I was given a 283 a while ago and decided to build as a spare engine for when (not if) I blow my 350 to peices doing something silly.
I don't know a lot about the 283's apart from smaller bore and stroke. The standard 3.875" bore however is not what I have. I pulled it down yesterday and discovered that it has been bored to 3.930". This brings me to part 1 of my question: It is the '57-'66 block, can I take it to 4.000" safely?
Part 2: what is the biggest crank I can put in? Will this baby let me get to 350? Or even just 307? If I am going to the effort of building it I want to get the most out of it that I possibly can. Otherwise I will just build it as is but would be nice to know now that my curiosity has been peaked...

Cheers

Jezza  

The early 283 could be bored to .125 but I personaly wouldn't do it if I was going after cubes. You could put a small journal 327 crank in it and make it 316 ci with the bore you have now which sounds as like it's a .060" overbore. If you did go that route you would have to have custom pistons wich could be in excess of $1000 and not to mention the machine work involved would get expensive with the all the weight matching and balancing. All in all you could spend alot of money on a moter that with the same money spent on a 350 would yeild alot more power with less headaches.  

Like said earlier you are stuck with the small journal crank family & with that being said it would be wise to think that the crank will be weaker. So when rebuilding this engine you would not want to overstep the boundaries of its weaker bottom end capabilities. But don't let me scare you off, some of the early year corvettes sported this engine and made 300 to 325hp. My sugestion would be to sell this block, I'm sure there is a person wanting to restore a classic chevy to original specs and you could turn around & put the money towards what you want. Hope this helped.  

you also have a head problem you cant use 202 valves as they will possibly hit the cylinder with all the money spent you could build something with less headaches like red65novawagon said