Cool.
www.amazon.com/How-Rebuild-Your-Small-Block-Chevy/dp/1557880298/ref=sr_1_1?crid=8DHZRZT28Y5H
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David Vizard has had some controversies, but I trust him. I have an older edition of this book, and I have multiple other books he's written, every one has been worth the price and more. I like David V. What makes this an even-better deal is that it's published by HPBooks and not SA Design/Cartech.
Note that I have not read "this" edition, (and I haven't read my older edition in years) I don't know if this newer edition covers 1-piece rear main engines, or fuel injection, etc.
www.amazon.com/Haynes-Chevrolet-Engine-Overhaul-Techbook/dp/1850107629/ref=sr_1_12?crid=8DHZRZT28Y5H
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I don't actually have this one, but I've got a similar Haynes manual for transmissions that seems pretty reasonable. And again, it's not SA Design/Cartech. Note that I have little use for Haynes service manuals (emergency toilet paper) but the Techbooks like this one aren't bad.
SA Design has a "formula" for their books. 144 pages, not enough to properly cover the subject. Color photos, many times too small to see what they're trying to show you. They'll publish the same photo in different chapters, when they could publish it once at twice the size and it'd be more useful. And most of their books need another round of proofreading and editing. (Some authors are worse than others.) They're just SLOPPY. It's not at all uncommon to pop open an SA Design book and find three or five errors in the first chapter, at which point I get tired of counting them. I've been reading their "AMC V-8 Engines 1966--1991 How To Rebuild & Modify"; as usual there's lots of errors.
And adding injury to insult, they're grossly overpriced considering they're all printed in China. I
refuse to buy them "new" at full price. I wait until they've been on the market a few years, and buy 'em used on Amazon for not more than $20. SA Design does have an aggressive policy in that they publish LOTS of car-enthusiast books while HPBooks sits on their asp, publishing few and far-between.
For the record, the Buick 300 is not an SBC derivative. The Buick 300 is a development of the Buick Aluminum V-8 from the early-60s Buick Special*. This started-out as a 215 cid aluminum block, (with cast-in-place iron liners) heads, intake manifold, and front cover. Oldsmobile had a similar version with different cylinder heads, some extra head-bolts, and an optional turbocharger. The Buick aluminum V-8 was dropped at the end of model year '63, replaced by the very-similar "Buick V-6" with an iron block and heads, but retaining the 90-degree bank angle and most of the architecture of the V-8. The all-aluminum V8 was also developed into an iron block/aluminum heads 300 (1964) and eventually iron block/iron heads 300 ('65) which then grew to a 340, before becoming the long-lived Buick 350.
By 1967 or so, Rover of England bought the rights to the Buick Aluminum V-8; it was manufactured in England for Rover cars, the Land Rover series of SUVs. Some specialist sports cars bought engines from Rover (TVR among others.) The English couldn't/wouldn't build a decent engine, they had to buy and redevelop an American design. They did do a bunch of redevelopment over the years.
What's really funny is that Ford purchased Jaguar/Rover, so what used to be the Buick aluminum V-8 eventually became a Ford product before being discontinued. I've said it before--the best engineers that Ford has, work for GM. This is similar to Chrysler producing and selling "Ford" V8-60 flatheads in the late-50s in America via their "captive import" from...Brazil, I think.
Jack Brabham of Australia partnered with an Australian company (Repco) to develop the Oldsmobile version of the Buick aluminum engine into a Formula 1 race engine, with some success. He won the championship in '66.
www.whichcar.com.au/features/the-repco-brabham-miracle
How Sir Jack Brabham made world motor racing history for Australia
www.whichcar.com.au
None of this has anything to do with a Chevy V-8. The Buick/Olds/Rover engine has the distributor in the front, driving an oil pump machined into the aluminum front cover, and the distributor gear on the camshaft overhangs the front cam bearing. These designs were later carried into the Buick V-6 and the V-8 300, 340, and 350 "small blocks", and also the similar-but-different "Big-Block" 400, 430, and 455.
*The Buick Special of '61 was considered a "Senior Compact" car, along with the Pontiac Tempest and Olds F85/Cutlass from '61 to '63. All three of these "Y-Body" cars were developed from the Corvair unibody, but had front engines instead of the 'Vair's rear engine. So you could say the Buick Special was developed from a Chevy, but not the engine powering it. The three technologically-advanced, daring, and troublesome "Y-body" cars were dropped like broken rubbers for the '64 model year, replaced by the ordinary, dull, yet hugely-popular "A-body".
. The other four are obviously underneath the packaging.
