The Chevrolet 267 small-block V8 should have been great, but its lack of power and efficiency resulted in a lifespan of just three years.

We didn't make the calculations ourselves, but they say General Motors has built over a hundred million of the Chevrolet small-block V8 engine in the past seven decades. GM’s small-block V8 got widely applied to just about every GM US automotive division except Saturn. In fact, the V8 found a home in non-US GM brands like Holden and Opel. So, we’re obviously discussing a very popular engine here.

Chevrolet built the 267 small-block V8 as a fuel-economy engine with a bore and stroke of 3.5 and 3.78 inches. It powered B-body, F-body, and G-body cars from 1979 through 1982. However, it's pointless holding up the 267 against small-block V8s like the 305 (in terms of fuel economy) or the 350 (performance-wise), for which more and better parts are available at significantly less than the 267.

The 267 came during the downsizing campaign of the late seventies, as automakers scrambled to meet new emissions and mileage requirements. So, it's rather a shame that the 267 small-block V8 fell short of footing the bill, including for emissions standards and efficiency. As such, the 267 only lived for three years.

Related: Here's Why The Chevy Small-Block Has Stood The Test Of Time

The Chevrolet small-block refers to a family of gas-powered V8 engines that the automaker produced between 1954 and 2003. Interestingly, the man regarded as the father of the Corvette – Edward Nicholas Cole (popularly called “Ed Cole”) – gets the credit for leading the design of the Chevy small-block V8.

Developing a new engine to replace the Chevrolet Stovebolt Six was Cole’s most important task upon becoming the GM division’s chief engineer in 1952. The result was the small-block V8 that went on to become a tremendous success that got produced for decades.

With the block and cylinder heads cast at Saginaw Metal Casting Operations in Saginaw, Michigan, the small-block V8 used the same basic cylinder engine block design and got offered with a variety of displacement capacities ranging from 4.3 liters (262 cu in) to 6.6 liters (400 cu in).

Since Generation II is an improved version of the Generation 1 LT engine, they have similar dimensions and share many interchangeable parts. Remember, the LT1 refers to the Chevy small-block produced in relatively small quantities, exclusively to propel the Corvette and Camaro between 1970 and 1972.

These were distinct from the LS-based small-block that came later – the 3rd and 4th-gen small-block V8 that powered GM vehicles. Later generations of the LT engines only shared rod bearings, the transmission-to-block bolt pattern, and bore spacing of Generation I and II engines.

The resulting success of the small-block V8 contributed to Ed Cole’s rise among the ranks of GM, right up to becoming executive vice president in July 1965 and president and CEO of General Motors in 1967.

As stated earlier, Chevrolet produced the 267 small-block V8 for just three years, between 1979 and 1982. They powered F-body platform cars like the Chevrolet Camaro, G-bodied cars like the Chevrolet Monte Carlo, the El Camino, and Malibu Classic, as well as B-body platform models like the Chevy Impala and Chevrolet Caprice.

The 4.4-liter 267 shared the same crankshaft stroke (3.48 inches or 88.4 mm) as the 350 V8. With a bore of 3.5 inches (88.9 mm) the Chevrolet 267 shared the bore of the Chevrolet 90° 200 V6 engine introduced a year earlier, making it the smallest bore of any small-block V8 engine.

It’s understandable for hot rodders to find the 267’s small bore and long stroke an attractive candidate for fuel economy. However, if you’re hoping to wring some serious performance – say, up to 250 horses – out of it, get a used 305 small-block V8 instead.

You should be able to wring some 230ish horsepower from the 305 by just putting down a few hundred dollars on eBay for a performer rpm camshaft and intake manifold, a new timing chain, headers, 600 CFM carburetor, and a performance-oriented distributor and coil. You can go further with just a few extra bucks on a two-inch carb spacer. The 305 eventually served as Chevy’s base engine, replacing the 267.

The 267 was only available with an M2ME Rochester Dualjet 210 – effectively a Rochester Quadrajet with no rear barrels. It got electronic feedback carb after 1980. General Motors ultimately phased out the 267 after the 1982 model year because the engine failed to meet emissions standards, while other Chevy small-block V8s with similar 4.3 – 4.4-liter displacements, like the Pontiac 265 and Oldsmobile 260, continued production.

Related: Ford Vs Chevy: Who Made The Best Small Block Engine?

Applied to GM’s F-body models as the L39 4.4-liter V8, the Chevrolet 267 small-block V8 generated 120 horsepower at 3,600 rpm and 215 lb-ft of torque at 2,000 rpm, although this SAE NET power output would drop in subsequent years of the engine. The engine used a low 8.3:1 compression ratio.

Many users on the TriFive automotive forum didn’t have good things to say about the 267, with one commenter saying the 267 was bad, to begin with, and “not worth taking for free at 113,000 miles,” and another saying, “it would move the ride but not be a fast engine,” and yet another over at nastyz28.com saying, “Just about every 267 ever built was a POS. Crap heads, crap block, crap rods, soft cams, underpowered.”

We’d throw the 267 a bone by suggesting that it came close to moderate performance in the mid-'90s Chevy Caprice. Those came with the tuned port style intake, basically a mini LT1 but for good low-end torque, higher efficiency, and fuel mileage.

With a 3.5 and 3.48 bore and stroke, the Chevy 267 small-block V8 was essentially a de-bored 305, which, as it turned out, was a miscalculated move on the part of General Motors that resulted in the opposite of efficiency, weak, and sluggish. That’s the sad summation of an engine so poor it couldn’t pass the emissions standards of 1982.

Sources: Wikipedia, Hotrodders, NastyZ28, Automotive Hall of Fame, TriFive Forum

Philip Uwaoma, this bearded black male from Nigeria, has written more than two million words in articles published on various websites, including toylist.com, rehabaid.com, and autoquarterly.com. After not getting credit for his work on Auto Quarterly, Philip is now convinced that ghostwriting sucks. He has no dog, no wife- yet- and he loves Rolls Royce a little too much.