Looking for suggestions and expert advice: Upgrading my 1970 455 engine to a modern 455 engine

Yes they do!
I’m running an 850 DP on my 350, it runs and idles awesome.
That CFM formula doesn’t apply to Buicks

 

That's another thing about efi most are a 1k cfm. So you get the big carb effect.

 

Those valve relief ones have to be the Kenne Bell ones?
Those on the right look pretty close to stock replacement ones but are hypereutectic?

 

Yes they both look stockish, maybe get to 9 to 1

 

Can you see the pics Larry70GS sent?

 

Yup..

 

Good.
This piston is advertised to give you 9.5 CR to 10.5 CR.
I would have to pull the heads to do measurements to get my true CR. I can't understand why I had such detonation issues.
These Kenne Belle pistons are suppose to use .040 thick head gaskets.
I wonder if the previous owner used thinner gaskets, like .025?

I have never been able to figure why I couldn't run 93 pump gas.
Even the shop was using octain booster before they got the engine completely tuned.

I read the previous owners mechanic's note to him. It said, detonation at all rpm's. This was several years ago.
I'am wondering if this occured when he installed the Belle pistons. It also looks like he stopped driving the car for a couple of years.
One of the guys on on our forum agreed to inspect and drive this Buick at the Dealership. After driving the car, he said he was sure he could smell race gas. Reason why no detonation was detected.

This is the reason why I call the Buick the mystery car. I never know what other issue will raise its ugly head. VET

 

Thank you Larry. You posted what I wanted. VET

 

Vet, I also have Kenne bell pistons and my engine cracking pressure is 185 to 190. I also have stage 1 .20 steel head gaskets. Part # 1236030 they were to go to gaskets probably when your engine was built. When you get your car back, you’ll be able to tell if you have these gaskets. Take a picture of the Vin code on the deck by the number one and number two spark plugs. If you have these gaskets, the part number will be upside down.

 

You are the first person that I have run into on this forum that has the Kenne Bell pistons that I have. Yaa.

I have heard about the steel gaskets but didn't know you can get them as thin as .020.

I know the original Buick pistons are .040 in the hole, this thin gasket would improve and condition for a better squish band. Not the ideal .040 dimension but a lot better at .060.

I have no idea if the Bell pistions relocated the wrist pin to push the piston higher up the cylinder.

Question: Looking for,
Vin code and upside part number. Do you happen to have a photo of your gasket so I can make sure I know what ism looking for?
So, I can see the part # with head installed?

I had a photo taken to show the SR stamp plus it also appears there is a # to the lower right side that has 200 stamped.
Have no clue what 200 means.

My engine stamped number was mis-stamped. After sending photos to Sloan, they confirmed my engine was mis-stamped.
The big help came from Duane, he figured it out from the photos I sent him. I like to call Duane Mr. Buick, he is so knowledgeable. He even called me at home to clear-up a question I posted on our forum.
How many people do that?
Wow, that was impressive. VET

 

I do have a picture, but I will not posted publicly because of the Vin.

 

My pistons are the super light forged racing pistons .10 over.

 

Would you PM me or I can give you my email address?

 

Lets start fresh as I get confused with this car some, more about the motor though..

You bought it from John C? He did the oil mods, ported the heads some and added the bigger Stage 1 valves?
Gasket matched porting the intake and exhaust manifolds?
Block was bored .030 over.. Did he put the Kenne Bell pistons in or was he the one the one that found them and replaced them?
Yes you mentioned finding KB pistons with a scope but there are alot of posts now and its hard to track them now..

 

I bought the Buick from a consignment Dealership in RI.

One of the guys on the forum recognized the Buick and told me who the engine builder was and he is also friends whit John C.
I contacted John, he told me what all engine mods he had done on the engine.
I sent pics of all the engine issues we had found in the engine including the pics we took of the pistons using a bore scope.
John told me he never rebuilds a 455 using Kenne Bell pistions.

He believes the previous owner had someone go into the engine and replace his pistions (John only uses dish pistons) with Kenne Bell pistions.
I just ran into a guy on the forum that uses the Kenne Bell pistions like I have and he told me the previous owner may also have used the thinner .020 gaskets that will also up the CR.

Because of this mess, John and I have become good friends.

I assume the previous owner was trying to get more power out of this engine and didn't know what he was doing and may have caused all the detonation problems I ran into.
We also found he screwed up the distributor too. Had to way too far advanced and had the lightest weight springs you can get from Crane.
Now you know the whole story.

The shop has solved all these issues now. VET

 

I was looking at your intro post when you first joined,,
Saw the profile message you sent to John when he answers.. "Geese" that was so many motors ago I will have to get back to you..
Sorting out slowly I guess..

 

That is a real problem, when you ask an engine builder if he can recall what all he has done to an engine he rebuilt in 2012 and it's now 2021, nine years later. To be fair, I'm not sure I can remember either.

To help his recall, I had the shop take a load of pictures that looked like an amateur engine builder got into the engine.
As an example, when we removed the valve covers, the heads were over sprayed with paint, covering the rocker arms, pushrods and valve springs.
Professional engine builders DON'T do that. My mechanic noticed the damper was wobbling.
He removed the damper and found someone had used vice grips to squeeze the crank key to make the damper fit tighter on the crankshaft.
On top of that, the rubber on the backside of the damper was falling out, the rubber was degrading.
The plastic rocker arm retainers were not even Buick models. My shop couldn't even identify who makes this type. Those had to be replaced.

So, it doesn't take a rocket engineer to figure out this was done by some amateur. Not to also mention, the distributor was set at 42* advance and had the lightest weight springs you can buy and it advanced the distributor way too early in the rpm range.

John C. is a recognized Buick professional engine builder who would never build such garbage.

Sorry, for the rant, but this situation has really PO'ed me and cost me a ton on money too. VET

 

So JC DID NOT build the engine?