Never realized the 340 was m/l a one-year engine and have seen refs to '66 340's & always thought it was wrong but according to this there actually we're some. Also didn't know about the '73 changes to the exhaust valve/manifolds - Is this true & if so, seemingly would provide some increased performance. He missed the rod change in '73. Also missed the 350 being used in '68-70 Jeep trucks. Can you imagine had they gone the Turbo or all aluminum route on the 350 instead of the 231 or 215?
I pulled a 68 buick 350 from a wagoneer and donated it to become the 630 HP Procharged Anthony Mackley project. When Bill Mah was doing his 1021 Hp 350 he ended up using a 69 Buick 350 from a wagoneer after a few engine failures.
I still don't understand why they made the 350 with the different port layout. Based on what TA has said about the heads the 300/340 layout has better flow potential. Had they not done that there would have been aluminum heads available for the 350 from the very start. But Buick wasn't really the performance division as they catered more to the Doctor crowd and emphasized comfort over performance, which was also apparent from the way they emphasized the torque figures over horsepower. Which is a shame since they had such good light weight engines with so much performance potential. And it's not like they had reached the limits of the 340 package and then extended it with the 350 because they really didn't. So if we're dealing in "what if's", what if they had bored the 340 to make a 350, done some port work on the 300's alloy heads and used them, then applied an upsized Jetfire turbo? Could that have been gotten by Corporate? Probably not. Jim
I like your "what if..." that would've been an amazing package. My 1st vehicle when I was 16 was a '70 Wagoneer.
You make solid points. To be honest I guarantee the engineers had ideas and discussion about desired applications of performance. We would be crazy to think that they weren’t taking about turbocharging a 455! But as we saw with even the BBB Stage 2 and experimental projects they had to work on during lunch breaks and after work. Plus they couldn’t even showcase anything because it was all under the table.
Yes and it's by following that same line of logic that I've arrived at the present engine builds, a 350 engine based on the 300 with a 340/350 crank, TA heads and a roller cam for modern oil compatability. Use of the 300 block was simply for a reduced package size as the 340 would also work fine and I believe I could use it without any real issues aside from intake spacers, and the 300 seems to be a bit easier to find. Happily we now have alloy heads for the 350 as well and of course intakes are available also. But it's the old thing about changing horses in midstream almost literally. I honestly think that if they had simply stayed the course and done a few things like offer up the alloy heads to fit the new and larger small block sizes the SBB today would be as widely regarded as the SBC. Instead it became a widely underappreciated workhorse. Let's not forget that during this period was the heyday of modern drag racing and weight was of almost equal importance to horsepower. Buick had a big advantage there and they could have easily capitalized on it. But along that line, it's fair to point out that the use of alloy heads and intake only accounts for about a 50 lb weight savings over cast iron. Also the TA heads are considerably heavier than the OEM alloys to the tune of nearly 10 lbs each I believe. So the advantage there really isn't in the weight savings. Jim
