1970 Stage 1 Diplomat Blue- with commentary from the original owner

Those Dohc short blocks are very stout too...

 

Once this is back on the road, I will resume the stage 3…. Lol

 

Wow.... the carnage...

 

Well I guess you are parting it out? This is in Facebook now: I report it to the group admins and hopefully no one falls for the scam.

 

Oh boy thats some bad luck..

What is all that in pan??

 

One of those businesses that's no longer around.

 

2 pistons, 2 connecting rods, 2 wrist pins, piston rings, sides of the block, tops of the block, and other metal/ aluminum parts when #5 and #6 tried (and succeeded) to exit the block... LOL

 

A dab of JB Weld should fix that up no problem..

 

Plus shiny tires and interiors look like ASS

 

Looking forward to it.

 

In an earlier post, I had brought up that Mark still had the original, born with Stage 1 heads. After a brief discussion, he elected to sell them to me (yes!). Keith Wood was kind enough to go to Mark's and grab them for me, box them up, and send them to me. To my surprise, he also had the original exhaust manifolds...
Dano got me some shipping labels. They are now reunited with the car! Thank you Mark, Keith, and Dano!

 

to the guys wondering about the heads

https://www.v8buick.com/index.php?threads/kenne-bell-stage-3-heads.388118/

 

I wanted to put a little oil in each cylinder, just to keep it from rusting. I was VERY HAPPY to find the service replacement stamp...

It is B0E 35093

Per one of Duane's old posts:

"Just to add to this,
The Service replacement number is “B1E xxxxx” which decodes as,
B-Buick
1- last digit of year produced (1971)
E-Engine Plant
(5) numbers-consecutive number of block produced—-Not the vin number.
Duane".

So, it's a 1970 Buick service replacement block (I also have the receipt to confirm this warranty replacement)... The tops of the pistons are still silver!

 

Back in 89/1990, a salesman that worked for Buick back in the day told me the Buick 455 was the most warranted GM V8, can anyone confirm this?

 

ive seen the pistons in person. very little carbon built up.
also, if you can, post more about the heads!

 

So so many storys of spinning a bearing, My 70 included at one time, not by me though one of the previous owners.
That poor dam factory oiling setup.. If they only kept the rpms to 5500 max I would guess it would cut the the service replacements in 1/2??

 

Thru my years of playing with the Buick V8, mostly 350 and a couple 455s I’ve come to the conclusions that the urban lore of “Buicks have oiling issues” is BS.
The stock oiling system is fine for its intended use, low rpm cruising or towing aircraft carriers.
IMHO, it’s when it was discovered the big blocks, 400 thru 455 were capable of power and rpm far from what they were intended and the oiling system showed its shortcomings.
Near every modern V8 has an oiling system VERY similar to Buicks in that the oil pump is up front and it’s got a long path from sump to the pump, most all lube the lifters first as the main oil galley intersects the lifter bores and the mains receive their oil from that galley.
The MAIN difference is the pump on modern V8’s use a gerotor on the crankshaft, so the pump is driven at crank speed not camshaft speed ( 1/2 crank rpm)
I honestly believe they changed to this arrangement due to these modern V8’s ( LS, Fords V8’s, Mopars V8’s) have to rev, and are quite good at revving to 5, 6, 7 grand on a downshift to pass or merge onto the highway, my Tahoe 5.3 will go rite to 5 grand merging with an automatic downshift, no big deal.
These days we shift our Buick V8’s on the track at 6 to 7 grand, when originally they were set to upshift at 4500, 5000, 5200 rpm.
And the other myth (BS) about “they use iron gears in an aluminum housing”
The LS is the same arrangement, steel rotors in an aluminum housing, as are (from what I’ve seen) most other crank driven oil pumps.

 

updates, will be spending time (hopefully) around the car this week/weekend, hopefully some father son bonding over this turd, my goals are to get the head in, header on and set valve lash, maybe go as far as intake on etc, but time will tell

 

Brought the bench in for the restore. ….

The holes in the back were from a jack stand… dammit….