No one has mentioned the biggest reason to use a 455, Torque The 455 will make more of it, and at a lower RPM. That is the forte of the Buick 455. It was made to move big boats like the Electra and Riviera. Torque is what you feel in the seat of your pants, what pins you in to the seat. If you can hook that torque up, our cars are lethal on the street, especially from light to light. That being said, the 350 is a more durable engine. If you turbocharge it, and intercool it, it can be a monster. Look what a turbo does for 231 CID in a GN.
Bolting on parts and expecting a power increase is a hit or miss proposition. The gains come from tuning the engine to get the most out of the new parts. Tuning is mostly free and learning to do it will enhance any combination on any sized engine. I'd suggest you learn about tuning on your existing 350. Everything you learn will apply to the 455 if you go that route. You'll be doing them a huge favor If you teach your boys how to adjust the advance in a distributor or examine spark plugs to see if you're running rich. Anyone can buy parts, but few can make them work together and run right. Start with the timing thread on here. It is absolute gold! I followed the steps and it made a huge difference in how the engine runs. It starts easier, idles smoother, has more power and gets better gas mileage. All of that from a few springs, a limiter for the vacuum advance and an afternoon of tinkering. There are some great books on how to tune carbs. This is art and science. Some of it is experience and feel, most of it is just education and practice. You'll probably see a bigger gain from dialing in a stock engine than you will if you install an aluminum intake with no other adjustments. Of course the biggest gains come from adding the intake and then dialing that in. John
I Would start by removing the E-brock carb which is too small anyways, sell the poston intake and bolt on a stock intake and rebuilt Q jet. You should only need to set the idle mixture screws and maybe the secondary spring. I agree, do the mods to the timing curve and you will feel the difference. As for bolting on parts, you can do that with the 350 as well. You can have spare set of heads ported by a pro and bolt them on your self. Add a TA-212 cam and you will be miles ahead of stock and still drive great on the street.
I should be a little clearer on bolt on performance. I expect there is going to be a lot of tuning,tinkering and trial and error to get any combination of items to work at top level. I also expect a lot of future questions will be coming and a big thanks in advance. I actually like the trial and error. Kind of like driving golf balls...most mine fly way off, but when you hit it right, wow! Actually don't mind doing some minor modifications either, I just don't want to pretend we have the knowledge to do it right. We are willing to bang a few knuckles and get hands dirty! Not 100%, but just about made deal for a 455 with a t400 transmission. It will be beginning of summer before new engine would be ready, so until then, we will tune this 350 and enjoy this car as much as we can. I am going to start my own project post on the car and progress. Going green, so the Buick is going to be called Gator! Ha.
Jack, Here's a good place to start. http://www.v8buick.com/showthread.php?63475-Power-Timing-your-Buick-V8
If you go with the 350 and get beat on the street time after time...you will always wonder why you didn't go with the 455. If you go with the 455 you will always wonder what it would have been like to get beat on the street. On the street a good stock 9.5+C.R. 455 with a mild street cam will lay waste to a mildly built 350 with cam, headers, intake, converter, gears etc. I know from experience...I have both. My 69 convertible is less than a year away from getting her new 455 air pump! But... if you just want a nice running Buick 350 that will get you where you want to go, then there is nothing wrong with the good ol Buick 350 work horse! Like one of the other fellows said... "the 455 will make you forget about the 350" Eric / Oregon :3gears:
Suggestion! Before you touch anything take it down the quarter, frame that slip, then your son and you will have a record of the improvements that you have made. Put notes and pictures with each time slip, he will cherish that someday.
X2 :TU: I've kept the slip from my first time down the track ever in my Grand Am, even at a paltry 16.7secs i'm still proud of it, nothing like beating a '02 Camaro SS when he missed a shift. :ball:
I want to get the brakes ugraded and at least the steering box replaced. After that... We will give it a run down the track. Didn't think about saving the time slips. Very cool idea. Thanks!
I run 13.50 all day long with my 350. Been running the same number for over 15 years now. A 125 shot of nitrous got me to 11.81@114. A 75 got got me to 12.00 @ 110. I run 373 gears and 3000 stall, I approached 395 HP with a TA 510 cam. Now running a Lunati cam and still have about the same HP numbers. Got more down low with the Lunati cam and got more up top with the TA cam. The TA cam needs about a 410 gear and at least 3500 stall. I probably should have used the TA 413 cam for my application. You can get 400 hp out of a 350, I have 10.6 compression. If you need to see my dyno sheets look in the nitrous post in the 350 Buick section. My motor was built at the same place as Sonney Seals. That 300 Hp engine done is a slap in the face to me.
Guy--We may not look at it the same way but to me your set up points out the delimma. Your's is a race track set up--3500 rpm stall converter with a TA 510 cam--in order to make 400 hp. In other words, I would call it a track car that you occasionally use on the street. Most of these guys are looking for the reverse--an almost full time street car that on rare occasions goes to a track.
I know Guy drives the car a long way to race it and he uses a 2004R trans with a lockup converter so it must drive nice on the street even with a high stall converter. :TU:
The right trans can make up for the wrong gears, and vice-versa. (by wrong I mean street setup on race car or race setup on street car. it's never wrong when it's what your aiming for :TU
I did change out the TA 510 cam. I also drove the car on the street ALL the time with THAT cam. It had NO problem running on the street. It would sit there and idle all day in drive. With that set up YES, I did have a 3500 stall in it. But it was a tight convertor and would pull at 2000 rpm. I could not foot brake it past 2800 rpm. The 373 gears I have in it is a little low for the TA 510 cam. Later I changed to a GSCA cam that was called the Popular Mechanics cam. It had 507-502 lift and 230-245 duration, not really that big of a cam. The LSA was at 116 so the street maners were great with this cam. Along with this I changed to a looser 3500 stall convertor, there again I could brake stall it to 3 grand, it would still pull the car at 2000-2500 rpm. This convertor would have been better with the TA 510 cam. The GSCA mag had another person in there that had this same cam with basically the same compression as mine. It had 390 HP and about 370 ft lbs. That article was in the GSCA magazine in the July/August issue of 1998 Volume XVII number 6. When I put the nitrous in The converter was blowing to 5 grand and would stay there after shifting. After I broke the driveshaft I decided to put in the 200 4r trans. At this time I changed the convertor back to a 3000 stall with lockup set up for using the nitrous. This convertor is the tightest one yet and my 60 foot times did suffer, but with the low 1st gear I made this all up in the 1/8 mile in speed. I do feel I did give up some in the 1/4, about a 1/10 and a half, so now I run in the 13.60-13.65 range. This car would be a lot faster except I have the H-O Racing set up in this car so it can handle corners like a Corvette. So I do give up a lot in the car launching good off the line and my front tires pull in when you jack up the car. So I am giving up a lot here but I wanted good handling along with being fast. I think the TA 413 cam is the perfect fit with a 2500-3000 stall convertor and a 373 gear. I think this cam is ground at 113 LSA for the 350. This is the cam I should have used in the first place. Like I said the 510 cam is not as good on the low end but great up top. The Pop Mechanics cam is good down low and gives up at the top, so some where in between is perfect for the 350, (TA413) and the street maners would be just fine.
Sounds like a fun car Guy. E.T. is all about launching the car and getting it to 60 ft. Getting everything to work together is the secret. Combination of parts and modifications is the key to making a car perform at the track, and on the street. I think most of the disappointment that guys have when their car doesn't perform is due to one or more pieces of the puzzle being missing, or wrong. The converter is a really important piece in the puzzle. I'm sure you didn't use an off the shelf unit. BTW, I know what the HO parts can do to the handling of an A body. Negative camber gain in the front end really makes a huge difference. Had that kit on my 72 Skylark in the 80's. The handling was incredible.
I know off topic here but Larry, have been to Norwalk for the the Buick race there. I am sure you have. I have been going there since about 1994 when I got the motor built. I really wanted to know how that 455 runs now that you had it redone. I thought there was going to be some more dyno testing done but I did not see it. I have not been able to get there the last couple of years since I had gotten laid off and had to go back to school. I think it was 2009 was the last time I was there. I managed to get to 3rd place in the B2 class. I definitely miss going there.
I still don't have the motor. If you go back to the engine thread Jim started when he built it, you'll see where we are right now. I'll see if I can find it. To make a long story short, the block we used had a weak link in the #4 main web. Not a crack, but there was something there. Jim had to start over with another block. We also want to go with a different cam to dial it down a little. I have to call Jim soon to see where we are. Right now I'm running my old motor with the iron heads back on it. ---------- Post added at 10:09 PM ---------- Previous post was at 10:07 PM ---------- Here we go. http://www.v8buick.com/showthread.p...ng-(Larry-s-motor)&highlight=Level+2AR+engine
