What 427 do I have??

[Dan Leonard]

I bought a 427 engine recently and as the parts are arriving, I am trying to figure out what kind of engine it actually is. I bought the engine with the expectation on using it for a copo camaro clone I am building, but think it might be a corvette engine. The guy I bought it from purhased it in 72 for a drag motor, never put it together, and it has been sitting in his garage ever since. All stuff is standard and in really good shape. I have everything except the block, starter, and timing cover at this point. What I know about the block is it is a 512 block with 4 bolt mains. I will post again once the block gets here, but it is coming freight and I am just really curious about this engine. Everything appears to be gm. The distributor is a mechanical tach drive, but their is no tag or stamping on it. The pistons are forged aluminum and have a part number of 3906648 (pretty sure, but not 100%) stamped on their underside. They are higher compression than a 427/425 piston. The oil pump has part # 3908629. The timing chain is 3856355. The heads are 840 castings with "69
F99
28686"
stamped on the end of one of them. The rods are 7/16" dimple rods with some green overspray on them. The crank has been balanced, so the casting number is really hard to make out. I think it is 7171 ?? It also has an "L" stamped on one of the counterweights.

TIA

[Dan Leonard]

Re: What 427 do I have??

I forgot to mention that all the parts with date codes on them come back from mid Feb - mid March 1969

[Joe L.]

Re: What 427 do I have??

Dan----

Some of the numbers don't help too much. However, it sounds like the engine (or, at least the short block part of it) could be an L-88 configuration.

The "green" rods are the L-88 rods and the crank forging number is probably '7115' which is, basically, the L-88 crankshaft.

The pistons may be 68 L-88 which would "fit" with the closed chamber, '840' cast iron heads.