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Tech / General EngineIs your car making a strange sound or won't start? Thinking of adding power with a new combination? Need other technical information or engine specific advice? Don't see another board for your problem? Post it here!
Both of these blocks are 4 bolt mains, standard bore. Which one is better to use for a 450-500 hp screaming small block? Ive already got a forged crank and rods, forged TRW .030 over pistons. Still decieding on heads, cam and intake. I just want a solid short block.
The 3970010 block is supposed to be a heavy-duty casting for high performance applications, like trucks and the Vette. It doesn't really matter though, both of the those blocks will work perfectly fine if they check-out good.
I have a 3970010 out of a 79 Caprice wagon (LM1 350 2 bolt) and I don't know where to look for the 010 to see if it has the higher nickel. I'm pretty sure its all original and it was running good when the Caprice was dropped off for parts.
"Many production small blocks have the numbers '010', '020' (see my pic above) or both cast into their front face, just above the main bearing bore. If both numbers are present, one above the other, it indicates that the block ALLOY contains 10% tin and 20% nickel.
A single number, either a '010' or '020' represents the amount of nickel and indicates negligible amount of tin.
No number, other than the casting numbers that are typically found beneath the timing cover, translates to only minor amounts of tin and nickel being present in the block ALLOY."
HPBOOKS, Small-Block CHEVY Performance. First Edition: Nov 1996. by. Dave Emanuel
Sorry for reviving an old thread but this was the only thing I could find that mentions 010 cast on the driver side of the block next to the oil filter.
What does it mean for a block to have 010 and nothing else cast into it by the oil filter?
I have been unable to read the casting by the driver rear valves cover due to access so I am looking for any clue as to what motor I have...
Thanks and again, sorry for reviving an old thread...
Ehh... Don't go by the partial casting... Look behind the head on the drivers side, just in front of the bellhousing. Clean it well and google it. Then tuck that knowledge in the back of your memory, and just assume it's a mystery SBC that might be from a farm truck, or an El Camino, or any old 150hp grocery getter... It's just an old boat anchor of an engine that may or may not have once been "something" or might have been rebuilt into something, or it could be worn down to nothing three times over. A casting number isn't going to tell you what it is now, only what it might have been when it was new.
And a lot of those 70's blocks had some pretty horrific machining issues apparently. Decks that weren't square, lifter bores at funny angles, and the infamous starter bolt offset issue that eats starter motors. Personally any non-roller block that doesn't have some pretty respectable provenance is pretty much scrap metal in my opinion. When you can buy good used Vortec long blocks for $200.... why even consider the pre-roller blocks? Unless it's together and running reliably.... in which case leave it alone and get a roller block to build for its replacement.
2 bolt blocks (also available in the 010 casting) are good for up to 500HP if they worry you, you could add studs to it? if your building for 500 or more your probably using a better aftermarket block anyway but of you already have a 4 bolt use it. also I agree with G/D why not use roller / 1 pc seal block roller cam save friction and easily adds H/P with more aggressive roller cams not to mention less of a possibility of flat tappet flat cam lobes from today's oil lacking ZDDP
2 bolt blocks (also available in the 010 casting) are good for up to 500HP if they worry you, you could add studs to it? if your building for 500 or more your probably using a better aftermarket block anyway but of you already have a 4 bolt use it. also I agree with G/D why not use roller / 1 pc seal block roller cam save friction and easily adds H/P with more aggressive roller cams not to mention less of a possibility of flat tappet flat cam lobes from today's oil lacking ZDDP
Yep they are soooooo cheap and the factory machining on them was dialed. They must have updated the machinery in the 80's when the roller 1 piece blocks came out and all through the Vortec run from 96 to 00 the quality was very high.
Messing with anything older is usually a waste of time and money. A Vortec often just needs cleaned up and maintenance overhauled to be good for another 200k.
I agree with G/D why not use roller / 1 pc seal block roller cam save friction and easily adds H/P with more aggressive roller cams not to mention less of a possibility of flat tappet flat cam lobes from today's oil lacking ZDDP
Originally Posted by Fast355
Vortec roller block is where it is at IMO.
I've never been so proud of TGO. A united front, agreeing on a topic... I'm blown away.
The whole "high nickel" thing is a MYTH. It is in fact, a classic study in POOR PRODUCTION DESIGN AND CONTROL.
All it takes to see what a EFFF-UP it is, is understanding how a block is cast.
They take metal plates, that are a "positive" mold of the thing they want to cast. In the case of engine parts, these plates include things like bolt bosses, the main "shapes" of the surfaces before machining, the casting #, some method of indicating the date and shift and equipment used and things like that, and so forth; basically, all the features you see, and some (esp inside) that you don't. They pack wet sand on it, that has some form of adhesive substance included, so that it dries somewhat hard. They then remove the metal plates and pour molten metal into the sand mold. Then when that metal cools they bust up the sand and vibrate it loose, and re-use it on the next casting. Blocks are cast in several stages this way; they sort of "grow" a section at a time. The plates for each stage spend a certain amount of time in between uses, waiting on the sand to dry, getting cleaned, and whatever all else; then they are returned to the beginning of the process to be re-used.
As we all know, a part # carries specifications that describe what the part is. If the part # is the same, the part is also supposed to be the same. If the part is different, the part #, or at least the rev #, should be different. Pretty basic stuff.
Apparently at the GM block foundry someone somehow decided it was A Good Idea to use the SAME part # for DIFFERENT parts. They were going to use different mixtures of metal, i.e. a different metallurgy of the alloy, for different ones; but keep the same part # for ALL of them. Remember, this was in the late 60s/very early 70s sometime; maybe what they had to smoke back then was REALLY GOOD or something that made them HALLUCINATE that they should VIOLATE this fundamental principle of factory floor control, iunno. However all that may be, they made up plates that had the different metallurgies cast into them (the 010 and 020... which is NOT "10%" and "20%", it is actually 0.10% and 0.20%) where they were going to add extra nickel and tin respectively for heavy-duty applications.
Needless to say, on a real-world factory floor, it didn't work. They started casting blocks, but they only had a certain limited # of plates with each designation, so within a couple of weeks they all got mixed up, as they had production orders to cast blocks but the right plates weren't available so they just used whatever was handy so they could at least produce SOMETHING. In the process they discovered that making a slightly cheeeeeeper alloy for less demanding applications didn't pay off; for some reason, maybe the better alloy resulted in a lower reject rate or easier machining perhaps, I don't know, they abandoned the project and started using the alloy with the extra additives EXCLUSIVELY. But they didn't get rid of the plates they had with all those different numbers on them, they just continued using them.
So, BEFORE some particular date, a block that was cast out of a different alloy had a DIFFERENT CASTING # from a block made of some other alloy, including the "standard" alloy; THEN, for a few weeks, the extra #s on the front of the block meant something sometimes, but wasn't reliable; THEN, for the next however many years, the blocks were ALL THE SAME ALLOY but just continued to have the different numbers that were molded into the plates they used to build up the molds since they just kept on using the plates they had already made. The alloy was the better one in ALL blocks.
Therefore the ONLY production interval that those #s make ANY difference AT ALL during, was that few week time that the foundry struggled with this. And even then, it's WRONG most (or at least much) of the time, because it violated one of the fundamental rules of production control, and as such was DOOMED to "alternate success": objects with the SAME PART # are supposed to be THE SAME. Somebody should have got sent back to freshman industrial engineering classes for that one, or even reassigned to gender-specific-room environmental management duty; but instead probably got promoted to a new level of even greater incompetence, and in later years as their career blossomed, did something profound and human-race-enhancing, like, created the Aztek.
Meanwhile, quality-control problems continued to pile up, all through the 70s. The dark times most of us now refer to as the Malaise years. A few of those involving blocks include:
Casting shift: wherein as the different portions of the block are cast, they aren't lined up; you see things like the cam tunnel looks off-center in the sprocket boss on the front, the engine mount bolt holes look off-center in their bosses, and so forth
The Starter Bolt Hole Problem, wherein the starter bolt holes are drilled too far from the crank, so the starter doesn't mesh properly and gets WORSE if you shim it; blocks with this problem make the starter make that horrible grinding noise you can hear from a quarter-mile away, and the motor EATS starters and flywheels
The Lifter Bore Problem, wherein the lifter bores don't point at the cam correctly, so the block EATS cams no matter what you do (short of re-boring the lifter bores, and either bushing them back to stock dia or using larger-dia lifters such as Xler/AMC)
The Bell Housing Dowel Pin Problem, wherein the dowel pins aren't centered on the crank, which makes the torque converter EAT pump bushings
The Oil Passage Problem, wherein the 3 main passages that run front front to rear of the block next to the cam are drilled, halfway from the front and halfway from the rear, but don't meet squarely in the middle; I've seen blocks where they were SO FAR OFF that I couldn't get a ¼" diameter rod through this nominal ½" diameter passage; this make it EAT the front 2 main and cam bearings and the front 3 rod bearings, and/or the front lifters tick, all depending on which passage(s) are wacked, from oil starvation
The Cylinder Perpendicularity Problem, wherein the cylinders aren't perpendicular to the crank, but instead are "tilted" front to rear; this makes it EAT rods on the sides, pin bores in pistons, cylinder bores, and every other part that ends up in a bind because of it
Notice how many of these things have the outcome "EAT" associated with them? Guess what happens to a motor you build with such a block. Every hear of someone who picks up a block somewhere, lovingly lays out $1000s on turning it into a motor, and it self-destructs in short order? Even though they did everything THEY could possibly do "right"? Well, now you know some of the reasons for CATASTROPHIC NON-PREVENTABLE FAILURE. The core - the basic thing they started out trying to rebuild - was unrecoverably DEFECTIVE in some way, that they maybe couldn't even see or measure, and/or didn't know or think of to check.
There are other of these Problems, but those are the most common ones in my own personal experience. Virtually EVERY 70s block has AT LEAST one, no matter what plates they randomly used when casting it (i.e. whether the plates happened to have "010 010" on them, "010 020", nothing, just "010", or whatever) after the production-control mistake experiment was abandoned. These QC or sloppy production Problems aren't limited to small block Chevy; I have a 74 454 for example that has both The Starter Bolt Hole Problem and The BH Dowel Pin Problem.
At the point of a "rebuild", about the LEAST SIGNIFICANT THING about the block, is those metallurgy #s. In AT LEAST 99% of all blocks that have them, they are MEANINGLESS in distinguishing a "good" block from any other. Rather, what matters is, the BASIC QUALITY of the block, particularly in matters that are VERY HARD to change after the fact. The starter bolt holes for example are quite difficult to move. Some of the others can have work-arounds, for example offset BH dowel pins; but the best thing to do is, EFFF a bunch of "010 020", and instead, use blocks that are plumb, square, level, centered, accurate, and so forth. Which pretty much leaves 70s blocks out altogether. Then, choose blocks that have the latest greatest features, like roller lifters, the late-model (80 or thereabouts and newer) starter bolt pattern so you can use a 12.8" flywheel if you want such as what a T-5 or T-56 requires, and 1-piece rear main seal. Which FURTHER leaves out any 70s blocks.
Bottom line then is, don't waste your hard-earned cash on ANY 70s block. It's not a question of "make more power", or "strong enough", or any of that; the reasons go BEYOND any of that. Get a 96-2000 aka "Vortec" block, from after GM cleaned up their act somewhat from getting their butt kicked by the rest of the world where people at least pretended to give a s*** about their work and paid attention to the results they were getting, and somewhat straightened out the malfunctions; and don't futz around with that old defective sloppy wore-out 70s crap.
Last edited by sofakingdom; 04-18-2019 at 10:23 AM.
another big + is the Vortec blocks need minimal clearancing to add the stroker crank you want
last Vortec block I got was disassembled with crank and rods, pistons was $60
and the bonus was a 4 bolt to boot
My current build sitting on the stand is a Dart SHP 4.125" bore block with 350 mains that I am building a 6" rod 400 small block out of. It has a steel, splayed main caps, factory roller provisions, 1 piece rear main seal, RH dipstick. All for the low price of $1800.00. With the Dart blocks you literally hone them to fit the pistons, install all the plugs, caps, freeze plugs and dowl pins and build the thing. A much nicer casting than anything GM has ever cast and did I mention its a 4.125" bore small block.
The whole "high nickel" thing is a MYTH. It is in fact, a classic study in POOR PRODUCTION DESIGN AND CONTROL.
Aw man, you just HAD to go and explain things and take the mystery out of it... Next you're going to explain the mystery behind the "3/4 race cam" or Elderbock brand parts, or some other **** drunken meth riddled meat heads rip off trying to sound fancy.
I would LOVE to read Sofa's explanation of a 3/4 race cam. but instead probably got promoted to a new level of even greater incompetence, and in later years as their career blossomed, did something profound and human-race-enhancing, like, created the Aztek. My coffee almost shot out of my nose when I read this one.
I would LOVE to read Sofa's explanation of a 3/4 race cam. but instead probably got promoted to a new level of even greater incompetence, and in later years as their career blossomed, did something profound and human-race-enhancing, like, created the Aztek. My coffee almost shot out of my nose when I read this one.
02-11-2003, 11:08 AM
