I talked to Denny about that. Mark Reeves built a stand and the way he did it was with everything bolted together, but had 1 head bolted on in a lowered position so you could look in and see the huge tunnel port intake holes between the head and the intake. That way you could look underneath, see the 4-bolt mains, and look at the tunnel port intakes. That is already done and Denny should have it. Duane
Does anyone know if these first tunnel port heads made alot more power than the final Stage 2 design or were they mostly test pieces like the intake. 9.17's at 154 mph is insane but how light was the 69 test car?
I have some info at home, but I think they were shooting for a 3500 pound car (for the Stage 2 program). I do remember Cory telling me that the only way those particular heads would develop really high hoursepower was to really make the engine spin fast. Now I do know Tony made a girdle for the block, ( I think a halo girdle) and he had titanium and hollow stem valves on it. Plus he developed the first high volume oil pump for the 455 Buick Motors (and shared that info with Kenny Bell). From what he told me he had that motor spinning at very high rpms for a Buick motor, and obviously it stayed together as it is still around. Duane
I can only see the full story when I quoted your reply. At first I thought you left us in suspense lol! So a halo girdle on the 4 bolt block X block? Thinking regular 7500+ runs?
I don't remember if I wrote down any rpms in my notes, but Tony said it kept making hp as it went faster. You also have to remember that Buick had shut down the "Stage II Program", so there were no more parts coming if Tony broke anything. He also told me of other alterations he made to the motor, plus how he kept breaking transmissions and rear axles. His answer to "fixing" the trans/rear breakage was a bit crazy, but I guess they did a bunch of crazy stuff back then. It you look at one of the articles in the March 1970 issue of Hotrod magazine it outlines what the heavy duty racers were doing back then. That is the same issue that has all the Experimental Buick engines on the cover, along with Denny Manner displaying our tunnel port heads in the article. Duane
Nice Duane, I have that issue on my coffee table as we speak.. On Tony Bransons 69 GS pic, it mentions the only other cars that gave it some issues were the full out racing mopar Hemi's.. To think a few people on their lunch breaks would build a car that would compete with a full out Chrysler Hemi program that was backed by the whole company is amazing. I didn't even hear a RB 440 being in the conversation..
Denny produced the motor, but Tony built the car. When Buick stopped the program Denny got the motor to Tony, and parts to other racers, so they could generate "real world" data and get that information back to Denny. Due to working on the low-compression emission cars for the 71 model year, Denny had no time to persue anything else. Look thru the articles in that issue and they talk about what they did with the trans/rear axles. By the way that is exactly what happened with Tony. He kept beating the hemi's and the Mopar racing team approached him to race their cars. As the Buick Stage II program had ended, he switched to Mopars so he could continue getting parts. I believe it was out of necessity. Duane
Denny called me this morning and he is doing well.. I was a little concerned about the "while I am still here" comment in the first post here. He is in good health. He just wanted my OK for mentioning me as a person who was involved in the history of the 4 bolt block. While we were talking, I suggested that as a community of enthusiasts, we need to get down "on paper" the history of Buick performance development. While he has always been available to answer questions over the years, and has done a few seminars, there is nowhere that someone can go today, no book you can buy or website you can browse, that has a comprehensive recounting of the performance years at Buick in the 60's and 70's.. Also just an account of the day to day functionality of a 60's era automobile plant. It is, in a lot of ways, the story of his life... Many of us are interested in the nuts of bolts of how these cars got built. Also a peek into the culture in Detroit at that time. As well as a a listing of the players. I got to meet Cliff Studaker thru a customer of mine.. he was actually a second tier supervisory engineer when Denny was hired in the late 50's. I never knew their exact relationship. There is no one better than Denny to give us that information and insight, he has an amazing memory, and what he can't remember, he had the presence of mind to write down notes, and save them for all these years, so he can look it up for you. In that 20 minute conversation he answered several questions that had come up during our recent discussion of engine production details. First.. All Buick v8 engines were built in Flint.. I was pretty sure of this, but thought that maybe some of the later 350's snuck off to some other plant. But nope, Flint only. Second.. the engine plant worked 2 shifts, 5 days a week, but would at times work Saturday at OT pay, if the demand for product was there. They built thousands of engines a day. In later years, the same plant built 5300+ 3.8L V-6's daily, as that engine went into vehicles across the GM lineup, And finally-- to his knowledge, magazine test cars were not "tweaked".. certainly not by the engineering department. What someone in the sales department might have done with them is an open question, as Denny was not there.. and it was the sales department that gave the magazines the cars to test. Those are just three simple questions that came up, but are an example of the stuff I would like seen chronicled and preserved. Not only the facts and figures.. but also the nuances of the time.. I recounted back to him the above the story of how the engineers worked on the sand castings during their lunch hour... Denny clarified to me that the real point of that story was not that they were a bunch of rouge engineers, it was that there was just a very small staff doing anything with performance. They all had their mundane day to day responsibilities, a lot of the performance work came from their personal interests, and happened on their own time. While Chevy and Pontiac had whole engineering departments, dedicated to performance development. So our guys had to work a little harder than some. We discussed the possibilities of putting something together to be saved for posterity on the website here, and shared free for everyone to see who is interested. It's possible it may include a video of the "History of Buick Performance" seminar he did about 5 years ago at the Back to the Bricks weekend in Flint. We will continue that discussion at the GS Nats in May.. but I am excited.. JW
Yes.. we need to do anything to not lose the info we have and continue to search.. Off the cuff about this Stage 2 thread, I keep reading of someone who has a 66 Flint Flyer and refuses to answer his phone and the one we know of, the widow refuses to show the time slips from the day. How true that is I don't know but I just don't get why they refuse if its true?
The info is great and what a great job Denny had . Its something to think that he and his crew had a hand in my young hot rod days , bought a new 65 Riviera Gran Sport , then A 67 GS 400 . And in my old age the 70 GSX factory Stage 1 4 spd with all the Stage 2 goodies . Can't forget the 68 wagon , still have the engine standing next to the "X" . Has anyone ever polled the number of stage 2 heads still around , on and off cars ??? Bill
Bill, I know Denny told me when the run was done they only had between 75-80 sets of functional heads, so that would be the starting number. Now that would be for the production Stage 2 heads only, and would not include any of the prototype pieces with the raised freeze plugs. Duane
The Chevy to Hemi trans swap and Dana out back. All the parts to swap just had to be fabricated in those days The Mopar cars that were given to the Sox and Martin team were in no way right out of the box, nor was their claim that they didn't do a thing to them and just drove them. 383 cars doing 14.2 second 1/4's or the GTX 440 4 barrel doing 13.57.. Thats a lie.
Yeah Denny is the MAN! Great to have him to ask questions of..... I would like to ask him who designed the rocker shafts to be unsupported on the ends.....
The comment that caught my attention is the one about the 383 car doing a 14.2 1/4 mile. I bought a 1969 Super Bee (with 3.55 gears and auto) and took delivery in March of 1969. I bought it after reading the Car & Driver test of a '69 Super Bee with 3.55 gears going 14.04 @ 99 MPH. After taking delivery and putting about 1000 miles on it, I took it to Orlando Speedworld where the best I could get it to go was 15 flat @ 92 MPH. However, I was able to get it to run 14.20s at 98 MPH with carb jetting and a distributor recurve. So, agree, the 14.04 magazine test definitely wasn't an "as delivered" car.
A friend had a 383 66 Charger back in the day and thought it was hot stuff. I said lets go to Connecticut Dragway and see if it will outrun my 67 Riv GS. We actually got to run each other and I spanked him 15.70 on skinny 235/75 Michelin radials to his 16.05 on G60-15 Kelly Chargers. He didn't brag as much after that.
Had a similar situation with a working buddy with a '66 Coronet with a 383 that thought the 383 in my Super Bee was the same as his. We went to Speedworld and my 15.2 beat his 16.0 easily. That was bone stock before jetting and advance curve. Those were fun days.
I like the Dart Swinger - Looks good w/the white roof & stripe. My Dad traded in our '70 4-door Impala (one of my oldest memories is @ 3 y/o going to Park Circle Chevrolet in Baltimore City to buy) on a '74 Dart 4-door. That car was a serious POS. Nothing but problems.
