Honestly, what is it with 300 engine parts? Still may need an intake manifold as I am having trouble with a water leak at the neck. Too many hands over the years have broken one bolt (redrilled and threaded now), and the other I'm afraid is likely stripped. Look around, lots of 64 aluminum, nothing in cast for the 65! Just returned from a day at the Daytona Swap meet, saw 3 65 Buick Skylark/Specials, all had small block Chevy engines! I think I now know why. And a decent Buick 350 is about as hard to find. This is a good running engine with low miles for its age, I hate for it to end up as scrap.
Maybe if you can find a shop that welds cast iron you can have your intake fixed properly. And it will probably cost less than trying to buy one. GL
350s pop up here all the time. I paid $300 for one with 53,000 miles on it complete with all the brackets and accessories and a TA intake manifold, then gave the guy another $75 for a nearly brand new Holley 600 carburetor. Every once in a while a 300 turns up on our local craigslist and I don't think any of them ever get sold because nobody wants them, at least not around here. I still have the original engine, trans and rearend out of mine sitting on pallets in decent running condition. I don't want to sell it because it's the original driveline even though I'm 99% sure I'll never put it back in the car.
Yeah, I do see 350's on line, but locally not so much. Like I said, my 300 runs so well I'd hate to ditch it. Thanks.
I've keep everything pulled out of my '66. I still have my 300 in mine and am getting a 4bbl intake put on it in the next couple days. If the 300 ever goes on me I'll probably put in a chevy small block.
Oops, you should never say things like that here, James. I've got a 406 SBC in mine and I love it. I've developed a think skin over the years for having the Chevy in my Buick. My suggestion is for you to do the same if you plan to make that swap
lol Sounds good......I like my 300 and have no plan of changing like I said, I'm actually upgrading it (44bl intake & carb) this week. But things do happen and change.
Yous guys, sbb 300 engines are pretty dang cool if in you ask me and a whole heck of a lot you can do to one of those very light weight gems! TA aluminum Rover heads(ported or not), a set of nascar take out rods with a stroked 300 or 340/350 crank, topped off with a ported '64 aluminum intake, throw in a roller cam and lifters and you'll have at least 2 and a half times the power of a stock one without even trying! Or adapters with that really cool Wildcat single plane intake that are made for the Rover engines. With a stroked to 3.990" sbb 340/350 crank a 362 cid engine can be built from a 300 sbb core with a .050" over bore.(its always a good idea to sonic check before having more than .030" over bore taken out of just about any factory block though) If you're worried about rod to cam clearance then stay away from the sbc engines with a 400 crank and longer than a 5.7" rod with more than around .343" of lobe lift or a small base circle cam would be needed. If you have the factory 400 rods(5.565") then you can use a cam with bigger lobe lift but the rod ratio sucks with those. Not sure what it is about the sbb engines that people don't want to build them to run? It isn't rocket science although a tiny bit more involved than just buying a kit and installing it into your machined block. But really not that bad to do either, just a couple more steps too do. Building a sbc 383 stroker is about the same amount of block work as building a sbb stroker, just a bit different work. The sbc 350 block needs to be clearanced so the crank and rods can spin freely in one of those. The sbb just gets a little bit of drilling to do the oil mods. I have done both and the oil mods are WAY easier than the block clearancing. If anyone is interested in doing a strong sbb 300 build, I'm happy to answer any questions you may have. The cost would be similar to a sbc stroker build plus or minus depending on bells and whistles one would want. Oh yeah, we test fittted sbc link bar roller lifters in a sbb block and they fit perfectly, go up and down with absolutely zero binding, so no need to buy very expensive roller lifters that have a made for Buick label on them. AND I found a set of LS AutoTec pistons that are close to the sbb size(remember, any changes to the AutoTec pistons are included in the price already) with an inverted dome that are only $550, so you don't have to go with the expensive Buick labeled ones either. The sbb AutoTecs just went up in price I believe is because of the Molnar rods that have the .940" pin size that AutoTec had to custom make them so the price tag on those went up an extra $50 to $699!! None of the nascar take out rods have that wristpin size so that won't effect getting the LS pistons cheaper, they'll just need to be ordered with the take out rod's pin size.
I agree with Derek on the 300 being a great motor. One thing you have to watch with Chevy roller lifters is the oil hole is slightly higher and if you go over .500 lift it goes above the lifter bore. Chevy flat lifters have the same issue. A small base circle/reground cam would be OK with the Chevy lifters. Use 350 Buick lifters to oil through the pushrods. A better bet for rollers is the shorter 2.2 Chevy 4 and 3100 and 3400 V6 lifters. Use Buick 3.8 V6 dogbones and 2 spiders over lapped. Turbo V6 guys have been doing it for years. You still have the high cost of a billet roller cam though. You also need a cam button.
Thanks for the heads up about the oiling holes, I'll have to look at that. But from my CRS memory I thought they were very close to the same position? Oh well, I'll see if I can get some pics when I look at the 2 different sets. Seeing how the distributor gear is removable from the cam, if one were good with a lathe and had access to one they would be able to make there own cam blank.
My car is getting the 4bbl intake and carb installed today or tomorrow. Hoping all goes well. I'm excited to see what gains I'll get from it. I've also got duel exhaust going on in a couple weeks. Next up I'm going to change out the point system and add advanced timing to the distributor. After that I'll look at getting gears/posi and the 200r4.
You will notice far bigger gains with a 200-4R and 3.73 or 4.10 gears than with the addition of a 4bbl. carb or even dual exhaust but I’d still go with those. I’ve got 4.10s in mine with the 200-4r and I love it.
Ok. Specs show that a 4bbl on the 300 produced 250ph while a 2bbl on a 300 produced 210hp. I don't expect 250hp with this swap but hopeful I will notice some gains. I've read a lot that gears and the 200R4 will make a big difference with the cars performance.
A small block anything will pretty much always benefit with some steeper gears. As for the 300, if you have the 2bbl. version (Wildcat 310) and are swapping on a 4bbl. carb you won't get that much of a horsepower increase because the 300 4bbl. version (Wildcat 355) had a higher compression ratio. When you get into the torque of a big block you generally don't need as much gear, or with a small block like my 406 with 506lb.ft. of torque. I had the 4.10s in the car when I had the 350 and it needed them. The 406, not so much but it sure is a ton of fun to light the tires up at 25mph
Derek, I don't know about the link lifters but, the standard non roller are different with the Chevy being higher. All I see are X's for your pictures.
