302 Chevy engine building articles [late '60 - early '70s]

[Jon Mello]

Here's a build-up by Traco Engineering from the Spring 1973 issue of Super Chevy.

[Jon Mello]

From the August 1970 issue of Motorcade magazine.

[william1]

very interesting stuff, i wonder if our resident engine guys are reading this, i would imagine not much has changed over all these years, thanks for the new section, great work.

[vtfb68]

BTW TRACO is still in business. They are now in Gardena (A few miles south of LAX) 310 329-8108
 Victor

[OCTARD]

Al Bartz also built 302 Chevy engines for Trans-Am and Formula 5000 competitors.  Of course, he built motors for several in the Can-Am series as well.  Here is an excellent Al Bartz article from a January 1968, Sports Car Graphic:

Page 1: http://www.justcallmecarroll.com/images/bartz1.jpg
Page 2: http://www.justcallmecarroll.com/images/bartz2.jpg
Page 3: http://www.justcallmecarroll.com/images/bartz3.jpg
Page 4: http://www.justcallmecarroll.com/images/bartz4.jpg

There is a whole chapter on Al Bartz in Phil Henny's book, "...Just Call Me Carroll...!"

-Chad

[OCTARD]

More on Al Bartz recently started on another forum:

http://forums.autosport.com/index.php?showtopic=143699&st=0&gopid=4874847&#entry4874847

Good news in the thread about Phil Henny working to write a book about Al.

-Chad

[Jon Mello]

An article from early 1969 with Al Bartz in it.

[OCTARD]

Another Bartz article from a December 1970 MOTORCADE magazine (loaned for scanning by CRG member BRUCE302):

[Jon Mello]

March '68 Car Craft article on Traco "301". Note the Bill Thomas header.
Jere Stahl did not ship his first set of headers to Penske until June 1968.





 

[oldtransamdriver]

Our humble team never had any fancy Traco or Al Bartz engines, but we did at one time have a set of headers from Jere Stahl.

I understand that in to-day's vintage race world a 302 Chevy can make almost 560 HP in an historic T/A car - seems unreal.

I wonder what those 32 Stutz cars that Al had would be worth to-day?

Robert Barg

[Jon Mello]

No idea on the Stutz's as I don't follow them but just by looks and name recognition, it would seem like they would be a 7-figure car. Just a guess.

I have heard similar horsepower numbers for some of the top engines in Historic Trans-Am vintage racing.

[Jon Mello]

Not that much of an engine building article, per se, but provides more historical information on Traco.

[Jon Mello]

One of my engine building heroes, Bob Joehnck, showing how they prepared racing heads back in the day.
Besides doing the engines in his own Washburn Chevrolet sponsored '67 Z-28 driven by Tony Settember,
Bob built engines for Roy Woods' '69 Camaros and others. Bob's engines were every bit the equal of the
Traco and Bartz engines of the day.

[Jon Mello]

There were many companies and shops that ported heads back in the day. Some may not know it
but Crane Cams offered fully competitive ported heads directly from their catalog. These were called
"Super Port Flow" heads and were also known as "Fireball" heads. They featured round exhaust ports
like most professional porting shops were doing back then. I have an original set of these Crane heads
I'm using on my '67 race car.

These pages are from the '67 Crane Cams catalog.

[Jon Mello]

From the '69 Crane Cams catalog...