First engine I ever completely tore down and rebuilt.
Posted on 10/02/2015 12:59:05 AM PDT by Cowman
(#10): Ford 427 SOHC (#9): Ford 351 Windsor (#8): Chevrolet 454 (#7): Cummins 5.9L I6 Turbo Diesel (#6): Chrysler 225 Slant Six (#5): Chevy 427 (#4): Ford 300 I6 (#3): General Motors LS1 (#2): Chrysler 426 HEMI (#1): Small Block Chevrolet (Gen 1) 350
Chrysler 440, the staple of cop cars for years.
Hard to argue with the 350 Chevy as #1.
I also loved the 225 slant six. Great little workhorse with surprising power for a small engine. Owned a few Darts and Lancers back in the day.
Great engine, nothing exciting but ran forever with routine maintenance and ran well.
Chrysler had a hyperpack upgrade for the slant six that let the Darts and Valliants run with the pony cars. There was a rumor going around that seven Hyperpack cars finished 1-7 in a compact race at Daytona
The Chevy 292's were good workhorse motors too. Lots of torque on the bottom end. Pull the head off and turn the crank, and you'd watch the piston drop down the hole and wonder if it was ever going to turn around and come back up.
The 225 slant 6 was nearly indestructible. The Ford 300 straight six was amazingly durable, too.
The lineup includes quite a few expensive V-8s for their time. The Slant-6 was a very durable, consumer engine. That’s what most of us poor folks had. The 426 Hemi was certainly drool worthy, but how many people actually could afford them? Not many in my neck of the woods.
Chrysler also came out with the Feather Duster in 76 which was powered by the 225 slant six (I think). For its time, the MPG was amazing—reportedly up to 36 MPG on the highway for a car weighing slightly less than 3000 lbs.
As much as it is tempting to see about a small block Chevy to put in my 82 project CJ7, I will most likely get a reman 6 cylinder so it will bolt up the same.
AMC reman V8s are just too pricey.
No mention of the Ford 289 V-8?
I have three e28 BMW 535i cars with nearly 250k miles on each.
They are still going strong and passing the California smog test.
This is the best engine ever in my opinion.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BMW_M30
How bout the 10 worse ones?
That’s funny. My first thought when I saw the title of the thread was the 351 Windsor. I took my driver’s test in my dad’s 77 Thunderbird with a 351W. Beast of a car with a front end longer than most Euroweeny cars. Two people could lay on top of that hood with a blanket and “watch” the stars. It could run with a lot of my friend’s sports cars but had an interior you could live in.
Dad also had an Econoline van with the Windsor engine. That van was driven from Okc to Miami, San Francisco, Vegas, Colorado. It had over 250K miles before he finally sold it when my mom died. Those were great cars that were pretty easy to work on as well.
I had a 1985 T-Bird with a 302 I SO wanted to build a 351W for. I did see a magazine article detailing how to shoehorn a 429 into the same car, talk about glorious overkill! [One, please, in Ford’s 68-69 candyapple red!]
I guess if you stick to “car’ engines. RR Merlin needs to be on a list of “best”.
First engine I ever completely tore down and rebuilt.
Yeah, those were the big ‘Birds. There’s a couple of them running around here, and a black one that reminds me of the old LTD II. Another I like but don’t see is the ‘68-69 with the hidden headlights and suicide doors. I remember them from the dealership floor, they were lenient to us budding 12-year old car guys who couldn’t get enough, back in the late 60’s...
The Mopar 318 needs on the list, but don’t know which I’d replace.
The Mustangs in the TransAm Series TA2 cars are running the Windsor derived crate engines today.
http://gotransam.com/news/index.cfm?cid=63749
I travel with the series.
No mention of the Ford 289 V-8?
Extremely worthy engine for every day of the week!
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