Re: 1963 chevy small block
Pete,
I don't know if Zora actually disliked the W engine or not. I hope there are more people out there who might offer more incite than I, but I do know that he was in charge of their development and was the man behind the scenes working to make the 348 a Nascar winner from '58-'60, working closely with Jim Rathman and Rex White through SEDCO to be close to Daytona.
Here are a few quotes from Zora himself:
"In '58 I start to work with Buck Baker. In '59 two things happan: opening of speedway in Daytona, and two preliminary races, two heat, 125miles each. Both races, three Chevrolet 1-2-3 and second race also 1-2-3........Then I decided engine was good enough to go, 348 cubic inches, not supposed to be racing, right?...........Jim Rathman ran 348 cubic displacement engines, part of my development. It became my development, and Dick Keinath came to my group and was instrumental in 348 and 409 and 427, but not MK II. That was just Dick. The 427 exist only for drag racing, the Z-11. Identical block like 409, but 427 cubic inches."
"Cole and Barr (Harry Barr, chief engineer) came up with idea - to establish Marine Division. Marine Division was, at that time, subterfuge. Marine Division was organized under me and provide means and engineering budget to funnel money, material and work for the racers........348 Marine engine. I was director of high performance including Marine engine. But I will tell you, in 1960 eighty percent of the starters at Daytona were Chevrolets. And one failure was one car that pick up debris and burst crankcase. Mechanically, all cars were scot-free. That proved the 348, started out as a truck engine, was a very good racing engine also."
Those are all the comments I could find regarding Zora and the W engine. I'll have to disagree with Zora's last statement about the W starting out as a truck angine. I have the original 5 design objectives for the new engine (and I wrote an article about it back in '88). The objectives clearly stated both passenger car and truck applications from the git-go, with the ability to adapt to high performance equipment.
Did Zora dislike the W? I still don't know the answer to that.
Verne
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