Tom Hoover 360

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Graminizer

Graminizer

The "Big G"
Joined
Jul 29, 2006
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Location
Chilliwack, BC, Canada
Hey guys,

I picked up a motor this week from a guy who had it sitting in storage since 1987. He called it a Tom Hoover 360. It's a 71 360 block bored .060" over, pistons to match, and 340 connecting rods. Has anyone heard of this or have any info on it? Not sure if I want keep this configuration, or just go with new 360 rods and .060" pistons. Everything looks to be in great shape. What do you guys think?
 
.............The Hoover 360 was a 360 bored .040.....used 8.5-1 340 stock bore pistons that that upped the compression to 12-1 or there abouts....340 rods were used as 340 pistons had floating pins instead of the 360s pressed pins.....kim........
 
it worked out to 11.8:1. i have the same motor but not built by hoover but a guy named bob lycett in vancouver(r.i.p.). it was the only way to build a high comp 360 back in the day. the pistons had to machined alot . tops of the pistons were milled alot and the skirts had to be cut also. i have actually compared the pistons to a stock 72-73 340 piston and they are quite a bit shorter. it was like a poor mans stroker back in the day. great engines. you would take an early 360 (71-74) and bore it .40 over which would give you a standard bore 340 piston and then machine it. would spank a 340 with the same internals !
 
i bet you bob lycett built that motor. what cam do you have for it ? bob swore by a sig erson .490 lift solid with 273 rockers. i have the whole combo. look on the pan rail, bob used to stamp it lycett special near the the end of the pan rail towards the back of the block. mine has a homemade pan aswell that bob built
 
Listen to Moper. He's dead nuts on.
 
oh yeah offy porto-sonic or holley strip dominator. my brother got this engine in like 1988 and ran it in his demon for years, bob had taken a set of j heads hand ported and installed 2.02 valves and cut the chamber down to 68cc (what a stock 340 is supposed to be but rarely is) car flew. then we figured a set of w2 heads with huge chambers and a huge solid would make it realy fly ! wrong ! slowed right down. goes to show you when you have a great combo not to f#%k with it, but it is also funny now that when you think you know what you are doing when you are young it gives you a bit of a reality check
 
There has been a lot of machining to the top of the pistons in order for this to work. Some shaving and they have been rounded around the edges. This motor was built in Nanaimo, not in Vancouver. Still not sure what to do, this seems a little mickey mouse to me......
 
yeah my pistons have a ton of machine work done to them also, measure the piston from top to skirt and i'll compare them. make sure you look for the lycett stamping. he did alot of work in the cam valley also . bob built alot of mopar small blocks including 340's from the late 70's to around 1990. my motor was a spare circle track motor that ended up in a 68 dart gt sleeper before we got our hands on the car. the guy that owns our old dart has a 340 built by bob in the late 80's. he had it in a 1977 van with a 4 gear !
 
Nanaimo- I have actually been there. As well as Prince George, Kamloops and Prince Rupert...BC is really gorgeous, most folks never get out of Vancouver or Victoria, and they really should.
 
thats pretty cool...its a neat piece of history.

Hoover was instumental in the development of the lil red express prototype which had the holley induction and w-2 heads

sorry....had to add this ....pretty neat to see his name
 
Hot Rod Magazine did an article on the car (notchback Barracuda) and the 360 using the low compression 340 pistons, I believe in the '70's. It was called "Hoover's Mover". This was done before the availability of readily available, off-the-shelf performance 360 pistons. As pointed out, the piston tops were milled to get the compression down with the 3.58" stroke. The wrist pin bosses were machined and skirts were cut down to provide clearance for the 360 crank counterweights. I have the article buried somewhere in my house. It has a lot of the tech info, including heads, intake, cam, etc. I'll look for it when I have time but can't guarantee I'll find it. It was an inspirational article in my younger years.

I just did find that it was the Feb. 1976 issue of Popular Hot Rodding. Now I just gotta find my original.

http://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/feb-1976-popular-hot-rodding-super-94114359


Found a little info on the car in a more recent article with a mention of the 360.

[ame]http://www.arruzzahighperformance.com/Package/Articles/Little_Cuda.pdf[/ame]
 
yeah my 360 was put together in 1977 by lycett and he followed the plan. it was a great motor the factory should have put together . it was basically 368 cubes so it just about 30 cubes bigger than the 340. it was a 340 stroker back then. you do the same exact thing to small blk's now when you stroke them, custom piston, stock length rods and a longer stroke crank. just like the 360 was built back in the day. poor mans 340 stroker
 
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