Aftermarket iron 455 Buick block - Interest?

I welcome all Buick Performance parts that actually help my business, which largely is building Buick High Performance engines. Duplicate parts, such as the Edelbrock STG 1 cylinder head are a waste of time, we have those parts already, they would have been smarter to build a Performer RPM style intake manifold. We actually need that. We don't need alum heads with Chev style stud rockers.. and I have said so in the past. Folks have bashed me for being a "brand loyalist" or whatever, but I am just looking at it from a strickly business perspective. The vast majority of guys out there buying alum cylinder heads, aren't going to run a cam that requires roller rockers.

Jim W.

Well at least we know what you think about the Edelbrock heads again...but what about the board members that are running them? A bit of an insult to them to be slamming their decision. All this thread was about initially was to help out the Buick community.

Regards,

455nGLIDE

 

will it look like this ? this block is a very nice piece..click on the pic to enlarge it

 

WOW. I am not up to date Eric, is that the bulldog picture?

 

no thats a allpontiac beafed up replacement 455 block.just giving a glimps of what our block could look like..

 

That's the AllPontiac iron Pontiac block. I have one. I also have the AllPontiac forged crank they did a while back. 4.350 bore x 4.250 stroke = 505ci

 

we are having the same kinda dream

 

JAMES HOW MUCH HP YOU MAKING ??

 

It would be a "Dream come true" to have the aftermarket that the Pontiac guys have.......
1000hp NA w/ a single carb is fairly easy for them.

 

Zero. It's not together yet. It could be quite a bit if I chose to go that route (Higher compression/Larger cam). It's not going to be a trailer queen so the cam that was chosen still retains its streetability. It has a really nice set of cylinder heads on it and will eventually end up with a fogger. The goal is to drive it to the track and run 8's on spray.

 

Up to 41 so far. There is definitely a lot of interest in an iron block :beer

 

1. Because of the Bulldog Fiasco, which was spearheaded by a well know Buick guy, you will be hard pressed to get 10 orders with sizable deposits, for a block that exists in only someone's imagination. Forget 50-75, that number will never happen.

Yeah right...in 24 hours this thing has lit up this board....I have a feeling that everybody is keeping an eye on this and why not? There is a siginificant demand for iron blocks. I'll venture to predict that the biggest naysayers would be the first to jump on this bandwagon.
James, you go head on with this iron block and dont let the b@$t@rd$ keep you down.

Regards,

455nGLIDE

 

i would buy one, but i would like to see one or two tested on a build or two by a buick builder (ie jim w) and have the green light, tested products sell better than an idea. hope that didn't sound rude , jamie my

 

OMG!!

Now that is something. Please make this happen.

 

Because a lot of people say "yeah ill buy one!!" and once they're available those people are no where to be found. Its easy to say yes I'd love one and would get one, but it doesnt mean that they will put a deposit down or actually buy one right away. It could be months before they do, or they may never because of various reasons. And I dont know what "b@$t@rd$" your talking about, I haven't seen any so far, just people giving input and their thoughts.

 

Dude, can you chill and stop stirring things up here. Chris

 

James, how much does the crank sell for? Are they US made or are they farmed out to china? Chris

 

It's an AllPontiac/Scat forging. Forged in China, machined by Scat in the USA. It's a beautiful crankshaft that rings like a church bell and checked out absolutely perfect. It's a very nice piece. We in the Pontiac community were dying for a forged crankshaft and AllPontiac stepped up and made one for us. I was luck enough to get in on the first run of cranks since I had my deposit in while they were being manufactured. The price was initially around $1100 - $1200 if I remember correctly (which I was very pleased to pay), but they turned out to be less so AllPontiac dropped the price for us (I think I paid $900'ish). Our only option at the time was a $2400 Crower billet, a Moldex forging (rare), or one of the Kellog forgings (super rare) from the Pontiac Ram Air V racing program if you were lucky enough to find one. As far as I know the AllPontiac/Scat forging is not currently in production.

Knock offs started to turn up shortly after (FYI the Chinese manufacturers will sell to anyone with a hand full of cash) and I don't know much about the current offering from the other vendors. I think they are still pretty nice, but the AllPontiac/Scat cranks are coveted by builders.

I don't want to turn this thread into a Pontiac history lesson so I'll try to keep these answers short if I can. Needless to say we are very thankful to have AllPontiac in our hobby. They have come through for us time and time again.

http://www.allpontiac.com/forged_crankshaft.html

 

Jim I agree with everything you said about the block but with all due respect I don't understand about the Eddie heads. Complete Eddie Stg 1 heads are duplicates but also are 40% cheaper than complete TA Stg 1 SE's NOT including in the rockers. Another aftermarket block that's 40% cheaper than a TA block is a duplicate part just like the heads. TA heads may ultimately have more HP potential than Edelbrock heads but the TA block should ultimately have more HP potential than a replacement CI block like you described. The lowering of the ultimate HP capability is more than offset in either case by the disproportionally lower cost of the duplicate product thus providing the buyer with better $/HP value. Additionally having multiple suppliers for the same parts helps insure supplies. TA has been out of Stg 1 SE's for 6 months. If it wasn't for Edelbrock my motor would still be on the stand.


An aftermarket CI block for $3500 would be a godsend for someone like me. I built my motor with Eddie heads because it was the cheapest way (under $5000 intake to oil pan) to get towards 600 HP and not rev the motor too hard. I won't go over 600 HP or 6200 rpm because I want to minimize the risk to my investment. My last pass was low 11's at 120 mph in an all steel, street legal car, 3500 stall converter and the 6000 rpm shift light just started to flicker on at the finish line. With an aftermarket block I could up the cam (duration) and the converter and the rpms and go a lot faster with reliability. The problem that I and a lot of other people have right now is that a $6500 block to get to the next level is more than my entire motor cost. It's a nice piece, worth every penny to a lot of people but when you can build a Mopar 572 long block for $6500 it's hard for people like me to justify.

Heres an interesting example of what can happen.


http://www.hughesengines.com/Index/...UmFpc2VkIERlY2sp&level1=QmxvY2tz&partid=24300


Dave Koffel is old Chrysler engineer. Despite Chrysler-Mopar/World Products making 440 blocks he decided to do his own block. Dave did the design, Koleno did the molds and pours the cast iron, Roush Racing does the machining. I doubt they sell more than 75 a year and they are a very nice piece for $3200! I want this in Buick form!


I also wonder if a good $3500 CI block were readily available how many people that have left Buick like Jim and others have mentioned would come back.

 

Thank you James for that info. We are also lacking crankshaft options with are buicks in my opinion. That said I would like to see some solid production/sales numbers on these Pontiac blocks and cranks. If you go to this link http://www.v8buick.com/showthread.php?t=145833&page=6 then go to post #147 and see what I think were up against production/sale wise for these TA aluminum blocks and we will see this coming September just how far off I was with my prediction in sept 2008 of 25-50 TA blocks produced/sold. I'm not sure that had TA went cast iron that there would have been many more blocks sold. Have a look at the link I posted, in 2008 Carroll Shelby had sold almost 1200 aluminum blocks @ $5400 each. I agree that we need a cast iron block and more crank options but I think you will find that the Pontiac sales are way higher then we could ever expect. I at one point thought I had 3 TA blocks sold but when it came time things had changed for 2 of my customers and they couldn't pull it off. Either way I want to thank you for caring enough to trying to pull this off ...Chris

 

Thanks, that was an interesting read. Someone send Badbuik a block already!

Did you catch this quote on the last couple of pages?