Thread: high performance 283???

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new to the forum, and wanting some advice on building up a 283. i was wondering what type of heads, cam, intake, and carb i should run? i've seen some talk about double hump heads and stock heads out of a 305? cams i always here of people buying way to much cam, (that goes for carb also). i'm looking for a good cruising engine, good lop at idle, and still have money to put gas in her! something around 300 - 375 horse. heck i don't even know if thats realistic! any advice or help would be really appreciated.

Hi, welcome to the forum. I'm not much of a Chevy expert, but I bet when they do post on this the advice will be to forget the 283 and go with something with more cubes. If someone is doing a numbers matching thing, the 283 makes sense, but if you are trying to pull the numbers you have mentioned, more cubes are the way to go, generally.

Let's see what the Chevy experts have to say, though.


Don

well i guess im the resident 283 guy to go to here. <or so im told > 300-375? no problem. id say bore it .60 over get some HO 305 heads<be careful not to run to bad boy of a piston compression is easy witht hese heads run flat tops u can have 10-1, or some mildly chambered heads say 72 cc or so.<considering i run 64 cc heads with 12:-5-1 domes in my 283>smak those on there. get a 270-h comp cams hydr. and a 600 carb and you should be able to sneak out 300+ easy as pie. or you can bore it .80 <or up to .125> and add a 280-h comp cams <best street cam for a 283 i sware> and they have a very nice lopey idle. i ran a .125 with 11:1's and a 280-h cam with a 600 holley <well it was in the nova for about 8-9 years> and it got at least 12-15 mpg. if you kept it .60 with the mild heads, some dish or flat-top pistons and a nice mild cam you can get 20-25 mpg and still have 300 horse's not hard to do! if you need any more advice email or pm-me. AND YES the easiest thing to do to a 283 is overcam!

I would say go for cubic inches, everybody is using torque to make power these days, so I would recommend a 383.

Scooter is our resident 283 expert, so he should be along soon.

well according to a recent magazine article motor trends have shifted towards bigger bore shorter stroke ESP. in nascar.

Got a link ??

So all the racers are going back to short stroke oversquare motors then, and they will all be using the smaller bearings to cut down on friction.
Bit late for you over there isn't it scooter ?, you still running on adrenalin ?

What kind of vehicle are you putting this 283 into? If it is a heavy car, like an Impala, then I would say you are wasting your money. But if it is a light weight car, like a '30's Ford street rod, then it may be feasible. To get over 350 hp out of a 283, you are going to have to rev it a lot higher than a 327 or 350, and that may require a solid lifter cam. In addition, you may lose street manners with a big cam. I have a 383 that dynoed at 450 hp, and it is so easy to drive on the street, my wife could drive it.

My 283 was built in 1969 and they put whatever yall called back then a "full racing cam" with solids lifters. It had 461's on it also. My compression was 60 psi before i pulled it down. Went back with original std bore flat tops(motor has hardly any miles on it since 58), comp 280 cam (.480 lft)accel elect dist. headers holley street dom single plain "all i had laying around" and shaved/reworked 305 truck heads and an edleb 600. With open headers it sounds 3 times as tough as it actually is. Will turn 7K and runs 15's@95 in my 55 210.

chevydrivin, have you done a compression test since the rebuild? I'd be very curious what is reads now.

No i've not but I am curious too. You think it should have increased?

To more than 60, yeah I sure hope so. Anything less than 160 will tell us you have too much cam in the motor.

well considering a few racers i know have had there cranks turned down to honda journal sizes less rotating mass. also have been hearing about it through some sportsman ihra and some of those other sanctioning bodies. the mess rotating mass is less friction which is more power. besides you cant sit there and deny the motors potentianl. but i do agree if its going into an impala you will want a 327 or bigger. 283 are great for lighter cars.

The other thing you can do with a 283 is build it low compression and bolt on a blow through carb and turbo. It'll think it's a 454.

gassersrule, your not the only 283 guy here, my 283 has 461X casting double hump heads, they have been decked, it had 11:1 slugs, with a high rise single plane edelbrock intake and a 650 holley with a .530 lift cam and .230 lift @.50, it will scoot, i had it in a porsche 914 but i am currently putting it in a 1984 S-10

Back in the "day", I had a '56 210/2 dr. with a 265, .030-.030 Duntov cam, vette 2x4's, 4:56's and overdrive. The '56 weighed 3000 lbs. and it ran like jack-the-bear. It would also get over 20 mpg. I am contemplating taking my extra 305 block and finding a 3" crank and building a "late" model 265. I'll use a tuned port and World Products heads and a hyd. roller. A 283 in '57 would make 1 H.P. per c.i. and that should be no problem with all the new products out there now.
As several members have written, there is no substitute for cubic inches and a big motor will make more h.p., also the car you are putting it in will make the decision easy, heavy car-big motor, lite car-little motor.
Build the 283 if it's 3000 lbs. or less and have a blast trying to convince everyone it's "only" a 283.
Jim