1960 Pontiac Laurentian
That brings back memories of the 383. (something nobody ever talks about)
That brings back memories of the 383. (something nobody talks about)
We had a couple of them to work on (one a retired Texas highway-patrol car) along with big-block Chevy's.
The 383 was hopeless. 6-8 MPG everywhere you went. Black smut always on the back bumper.
Chrysler's idea was: if you wanted horsepower, order the 440, or the hemi.
No heads for the 383, you could put a cam in it, but that only made it pain to drive even though it sounded wicked.
Their 340-wedge could outrun it, as well as even our 12:1 327's.
The 383 was a pig.
But it looked great at the gas station! (which is where people always saw it)
The 283's needed some help. They all had tiny intake valves. But God bless GM, the 327 heads would bolt right on, you had to put pop-up pistons to correct the C/R of the heads.340's were bad azz for sure. Kinda like the 283 in Chevy's, had some kind of power, if built right.
I had a 1972 Charger with 318, stock and it would burn the rear tires off.
It was great on gas.
The 283's needed some help. They all had tiny intake valves. But God bless GM, the 327 heads would bolt right on, you had to put pop-up pistons to correct the C/R of the heads.
Had work to do some more work to get rpm out of it since it was small-bore.
If you got it right, it was a screamer.
On the 318, .... well I can't say anything bad about them. Most were 2-barrel and a major source of my income when they lost a race to meView attachment 62518.
If I could find a 318, I had beer for a weekView attachment 62519.
Who could hate that?
I've seen it live at Great Lakes Dragway in Wisconsin.little red wagon... I saw this on the american pickers tv show a few years ago.
View attachment 62537
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