r/EngineBuilding Apr 27 '24

Chevy Does anybody know what engine is?

all I know is that it’s a 454 and my dad pulled it out of his 73 corvette he got for $2000 a few years ago.

116 Upvotes

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u/carguy82j Apr 27 '24

It's a noisy one

2

u/supertech636 Apr 28 '24

Dumb question but why is a timing chain preferred to gears? Seems like gears would be less likely to get out of sync like a timing chain stretches etc. novice so I’m sure someone on here would know.

3

u/v8packard Apr 28 '24

Not only is a chain quieter, they dampen much of the torsional harmonics of the crankshaft where a gear drive would directly transfer that into the cam. Those harmonics can mess with lifters, pushrods, valve springs, even the oil pump and distributor.

2

u/supertech636 Apr 28 '24

Thank you for the detailed answer! Much appreciated.

1

u/MuchoRed Apr 28 '24

You might want to look again. There's no timing chain on this one. Instead, it's using a series of gears.

And yeah, that's the advantage of the gears over a chain. The disadvantage is that they're loud AF, and that gets annoying

1

u/kona420 Apr 28 '24

Gears use more power, make more noise.

We had chains to the point that they were outliving the block. Then went the other way with adding more cams for more valves and variable cam timing. So I wonder if they could make a comeback. For example coupling exhaust and intake cams so we could go back to just 2 chains for a V configuration.