It may have started out as an updated 348-inch truck engine, but it ended up as the CHEVY 409: BIG-BLOCK LEGEND!
Two years before the Supercar hype and big-engined midsize cars, full-size ’62 Chevys, powered by 409-inch versions of the 348 W-Series passenger car and truck engine, carried the Musclecar banner for Chevrolet. While the engine first surfaced in the 1961model year, it was a late arrival. Just 142 Chevys with RPO-580 360-horsepower, single-four-barrel (Carter AFB) and solid-lifter-ca...
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Dyno Don
RPO Z11: CHEVY 427 LIGHT HEAVYWEIGHT
By checking off RPO Z11 on a 1963 Chevrolet new car order form, you could buy a factory-built racecar. Only 57 people made that choice before GM pulled the plug. Hemmings’ Mike McNessor writes about the rare RPO Z11: CHEVY 427 LIGHT HEAVYWEIGHT.
She’s so fine my… 427? Clearly not 1960s radio gold. But among Chevrolet W-engine enthusiasts, more poetic words were never written. The 427-cubic-inch Mark I big block was part of the factory-lightweight 1963 Z-11 package built to win rounds in quarter...
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