Only one 70 Camaro race car as far as I know

There was a 70 Camaro Grumpy's Toy VII that was more like a street/show car not a race car.

It had a ZL1 engine and 4 speed , straight bumper car. It had a prototype steel L88 hood that Chevy gave to Bill Jenkins for the car.

The 1970 COPO ZL1 Camaro that never made production

I have the hood to it so I am always looking for pictures of Grumpy's Toy VII

Removed at request of the admin

And therein lies the fundamental problem with old race cars.

Too many owners, too many modifications, tags gone, sketchy histories, no documentation. Several obvious recreations being paraded around as the 'real car'.

Those who have been on the sites for a long time may remember the Dick Harrell '68 Camaro FC mess.

Yup..

I'd say "SOME" old race cars. There are existing originals that are fully documented and have never been torn apart, destroyed, or left to biodegrade into the earth; some are still in competition. I will agree that quite a few bogus cars are, or have been, portrayed as the real thing and those imposters may cloud the judgment concerning period race cars in general. It's sad, indeed, but the entire hobby is rife with illegitimate examples of race cars, muscle cars, classic cars, etc.
And yes, the 1968 DH FC is a prime example....and the 1970 GT probably will be in due time.

Agreed.

A great example of a famous race car that maintained its identity is ZL1 #1. Still has its VIN and body tags, known history.

It's not difficult to determine a car's provenance. The story either lines up and is easily verified by facts or it doesn't, it's that simple. If its questionable don't over pay, and therein lies the problem. Buyer's sometimes lack knowledge. Much like the stock market do research and invest what you can afford to lose.

Probably better to get this thread back on track, after all its titled ZL-1 vs Can Am.

So I'll help to refocus this thread with this offering. Jenkins most successful big block, and what is arguably the Holy Grail of Rat motors. Bill Jenkins Can Am 430 won multiple Super Stock titles and match races before winning the first ever Pro/Stock race. This famous engine won literally hundreds of matches in Grumpy's Toys IV, VI and VIII before being converted to a 495 inch match race monster.

Reynolds Aluminum cast only 70 of these very special big bore (4 7/16") 395 alloy Can Am blocks. Sixty went to the 3 Can Am teams and 10 went to drag racers, Jenkins initially received 3 of the blocks but in the end may have ended up with as many as 5.

This also happens to be the engine Robert Calzaretta so graciously sold to me and one of the pieces I am excited to have Steve Shauger discuss with me when we talk about GT VIII.

Figured I might as well follow up with the actual difference between the 427 Zl-1 and the GM/Reynolds 430 Can Am in Bill Jenkins words from a 1970 article.

Source: Super Stock & Drag Illustrated July 1970

Jenkins was asked "can the standard 427 be competitive against the 430 or Can Am short stroke engine in Pro/Stock."

Jenkins replied: The Hp difference is negligible. It's the range with the 430 that makes the difference. He continued, the difference is 10 - 15 at peak and the peak for the 427 is 7,200 and +7,500 for the 430. At 7,200 there is no difference and at 7,600 - 7,700 the 430 makes 10 - 15 more hp than the 427 at 7,200. The 427 is definitely downhill at 7,700 - 7,800 being approximately -40 Hp say from 660 - 620.

The 430 climbs from 7,200 with about the same power to say 10 hp more at 7,500 and then maybe 15 hp more at 7,700; at 8,000 it is back to about the 7,500 power output.

SS & DI then asked how many of these engines are there ? Jenkins replied, 70 blocks were cast and distributed among 10 different Can Am teams and 6-10 of the blocks were given to potential or actual drag race users.

Note: very few Can Am blocks were cast with fuel pump bosses but the majority of all the early Can Am blocks were sleeved.

Note: Jenkins eluded to Reynolds experimenting with linerless blocks to increase bore size to 4.500.

I'd like to add that these engines weigh in the mid 400 lbs. range and when the mcLaren M8D/3 was subsequently tested by ex-F1 driver and double Le Mans winner JJ Lehto, the Finn declared M8D/3 to be “the fastest thing I have ever driven…”

What you have there is an Experimental / Prototype Block.
They start with 0- and I have heard that only 20 Block were made of 0-326711 and they were cast -68. In 1969 3946052 - 3946053 Can Am Block were produced

Carleen, agreed Reynolds prototype for GM. I have worked with and documented 21 variations of the GM aluminum blocks.

The 0-326711 you mentioned is definitely Can Am only. I have seen none with provisions for a mechanical fuel pump and agreed that mold was 68 only. It is also 4.440 bore and does have sleeves.

Who did you hear the production run number from ? That is interesting, I have never heard a definitive count other than from Bill Jenkins and Smokey Yunick who both state 70 short blocks cast between 67-69. This is Reynolds casting, not Winters. Different block, yes, even those that share the identical mold numbers:
3946052 and 3946053.

The Reynolds and Winters were cast from different alloys.

However, GM did turnover casting 052, 053 and 040 to Winters for '70 and '71 with big bore molds for Can Am teams.

If your into the Can Am stuff we should compare notes. A small group of us here in the USA that work on these are comparing notes to combine all this data and get it to those who restore these engines.

I have one of the 0-326711 Blocks.
I heard that Chevrolet ordered 20 Blocks (minimum order) of all 0-blocks.
Its the third Prototype / Eperimental casting of CanAm Big Block
They were supposed to be scrapped after trying them out but came out the back door to Racers. WDC Casting.
BTW Mine have provision for fuelpump.

I have seen some 3946052 Can Am Block on ebay with Casting date early 69. Also bought one of these but got into trouble with the seller

Heres what I have found out.
And I thought WDC means Winter die casting

Can-Am blocks 68/69 - Winters
# 0-294550 = 4.250" bore with steel liners Experimental Prototype 67-68 Dry sump (427 ci)
# 0-321270 = 4.440" bore with steel liners Experimental Prototype 68 no boss for mechanical fuel pump(430, 465 ci)
# 0-326711 = 4.440" bore with steel liners Experimental Prototype 68 (430, 465 ci)
# 3946052 = 4.440" bore with steel liners (430, 465 ci)
# 3946053 = 4.440" bore with steel liners (430, 465 ci)

Can-Am Block 70 Winters
# 3946052 = 4.440" bore with steel liners (494 ci)
# 3946053 = 4.440" bore with steel liners (494 ci)

Can-Am blocks 71-72 - Reynolds
# O-399204 = 4.5" bore and steel liners (509 ci)
# O-495102 = 4.5" bore and no liners

ZL-1 Factory blocks - 1969 - Winters
# 3946052 427 ci.
# 3946053 427 ci

ZL-1 Factory blocks - 1997 & up
# 3946053 427 ci.

# 3992038 may be 4.44" bore w/ Liners - era?.

# 3946052 Yenko Casting LC 427
# 3946053 Yenko - Casting has YENKO
# 3946053 Yenko - Casting has Y E N K O
# 394605Y Yenko - Casting has Yenko Crest Logo

I still have some parts from the Can Am engine from Jenkins. If you need something give me a call. Thanks Joe 908-216-5614

Beautiful looking drag car.

I know this is a slightly aged thread, but for my first post here in this forum, I can help this history. Covering the Yenko blocks, the first batch commissioned by Yenko was thru the Winters people, so they had the snowflake. Then Yenko bought the molds and Winters asked him to knock off the snowflake for his personal production.

For the 1967 year, Chevrolet was building limitedly 427 Aluminum engines, going out to Chaparral/Hall. So 0-294550 were this batch. They lost about 11 of them in race testing! First ran at the 1967 Daytona 24 where one 2F was fitted, and one 2D modified was fitted, due to the other Team 2F, not being ready. They won Brands Hatch with this engine in 1967. Also these could be configured either internal dry sump or wet sump. I have put up some pictures up of this in the last thread on Corvette Forum (TCracingCA) showing this, in the recent thread talking of a White ZL-1 clone selling on Ebay.

For 1968 to the dissatisfaction of Jim Hall, Chevrolet opened it up to offering supply to all Teams with the next version 0-321270 (I believe 20 produced). They were working on revisions, and due to supply demand, they released 0-326711 upping production and supplied to more outfits, 60 units out to Can Am and like Drag Racer Grumpy Jenkins got 3 initially, might have acquired 2 more, along with other outfits like Motion. As these could be built with the famed short stroke and big bore, in 430 or 465. These were the first of the Chevrolet units, that get confused as being Reynolds 390 units.

For 1969-onward, these Chevrolet units made using 356 aluminum (preceeding the Reynolds 390 Alloy program), Chevrolet finally gave them a Part # and made some available to select Dealerships over the counter. As these were designed to go 430, 465, they are as said with the proceeding 0-dash units, confused often with the Reynolds 390 units that would come later. And this engine was thought to be the 454 version of the ZL-1 mistakenly. I have to study the 0-326711, the ZL-1, and this #3992038 block side by side, but I think this latest has some of the characterics of both the Chevrolet 356 Alloy series and the ZL-1. The ZL-1 needed some clearancing for 4.0 stroke and this latest engine had that done.
Part #3992038.

They had problems with the larger displacement sizes 441 (.060 overbore) & 509/510 (.060 overbore) especially, due to the cylinder bores being so close to the head bolts, so they would get fracturing. I can elaborate more on this later, like core shifting. Therefore to solve a number of issues, they went with Reynolds and their improved Alloy and better production casting techniques.

Reynolds 390 only offered a Block which became Chevrolet Part #3965755 for 430, 465, 495

Next Chevrolet was working with Reynolds for bigger bores and plating techniques, different piston plating, etc. they had larger bore development happening under
0-399204 & later 0-495102, but the Can Am series died.

A few ZL-1 units were found to be able to be built in large displacement, in an attempt to keep competitive to the Porsche 917/30 & 917-10, until the last year of the old Can Am in 1974, when a gas consumption formula negated the sheer horsepower advantage of the Porsche Turbos in 1972 & 1973, and thus Shadow won that final year.

I have two of the 0-321270 blocks. One has sleeves and the other does not and doesn't appear to have ever had sleeves. The one without sleves has these characters hand stamped on the left rear corner of the block: RMC MOL and under that the number 10.

I was told on another forum the RMC stood for "Reynolds Massena Casting" (Massena, New York).

I also have an NOS 430 crank and pistons. Crank came from Grumpy Jenkins’ shop.

I’m trying to post pics but I’m having problems. ��

Hi Rex, glad to see you over here. On the project that we talked about an 0-dash history mostly, that I started sharing over on CF, this throws a curve ball, but a helpful curve ball. On the Chevrolet 1967-1970 Chevrolet 356 blocks, I have assumed one or more of those 0-Dash units might be the prototype for the Reynolds 390, so no panic. I have seen and read RMC (but even though I try to be on top of it all, sometimes my brain misses occasionally), I think even in this thread I read quickly to see if that was discussed. Those are still done up separate from the Reynolds 390 series, but the 0-321270 might just be that development/prototype run that led to the tooling up for Reynolds 390. Interesting. Thus let me dig some more on that history. I wanted to throw in to help, where I know smart guys on here, all of this hang out. As my personal email indicate, I know you know some stuff. :beers:

Therefore this line from my post is inaccurate, so removed this--->>>> Reynolds had nothing to do with these 1967-essentially thru 1970 offered engines or blocks using 356 alloy! Thus interest is to improve the History. I added 390 to two of the other mentions of Reynolds too. With your valued knowledge, I just gladly improved the accuracy overall of my post above. I still want to check into the RMC, go back and look at the castings for such, just to double check. Chevrolet was known to farm out Casting, so we had Winters, Alcoa, Reynolds, Tonawanda, and a few others. I wasn't pursuing who did what for Chevy, but that would be good to know information.

Crankshafts for 430 were:
P#3993803 Machined 3.47 stroke
P#3965746 Semi-Finished 3.4 to 3.8.

Another Semi-Finished one was available, but will have to search down that unit part number meant for 3.9 to 4.25 stroke.

Then we had:
P#3967811 3.76 (L88 unit) for 465 cubes
P#3963524 4.00 (LS7 unit-454) for 495 cubes

I just threw up a post on Can BBC over in Technical and Restoration that might be of interest to people following these Can Am/ZL-1 threads. I am still trying to figure out the ins and out of this forum.

Your post from the other thread:

https://www.yenko.net/forum/showthre...=139808&page=3

Thanks for helping to share my posts!!!!!3gears.gif:beers:

I have to figure out finding URL to upload pictures I guess. Ugh!

That article is:
Oct 1969 Sports Car Graphics "The 10 Second Trip Story"