of the vortec I6 I5 and I4.