What are the light blue things next to the pushrods...down in the centre of the V?

they are lifter valley vents.tapped into the factory breather holes.
they stop oil drainback from hitting the crankshaft,and direct the oil to the front or rear drain holes.but still allow the crankcase area to breathe.

another questiuon bout this pic, are he orange clamp things to stop flex in the rocker studs or something?

yeah,its called a stud girdle.

When these engines were designed back in the early 50's, nobody imagined the stresses, the engine speeds & the power outputs that later versions would eventually achieve.

The design brief for the new Chevalay engines involved the words, 'light weight' [in a 1950's V8 kind of context] & low cost.
In achieving this they came up with a few shortcuts, including stud rockers & pushrod fed oiling. [hollow pushrods full of oil]
This was just perfect for stock & modified street engines, but it's a design that needs some real help in hot street engines & serious competition engines.

There were other designs that were basically more sound from the outset that used an oil feed through the block & head & also used rockers on a shaft, anchored in pedestals, which is inherently stronger from the start.

Now, what engines used this inherently better design? Oh yeah, Datsun A series.
Cost was an important issue in these engines, but those clever Datsun engineers knew better than to compromise on a lesser design.

it does show you how adaptable these v8's are though.
the girdle is there because a cam with 700 thou of lift does pretty bad things to the valetrain.
there are hundreds of basic mods done to these engines in race applications,and my engine is pretty basic at 500hp.
you should see the trick stuff they put into pro stock engines.400 cubic inches and over 1000 hp at 11000rpm!not bad for a basic 50 year old design engine hey?not bad for a comprimised engine.

she would make a noise when you put the foot down! (i'm working on getting an old landcruiser and putting a 350 shev in it boy is she going to be WILD!

Quote:Everything in the quote above is absolutely true, although I wonder why a basic 500hp engine needs 700thou of valve lift. Two points come to mind.

1. The Chrysler V8 was already five years old when the Chevalay came into being & by the early 70's was being overwound in the traps with their huge stroker cranks to 10,000rpm which wasn't too shabby for a huge dinosour engine that was designed in the 40's.
Many of the mods that are required on the Chevrolet are simply not required on the Chrysler.

2. In all fairness, I am not comparing apples to apples here. Chryslers design brief was to design the very best engine that could be devised with the technology of the time & cost [& weight] was no object. The Chrysler New Yorker was never a cheap car for the masses & there were no bean counters looking over the design engineers shoulders.

The GM design team brief was to come up a small, light efficient & much more cost effective engine. To this end, they succeeded beyond their wildest dreams as this was truly an engine for the masses.

That both engines have carved out for themselves legendary status for different reasons is a testament to the engineers that toiled over their blueprints & the companies that had faith in their abilities.

But I'm a Mopar man & Chevies suck, Nar nar na nar-nar

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I see - thanks for the explanation dat383! A congrats again for owning a "9 second car"