I recently picked upa 74' 455. I'm into the restoration a ways . had the heads totaly redone, tuffer springs, hard valve seats, polished as much as possible, but the problem is with the valves. It apears the company doing the heads says there not from 74, the valves are to big, Exhaust---- 1.750 Intake----- 2.125 I guess he thinks them to be stage 1? Not a bad problem to have, however, there is some pitting on the stems of a few of them. I could reuse them, but not sure how long they'd last. The problem is finding new ones this size. can anyone please help me... All i know is a stock valve has a gap between valves and a picture i saw of a stage 1, there was no gap , they were almost touching, and this is exactly what mine look like.
Two questions. 1 What is the block code? It is located between 5-7 spark plug location on the block. If it ends with a v (yv).It's a stage1 engine. If it doesn't , you have a big valve heads. Just as good!!! 2 Ever heard of TA performance? They have them.
Big Valve Heads,.. Ok, I'm still learning . Big Valve heads is a good thing? How do they differ from stage one or even stock when it comes to performance. Out of this engine, 455, I hope to have good torque. 0-60 is what i want. Will this engine impress me? I now am running a 70' 350.4.
Yes Big valve heads are a great find!! The only difference in the valves is the stage1's are swirl polished. As far as out performing stock heads , their good for about 20 horses. Add bigger cam and other goodes' alot better. I hope your engine man will come on this web site to find out how to build a 455 buick. There is a few really great engine builders here. Because it is not like building a small block chebby. Built right the 455 bbb will absolutly scare the s@$% out of you out of the hole! Hold on to sbb , the 70 has the best stock out put.
You mentioned hard valve seats....Buicks didn't use valve seat inserts because the heads were made of a high nickle content iron and were strong enough not to need hardened seats, even with unleaded fuel. The exhaust valves were nickle plated for no lead fuel beginning in '71. All Buick engines produced beginning with the '71 model year came from the factory equiped to run on unleaded fuel. If your engine guy installed hardened seats in your heads, he obviously isn't very familiar with what he is working on. Not to mention he just wasted your money and needlessly cut a set of perhaps original Stage 1 heads. Plus he had know idea about the bigger valves. I'd be very careful in dealing with him further. BTW, Buick did produce Stage 1 heads in '74, so those could be original.
