Stage 2 455-4 on a 73 Buick Electra—— thoughts?

I live in vacaville California

 

It’ll be a slow process I will make sure to update the group though!

 

Yea, it has to be a slow process. Larry stated it absolutely right when he said that you shall do your research before pulling the trigger.

When I got my Electra it had a 430 in it. The previous owner replaced the broken 455 that was in it for a 430 that a junkyard has laying around. I got in the process of rebuilding the engine because it was drinking oil like heck. I had bought new pistons for the thing to only realized the 430 was junk, it was badly cracked near the oil pick up. So I tossed away the 430 pistons I had and bought forged 455 pistons for a 455 shortblock I had found. It should be alot of fun, but Buick power ain't no cheap !

 

Alright sir I have no idea what you’re talking about however I did some research via the website and asking google and from what I read basically you use a 455 block with a faster rotating assembly plus a higher compression for more horsepower? See this is why I like this community! I’ve never heard of butler performance now I am able to expand my options of parts/accessories

 

J'Linn I HIGHLY suggest you search the street/strip section for "455 build" threads and don't just read one, read most of them. Educate yourself thoroughly. Have a pad of paper and a pen handy and jot down key info that keeps getting mentioned in ALL the threads like parts suppliers, types of parts used, tolerances and or clearances etc. Then ask the board here where a reputable BUICK machine shop is in around your area that you can take your block to to see if it even checks out. Next, unless you got tons of coin to buy everything at once, start collecting parts. Leave your pistons, rings, pushrods, rods and main bearings until you get the numbers back from the machine shop. Take your time, listen to the guys on here they know what does and doesn't work, ask questions of you're unsure of something. I was in your boat 3-4 years ago and I still learn something new everyday from these guys. I'm finally getting my engine build off to the machine shop after collecting parts for 2 years and I'm still missing quite a bit lol. It's expensive but if you can do a lot of it yourself you can save a bunch of coin for better parts.

Cheers!

 

Butler Performance is mainly a Pontiac builder.

The Buick 455 is completely different from the Pontiac 455 or the Oldsmobile 455. All 3 are different from each other.

 

It definitely helped thank you very much
I will look into the street/strip section and see what information they have posted there.
I like the knowledge I am obtaining the more I learn the more excited I get...

 

Yes! I understand why would they knowingly build an engine like that in the first place? Was it just easier and faster to build them that way? Crazy that they wouldn’t make them more knock resistant coming out of the factory then again though I was reading jim weises’ guide on creating holes in the block for oil and he illustrated how some of the stock oil holes were offset from the manufacture

 

And people were not hanging pistons out at 6k RPM for 9-11 seconds.

It's a different world from then to now.

The engineers 50-60 years ago, did a damned good job in a few short years, for engines that might only be produced for less time than it took to bring them to production.

The love that folks had for those efforts, helped drive innovation and ways to overcome the limitations not only inherent in the designs (as is expected), as well as the diminishing parts and support to extending the longevity of these designs.

Can anyone imagine going back in time and having a beer or coffee with anyone of the folks that designed these engines and trying to explain the things that occurred beyond what they were focused on building in the day?

All of us, who dare to press on, give homage to the opus given us.

 

Small update-

I recently had a bad experience dealing with the mechanic regarding parts being put on the car. (Points distributor vs Electronic)

However I was able to contact TA Performance and get a performance HEI distributor for the car and a new chrome air filter assembly.(pictures will come later today)

The next step is finding a new mechanic:

Does anyone know of any mechanics that specialize in Buick motors in Northern California?

 

distributor from ya performance and my new chrome air intake