Small block Chevy in a cobra?

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by Chicagowil

If Chevy would have been of a mind to sell Shelby motors, we would all have Cobras with Chevy motors.

And as to why so many people have used Chevys in their builds for all types of cars, the SBC was a great design. It was easier to develop HP at lower costs than any other motor for years.

The SBF motors were choked with a poor head design for many years. The lower end was strong. But since it is a air pump, a poor efficiency path limited its best performance. Ford realized it with the Trans Am series. They stuck the better flowing Cleveland head on it to get better output. Where SBF motors pulled ahead is when Chevy started mucking around with the SBC and it seemed to stall out with advancement.

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Yes. The small block chevy has decades of winning. Although on the surface, it may not look that impressive, it works, works well. Ford had to copy Chevy to make a competitive engine. They just copied the Big Block Chevy design, with the canted valves, enlarged it a little, and whala 385 series. They downsized it a little and whala 335 series.

Pontiac took FE 427 Tunnel Port heads and put them on their V8, called Ram Air V engines, and it couldn't out perform the SBC.

Smokey Yunick experimented with multiple prototype SBC head designs, even canted valve heads, and they didn't offer much of an advantage over the standard SBC heads at that time. So, nothing was changed.