This engine has a story. My dad pulled this from his car in high school in 1960. I decided with my son to build it for my car instead of the 350 in it now. 350 runs great but for him to learn to build THE ORIGINAL small block Chevy, is just cool to me, him and his grandfather. As a matter of fact, the last time a teenager wrenched on this engine, it was hid grandfather ! It hasn't run in 53 years and yes we pack rats have kept it all these years  ! I am trying to get some pistons from a member here CANUCKTRUCK. It is most likely one of the first blocks cast due to the casting date and was on of the first 3,000 or so engines assembled by the engine pad number. My car (dads car) was the 999th car made in the Flint MI plant, Oct. 3 1954 !

Great story on having that engine for 53 years. Those 265's are getting hard to find now, and at one time they were just everywere.
Over the years many of them got used up in stock cars, drag cars, and the NHRA stock classes.

Sounds like you have a handle on the build. I helped my buddy on his 55 SS/P back in the 80's. Fabbed an angle adapter to have the carb lower in the front, don't know if this is relevant today.

not to sound like a dick , but will a 265 pull a 55 ????. using odd or smaller engines is cool , but that's like the smallest v8 chebby made ( yea we all know there was a smaller one in a chebby Monza , but no one cares ) .
couldn't you just do what I do , build a bigger cube engine an just tell people its a 265 ???? Most people couldn't tell one from a 327 - 350 anyways ..77.

yep, nothing like a high winding, small cube small block 

Who says you need CUBIC INCHES to go fast. Here is a list of SS class record holders, check out SS/OA and SS/PA, 56 Chev, 265+

SS/OA

11.37

113.91

04/28/13

Myron Ramey - Martinsville, IN '56 Chevrolet

Indianapolis, IN

SS/PA

11.76

111.37

10/22/12

Myron Ramey - Martinsville, IN '56 Chevy

Indianapolis, IN

 

 

http://www.nhra.net/stats/ss_record.html

-- Edited by henrys57wagon on Friday 2nd of August 2013 12:59:56 PM

No bad thoughts at all, thanks for the support. I have a 350 in it now and I know it runs well. If I was running a full out race car, I probably wouldn't build the 265. This car is going to be more street driven, with some track duty. I think it will be a fun challenge to see what we can build. when my dad was hot rodding, he only had 265's and 283's. He on the poor kid budget ran a back yard ported,massaged 270/283 combination and ran mid to low 14's with a full bodied all steel 55. I he could do that 50+ years ago, the possibilities today are endless with the choice of parts that are available. Most any v8 will turn 6500-7000 RPM but how quick the small stroke engine turns up RPM and the sound it makes is unlike all other engines.

You're probably looking at the road draft tube casting, if it's to the right of the distributor casting. 265's and early 283's used a road draft tube to let the engine breath(COMPLETELY politically incorrect)

I think you're right if you only take enough to get clearance. That area would be just above where the dist. gear runs on the cam and right at the bottom machined section of the dist housing.

Thanks for the update, was wondering how the project was comming.

Taking apart the heads so I can clean them up and start porting. Went to my dads to get the spring compressor and burrs. Was thinking about carb/manifold I should run. I was going to use my Torker and 650 holley I have but I forgot this was on the shelf. Should I talk my dad out of it ? Before he retired a guy gave it to him because he said it needed a good home. It has never been put on an engine ! It is the better one with the pre-marked bosses for fuel injectors.

Great manifold for that 265, i haven't seen one of those for years!! Perfect era manifold.

Thanks for the great pics.

Well I bought some pistons. Sorry I didn't buy them from Canuctruck but I couldn't pass this up. I found a guy on the HAMB who lives in Ohio and he had 265 .040 GM factory pistons and wrist pins, new in the box for $125 ! He met me halfway, about a 33 mile drive. They are circa late 50's early 60's. I also bought a set of 416, 305 chevy heads that I have started porting. I bought them, a quadrajet, quadrajet manifold, air cleaner, exhaust manifolds, 305/350 valve covers and a long neck water pump for $100. I didn't want the other stuff but it was a package deal. Now I need to get my hydraulic roller lifters, dog bones and spider and I can really get more work going on this little 265 !

One more step forward. Thanks to a 3800 V6 Buick Regal and a 3400 V6 Chevy Venture van, I snagged 24 roller lifters for the bank breaking sum of $14.14 ! Haven't cleaned them all up yet but I am sure to get at least 16 good ones out of them. Now I just need the spider and dog bones from a V8 roller block and I will be well no my way.

A little update. Have started some porting work. I now have the Spider (retainer plate) and Dog Bones (lifter retainers) ! Got them form a member that Poncho62 is a member of (The World of DuckusCrapus) for the whopping price of shipping, $8.75 ! If I don't watch it, I'm going to spend all my money ! LOL ! I will have alomst NO material to remove from the 265 to make the dog bones fit because of how the 265 is cast. Some small block require removing  alot of casting to get them to work. I have some very small spots to fltten out for 7 of htem. The lifter area for#8 cyl. has the large tube shape in the casting that all the early blocks had and I guess some of the first 350's had it too. Bottom left of the pic is the one that will require the most work but still won't be alot.

We have done this roller lifter conversion before, but you are limited to a pretty low lift cam. The oil band will pop out of the bore and you will have no oil pressure. Roller blocks are cast with taller lifter bores. The 3400/3800 roller lifters also have the oil band in a different spot than factory V8 roller lifters which makes the problem worse. Check it with whatever cam you are going to use.

We used a stock L69 roller cam and it was ok, but it is pretty low lift and has large base circle compared to after market cams.

Good to hear back again on this project, keep us updated.

Sounds great, been following you also on another site.

Good to know, I will have to check. The roller rockers I bought from him came off of it and I don't think they are self aligning so I should be good but I will check tomorrow. Thanks RACERRICK !

601's are slightly better than the 801's, and none I have ever seen have the funky intake bolt angle on the inner holes, and they take normal rockers instead of the self aligning ones. Easiest way to tell is look at the holes for the pushrods - heads that need the self aligning rockers have round holes drilled, while the older style ones have more of a slot to align the pushrod.

Are you going to be doing any porting to these heads? They really wake up with some bowl work and filling in the giant hole under the rocker stud in the port with epoxy.

A word of advice, go to GM and see if you can still buy the 283 steel shim gaskets. They still had them as of 5 years ago. They are 3.935 bore and 15 thou thick.

A 3.905 bore, 25 thou in the hole flattop piston with 6cc of valve relief, 53cc chamber head and the above gaskets give you 9.8:1 which will work just fine on the street.

That 1st year GEN 1 SBC is quite unique, doesnt even have an oil filter. That came in 1956, for the 2nd year of the GEN 1 SBC.

Good luck on your build.

UPDATE: haven't done much do to fixing up the house because we thought we were going to sell but now we are staying and adding on which will also include a brand new garage ! The engine build is still going to go on but I don't want to jinx it, so there will be a very cool turn of events once I get my hands on some parts. Pics to follow tomorrow. Cross your fingers and hope I get this ! I think I may have finally found one of those "too good to be true" deals that is actually true !

A big SCORE! Good find,well done.

Some looking over it closely, They are JE Pistons and can't be very old as this engine might have been run one season and tore down due to the most likely cracked #7 piston. These look to be newer pistons and not something vintage. JE Pistons is less than an hour away so this may still be a piston they make or have blanks. Here is a shot of the bottom end.