Rarest 69 Camaro Ever? all-aluminum hemi engine Z

[ds1]

It was in a car mag years ago. Described as being a 69 z28 body with a prototype Hemi head small block from Yunicks garage sale. It stated there were a few complete engines. Rick Hendrick has one

[William]

There's a Daytona Yellow/Yellow Hound’s-tooth Z/28-RS built with a Hemi 302 in the August 1996 Super Chevy. There is also an interview with Smokey. He stated 150-200 pair of heads were assembled and that he built 8 engines. In his book “Best Damn Garage in Town” he pretty much said the same thing but claimed 12 engines were built. He didn’t pull any punches and stated the heads “…weren’t worth a crap…” and described the project as “…a one-half million dollar trip to $hitsville.”

So much for the Hemi 302.

[wisemanz28]

In the early 1990,s I was at a SuperChevy show and I saw the yellow Z28 with the hemi head engine in it. There was also a complete engine on display. At that time I was told their was only one Z28 that had the hemi head 302 engine installed in it.

[John]

.... Anyone interested in that issue of Super Chevy ( August 1996 Super Chevy )

.... Here it is..... [img]<<GRAEMLIN_URL>>/biggthumpup.gif[/img]

.... Super Chevy - August 1996

[img]<<GRAEMLIN_URL>>/beers.gif[/img]

[EZ Nova]

From one of the guys ar Hendricks:

&quot;There were 5 sets of those cylinder heads and manifolds made by GM for Smokey.
Rick Hendrick owns two of them. The first 4 were 302 ci for Trans Am racing. We finished the 5th engine. It was the only large ci (350 I think) engine, and the plug was pulled on the project before Smokey ever finished it.
I don't remember either of them being aluminum blocks but.........?
Very cool, but terrible exhaust ports and rocker layout. Defiantly would have needed some revisions prior to competition use! LOL
Neat pieces of automotive history though!&quot;

[DW31S]

IIRC, they were discussed in Hooper's book way back in 1990. Supposedly, the heads required a lot of other engine components to make the entire package function. Hardly stillborn, but not far from it. Other GM divisions had exotic stuff, too, and most of it also had a short (but expensive) life. Olds had Hemi-heads, aluminum blocks and other stuff that never saw production. Pontiac made some aluminum engines for Mickey Thompson and Chevy toyed with fuel injection on a few 409s. So, while the Hemi-head 302 is rare, what is more rare is that some of them got into private hands.

[JoeC]

the article says it is an aluminum 327 block from the Grand Sport program
that would mean it was from around 1963

[olredalert]

----I would think if the block was from the Grand Sport program it would have been a 377cu.in. When we restored GS#1 the 1st time,years ago we were lucky to score a nearly complete original 377 GS motor from the tech center, crossram Webers and all. I still don't know how our friend inside GM did that!......Bill S

[JoeC]

I believe that is the same engine

the 327 block is a 4 inch bore and they used a stroker crank to get the 377 cu in

the 327 350 and 302 used 4 inch bore

[Steve Shauger]

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: olredalert</div><div class="ubbcode-body">----I would think if the block was from the Grand Sport program it would have been a 377cu.in. When we restored GS#1 the 1st time,years ago we were lucky to score a nearly complete original 377 GS motor from the tech center, crossram Webers and all. I still don't know how our friend inside GM did that!......Bill S </div></div>

My friend Bill Scott was the chief mechanic on the Penske GS cars and stated his were 364 CI engines. Perhaps Penske used de-stroked engines. Unfortunately Scotty passed away many years ago.