5 Of The Most Popular Engines For Classic Car Engine Swaps
One of the best parts of building a classic car is getting to choose the engine, as it's the beating heart of your build and really sets the tone for everything else. With enough mechanical knowhow and access to a plasma torch and welder, you can really put whatever engine you want into a muscle car, but there are many off-the-shelf options, too, if you don't want to make a practice out of voiding warranties or giving yourself too many mechanical headaches.
Fortunately, with the advent of the internet and about 60 years of spare parts to sort through, the world really is your oyster when it comes to the powerplant. However, there are the more popular options when building your car that may not only be easier to install over something obscure, parts may also be less of a hassle to find. Here are some of those aforementioned popular engines.
Chevy Small Block
No talk of classic car engines would be complete without devoting a fair amount of time to the venerable and blessed Chevy Small Block. It has been used to power almost every muscle car imaginable and is almost as platform agnostic as possible. Ford, Chevy, or Dodge, it doesn't matter; someone has fitted it with a small block. The small block shines in its ability to pump out ludicrous amounts of horsepower without rapidly disassembling itself.
Another benefit of Chevy's block is the sheer availability of parts. Although Chevy will happily sell you a new 350 cubic inch small block, a variety of aftermarket companies have forged their own entire engine assemblies. If that's too pricey for your build, Facebook Marketplace, eBay, Craigslist, and nearly every other online marketplace in the country that deals with car parts will likely have some variation of Chevy small block on offer. Chevy has been making the engine for about six decades, so you can't walk more than a few feet without coming across at least a few parts in your local junkyard.
Dodge Hellcrate
Mopar, the parts division of American Stellantis products like Dodge, Jeep, and Ram, will sell you a supercharged 6.2L V8 crate engine right from a Dodge Hellcat for whatever unholy machination your garage can produce. The "Hellcrate Redeye" is a cool $21,807 and throws down 807 horsepower and 717 pound-feet of torque. If you wanted to give your muscle car enough power to crack the Earth's crust. Mopar will even ship it to your house. One notable build from MotorTrend's "Roadkill" is the General Mayhem, a 1968 Dodge Charger that, among other things, housed a supercharged 6.2L V8 that produced north of 700 horsepower.
The Hellcat line of cars and their engines have been making waves since the very second the cars rolled off the line. The mere fact that Mopar sells the engine by itself means that it's practically begging for enterprising and/or evil gearheads to make something wild in the waning days of new big V8 engines.
Ford Coyote
Not to be outdone, Ford's offering for classic car engine swaps shouldn't be slept on. The 5-Liter Coyote V8 comes ready to drop into the engine bay of all manner of classic Fords, Mercurys, and Lincolns without a ton of extra fabrication work. Ford will even sell you the appropriate wiring harness for whatever car chassis you may be working with (provided it's a Ford product). The Ford M-6007-M50C Coyote motor retails for a fairly hefty $10,575. But it would work wonders in modernizing whatever car you throw it into.
Right out of the 445-pound box, the aluminum Coyote puts out 460 horsepower and 420 foot-pounds of torque, which is more than enough to give a restored Ford a bit of oomph to the rear wheels. Additionally, Ford's performance division offers engines suited for lightweight racing chassis and cars that you may end up supercharging down the road.
Chevy LS
Similar to its older brother, the Chevy LS has been dropped into an innumerable amount of cars over the decades. However, the current LS has the distinction of being the Corvette's powerplant of choice. In the base model 'Vette, the 6.2-liter LS generates 490 horsepower and 465 pound-feet of torque, erasing any doubts that the engine is lacking. Much like the small block, Chevy will sell you an LS crate engine, and you certainly aren't at a loss for options. At the lower end of the very wide LS spectrum is the LS3 which puts out 430 horsepower.
However, if you need a lot of power and you need it now, the LS9 may be the right engine for your Chevy. That engine enjoys a supercharger and cranks out 638 horsepower. It's the same engine that Chevy used in the ZR-1 Corvette C6. It's important to note that this engine is "Intended for competition use only," according to Chevy.
Mopar Hellephant
The Chrysler 426 Hemi has become synonymous with classic muscle cars and making gobs of power. The Hellephant is no different. It sports the classic displacement of 426 cubic inches but brings it to the 21st century with the addition of a supercharger and an aluminum block. Through Mopar's Direct Connection site, you can have a 1,000 (yes, 1,000) horsepower engine shipped to a Dodge dealer of your choice.
Better yet, Mopar even offers the wiring harness to allow you to equip a number of classic Dodges, Plymouths, and Chrysler made before 1976 with four-digit horsepower. It even has a warranty. It's no doubt that cars like the Dodge Charger Daytona or Plymouth 'Cuda from the late 1960s and early 1970s were fast for their time. A Hellephant under the hood would allow a classic Barracuda to practically liquefy anything but Bugatti Chirons on the drag strip, although the $29,995 price tag might be a little hard to swallow.