383 Chevy Short Block - Torqbot

It seems we're obsessed with horsepower. It dominates our conversations and keeps us up long hours into the night. Why do we ignore torque? It's torque that gets our cars moving. It's torque that smacks you into the seat when you mash the pedal. So why have we forgotten about torque? It probably goes way back to the early days of car magazines. Throughout history, we've been trained to think about horsepower. It's all anyone ever talks about, so it must be all that's important, right? Wrong. \

Truth be known, engines don't make horsepower, they make torque and then horsepower is calculated from torque. Why are we bringing this up? Because this engine makes a ton of torque and it's not too shabby in the power department, either. It's nice too, because it's a real street motor that idles smooth and won't cost more than your next car to build. We've named it the Torqbot, because it autonomously cranks out torque like there was no letting go.

Building The 'Bot
We've heard lots of good things about the Edelbrock E-Tec heads, but all we'd seen tested so far had been the E-Tec 200s with the large runners. When we saw the kind of power Edelbrock made with their own Crate 383s and the 170 heads ("Roaring Twins," SUPER CHEVY October 2003) we decided to try our hand at it. The car this engine is intended to power will be a heavy daily driver with A/C. This motor was the perfect choice.

To keep costs reasonable, we went with a stock (read: cast) short-block assembly from Powerhouse Engine Components. The kit included all the bottom-end pieces we'd need for very little cash. All we had to so was come up with a two-bolt 350 block, which are about as plentiful as sunshine in California, and we could have the guys at Speed-O-Motive set the whole thing up for us.

Torqbot Performance For a...        read full caption Torqbot Performance For a very mild small-block, this thing sure did crank. Not only did it make great power, it idled at 600 rpm pulling more than 14-inches of vacuum too. This would be the perfect sleeper or daily driver. The results listed her are from the AVS 650 carb, since it made the best torque overall.

We've wanted to try Edelbrock's...        read full caption We've wanted to try Edelbrock's new E-Tec heads since they'd first hit the scene. This motor was ripe and ready for the 170cc versions.

A rock-stock GM two-bolt main...        read full caption A rock-stock GM two-bolt main 350-cid block was the foundation for the Powerhouse Engine components that went inside. Nothing fancy here. Cast flat-top pistons and cast rings mean the whole assembly was very affordable.

The top end received a little more attention to detail, but we still didn't go overboard on the budget. The two expensive parts we choose to run were the Isky hydraulic roller cam (265/272 adv. dur, 217/225 at .050, .485/.505 lift, 112 LSA) and the aluminum Edelbrock E-Tec heads. But we felt that the performance of these parts far outweighed their higher prices. Other than that, the rest of the motor is bare bones simple, with a flare for power. The Performance Distributors HEI distributor and Live Wires ignition wires had no trouble firing this little beast.

Edelbrock supplied its Performer RPM Air Gap intake manifold and new Thunder Series AVS 650 carburetor. But for fun and games, we also tried a few of Edelbrock's other carbs, including an 800-cfm AVS and even a 750-cfm Edelbrock Q-jet just to see which one worked best. To finish everything off, we borrowed a set of 1 3/4-inch headers from Speed-O-Motive and hooked up an Edelbrock aluminum water pump to keep things cool.

This was the only place we...        read full caption This was the only place we spent a little extra cash. The E-Tec heads come port-matched and the Isky hydraulic roller cam, although powerful, was a little more expensive then a flat-tappet hydraulic would have been.

We used Lunati's aluminum...        read full caption We used Lunati's aluminum roller rocker arms, (1.5:1 intake, and 1.6:1 exhaust) for a bit of torque-building flavor.

Check out the ribs in the...        read full caption Check out the ribs in the plenum of the Edelbrock Performer RPM Air Gap manifold. It's design touches like these that help make the most torque.