Happy Birthday to the Chevy Small-Block V-8! It's been 65 years since the famed "mouse motor" first rolled off the assembly line and over the years she's appeared in any number of cars from racing Corvettes to street Chevettes, workaday El Caminos to non-descript Suburbans, and wood paneled Station Wagons to slab sided Silverados. With displacements ranging from a rather svelte 262 cubic inches to bored and stroked 400 cube engines - and even larger in the aftermarket - the humble small block was a veritable jack-of-all-trades motor.
In honor of the milestone, Chevrolet Performance is celebrating with an all-new crate motor - the SP383 EFI. She's a modern take on the classic mouse motor with a stroker crank producing big torque and the drivability afforded by Electronic Fuel Injection (EFI).
The SP 383 EFI is based on the Chevy Performance ZZ6 EFI crate engine with max flow high burn aluminum cylinder heads, a modern valvetrain with beehive springs, roller camshaft, but with the addition of a 3.8 inch stroker crank in place of the 3.5 inch unit. Port injection is used in a throttle body set-up that you might confuse for a carburetor. But that's okay because it gives it an old-school look which I'm sure Chevy was aiming towards. This makes the powerplant perfect for a muscle car, vintage build, or restmod.
Chevy Performance offers two versions of the SP383 EFI. The Deluxe version (P/N 19418640) includes a semi-complete engine with throttle body, distributor, and flexplate. The Turn-Key version (P/N 19419199) starts with the Deluxe model as a base and adds an air cleaner, front end accessory drive, breather, PCV valve, and starter. A Plug and Play electronic control harness is included in both crate engine packages. Chevy cites output in the range of 450 hp and 436 lb.-ft. of torque. Not bad at all!
The SP383 EFI can also be factory matched to an automatic or manual transmission through the Chevy Performance Connect and Cruise system. Warranty on the engine is for 2 years or 50,000 miles, whichever comes first, and you can order them from your local Chevy dealer today. Buckle up.
(via Chevrolet)