Old school chevy: use one piece or two piece rear main seal block?

[shortrack]

working on building a "starter" engine for the car....I have three engines at the house....one old school 400 and two one piece rear main seal 350s that came out of my boat.....I thought Id obviously go with the 400 and was going to order a Canton road race wet sump oil pan then discovered the two blocks take different pans.....all three engines have cast cranks and two bolt mains but the 350s are rollers.....any suggestions?

I know my engine builder likes the old school blocks mainly because he's been working on them for 30yrs but even he admits those blocks are getting hard to find.....I want to keep the cast bottom end and put a hot cam and a decent set of alum heads and make somewhere around 450 -500hp on pump gas with a carb

oh and does anyone know what pan an after market block like a Dart would take??

[Ishmael]

Why wouldn't you go with a 1 piece seal block? Even if it wasn't injected it has a better seal. If its the cubes that bother you go with a stroker kit since you've got it apart anyway. If it was me I would sell all three blocks, get a vortec truck block and you've already got the provisions for a roller cam and the engine will most likely be in better shape - may not need to be bored - plus you'll have 4 bolt mains. If the boat engines are injected you're in great shape. Get a Scat stroker kit and you're golden. if you are sticking with what you've got, pop the heads off and look for ridges in the cylinders, and debris in the oil pan, choose the one that looks good then have it checked by your machine shop.

[ArtosDracon]

I also prefer the two piece mains, just because I've seen people have minor difficulty getting the one piece seal into place properly, and then having it leak, though the seal is hands down better if done properly, and it's not that tough. If the 350s are set up for rollers I would use one of them, If you need four bolt main caps you can always get the caps and either drill them yourself or have a local shop drill them, it's a very easy procedure. I do like the bore of the 400 blocks, but a 383 is usually plenty of torque.

[Pro Stock]

[
oh and does anyone know what pan an after market block like a Dart would take??[/QUOTE]


Dart has a "Little M" block that uses the stock pan rail and also a block with spread pain rails in order to accomodate big strokes, they also offer a raised roller cam bearing option, they raiswww.dartheads.com/products/cylinder-heads e the cam for better clearance between the cam and the crank in big stroke applications, another benifit of the raised cam is better vave train geometry and shorter (less flexible) pushrods., it also has a two piece rear main seal. It is a great block you won't be dissapointed.

Dale

[Pro Stock]

www.dartheads.com/products/cylinder-heads

[shortrack]

thanks for the replies!.....the engine builder says that the old two piece blocks are stronger than the newer one piece blocks and can therefore make more hp (I guess that was what I was really asking)....anyone have any opinions there?

[ArtosDracon]

I have to disagree, the design is essentially identical, and the manufacturing processes are not going to get worse over time. Apples to Apples I would say that's too broad a comment to make. Though I can say for sure that some of the newest blocks made in mexico did not have the build quality one would really want.