Thread: Wet Sleeve Small Block?

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Has anyone ever wet sleeved a SBC? Not an LS engine but an original 350? I've seen 8 cylinders with dry liners but not wet.

If your talking about a sleeve being somewhat exposed to the coolant -yes , but only on a cylinder or two as a repair ------\\If your talking about doing all 8 with a deck plate added at the top for inforcement-no----If you need something bigger displacement the best thing to do these days is start with a Dart block with 4.125 bore--

Or are you talking about something else????? oringinal numbers restore?????????

Yes, it's a restore of a numbers matching 283 that has been rebuilt three times. We wat to sleeve it back to stock and keep it running. Darton makes wet sleeves where all 8 cylinders are exposed to the coolent (like a big rig diesel), but only for the LS blocks.

Fot the 283 bore size you could resleeve all eight but with a lighter ppress fit to the sleeves=since it has been rebuilt 3 times, what is the current bore size??? For numbers matching you won't be able to deck the block which would remove the original numbers

Originally Posted by jerry clayton

Fot the 283 bore size you could resleeve all eight but with a lighter ppress fit to the sleeves=since it has been rebuilt 3 times, what is the current bore size??? For numbers matching you won't be able to deck the block which would remove the original numbers

We're .060 over. It's a Nomad that gets driven. If we use pressed in sleeves, would those be replaceable if the engine needs to be rebuilt in the future?

Yes- a normal press fit sleeve can be replaced-all the old stuff had them that way----------at .060 over on 283 you could just go to basicly 4.000 and put in dry wall sleeve with counter bore flange at the top-It will take someone with accurrate equipment and knowhow to do it but with some close tollerance work and maybe dry ice to cool/shrink the sleeves and maybe warming the block it will be nice job for someone to do to restore an old engine that belongs in its original vehicle

A 0.60 over 283 is a 292 I built a number of them back in the early 60s they were vary popular street race eng back then we also built a lot of 125 over they 4 in bore and made it a 301 were real popular before chevy made 327 cu in widley avalable yhe 301 ran really hard untill ta got them hot ya had to wait for them to cool down

Originally Posted by jerry clayton

Yes- a normal press fit sleeve can be replaced-all the old stuff had them that way----------at .060 over on 283 you could just go to basicly 4.000 and put in dry wall sleeve with counter bore flange at the top-It will take someone with accurrate equipment and knowhow to do it but with some close tollerance work and maybe dry ice to cool/shrink the sleeves and maybe warming the block it will be nice job for someone to do to restore an old engine that belongs in its original vehicle

Seems like we'll be able to keep this Nomad running for a while then...

Does the use of a repair sleeve mean that the sleeve can be changed and that an engine block is never really used up?

Depends on what channel your watching-----------you know-real deal or fake news--------actual chip making machinists or key board ers----------

If you don't have any cracked walls-----I'd recommend having the block honed on a Sunnen CK10 hone with torque plates to see what size it will clean up at, then order custom pistons for that size plus clearance------even if you have a hole or two that might be bigger you could still make the others smaller-------