Does anyone know what year Chevrolet went from the canister type oil filters to the spin on type filter on V-8's? Thank You

Do mean the by pass filters of the 50's?

Check out this link under Gen1. Looks like the 1st spin-on was introduced in 1968, although the canister type is easily adapted to spin-ons........Steve

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chevrolet_Small-Block_engine

I was going to say that I've only seen spin-on filters from 1968-on. The difference is the bypass valve assembly that bolts to the inside of the block oil filter boss. You can use the spin-on variety of this part on an older block to adapt it to spin-on. 5-minute job.