I was watching the videos and I decided to take a screen shot of the dyno graphs to see if any thing interesting pops up. Two things most noticably. I believe they are both on the first run. On the first shot the A/F ratio is way out of wack. The left bank shows decent but the right is in the 9's! If corrected that would be worth some power. Maybe it wasn't hooked up? Maybe they fixed it in for a later run? Maybe they didn't have Q-Jet parts? The power curve seems to be screwy. Going by the numbers on the bottom of the graph the curves appear to be crossing around 4450 rpm. You can see to the right of the screen where the large dots are seems to be 5250, again going by the bottom numbers. The small dotted line is 5000 rpm. Each major line at the bottom is 300 rpm. Now they do use different scales on the left side. TQ is 12/line. HP is 20/line. The next to top line is 348 TQ and 300 HP but that shouldn't affect the crossover point, just the shape of the curve. So we have 2 potential peaks there. Either the engine is making peak TQ at 3900 and peak HP at 5150 by using the lower scale directly or going from the crossover point of 5250 and using the same 300 rpm per block it goes 2&1/3 scales up to peak HP which would put it right at 5950 and torque is down <2 scales from there at 4700. It could be a combo of the 2, 3900 TQ, 5950 HP. I'm thinking there is some kind of hysteresis going on with the screen and the camera. (The 2 sets of dots to the right may be showing just that. Maybe it is the same dot at two different levels of the screen but that would only account for less than 1 block width.) That's about the only explanation I can think of. Maybe 3D TV? Anybody have any ideas? Maybe if JB ever looks at this site again he can explain. One thing I wish any car show would do when telling you power is say at what rpm it does it.
I also thought that curve was a bit peaky as well. As for the other stuff let's wait for JB's explanation.
As far as the A/F I don't think it is possible to have that much difference with a 2 plane manifold. The reason the HP and torque did not cross at 5250 is because thy had the scales set up on auto scale which lets you look at the torque and HP in the same plane. If you look at the torque scale it is 360 at the top of the scale 240 bottom and the HP is at 320 top and 120 bottom.
Powerblock rebuilds a Buick 350 What do y'all think? http://www.powerblocktv.com/episodes/HP2011-13/building-the-other-350-small-block-engine
Re: Powerblock rebuilds a Buick 350 Extensively talked about when it originally hit: http://www.v8buick.com/showthread.php?240725-350-buick-build-on-Horsepower-TV
Re: Powerblock rebuilds a Buick 350 This one was a "budget" build,so no real big expectations on it. The only bad thing on this "budget" build was the cam choice. The TA-212 would of been a much better cam choice. Derek
Re: Powerblock rebuilds a Buick 350 It wasn't because it was 'budget' but because the cam/compression was mismatched, which killed it. That's the main numero uno issue. You don't have to spend 10,000 on an engine to produce power, but you do have to have the parts matched up correctly. Gary
I know it's an old thread... you cant please all of the people all of the time.</HEADER> But after buying my first Buick in 93 and all sorts of plans for it, it had to be put on hold since I had joined the USAF, 20 years later... I have just now started to work on my dream 64 Buick Skylark, in my eyes this was a perfect build... :TU:
As discussed earlier you'd need to take 20-30*@.050" out of the cam they used and you'll get closer to "perfection" for this particular combo. All that aside I wonder what ever happened to the engine?
Three key observations I made when watching the video of the engine running: 1) first and foremost was the sluggish throttle response 2) as it was revving from low to high, you could see the choke flap on the primaries fluttering like it was about to take off and fly away. 3) the engine sounded like it had a skip in it, or that the timing was way off. We now know the compression was actually very low when compared to the IVC point of the cam used. This coupled with other issues, I'm surprised it made the power it did. I'll bet if you were to set everything up correctly (and use the TA 212-350 cam), this same engine would make no less than 350 HP and 400 ft. lbs., and would probably be closer to 375/425. Gary
Re: Powerblock rebuilds a Buick 350 That mismatch became a real disappointment for the 350 Buick, I expected it to pull 400hp like mine did but not to be, just not enough compression for that one.
It would be worth a try with the 212 cam but I do not think the hp and tq will not get that high. 350/400 my guess.
Re: Powerblock rebuilds a Buick 350 They just did bolt ons. They didn't really try.same engine Would make more power with better porting and a optimized cam. Compression isn't that high either.
According to a dyno simulator I use, the TA 212-350 cam can make 425 ft. lbs. @3500 RPM and 383 hp @5500 when properly set up and compression matched to be run on premium (93 octane) pump gas, and only modest head cleanup/porting: Gary
Re: Powerblock rebuilds a Buick 350 You missed my point Gary,which was basically what you wrote about the cam. I wasn't putting it down beacuase they said it was a budget build,I just said it would of done better with the TA-212 cam. Lunati must be a sponser for them to use one of their cams in a Buick. And actually their "budget" was up there to do what was done to that engine,the only place they cheaped out with was the pistons. For someone to buy that "budget"(this is why I used the "") build it probably would be around $5,000+(even with the cheap pistons) for what was done and having someone else assemble it. With a couple thousand $$ more in the budget for good pistons,better porting on a set of older heads and a roller cam would of been sweet to see some number from! Derek
I don't miss points, Derek. I address points, then make new ones. :grin: It's ok, I know what you meant. "Budget" wasn't intended as a derogatory term. Gary
Definitely. Overall I think this experience was good since it shows what the engine can do even when it's crippled. That's not meant as any disrespect to the builders and people who were involved. It takes experience dealing with these engines to make them function properly, since they're not Chevy engines. Most of what goes on in this forum (and in the Buick 350 community) dealing with the Buick 350 is experimental and in some aspects pioneering new territory, so there's bound to be some mishaps here and there until things can be perfected. Gary
Even their 455 build was disappointing. ---------- Post added at 07:09 PM ---------- Previous post was at 06:47 PM ---------- Their 455 had edelbrock heads and intake ,hooker headers 373 gear ,700r4 trans and still only ran very high 13s . ---------- Post added at 07:37 PM ---------- Previous post was at 07:09 PM ---------- Are they building another one? I don't see anything about it?
