i just pulled out a buick motor from my grandfathers garage.ive never seen anything like it im a chevy guy and dont know much about sbb i hope someone here could help ive looked through buicks.net and didnt help much and through alot of buick sites and came across this one and it seems to be a good one to learn about buicks.what i can tell u is this its all alum.block-heads-intake and has a 4jet quadrajet carb 31/2 inch bore v8 here is the #s off the front of the block infront of the head on a pad 3h2512055-hh280527 on intake its 1349520 and on the bottom of the block i found this 1193724-1196568 cfd-pm9 the only thing i could find was 1961 but im not even sure about that.if anybody could please help me figure out what this thing is
Are you sure it's a Quadrajet and not a "4-jet"? The buick 215 was aluminum blocks, head, etc... My mom's 62 is also a factory 4bbl car with the Rochester 4-jet carburetor.
Nope, only the 215 was all aluminum. You'll find a variant of that motor powering a bunch of cars at your local Land Rover dealer. They did have a V6 that was 225 cubic inches. There were some 300's with aluminum heads, but not blocks.
are they a good motor or are they garbage.are they a wanted motor is there still a way to get parts for them.what im asking are they worth taking apart and see if anything is wrong with them if so fix it or just try to sell it and go for somthing differant im looking for a motor for a street rod and i dont know if a 215 would cut it mabee to small but the thing sure is lite beeing all aluminum.mabee if someone is looking for this kind of motor make me an offer and its yours everything is still bolted to motor power steering belts carb ect.ect.ective taken off one valve cover and the oil pan to take a look corenele@hotmail.com
They come up on ebay once in a while, etc... They're not a bad motor, of course they are a bit small in cubes. Some guys put them in earlier sports cars like the MGB's, etc... It really depends on what you want out of it. Like most Buick stuff, you can get the stuff but it'll cost more than a SBC.
Corenele, The engine you describe is a 215 cubic inch Buick (also used in Olds) used in 1961-1963. All aluminum, and the Olds also sold a turbocharged version the had 215 HP. They are very desireable engines for the right application. Parts availability is good, as they share a number of parts with the later 300/340 engine, the 198 V6, and even some with the 'new' Buick 350. Do a Google search on 'Buick 215' and you'll get a whole bunch of hits on the engine. It is a very popular swap for MGs and Triumphs because of its light weight. GM sold the rights to the engine to British Leyland (BMC) in the mid-60's as it didn't produce enough torque for the larger intermediate 'A' body cars from Buick and Olds, and it cost too much to produce. BMC had it in continual production until last year, when the Rover line replaced it with a BMW-derived V8 for their vehicles. Over the years it was used in the Rover 3000, the Range Rover, the Discovery and some models of the Defender, the MGC V8, and a very few cars of the Buick Apollo sports car of the eary 1960's. There are a scad of parts available for the Rover models, and a lot of that stuff will fit the 215. You can easily adapt fuel injection, fit factory headers, cast valve covers, etc. The 215 has also seen adaptation for use in aviation applications (homebuilts and experimental class aircraft) and was converted to marine use by Gray's Marine in the 1960s. If you search the Rover sites, you'll find a very strong following for this motor in Australia and New Zealand, where there are quite a few high performance tuners. You won't get cheap, ground-ripping power out of this motor. If you're looking at a street rod, consider the earlier Buick nailhead, the later Buick 350 small block or the big block 400/430/455. There are many parts for these motors, and they make an interesting change from the SBC, but you have to be more resourceful in finding things for them. It's not just a matter of picking up Jegs or Summit catalogs to find the goodies. Here's some sample web sites: http://www.kanter.com/p16-bun.html#top http://www.edelbrock.com/automotive/man_buick.html http://www.v8capri.clubonline.org.uk/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=202 Cheers, John
The engine is in fact a 215. Although small in cubes, it is a fantastic engine to stroke. If you want a real sleeper, you can find a lot of literature on how to stroke these motors to OVER 300hp for a fully dressed 300 lbs. The only thing you need before you drive to the machine shop is a set of 1964 Buick 300 aluminum heads, and a 300 crank. There IS a reason why that motor was saved and sitting in the garage!!!!
