06/22/2026
Well other than they can’t spell Lamar’s name this is pretty cool someone put together. Not 100% accurate but nice people are still talking.
https://www.facebook.com/share/1ET2tfASof/?mibextid=wwXIfr
The Chevrolet 409 is one of the most famous engines in American automotive history. The Beach Boys sang about it. Drag racers feared it. And then Chevrolet replaced it with the Mark IV big-block in 1965, and the 409 became a footnote. A legend, but a footnote. The W-motor platform was considered obsolete. Nobody developed it further. Nobody except Lamer Walden.
Walden, who runs Lamer Walden Automotive in Doraville, Georgia, looked at the 409 and saw something that everyone else had overlooked for decades: a combustion chamber design that was exceptionally efficient. While most conventional big-block engines require large piston domes to achieve high compression, creating uneven flame travel and detonation-prone hot spots, the W-motor chamber allowed for strong power characteristics with improved flame travel. The 409's combustion chamber was better than the engine that replaced it. Nobody had bothered to prove it, because nobody had bothered to try.
Walden tried.
At the heart of his effort is an all-aluminum version of the Chevrolet 409 enlarged to 572 cubic inches. The block started life as a 427 casting but was extensively modified. Increased deck height. Custom lifter bore placement to retain the original 409 valvetrain geometry. Replaceable cylinder sleeves, Top Fuel style, allowing the bores to be swapped without replacing the entire block. And no water jackets. The cooling system was eliminated entirely. The result: roughly 140 pounds lighter than a stock cast-iron 409.
An aluminum, sleeved, waterless, 572-cubic-inch W-motor with the valvetrain geometry of a 1962 Chevrolet 409. That sentence should not exist. But it does, because Lamer Walden decided that the 409 deserved a second life.
Topping the engine is a fabricated sheet-metal intake manifold carrying three Holley 4500 Dominator carburetors. Three Dominators. On a naturally aspirated engine. No supercharger. No turbo. No nitrous. Just displacement, airflow, and fuel. A combination engineered to merge modern shoebox racing technology with the legendary durability of the 409 platform.
The car is a 1962 Chevrolet Bel Air nicknamed "Park Avenue." With driver John Mowery behind the wheel, it had already recorded 7.70-second passes at 180 mph. A full-bodied, steel-skinned shoebox running sevens at 180. In the 160-mph shoebox shootout circuit, where the car competed against well-known names, the Park Avenue was already a serious contender. But Walden was not satisfied with 180 mph. He was chasing 200.
Two hundred miles per hour in a naturally aspirated, carbureted 1962 Bel Air. No blower. No nitrous. Just 572 cubic inches of aluminum W-motor with three Dominators breathing through a sheet-metal intake. The goal sounds impossible. But 7.70 at 180 already sounded impossible, and Walden did that.
The 409 W-motor family has always been underestimated. It was Chevrolet's first big-block, produced from 1958 to 1965 in various displacements from 348 to 409 cubic inches. The "W" designation came from the distinctive W-shaped valve covers created by the engine's unique staggered valve arrangement. The combustion chambers were wedge-shaped but with a geometry that differed significantly from the later Mark IV big-block that replaced it.
When the Mark IV arrived in 1965 with the 396 and later the 427 and 454, the W-motor was abandoned. Parts support dried up. Engine builders moved on. The 409 became a collector's piece rather than a platform for development. Lamer Walden is one of the very few people in the country who looked at that abandoned platform and saw potential instead of nostalgia.
His aluminum block eliminates the two biggest weaknesses of the original W-motor: weight and thermal limitations. Without water jackets and with replaceable sleeves, the engine can be rebuilt between rounds like a Top Fuel motor, swapping worn sleeves for fresh ones without touching the block. The custom lifter bore placement retains the 409's unique valvetrain angles while allowing modern cam profiles and valve sizes. It is an engine that uses 1962 geometry with 2020s engineering.
