***Buick 350 Alum Heads Update***

Discussion in 'Small Block Tech' started by sean Buick 76, Apr 6, 2016.

  1. StfSocal

    StfSocal Well-Known Member

    If you were closer to me I would take it! Can’t beat free!!
     
  2. Fox's Den

    Fox's Den 355Xrs

    How much write up was done on the Aluminum 455 heads when they were produced and put out as compared to these 350 heads.

    Seems that we have been informed on what we already see in this thread is all we are going to get with this.

    How about instead of porting the heads and throwing them on the engine put the unported set on and run a new dyno sheet or is that just too much to ask for here on these 350 heads.

    In other words am I going to have to spend 2800 bucks and then put in another 400 to port them to get to that 480 hp that TA got with the heads.

    Too many questions and not enough answers. Should we wait to see what the GS Extra has to say.
     
    Dano likes this.
  3. LARRY70GS

    LARRY70GS a.k.a. "THE WIZARD" Staff Member

    That’s a really good question. This board came into existence in 2002. I believe the TA aluminum heads were already out and were on cars. I bought my GS in 1999, and my Stage1SE heads in 2006. I wanted to get into the 12’s and figured out that heads were the way to get there. They were 2495.00 ready to bolt on and Greg Gessler charged 2 or 300.00 for his Level 2 which is entry level porting. That got me 313/225 @ .550” lift. It put me right into the mid 12’s from my best of 13.22. The entry level porting is a no brainer. If you are spending close to 3000.00 on heads, spend the extra money, you are going to do it anyway.

    According to TA, the base flow for the 455 Stage1SE heads is 290/205 @ .550” lift.
     
    Last edited: Aug 3, 2019
  4. Jim Weise

    Jim Weise EFI/DIS 482

    TA has done way, way more testing with this product than any previous one.

    I did a two day dyno test with mulitple cams, intakes, headers and manifolds when the Stage 1 SE BBB heads first became available, because I knew that info was valuable for my business, so I made the investment in the testing.

    The only info put out by TA at the time was one flow test that they did, on a basically stock casting.

    JW
     
    Dano likes this.
  5. Mart

    Mart Gold level member

    I thought those heads had much more than $400 entry level port work to get that 480 number.
     
    300sbb_overkill likes this.
  6. Fox's Den

    Fox's Den 355Xrs

    Thanks Larry and Jim, was just wondering on that don't want to start any thing was just curious.

    My thought exactly Mart.
     
  7. stk3171

    stk3171 Well-Known Member

    here is one of the chevy style rockers.
    good luck

    Dan
     

    Attached Files:

  8. Mart

    Mart Gold level member

    Cheap out and that's what you can expect.
    Stick with shaft TA's, or T&D's.:)
     
  9. Mark Demko

    Mark Demko Well-Known Member

    When I switch to aluminums, Im staying with my shaft rockers, doing the mod to center 'em is no big deal, and I spent money on new bearings for 'em too.
    If these heads could ONLY use the stud mount rockers, I wouldn't even consider them.
    These heads, hell ANY aluminum Buick head isn't cheap, no biggie, us Buick people accept that:cool:
    Why offer a less expensive, inferior stud mounted roller rocker option?
    I'd run stock stamped steel shaft rockers before stud mounted rollers on the new aluminum heads.
    Anyhow, next spring, its aluminum heads for me, big valves, and porting by TA.
     
  10. Jim Blackwood

    Jim Blackwood Well-Known Member

    Good to hear you say that Mark.
    I never did understand the big push for stud mount rockers when a shaft is so much more rigid. The LS engines all use shaft rockers right? Probably because they don't move around so much.

    Jim
     
    Mark Demko likes this.
  11. Dano

    Dano Platinum Level Contributor

    Hopefully that'll be changing. These are very good and underrated engines. Light & strong. Can't ask for much more of a foundation and now we have some decent building blocks. Don't toss that one in the scrap dumpster yet. I tossed SO many 350's back in the day - got tired of moving them.
     
    Mark Demko likes this.
  12. Dano

    Dano Platinum Level Contributor

    Any chance of doing this with the 350 heads? Maybe everyone here who wants this baseline info (and maybe T/A) would be willing to pitch in a few $ to help cover the cost. If not, then we don't want the info that badly.
     
  13. TA Perf

    TA Perf Member

    Have a few moments. I didn't go back and re read this thread but I figure I would share some information on the cylinder head aimed at questions I somewhat remember. First off, yes this took way longer than I would have liked it to. Not to get off subject but I don't agree with this comment, "The only info put out by TA at the time was one flow test that they did, on a basically stock casting" JW. We had tons of data on the Stage 1 SE intake port as it was the same port used in the Stage 2 SE. The Stage 1 SE exhaust port was contracted out and once in a casting yes we flowed it, ported it. I know a lot of time was spent on that head here a TA. I still have the aluminum head here that we did all the testing on. We learned what not to do, far more than what to do that's fore sure.
    It's been said that TA could have done what ever they wanted to do building the new 350 head. Folks, I spent a lot of time trying to make a sell-able part with options. The 350 Buick head design has it's issues. Some were workable, some were limiting and some were disappointing. Remember, this head had to bolt on and work with other parts of the engine. We moved what we could with in reason. Valve angle is now at 12 degree, this put the valves on the center line of the bore so larger valves could be used. Left the intake valve in the stock location for the most part and moved the exhaust valve towards the cylinder wall, spreading the valves further apart. This allowed for seats and larger intake valves to be used. There is no water in between the intake and exhaust ports for porting. The intake bolt next to the outer intake ports is a problem. The two inner intake bolts are farther away from the inner ports, those outer bolts limit the location of the pushrod tubes. That 1/2" pushrod hole is right at those outer bolts. This limits the cross sectional area of the intake port entry, no room to move the pushrod over. Now, I did make those bolt bosses large enough in the water jacket to move those intake bolts over .150"-.200" max. This would allow an increase in cross section of the intake port entry. We have descent wall thickness around the ports for porting, along with raising the spring pads so there not close to the roof of the intake port. TA heads are designed for a 5.150" long valve, that's the same length as the 455. This allows for taller spring install heights. Were using the 455 springs on these heads. Higher lift cams can more easily be run now. The material is there above the intake ports to create a TE or High Port Head. Head bolt/studs are longer between the intake ports only, this is for raising the port into a High Port and not porting through to the washer pad. Shaft mount for stock and TA roller rockers, drilled for those who really are into Chevy rockers. Need to cut rocker towers off. Clean sheet of paper exhaust port. Completely updated combustion chamber with relocated spark plug with less cc's. We made flow boxes for testing both the intake and exhaust ports. This took time back and forth. Funny thing is, as much work that went into those to come up with shapes, the castings isn't always exactly what you thought it would be. We always new that after the heads were out we would go back and redo port core boxes (tooling). Most all of you I don't believe know how many times we redid the core boxes on the 455 head. How many water jacket core boxes were made to thicken up areas that we found more air to be but there wasn't enough port wall thickness. As a mater of fact we just reproduced the 455 head water jacket 1-2 years ago again. I hope this doesn't read poorly because I don't have time to go back through this post. I will try and come back and answer more questions. I'm sure there will be some. I'm not trying to keep secrets.
     
    Dano, CraigDK, sean Buick 76 and 13 others like this.
  14. Tom Righter

    Tom Righter Well-Known Member

    While on the subject of the BBB stage 2 TE heads why don’t you do away with water going through Intake all together and also get rid of 7/16 bolts use 8mm to allow for widest port possible.thread freeze plugs on front and back of heads for water crossover,most if not all guys are doing this anyway looking for max port cross section.along with water jacket pattern changes, then with Intake pushrod moved over as far as possible and CNC finish porting we could have a head that flows 400 + CFM out of the box.there’s more that could be done without reinventing the wheel!
     
    Julian likes this.
  15. Mark Demko

    Mark Demko Well-Known Member

    Im a firm believer Buick was WAY ahead on a lot of their engineering back in the day.
    Lightweight blocks
    Deep skirt blocks
    Aluminum components, OMG, the oil pump housed in the ALUMINUM timing cover you say?? Big deal, same as an aluminum piston moving in an iron bore:D..... Probably worse, the piston deals with much more heat, and WAY LESS lubrication.
    Shaft mounted rockers, every vid I've seen showing SERIOUS HUGE diesels use shaft rockers, why mount the rocker so it has to be first pushed up against a "ball" and is now trying to rip a stud outta the head, after all that is attained, now its gotta open the valve.
    Lotta monkey motion going on there:rolleyes:
    Tall narrow intake ports in the heads.
    Smaller bore than stroke.
    The LS series incorporates a lot of these very same features.
    Hell, the 5.3 LS is the greatest engine EVER according to everyone who has one, and it only has a 3.78 bore, not the "magic" 4.0 bore size, and the 5.3 runs like mad, it really is an awesome engine, net lash shaft rockers, deep skirt block, tall narrow intake ports, and OMG the gerotor oil pump is in an ALUMINUM housing:eek::eek::eek:
    Its all in the LS heads, no reason the TA heads cant make the 350 Buick a contender:cool:
     
    MrSony likes this.
  16. Mark Demko

    Mark Demko Well-Known Member

    In response to TA's thread above, I can relate to some people not realizing how complicated and involved a seemingly "simple" task can be.
    I paint cars, and people see a nice shiny straight paint job, people ask "How much to paint my car" I tell 'em a few thousand MINIMUM, I get a blank stare!
    I tell 'em "Its WAAAY more involved than spraying color"
    Like I said earlier, Im buying a set next spring, big valves and all:cool::cool:
     
    Dano, MrSony and 300sbb_overkill like this.
  17. UNDERDOG350

    UNDERDOG350 350 Buick purestock racer

    Bore smaller than the stroke is NOT an advantage.
     
  18. Jim Weise

    Jim Weise EFI/DIS 482

    Ya, there might have been some ported numbers, come to think of it, but that is not the point.

    Compared to what you have done with the 350 head program for testing and promotion, the BBB stuff was barely mentioned.

    From my perspective, you have worked way harder on this head, developing it, testing it, and trying to sell it, than any 455 product you ever made.

    Which was the point.

    You were on the verge of being crucified for discriminating against the 350 guys.. they were building the cross.. when I stepped in with that post to diffuse that nonsense.

    Go back and read the thread up till my post, and you will see that.

    JW
     
  19. Jim Blackwood

    Jim Blackwood Well-Known Member

    Mike, I'd like to know how many of those features were carried over from the Rover head. I know some of them were. If you will respond here I will repost it on the 300 thread.

    I've been a champion of your Rover heads on the British car forums from day one and have become a bit of a guru over there so it'd be nice to be able to tell them more. Presently I have one customer who may buy a set and I'll be doing the same for one of my engines within the year. We already have a set of your
    eliminator SE heads on the 455 MGB-GT "Roadmaster" exhibition car.

    Jim
     
  20. 300sbb_overkill

    300sbb_overkill WWG1WGA. MAGA

    Thanks Mike, that was a lot of the info I was looking for.

    Kinda hard to tell from a single picture of a port what they would look like in 3D. Now I might be able to sell the idea of using a sbb 350 because of the weight savings to power potential because of the aluminum heads for the sand rail crowd?
     

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