This is the magazine article I’ve been waiting 61 years for! I’ve been well aware of guys (and dealers) swapping in hot 327s into the new Chevy II all those decades, but I did not know that there was a factory-built version that was essentially a prototype for that swap. Here it is, a Chevy II built by Chevrolet with a Corvette solid-lifter 327, four speed and…four doors!
In addition to using a six cylinder four door as the starting point, its original 3.08:1 rear axle ratio without Positraction and the little 6.50 x 13″ tires hampered its initial acceleration, but once under way, it was red hot. With the right rear axle and a bit more rubber, this undoubtedly would have been the quickest sedan in the land, four door or two door.
Would you take the bait at a red light in your 413 Dart or 421 Pontiac from this innocuous -looking four door Chevy II? If so, you were in for a nasty surprise. Roger Huntington speculates that this ultimate Q-ship is something “you may be able to buy off the showroom floor in a few months. Or the conversion parts may be offered as a kit for dealer installation. Final plans have not been settled as this is written”.
Well, we all know it wasn’t ever available off the showroom floor. Chevrolet did off the the 250 and 300 hp versions of 327 in the Chevy II in 1965, and even the 350 hp version in 1966, before the new “no less than 10 lbs/hp” edict kicked in for 1967. Why not this package in 1962?
Almost certainly to keep some sort of brand pecking order intact, at least for the time being. In 1962, the ’64 Chevelle was of course already in the works, and it probably would have felt wrong to offer a quicker Chevy II than a Chevelle. And this Chevy II would have given given the big Chevrolet with the 409 a serious run for the money, as almost certainly beating it (with the right axle and tires). It would even have Corvette, which weighed about the same, serious competition. Now that wouldn’t be a good look, coming from your new economy sedan.
In 1962, the notion of a compact with a truly powerful V8 was still a couple of years off. Pontiac broached it mostly with the 1963 Tempest 326 HO, and then of course with the ’64 GTO. After that, all bets were off, which explains the 327 available in the ’65 Chevy II (the 283 was available in ’65). Everything in its right time, and the time for a 340 hp Chevy II was just not quite right, yet.
As to the dealer installed option, it really was a thing; here’s a page from the parts book. It shows a price for the 283 kit, but the 327 is “NL”; not listed, I assume? One had to ask?
And here’s everything that went into that kit. Looks like bigger brakes were part of the final kit; good call. How many dealers were willing to actually do the conversion is a good question—I suspect not many, but some in the right locations undoubtedly did.
Hot Rod magazine featured this swap, with a 360 hp FI 327 in 1962. Perhaps the price for the 327 depended which version one wanted? This one ripped off the 0-60 in 5.2 seconds, undoubtedly with a more favorable rear axle and other prepping (and it was a two door!).
The tested version took 6.8 seconds for the 0-60, due to a weak launch, but it was doing 97 mph in the traps at the end of the 1/4 mile, which is much more indicative of its potential. It was still fast enough to beat the 413 Dart, and not far behind the well-prepped 421 SD GP Pontiac.
And of course there’s the icing on the cake: 14-17 mpg on the highway instead of the 10-12 mpg all those big hot cars were getting.
The 327 and the aluminum-case T-10 close-ratio 4-speed only weighed 200 lbs more than the six. Most of that was of course on the front wheels, but thanks to stiffer springs and shocks and a front roll bar, handling was actually better than a six and the stock suspension. The rear axle did get torque links (essentially traction bars) to deal with the added power. As to the axle itself being strong enough, no worries, Since the Chevy II used the same one as in the big cars, just narrower. The 6.50 x 13 tires (roughly comparable to a 175/80-13) and 5.5″ wheels are from the wagon, as the stock tires were 6.00 x 13s, on 4″ rims. Sintered metallic brake lining were fitted.
The 3.08 axle combined with the 2.20:1 first gear ratio resulted in a 6.08:1 overall ratio in first, which either bogged down the engine or resulted in too much wheel spin if the engine were revved up too much. Getting a god start is essential to good acceleration test times, so these numbers did not reflect its potential.
But once under way, it really pulled hard. Too bad there were no timed 30-70 or other “passing” time tests. “The peak of the horsepower curve is very flat…the engine has tremendous potential.” What else is new; well, actually the 327 was new in 1962, and the biggest advantage over the 283 was its fatter and taller torque curve.
Huntington took accelerometer readings to try to determine just how much the 327 made, as installed. His results suggest about 260-265 hp at around 5000 rpm, as compared to the advertised 340 hp. But of course that’s gross hp, and those numbers he got are essentially net (as installed) hp, and seem about right. I’ve seen him do this before; why he doesn’t just spell it out, that gross hp is on the dyno without an open exhaust, no accessories, and carb and timing tuned for absolute maximum power, and not as specified. As it is, his calculations for torque (330-335 ft.lbs) were remarkable close to the advertised gross numbers (344 lb.ft.)
Yes, understeer was present, but with so much power and a manual four speed, it was easy to use the throttle to call up neutral or even oversteer from the rear end. And this was easier to do with a lighter car like the Chevy II than a big one. On the straight highway, it was rock steady. Overall, on the handling: “The Corvette-powered Chevy II is fine from this standpoint.”
Only one last point: “So when can we buy it, Chevrolet?” As a complete car, in 1966, and then only for one year. And it was even available on the four door sedan too.
Related CC reading:
Curbside Classic: 1962-1965 Chevy II – Chevy Builds A Compact, Take II
Vintage Car Life Road Test: 1962 Dodge Dart 413 – The Max Wedge Legend Started Here
Here’s that Motor Trend article that describes the official option package for the swap.
Chevrolet seems to have done a better job than many of creating the ability to mix & match bodies and powertrains all through the line. This is extra interesting because nobody was really doing really hot compacts in 1962. The 4 bbl V8 62 Lark was about the only game in town for the segment, but it was a really small segment.
I wonder if this article (or knowledge of the program) was a factor in pushing Studebaker to offer the R1 and R2 powered Super Lark of 1963. A quick check shows a reference to a June, 1963 Car Life road test of a Lark R2 automatic that ran the quarter in 13.9 seconds at 99.98 mph. But I’ll bet that one benefited from a Twin Traction axle and better tires, which this car lacked. Then within another year Ford had the K code 289 and Chrysler had its new 273 that came in a pretty hot version too.
This was fun reading!
I can’t remember exact dates, but am fairly positive that Studebaker had already decided to offer the Avanti R1 and R2 engines in Hawks and Larks by the time this article came out. Granatelli was already testing a prototype of the R3 engine in April, 1962, which debuted kinda sorta in time for the 1964 cars. Studebaker was a madhouse from the time they brought Sherwood Egbert in as president on February 1st, 1961, right up until operations ceased in South Bend at the end of 1963. With Egbert’s hard push to bring Studebaker back to relevance, the performance parts that made up the Super Lark and Super Hawk packages likely became available at slightly different times. You could opt for the high performance engines and transmissions, disc brakes, tachometer, HD suspension, Twin Traction differential, rear anti-roll bar, traction bars, ala carte at the beginning of the 1963 model year; then as a “Super” package midyear.
You probably already knew the majority of this, but I seem to be on a roll shilling for Studebaker around here lately, so there’s that. I’m betting that an R2 Super Lark would still be a better performing car overall… but this was Stude squeezing the last drops of performance out of an engine designed while Berlin was still smoldering, in a chassis that wasn’t much newer; Chevrolet was just getting started.
Chevrolet may have been responding to reports that in the USSR, GAZ had installed the 5.53 litre (337 cubic inch) V8 engine from the big GAZ-13 Chaika (Gull) into the compact GAZ-M21 Volga. Called the GAZ-M23 Volga, given it pre-dates the Pontiac GTO by a couple of seasons, GAZ can lay claim to that contested title “the first muscle car”. As it turned out, Chevrolet had nothing to fear, all 603 M23s produced between 1962-1970 allocated for the exclusive use of the KGB and other Soviet “special services”. The speedometer was calibrated to 180 km/h (112 mph) and it’s not known if any survive but at least one replica (pictured) has been assembled
Why use a four-door? Why not!
It’s an engineering test mule, and probably one that had racked up a few miles with a six and ‘glide hauling it around before going back to the skunkworks. That specific car would never be sold to the public and may have been loaned to the press almost as an afterthought. Afterward, it might even have been cut up by hand to get better pictures for the “how to do this swap” manual for the dealers before being scrapped.
It certainly would have been quite the sleeper. In fact, with the traction problems, it reminds me of the old story of how it was possible to beat a Street Hemi-equipped Mopar with something like an L78 (375hp) SS396. The trick was to race the Hemi from a standing start, which kept the Mopar’s detuned race engine in the lower part of the rpm band. The Chevy would get the jump off the line and the Mopar couldn’t make up the car length or two it gave the Chevy.
So it would go with the feature car in the article, except the issue would be one of the inability to get any traction from a standing start.
But from a rolling start, well, let’s just say there would be a lot of surprised 413 Dart and 421 Pontiac drivers. Imagine them thinking, “did I just get beaten by a 4-door Nova?”.
Fun to see this, Paul—I appreciate more and more the “hierarchy” decisions made at GM about how prestige/performance premiums had to be maintained, etc.
This from Motor Trend seems to have related photos and info about the 327 swap:
https://www.motortrend.com/how-to/chevy-ii-v-8-engine-swap-history/
Thanks! I’m going to update the post with that.
You’re always welcome, Paul; I’m happy to contribute something useful.
One outcome of the muscle car era, that was obviously not such a “thing” earlier on, was the swapping around of power plants to suit the driver and the situation. It could be done with most of the Detroit cars, but the Chevys seemed to be the kings of the engine swap. Perhaps that is both because of the ongoing popularity of the nameplate, which offered an endless supply of good performance engines in the junkyards, and also the factory engineered construction of the engine bays, as referenced in this Chevy II, which allowed for easy swaps.
Most likely the unavailability of the best engine choices (and unavailability at a reasonable price in the aftermarket) inhibited the home brew engine swapping in the early ‘60s.
The key was when the drivetrains started becoming available cheaply after the rest of the vehicle was no longer viable. It began with the Ford flathead, but really took on steam with the introduction of the 1955 SBC.
By the early sixties, there was a ready supply of them in junkyards (and was still solidly in production with backwards compatability), so it quickly became the go-to choice for hotrodders. The only other V8 that came close was the 1951-58 Chrysler ‘FirePower’ Hemi.
Using a 4 door as the basis was genius – made it even more of a sleeper. With some 14s or 15s and decent tires this would have been seriously fast in the 1/4 mile!
This unit body and even the ’66-’67 version were marginal at best with the front subframe merely bolting to the firewall. Great acceleration but a large portion of the road irregularities were twisting the body and I’m sure they were squirrely with that much power.
There’s nothing at all wrong with bolting sections together, It’s how bridges and building and other structures of all kinds are built. It’s a non-issue. No issues with being “squirrely” were noted here or in any of the many reviews of Chevy II with V8s.
Perhaps your username influencing your comment?
my first car was a Nova, a ’70. Fine car. All mfg’s make good and bad cars. The problem with the Nova was the bolted interface did not match the stiffness of the subframe. I have a BSME and was a practicing mechanical engineer for 40 years. No bias. Watch an episode of Iron Resurrection where they did a Nova.
I should add that the early Nova construction was fine for the low hp engines they used. Note that the ’67 Camaro (and then ’68 Nova) changed the subframe attachment configuration drastically with attachment points further apart to allow better transfer of bending moment. The modern fix for early Nova’s is a subframe that attaches at the bottom and top of the firewall. I have the old Hot Rod magazine and the bald guy in the pictures above is Ray Brock technical editor of Hot Rod. Of course Peterson Publishing is not going to directly blast GM in any article, sometimes there will be subtle hints in text but nothing overt. I think they were loving the acceleration and minimizing handling and what were they comparing it to anyways. Cheers
The ’68-up Nova (and ’67-up Camaro) had a totally different type of construction than the early Chevy II (’62-’66). The early ones were true unibodies, but the front body structure was bolted on instead of welded. It was bolted to the main body in a number of places, including high up on the cowl. This was essential as the front inner fenders were a key structural element. (image attached below).
The ’68-up was very different: it was what’s called a hybrid construction, as the front was a true (sub)frame, looking very much like the front 1/3 of a typical frame, which was then bolted to the reinforced bottom of the body. The picture of it is in my next comment below.
These two types of front structures work very differently, as the early version carries the spring/shock loads on the inner front fenders, which are a key structural element. The alter style is just like a typical BOF in the front end, very similar to a Chevelle in many aspects.
Clearly there’s an aftermarket for new front structures/subframes for both of these, due to folks now commonly installing drastically more powerful engines as well as wanting room for wider tires and new suspension components.
My point is that while there’s obviously room for improvement (as in any old car), I’m not aware of any period reviews pointing out that the front end of the early Chevy II was “squirrely”. If you could point me to that, I’d be happy to change my opinion.
Here’s the ’68-up subframe. Totally different.
Alternate history idea:
In late 1958, GM Corporate nixes the Corvair prototypes as too radical and the Chevy II is rushed through design and into production for MY 1960. No Monza, therefore no Falcon Sprint is created to compete with it. Before Chevy decides to fit a V-8 into the chassis, they turbocharge the 230 I-6 with a similar system to what the senior compacts got. Hmmm.
A world without the Corvair is unfathomable to me. 🙂
“6 passenger”? The front seat, center passenger, would have to have no legs. (or a small kid with short, short legs.
Just wondering about the corvette engine pictured ? It clearly has a rear sump oil pan as well as straight down exit ram horn manifolds . Not to mention it would not have the unique Chevy 2 clutch mount boss on the block required . The kit does not appear to contain the parts to do the conversation? Super curious how the dealership overcame these issues.