1970 3963512 Block Strange One

[olredalert]

Steve,,,Definetly had low domes, if they had any domes at all. I remember thinking that a guy could run just about any gas with those pistons. Pacemaker had there own engine program of sorts. I believe they built them to have as much torque as possible while still using regular gas. These engines were painted metallic green and were prominently labelled as "Pacemaker 427s"........Bill S

[3macs1]

Steve:
The domes on the engine I just sold were 10.25 Hp pistons .
Interesting question on the towing package. The car definately had a GM installed hitch and wiring. There was a trans cooler also but I don't know if that was factory installed.
One thing for sure I will always drop the pan on any 512 block I run into in the future.

[nuch_ss396]

Joe,

No real need to drop the pan. Just look at the oil filter
boss ( side ) to see if it has the external oil cooling
attachment provision. All 4-bolt blocks had this.

Steve

[bigchevydaddy]

Are you sure this was the original engine? If it was a demo, it might have had the block replaced under warranty, and they replaced it with a 4-bolt. Years ago I lucked into a 512-casting block that came out of a "totally original" Caprice wagon. Turned out that the block had been replaced by the dealer early in its life. It had a CE stamping. All the internals were low-horse 427, but the CE block had evidently been in-stock in the parts dept. and that's what they swapped in as a replacement.

BCD

[3macs1]

Definately the original engine and it was not CE. That much I did check since I still have a bunch of big blocks and I wanted to make sure he was not getting the original 454 out of my 70 chevelle.Which is buried in the pile also.

[Kim_Howie]

I heard that alot of big wagons had 4-bolt blocks in them???

[3macs1]

Just thought I should share this info. Had a call last night from a good friend who has been working in an engine shop rebuilding motors for over 40 years. BBC his speciality.I told him what happpened with my 512 block.
He indicated that he has seen that many times over the years in the 70-454 and in 66- 396 and 427's . Most of the oval port 4 bolt's did and some didnot not have the oil filter bosses drilled for external oil cooling and dropping the pan was the only sure way to know what you have. He said if you don't beleive me colvin ????mentions it also in his book. They would fit the caps due to potential warranty issues but machining for an oil cooler was not necessary to complete the vehicle.
Sure enough I checked today and on page 57 a note is listed
In many cases, due to scheduling and parts availability, a 4 bolt block was used in a 2 bolt application.
Also stated many times during a block production run, a 2 bolt block might have been drilled for a 4 bolt application with no factory documentation of the change"
To sum it up best to drop the pan before we sell a BBC especially if it is a 66 or 70.