Likely 325HP as numbers were amped up until 1972.
Chevrolet Big Block Trivia or : Where were they hiding them Horses!?
- Thread starter SammyChevelleTypeS3
- Start date
It was 375 HP. It said so right on the air filter housing. It had the solid lifter cam.
That was gross HP at rear of engine no intake, accessories etc , starting in 1972 they made them report NET which included losses for intake, accessories like PS pump, belts , fan etc and reported power level dropped.
Some engines “lost” about 100 HP in the process
SammyChevelleTypeS3
$50 site donor 2023
It is amazing today what the lucky guy with lots of spending $$$$ is able to purchase to create just about any car he wants to. Not just from Chevrolet either. So many classic car engines, parts / restoration suppliers have sprung up over the past 20 years that sometimes it
appears there is no end to what one can find. Even FoMoCo and Mopar have jumped in like The General to offer so many things one used to have to scour the junkyards for to be able to restore or in some cases just repair the classics.
There is even the privates who really have put their acts together as well. ManOWar engines , Dart , Edelbrock just to name a few of the more popular , well known others.
I feel like buying one of those really expensive crate engines and I don't even have a car to drop it in yet! Hahahahha
Dreams.
Dreams.
If I had the money to burn like Leno does, I would love to buy a NEW Camaro SS or something similar, and drop in that 1,004 horsepower 632 Cu. In. Chevy I posted.
And naturally beef up the trans and rear end to match.
https://www.jegs.com/i/Chevrolet-Performance/809/19432060/10002/-1
Back when I had my 396 Nova, there was a guy in our neighborhood who had put a 454 in a Chevy Vega. He was quite a good mechanic for a young guy, and his parents were wealthy, so money wasn't a problem.
It took him a while to finish it. He bought a lot of the parts from Nicky Chevrolet in Chicago. They were the biggest high performance Chevy dealer in or around Chicago. They were on a par with Mr. Norm's Dodge. Also well known for high performance Mopars. They regularly had 426 Hemi powered Chargers in stock.
He had the thing almost finished, (he was waiting on a custom fiberglass hood), when he lost it and crashed it into a tree. He wasn't hurt, but after that his parents pulled the plug on him financially.
Nickey Chevrolet is an important piece of Chevy Rat history. I recall salivating over the 427 Nickey Novas as a teenager.
