Blanchards Garage and Body Shop

09/28/2026

Finally got some new tires for this ole girl. Richards David got em on right.

09/28/2026

Trans-Am in the late 1960s was the hardest-fought series in American racing, because the cars were Mustangs, Camaros, Barracudas, and Javelins, and what won on Sunday sold on Monday.

The SCCA capped displacement at 305 cubic inches. Nobody could win by adding cubic inches, so everyone had to win with engineering.

Chevrolet had no 302. It had a 327 and a 283, so it built a 302 out of both. The 327's block gave the 4.00-inch bore, the 283's crankshaft gave the 3.00-inch stroke, and the result was 302 cubic inches assembled from tooling that already existed.

That combination is heavily oversquare, and it is the whole reason the engine works. A big bore leaves room for large valves. A short stroke keeps piston speed down so the engine survives high RPM. The DZ 302 pulled past 7,000, which was remarkable for an American pushrod V8 in 1969.

Roger Penske ran the Camaros with Mark Donohue driving, and the engines were built by Traco Engineering in Glendale, California.

Traco was Jim Travers and Frank C**n, two former mechanics from Bill Vukovich's Indianapolis crews. What they sold was not horsepower. It was consistency. Every clearance measured individually, every rotating assembly balanced beyond production standards, every engine dyno-tested before it left the shop.

In a series where everyone shared a displacement limit and races lasted long enough to punish any weakness, an engine that made its power reliably for the full distance was worth more than one that made slightly more and broke.

Donohue and Penske took the championship in 1968 and again in 1969.

Ford's response was the Boss 302, built for exactly the same rulebook, with canted-valve cylinder heads borrowed from the Cleveland family. Two manufacturers, one displacement figure, two completely different engineering answers.

Chevrolet rated the DZ at 290 horsepower. Real output was somewhere between 360 and 400. The published number existed to keep insurance premiums manageable.

09/28/2026

09/28/2026

A 1970 Chevelle now carries 632 cubic inches under its hood.

That's not even the surprising part.

Modern engines of this size are no longer produced exclusively by small, specialized workshops. Chevrolet’s own performance division produces and sells an engine that’s identical to this one, right alongside the parts it manufactures for brand-new cars.

In 1970, Chevrolet’s largest Chevelle engine had a displacement of 454 cubic inches and an official power rating of 450 hp. This was the highest power rating the factory allowed for this model. Chevrolet’s current 632-cubic-inch ready-to-install engine delivers over 1,000 horsepower on regular gasoline, more than double the old factory rating from the same company.

Chevrolet spent 1970 setting a record for just how big a Chevelle engine could be. Decades later, it was Chevrolet, with its own name on the box, that broke that record.

09/28/2026

09/28/2026

09/28/2026

Trans Am!
Which one suits you best? ’69, ’70 or ’77?

Restoring a 1967-'81 Pontiac Firebird or Trans Am? Hit the link here! We have thousands of in-stock restoration parts and accessories for your car!
https://www.npdlink.com/1967-1981-firebird

09/28/2026