The Chrysler Hemi and Chevrolet big block did more than power quarter-mile passes. They became shorthand for two rival philosophies of American horsepower, each with its own mythology and fan base.

A torque-monster Chevrolet big-block with simple bolt-ons can make 550 lb-ft of torque with a yawn, and do it with low-octane fuel! Now, that's something an LS can't do. HOT ROD has proved it before; ...

Chevrolet is no stranger to the big block, having built multiple during the golden era of the muscle car in the 1960s and 1970s. The automaker hasn't lost its way over the decades, either, debuting ...

Capable of producing massive torque with a proverbial yawn, the long-running big block from Chevy was born purely out of necessity in 1958, a few years after the small block. With cars getting heavier ...

Chevrolet is known for producing a lineup of powerful small block Chevy crate engines. However, the biggest Chevy crate engines include big block varieties as well. Chevrolet's largest displacement ...

I needed to call AFR boss Rick Sperling to give him the great results I had just seen with a pair of his company's small-block Chevy heads on a 350. In a way, I was just bragging, because our ...

One of General Motors’ major headline-making announcements from this year’s SEMA Show in Las Vegas was the unveiling of the new ZZ632 crate engine – a massive 632 cubic-inch Big Block motor that ...

In 1958, Chevrolet introduced the W-series engine. No, the General Motors division did not release a W-layout motor half a century before the VW Group, but a large V8 that laid the foundation for the ...

In the '60s, America developed some cool, advanced engines, such as Pontiac's overhead cam inline-6 or the jet-turbine in the Chrysler Turbine Car. Still, when push comes to shove, our first love is a ...

Photographers have an oft-used saying: "It's not the camera, it's the photographer." We would like to adapt that saying to the world of performance engines, ergo: "It's not the engine, it's the ...

American carmakers in the 1960s chased trends like Metallica cutting their hair. Seemingly, every brand had to have a large displacement V8, even producing ...

There are many ways that automakers, particularly American ones, categorize the V8 engines they produce. They can essentially be put into one of two categories: big-block engines and small-block ...