Thanks everyone for the kind words and Guy for your dedication to the preservation of such an important era of Buick's performance history. Sometimes one actually does get what was asked for from Santa Claus:laugh:! Everyone have a Happy New Year & God bless! Jay
Over in the Bench there is a thread asking what type of Buick Registries people would like to see. The thread is: http://www.v8buick.com/showthread.php?t=147177 A Buick Cast Iron Stage 2 heads and Kustom Buick Headers Registry should be added, as these are some of the rarest Buick V8 items around. Arguably, Guy Parquette's Pop Kennedy car (and any other late 60's early 70's iron head Kustom header stage 2 equipped car, i.e. Gary Paine) are the rarest performance Buicks of all, except the prototype cars and Old Yeller. If you feel so compelled, please add your 2 cents worth over at that thread. thanks, Dan
Sounds like an interesting registry,would be informative to actually see how many iron stage 2's are out there. gary
Dan- Thanks for the heads up! I'm sure there would be a neat list of cars also...Tom Rix, Gary's, ect.
We shouldn't forget Tom Rix's J/B car,with it's low miles. I sold my head to John Chamberlain and Tom Rix got my Kustom headers.Mine had been redone by Crame before I got them in 1980;port work and milling and 1.8 exhaust valves. I went to the alumn in case some would/could go bad with my 523" motor. I do think it would be good to see were they all went to. Mike Nussell
Food for thought. As I recall a statement from Dennis Manner indicated that the intake ports on the Stage 2 head castings were identical to standard and Stage 1 heads. The only change was the exhaust port layout. Doug Jones
This may be the case with the "regular production" Stage 2 heads, but I have seen pictures of different S2 heads with various sizes and configurations of intake passages and believe that there were many pre-production heads with varying intake (& exhaust) shapes ... some with really BIG passages ... that wound up leaving out Buick's back door to other racers. That said, look at this article about the S2 heads and look how huge the intake ports look: http://www.buickperformance.com/455hdcompare.htm These heads are still around today.
Are you thinking of the experimantal "tunnel port" heads with the valve guides running right through the middle of the ports? I don't think those were ever intended to be offered over the counter whatsoever. Devon
Holds true for the early vertical boss heads...probably the heads you were familiar with and or did the testing with for Dennis?? So that would make sense. With the later production Stage2's you can visually see the difference between the the stage1 and 2's....especially around the valve guide area. Gary Paine had told me he flowed a stock later stage2 intake port and it flowed quite a bit more. He told me what the number was, and I have it written down......somewhere Gary?
boy you have to type fast around here... type a sentence and walk away to do some work and come back to finish just doesn't cut it anymoreou:
Yeah. That's why I put "production" in quotes because the whole Stage 2 head program seemed to be a little "skunk works" and a little "get 'er done" and was a fluid environment to say the least. What is "production" when your racing to get the things built and making changes as you go. These engineers probably had to pull some strings and play a shell game with Buick management to get this project done. Too bad the casting problems ended the program early. Then again, about that time, the oil embargo happened (I don't remember, I was in diapers) and I doubt that it would have survived anyway. It might be accurate to say that Buick's intensive effort with turbo R&D was the beneficiary of the Stage 2 head program ... kinda sorta. I have also read in several places that back in the very early '70's and before the oil embargo was an issue, that GM engineers were charged my management with the need to get even more power out of existing power trains (engines) because they (product planning) were forecasting the full size cars (Electras, etc.) would be growing even larger by a considerable margin in the following 5 - 10 years ... not smaller. Maybe this is how the Stage 2 head program engineers justified the performance research expenses. After 1973, it all changed and we all know the GM across the board corporate downsizing for 1977 was a massive response to the oil problems a few years earlier.
Greetings....... Buick made some "trick" nailhead cylinder heads with matching high flow exhaust manifolds. The project was "killed". The power improvement did not justify the cost. Marty
The photograph of the ports on the George Nenadovich Stage 2 heads were obviously ported, no heads ever left the factory looking like those. I know there were several sets of the large port version with the pushrod tubes in the intake ports made as shown in previous photos, these were often referred to as the Stage 3 heads.
Hey Guy I got the flow #'s from the file,I have 2 sets of stock stage 2's,an early set and the later version. the intake ports look very similar and the flow #'s were similar also,Buick did a good job on stock ports,very well on the exhaust, I E @.600 lift and 28 inches 286 212 later set 286 218 early set With a exhaust pipe added both heads went over 229cfm.
Great article, very accurrate information: http://www.hemmings.com/mus/stories/2007/04/01/hmn_feature7.html
Great article indeed. I can't seem to get enough Stage 2 info these days - the more I read, the more questions I have. What's done with the choke on the holley 850's? is it necessary with a stage 2? With the lack of Vacuum the stage 2 cam develops, how much of a problem is it on power brake and steering cars? does it cause other problems? Mike
The stage2 cam is very vacuum "challenged",it doesn't affect power steering but power brakes won't work right,thats why I ordered my 69 with manual brakes ,I also ordered manual steering even though the steering wasn't necessary.Choke wasn't used on my car. gary
Has anyone dyno'd a stage 1 and stage 2 400? It would be interesting to have listed the actual dyno curves for the Stage 1 and Stage 2 400, 430, an 455s. It sure would be interesting to compare them on the same or comparable modern dyno's. I remember that Dennis manner presented some dyno charts from the factory with the 455 and 455 stage 1 at one of the old GSCA meets, but there is also the speculative question about if the HP of the stage 1 continued climbing after its rated RPM. Gary, I assume you did a ton of testing, either dyno or at the track. It sure would be neat to read some of the notes or results you remember from back then on different parts and resulting performance changes.
adam No dyno stuff back then,couldn't afford it.We did try timing and different holley carbs,the 85o was the best until I tried the 3 barrel which on top end was awesome due to its 1000 cfm.this is when I realized the BBB would take all the cfm you could give it,gained about .15.But I drove Blue on the street on occasion and the 3 barrel wasn't very street friendly so I went back to the 850.Also it liked 30 deg of timing,tried everything from 28-36 deg the same day at the track and it always ran best at 30 deg.Best time I had in stage2 trim with the old recap 7" slicks was 12.68,the slicks we had back then sucked,and the torque of the BBB made it almost impossible to launch,either up in smoke or bog city.A 4 speed is hard to get it right with that much torque.Went to an aluminum flywheel and it was much better,could launch about on the wood without smoking the slicks and we ran 12.38 as a best.A bear to street drive with the al wheel though you had to slip it some to get moving.That flywheel is now a clock in my garage.First year we took it to the GS Nats was 1983 and took 2nd place in the 69 catagory. Wanted to go faster and didn't want to cut up an original 69 so Thumper was born ,this time with the iron stage2 heads,but thats another story. gary
