Building a 265 for my 55 Chevy

bfalfa55 · OLMSTED, OHIO

RE: Building a 265 for my 55 Chevy

RacerRick · TORONTO, ONT

Piston is junk with that crack. Also, those are some really old pistons, you can tell by the skirt design. i would look at replacing them all and having it rebalanced. JE are top notch stuff, but you can get good forged pistons much cheaper. I use Ross, Wiseco, and Probe usually.

With a dome like that, it will probably give streetable compression with with 64 cc heads since there is only 265ish cubes there.

That is a somewhat scarce 56-57' 265 block. You might find it better in the long run to bore the block to stock 283 since the 265 bore size is a real oddball.

bfalfa55 · OLMSTED, OHIO

Finally an new update. In the search for a possible replacement piston for the cracked one, I ran across another 56 265 991 cast block. It was built 22 years ago never run and been stored and taken care of for all those years. It looks as though it was put together yesterday. Not sure the make of the pistons but they are short skirt domes, all balanced within a 1/2 a gram, chromoly rings, peened and beamed rods, whole block oil flowed and tops of the cylinders are unshrouded for the 1.94's. The guy also had a set of 461 1.94 heads already ported, pocketed and pinned rocker studs. dissasembled with all the valves and springs all lite coated with surface rust. I bought it all for $500.

-- Edited by bfalfa55 on Monday 3rd of November 2014 07:44:25 PM

BARRIE, ONTARIO

good score ..77.

Don · PRINCE EDWARD COUNTY

I laughed right out loud when I read will a 265 pull a 55 Chevy. Wish I had that many cubes! I have notched the cams in the old days and some of the early BB Chevs are that way too. I did one BB cam notch for a local builder in a jam about 4 years ago. Or you could groove the rear cam bearing but that would be outside the box an most would not understand that. Places I go for early vintage parts in order of choice is Northern Auto Parts, Kanter and if I am desperate Egge. Also Falcon Engines has a lot of NOS stuff and I have often got early hemi engine parts from him. They have been good stuff and usually old unsold NOS parts. Prices vary Egge being the worst. For me to get the right part for an extra $100 is a bargin because the pain of buying is long forgotten after a few years of untroubled driving.

don

And yes Virginia I have also built quite a few chevies

bfalfa55 · OLMSTED, OHIO

I understand it Don. That is what I actually intend to do. My question with that is can I use the same cam bearing with 2 holes in it or do I need a bearing with one ?

-- Edited by bfalfa55 on Wednesday 5th of November 2014 01:25:41 AM

BARRIE, ONTARIO

just my own in eggsperience on any thing sbc less then 350 cid ..77.

Don · PRINCE EDWARD COUNTY

It has been so long since I was in one I can't remember and guessing is no good. Best get someone to eyeball it for sure. The fellow I apprenticed under is an expert of SBC of every variety and is nearby but was hunting this week. It also had something to do with the old style lifters if I remember correctly. PM me and I will give you his name and Ph #. I don't want to give you bad advice from my faded memory and see you have trouble. He will know for sure what to do. He has done thousands of SBCs since they first came out in 55. Still does at least 2 per week.Still does a lot of vintage stuff.
don

Don · PRINCE EDWARD COUNTY

I went and rechecked with my old pal . You can simply groove the rear cam journal in line with the oil hole (middle of the journal. )same as I thought but I wanted to be sure. JE Pistons?$$$$$$$$$$ Did you not check the sources I gave you?

description	price per	quantity	total	select
Item # 07335D PST 2038AXXX
Pistons 1955 - 1957 Chevrolet Engine Type V8 - 265 ea	$42.45		$339.60

don

That is Kanter.

-- Edited by Don on Saturday 8th of November 2014 11:14:57 AM

-- Edited by Don on Saturday 8th of November 2014 11:57:52 AM

bfalfa55 · OLMSTED, OHIO

I did actually look that up in my Kanter book. The 265 I just bought has brand new, .060 domes (which I need to cc) and that is what I am going to work with. New JE's are $1,000 a set and forged. The ones in my first short block were old cast JE's, some where in between the transition from being Jahn's and the new, state of the art JE Pistons of today. I actual have a line on some from that era, new in the box with wrist pins, .060 over for $200. I may just buy them for that price just to have them but I am holding on to the extra cash right now for this build first.

bfalfa55 · OLMSTED, OHIO

A big procrastinator am I ! I will actually build this thing yet. Found out an old high school friend who is building a front engine dragster, happens to have a complete engine machine shop in his barn. Now I get to machine my own stuff.

So, here is the update. I bought a nice set of aluminum L98 heads. Alittle porting and they should be great for this project. I think I have come to choose the Comp Cams Xtreme 4 x 4 roller cam as my choice for my build. It is .474 lift, Dur @ .050 230 Intake, 234 Exhaust, 111 LSA. I have also thought about retrofitting the LT4 Hot Cam, but the Xtreme cam seems to yield some better numbers.

-- Edited by bfalfa55 on Tuesday 22nd of March 2016 08:29:23 PM