Re-powering Lancer 23

[sherm1018]

Purchasing a Lancer 23 and want to investigate re-powering with newer model engine.

Does anyone have experience doing this????


Thanks,

Scott

[oldshore]

I, too, am repowering a 1977 Lancer (350 Chevy, Volvo 280). I am looking for a used fwc 350 motor. What year is yours? Is there an intermediate driveshaft housing attached to the flywheel cover (bell housing)? Or do you have a one piece Volvo flywheel cover/driveshaft housing. The flywheel itself may have to be changed as the older ones have 153 teeth? Others know much more, and I am sure will chime in.

[farupp]

You might consider re-posting this subject in the Fiberglass Boat category which is below the Wood Boat category.

The Fiberglass forum has a specific "Fiberglass - Engines & Powertrain" forum where I believe you'll receive lots of input from members to your questions, especially from those with Lancers. You may want to do a search, too.

[Wood Commander]

Yes, this should probably be moved to the Fiberglass Engine section. I'm going to post this here and then start a new thread using this subject line in the Fiberglass Engine topic category as well.

Maybe Bill will want to move the entire group of posts?

Anyway,

What Chris Craft engine family do you have now? A Chris Craft/Chevy "F" series or a flywheel forward "Q" series? Or another make of engine? When the Chris Craft/Chevy small block engines were packaged with and installed in Transdrive versions of Lancers, they were given a "V" suffix that was not found on straight inboard "F" or "Q" engines in other runabouts and cruisers. Otherwise, I think the engines were just about the same.

Over their lifespan, 23' Lancers came equipped with both "F" (FLV) and "Q" (QLV) series engine setups (as well as straight inboard tunnel drives and inboard V- drives.
I'm wanting to replace the 307 QLV in my 23'er with an FLV setup using a Chevy 400 engine and "hybridding" it with a combination of Chris Craft, Chevy, Edlebrock, and other aftermarket parts.

The Chris Craft/Chevy "Q" series engines were the newer flywheel forward designs and were designed from the very beginning to be optioned for a closed cooling system. There were numbers in the Chris Craft parts lists for all of the add- on closed cooling system parts.

Not all "Q"'s came from the factory with closed cooling. And after reading from the engine information in my collection, it appears as though the factory did not put closed cooling on "Q"'s that were mated to Inboard/Outboard Transdrives such as the Volvo 250/270/280 series. There may have been some kind of clearance or room issues when the engines were tucked into the transom area of a Lancer and hooked to an outdrive, I don't know. But I have seen Volvo/Chevy small blocks installed in other I/O boats with closed cooling systems.

So, you can repower with a newer Chevy or other marine engine using most of your existing Chris Craft add- on parts, or you can put in another brand of marine conversion such as a Volvo or other setup in your boat.

Going with a Volvo or other package will mean that you will have things such as different motor mounts and exhaust manifolds to deal with. If you stay with the Chris Craft add- ons, you will want to make sure that things like your exhaust manifolds are in good, usable shape and have some good life left in them.

[Wood Commander]

Oops! Looks like this thread already got moved!

[oldshore]

I have been offered a free Chrysler 440 fwc motor. Could this be used in my 1977 23' Lancer 280B drive?

[Wood Commander]

If you've got room to store it even if you don't use it, grab it! LOL!
If it's a marine engine, as long as you can make the back of the block fit up to the Volvo outdrive unit in the bellhousing area and find a suitable flywheel coupler and engine mounts, you can probably do it.
That's if it was running a flywheel aft setup. Lancers were built using both flywheel forward and flywheel aft small block Chevys (and a few other engines to a lesser degree) with no rhyme or reason to it. If your boat had a flywheel forward engine, that would complicate things to a large degree.
I don't know if Chrysler marine conversions ran flywheel forward or flywheel aft, or both.

In general, it's going to be way easier to find marine powertrain parts for small block Chevys than for anything else. That would hold true for Chevys from this era in almost any application. Small block Fords would probably come next. But you can probably still find marine conversion parts for many other engines if you look around.

I don't know if Lancers with Volvo outdrives ever ran Chrysler engines or not, but I have seen a few with Ford engines.

Some Volvo outdrives used a two- piece bellhousing where the front section could be changed over for Chevy or Ford engines.

I've also seen a Lancer where the entire driveline was replaced with a somewhat newer Mercruiser 454 and Mercruiser outdrive. They scabbed a big stainless plate over the transom to make up for the difference in hole size and shape- yuck!

So just like anything else, you can probably make it work if you have the time and money. The question usually is, from a monetary and effort- involved standpoint - should you?

[Paul P]

You're going to have to be very careful the motor is not being hooked to the outdrive from the front of the motor. I may be preaching to the choir here, but Chris Craft is notorious for running a transmission of the front of a motor when it makes sense to do so, and by doing this, you have to be very careful which rotation you have internally with your motor.

You may still be spinning the prop in the RH direction. Your motor, when taken out of the boat and sent to the shop, will be called a standard rotation or opposite hand rotation motor, based upon what cam it has, with rotation specific circulating pump, distributor gear, seals on the crank, etc. You can NOT call the motor RH or LH reliably in the shop, when dealing with motors that CC turned backwards, you must use "standard rotation" or "opposite rotation" (sometimes called "reverse rotation".)

Hope this makes sense. It does to me, but it can be very confusing, especially when you have a double jeapordy working against you, with an outdrive that may reverse the spin of the prop due to internal gears (this appears to be the case with some of the V drive installations) and the fact that the motor may actually be turned around backwards running the transmission of the front of the motor.

Regards,

Paul

[froghairno]

Have what appears to be original 283 V-8 per hull card specs. Water leaking into oil; need to replace. Hoping to upgrade to Chev 350. Will trans and motor mounts, manifolds, etc. hook-up to new or re-manu long block?

[Wood Commander]

Is this engine in a Lancer? If so it is probably a 283FLV if it is mated to a Volvo outdrive. The Chris Craft F series small block Chevys were flywheel aft and rotated to the left, so most of the 283 stuff should work on a 350. You can double check this by confirming that the 283 has a timing chain and gears, like a car engine, rather than just two meshing gears as would be found on a right hand drive (opposite rotation- IN THIS CASE)engine. In this scenario (inboard/outboard drive), about the only thing I can think of off the top of my head that you would need to check for on a car engine would be brass freeze plugs for marine use. If it is an application for straight inboard use, there can be other differences to check for.

[Ifixvws]

I've also seen a Lancer where the entire driveline was replaced with a somewhat newer Mercruiser 454 and Mercruiser outdrive. They scabbed a big stainless plate over the transom to make up for the difference in hole size and shape- yuck!

Hey now, that sounds like my boat. I bought it two years ago to rebuild. The previous owner, owned a local marina and repowered my '67 23 ft lancer in 1983 with a new 330 hp 454 Merc. It runs great, has power tilt and trim and pulls the boat up almost instantly.

I pulled the floors and rebuild the entire interior. I do plan on addressing the stainless plate that adapts the drive to the hull. But this is my first boat and the family (Esp my wife) love it.

[57 chris]

Hey Bret,
Just a curiosity thing but what made you choose the 400? Can't you make more horsepower and cheaper in a 350 if you want to stay with the small block?
Sorry I got off subject.

Craig

[Wood Commander]

I bet that is the same boat with the 454. I don't remember the name of the marina, but the big block lancer was inside the building, and there was another pretty rough Lancer outside in the weather that had a Ford small block in it if I remember correctly.

As to the 400, there is no replacement for displacement! Especially when you don't have to have the weight penalty of a big block to go with it.
All things being equal, a 400 should always make more HP and torque than a 350. I really don't think it's too much cheaper or easier to make more power out of a 350.

There are all different ways to build and spend money on a high performance engine. Since I never have enough money and too many interests (hot rods, boats and motorcycles), I have to build moderate stuff. I have a dream parts list for a big inch small block Chevy, but I will have to be satisfied with a smaller investment.

So let's look at these engines. A 350 is a darn good engine package and has many years of aftermarket and factory developement behind it.

When Chevrolet designed the 400 it was a quantum leap beyond the 265 cubic inch engine that the engineers first envisioned in 1954-55. To accomplish the feat of stuffing what was really big block displacement into a small block, there had to be several innovative methods used.

This gave the 400 a few quirks that need to be dealt with, but it can be configured into a very nice package with just a little extra effort and expense.

The 400 has three areas that I don't like. One, it has siamesed bores. Two, it has an externally balanced crankshaft. And, Three, it has connecting rods that are too short. And not really a problem, but the main bearing bores are larger.

If you were going to rebuild both a 350 and a 400 at the same time, you would be buying or machining most of the same parts anyway.

The first problem can be addressed by drilling steam holes to match stock 400 heads into whatever high performance head you want to use. And by using very high quality head gaskets. .

The current popularity of the 383" Chevy small block strokers is due to having the extra stroke of the 400, and the non-siameded bore of the 350 block, trading off the extra bore for the non-siameded cylinder walls.
But unless you are pumping out huge power, the lack of a water passage all of the way around the bore is not that big of a problem in a 400.
And you still have to have the externally balanced crank and flywheel/flex plate if using a stock 400 crank in the 383, as well as having to have the main journals turned down to 350 size. And in a 350 block with the 400 crank, you often have to grind a wee bit of clearance at the bottom of one or two bores for the extra crank throw.

Depending on your budget and needs of usage, you can either live with the external balancing, have the crank internally balanced with malloy metal, or buy an aftermarket crank that is internally balanced. This may or nmay not cost you more on the 400 build.

For the third issue, there are fixes. On every 400 core I have torn down, there has been more bore wear and scoring than on similiar 350 teardowns. This mainly due to the shorter 5.65" connecting rods used in the 400.
So, once again, follow your financial compass and either use stock rebuilt and qualified 5.7" 350 rods, or buy stronger, more expensive aftermarket units- possibly in the 6.00" length. Longer rods make more power and stabilize the piston in the bore. Same thing in a 350.

To mate up with the longer rods you would have to buy pistons with a different wrist pin height than a stock 400, but you would be buying new pistons in a 350 build too. If your heads on the 400 have 64cc or smaller combustion chambers, dished pistons will probably be needed to hold the compression ratio down, especially with an overbore, and that could cost a little more on the 400.

If you went to 6" rods on the 400, you might need to run a smaller base circle cam for rod clearance on the 400 and that might cost a little bit more. But if you were going to run roller cams in both builds anyway, that would even out considerably.

I've heard amazing stories about the power made by good 400's with 6" rods. I'd probably be happy running the 350's 5.7" ers for my budget.

I did once build a "backwards" 377" "destroker" by putting a 350 crank with spacer bearings in a .060 over 400 block. This saved me from using the big, externally balanced 400 harmonic balancer and flywheel/flexplate. It ran very well.

I've also built 327's and 350's, and a 355 with 6" rods. And a .030 over LS6 454. And Good God, they were all fun!

[57 chris]

Thanks for the education Bret.
I've never had the differences explained so well and with so much detail. I now have a different view of the 400.

Craig

[Paul P]

The Volvo 280-B outdrive on the XK-22 (which uses the 23 Lancer hull) was mated to a 350 FLV with 300 horsepower at 5200 rpm. That setup would make one great running 23 Lancer!

Regards,

Paul