Do you want performance parts for the 350?

yea i talked to mike a few times most recently about the roller cams and lifters and he almost sounded annoyed about 350 guys complaining wanting something..guess he thought i was another guy wanting a product that had no intention of really buying..
i have to give him another call...as i'm wanting an update on the roller cam/lifters ordeal

 

Yep, they do, but the guy that's bitching about not being able to put down good track times probably will yank the nitrous kit when and if a claim situation arises, where the nitrous may have been a factor.


The other option again, is to boost. It doesn't matter if it is my kit, a custom setup, or a bolt on procharger kit, it's legal. It's like having a licensed gun. It's legal, until you elect to blast someone with it. Keep your boost off the street, and the cops won't care.

 

We will not be seeing alum heads or intake from TA in the next 5 years in my opinon, and I do not blame them a bit for that. TA has been a great support to the Buick community and like Mike said, he put everything on the line with the 455 blocks so not wise time to jump into a 350 head project in my opinion. Look at the Herche rods or Diamond pistons or example... me and a few others jumped on these TOP NOTCH performance parts but everyone else sat on the sidelines asking for cheeper prices. A few have been resourcefull using stroker SBC Eagle rods and custom pistons to save money for example but not many serious 350 people.

I have the cash to pay for alum heads today, but not many 350 people do from the way it seems... For now a pair of ported stockers with Burton machine roller rocker conversion is the best option we have.

I agree with many of the statements made above:

GS Jonny hit the mark with his comment about how for NA performance a singleplane intake and big headers combined with ported stock heads can make some serious power without breaking the bank. There was no singleplane intake available so he made one, same with the headers custom but on the cheep.

Guy has made great points as well! Using a solid combo of parts and proper assembly him engine that made 398 hp back in 94 is still running strong as ever. Great street car and a little power adder at the track with great results. PS, Guy.... I'd LOVE to see what would happen if you had an X factor with direct port nitrous injection for a 25 shot to each cyl and a custom ground cam for your combo.

 

I would be a top notch 350 guy willing to pony up $$$ but I don't even have my own house yet.:rant:

 

Thanks for the comment. I really want to rebuild the engine, and your right, it just keeps running and running. I would like to get the Herch rods also. I would have liked to have ran the X-Factor intake and I know you wanted to send it to me last year to test and I would have loved to test it out and with some nitrous also. But just like last year I got laid off from my job and it is going to hurt a little this time. I don't think that I am going to make as much money as before. I have a friend that has a dyno shop and I would have taken it there first to get it tuned in, with and without nitrous then it would have been off to the track.

What type of custom cam would you have suggested for me. I am thinking of going with a solid lift cam but with Mike making some rollercams that might be a good idea. I also am tossing the idea of using the Twin Turbo set up (help the Mark Burton project) or maybe a Procharger set up. I have seen both in action on 302 Mustangs. My brother uses the Procharger set up and has made 650 rearwheel HP. Another Mustang friend I have has the Turbo set up on his and I think he made over 700 rw hp on his and he had just broke into the 9s this year and my brother went about 10.60s. So which way do you go NA or Procharger or go with Twin Turbo. By the way my heads were ported by some one that TA had. I sent my heads to him back in 93 and the flow was 235 intake and 176 on the ex. Not as much as some of the others I have seen. I also think that you are right in saying TA won't have Alum. heads ready for 5 years. Too much economy crap going on and TA has to recoup money from the 455 block project. I wonder how much that block is going to be. I bet that it will kick some serious butt also.

 

I hope no one is thinking my X-Factor intake is going to remain unused. Pending my heads coming back, I hope to have all the goodies back on this winter.:TU: Along with dyno time, and track time with cool air! :grin:

 

i dont post here very often, but.....between this thread and the poston.....

our motor is .030, 9.2 comp, balanced, t/a intake & heads by burek, t/a .518(?)lift cam, dual point dist(hate hei). basically old world tech. didnt even degree the cam in. just plain and simple.
it has gone 5yrs of beating. big internal water leaks, overheating to 280* and the only thing we changed is the rod bearings after a 10,000 rpm spin into the wall. this motor has gone thru hell.
you know what, its stills pulls/turns to 7500 rpm with no trouble. 6500rpm is a cake walk. you guys worry too much about it. take care of building it right and it will make you happy everyday.

side note; the 350 will perform like crazy with a single plane intake, cam of your choice, ported heads AND 2'' headers.

power adders, well, i am building a 6-71 s/charger intake just for heck of it(street). also going to 390 cubes(strip).

enough said :Smarty:

 

i love this guy, always building intakes too bad i'm rarely on bpg
supercharger intake would be killer:TU:

 

You did not include. Have a nice 350 already and now building BBB.:beer

 

Tough question.
-- remember, some folks have gotten these stock heads to flow better than off the shelf sbc Al heads. That's awesome if you think about it. How much better would al sbb heads be?

I'd argue using keeping a sbb vs a bbb because of the TH350 Torque is torque, just the 100 extra cubic inches starts you off with more :laugh: We're talking killer sbb's parts to be put on good to wild combos that should push the torque up to and over the 455 numbers.

This said, I had considered a swap and stayed 350. I'm glad I did. It does very well and has my friend with his slightly bumped up pontiac 400 in a 4spd lemans trying to figure out why he isn't blowing my socks off. I wouldn't trade it for anything (except maybe a GM performance crate ls6... yea I said it, but it would be tough).

 

HOW, pray tell?

 

my math error. its 382 cid.

 

I want the Xfactor n turbo kitt too but am paying off my new trans right now and just put the TA intake on this summer.

If I could just get a CC with a limit high enough to drop $6-10,000 into my 350 id do it in a sec over a 455.

If gas keeps tankin, it should happen sooner.

 

Yes! 2nd Choice is Leading!!!:TU:

 

I would be building a 350 except for two things, Alloy heads and headers. I'm upgrading from a 215 and running a very trick set of equal length (32" +_ 1/16") fenderwell headers that dump at the fender stubs where the exhaust is then routed inside custom ventilated rocker panels and exits just in front of the rear wheels. When I built these headers about 25 years ago they cost me $750 and 80 hours of intense build time and I'm not about to jump in and build another set just so I can go from a built 350 cubic inch 340 to a 350.

For a basically stock MGB (which mine is not) a specialized set of under-the-car shorty fenderwell headers would be all that's needed to install the 350, nowhere near as daunting a task. But then there's the weight. The 340 adds roughly 50 lbs to the front end weight of the car over stock. The 350, with it's iron heads would add another 60 to 80 plus whatever they added to the block. That may not sound like much, but it's weight I don't have to add. On a 2400 lb car an extra hundred on the front end can be significant.

You might claim the 350 has a power advantage over the 340 due to better port design. But with a blower sitting on top, who cares? I can use the most restrictive ports around and still blast the air through there hard enough to blow the whole works sky high. You might say the 350 block is stronger and it probably is. But as long as I can get 400 hp that doesn't matter to me in the least. That's 6 lbs/hp and for a 3500 lb car that'd be pushing 600. For the type of driving I do that's more than enough, it's serious overkill.

I'm one of the old-timers in the British V8 community, pushing 30 years in the sport, and was one of the first in the US to go with Buick power, back in the days when Kenne-Bell was still around. Now there are thousands of cars out there running Buick power and growing strong. These days when an owner looks at V8 power, BOP 215/Rover is still the strong first choice but the 60 degree Chevy V6 and the Ford 302 are closing the gap. To use the Ford you have to deeply cut and modify the front frame crossmember but that isn't stopping them. Why? Because you can get more power out of the Ford for less money. The larger displacement Rovers are becoming popular, and there have been an increasing number of 300's but only one 340 (mine). The smart money is on the Fords. Why? Because nobody knows what you can do with the small block Buicks. And the two most recently completed Ultra high profile cars have both been Ford Powered. We're talking $100,000.00 cars here.

I am one of the extremely few British V8 enthusiasts who visit this site and undoubtedly the most visible. Yet when I call TA and talk to Mike he doesn't have a clue who he's talking to. I can't blame him for it, no doubt he fields many calls a day. But when we discuss such cutting edge projects as the Big Block Buick MGB-Roadmaster Project and a Blown, Injected Intercooled 340 with custom rods, pistons, and aluminum heads in a lightweight chassis you would think that with a performance guy some of that would stick. Apparently not.

It doesn't matter, I'm not ever going to be a large volume buyer from his company simply because I'm never going to do large volume work. But I do have a strong voice in the British V8 community. I can make recommendations. And they are all watching very closely to see the results of the 340 Roadster and the 455 GT. Success there will attract imitation. The beauty of it is that Mike has decided that the Rover head is an easy entrance into a lucrative market. It certainly is. Wildcat heads are unbelievably expensive, yet they keep on selling them. And with only an 82 lb weight penalty between the 215 and the 340, bolting the new TA heads when they come out onto a 340 block is certainly a no brainer. Mike may think the intake would be a problem, but it's not that hard to make up intake spacers and if you add injector ports to them at the same time you've just given the guys yet another reason to do it. If they're willing to cut and weld the crossmember to get comparable weight and less power what's to stop them? Everything else already fits.

As for the 350 heads, well I have no doubt we'll see those at some point due to Mike Jr., but when the Rover style heads could be such an easy fit on the 350 I for one think it makes an excellent half-step. On the heads themselves all that is needed is to elongate the center 4 pushrod guide holes a bit. But, since those are located the way they are to give clearance for port routing I don't think we'll see that as it might make for narrower ports. So you 350 guys will just have to wait. If it was me though, I'd be tempted to try it and weld up a slight bulge in the runner if I had to. But for you guys the weight is not as much of a critical issue and the port flow is. We're just in different markets. Still, I hope you get the 350 head sooner and not later. That would mean all we need is a set of headers and we're good to go. With as many shops as we have now making custom headers it wouldn't take long for that one to happen, and then we have an excellent light weight and readily available 350 cubic inch contender to go toe-to-toe with the Ford 302. I think it'll be no contest.

Jim

 

Headers should be easy for most Buick cars that share the same similar body style and under body platform with a chevy.

Just cut off the chevy flanges and weld on 350 buick ones.

Just a theory though.

 

Yep, easy. Just like all the other 350 parts right?

 

I have heard too much about the Bulldog mess to throw my money toward POTENTIAL parts. If T/A makes the heads, I will buy them.
Johnny is right, make the air flow, and the power is there.

 

That said are you willing to purchase aluminum heads, single plain intakes and other items for the 350 or would you just build a 455? Intake for sure. Heads would depend on price. If I spend too much on my car the WF comes into effect.

Would you be willing to help a vendor out by escrowing money so they are sure sales will be there when the parts are ready? Yes, if Tim and the guys told me where to put the money I would do so. They even told me of a potential problem with a timing kit I ordered today. And how to fix it.

Are you willing to commit to a product that could take 18 months to get? No worries, That would give me the time to hide the rest of the funds from the WF.

Are you just running a 350 because its fine and you don't care to go faster? Speed is not my drug of choice it's my Anti-drug.

(WF = Wife Factor) Any guy who does not have to contend with this is one of 3 things, Rich, Single, or Gay lmao j/k :Brow:

 

I guess its tough for a lot of you not knowing us personally or how we feel about doing these projects and I completely understand not wanting to send money to help fund projects because of the bulldog incident and others, but I would hope our reputation and the fact that we've been around for 25 years and are still going strong and are ever expanding would give you enough confidence to help with such projects. Its not like we're a private person for a lack of better terms who can take your deposit for a project and then just disappear, we're an established reputable business and obviously would want to upkeep and build upon that, like credit, and thus have much more at stake. We've always been for the people and by the people so to say, we do what we can for you, the Buick community, by producing the products you would like to have for the sake of the parts being available and making everyone happy that its available, not for our own profit. Example, Poston came out with their S-Divider intake ages ago, and the design is the same to this day, they wouldnt bother to fix the problems associated with their own product because a) it would cost money, and b) they were selling so why bother? We continue to perfect and refine our products to provide you, the customers, with the best product possible. If we take a deposit from you rest assured if you ever want your money back, it'll be refunded right away, and if something were to ever happen, the people with deposits would be taken care of first. We take the business seriously and have everyone's best interest in mind and if it came down to it, we'd provide refunds from our own pockets if that's what it required. We passionately believe that it is wrong to take people's money if you cant guarantee that it can be refunded, and are still upset at what happened with the bulldog block and how it affected the Buick community. I don't want to get testy, but who came through in the end, Bulldog or TA? Dad didn't require deposits to get the project moving, he just simply and politely asked. However many people decided to not support us and to go with the other guy and unfortunately were harmed in the end.

I know its kind of off topic, but it pains me every time I read where someone bought parts for their car somewhere else besides us, or even worse call us up, waste our time on the phone asking their questions about what they need only to then go and buy the stuff someplace else because they can get it all for a few bucks cheaper. But guess where that money is going? Its not helping fund future projects to make more parts available for the cars we love, its going into some guy's pocket who's using it to for his own personal use. I think its great that there's guys like Mark and other's who are contributing to the aftermarket along side us and a couple do it yourself custom guys on the board who are 350 enthusiasts, I just ask that we all stand by each other instead of across from each other and support one another to keep our hobby going because without mutual support how will we continue to keep standing? We're here for you if your here for us because without your support we wouldn't be able to continue doing the things we do.

I hope I don't offend anyone, just trying to have an open conversation. It's tough for me to come out and talk to the community on some matters because on one side I'm just a guy no different than you who has feelings and opinions, but I have to walk a fine line with what I say because on the other side I'm representing the business so you know how that goes haha I try to and prefer to keep everything as informal as if I wasn't at times . I would love to say we can do all these projects right away but the truth is that we cant, it has to come in stages and those stages have to be prioritized by cost vs profitability, you dont want to throw money into a project that wont yield as good of results as another project may. The 455 block did step a little out of that line we will admit, but as the years go on its not like we're gaining more enthusiasts by the droves. Dad looked at it as the longer we wait the less of a market the block would apply to, and that block has been a life long ambition of his to do, the final accomplishment to leave his name on this world. Its also unfortunate that the economy is down because that only makes matters worse. So until things pickup its hard to say we'll see a lot of bigger projects after the Rover head, the next thing will be a Rover intake because you cant make heads without there being an intake for it. What I can tell you is to be on the lookout for a few smaller projects. I dont know if I'm allowed to say haha but we're working on possibly reproducing the non-AC alternator bracket being its getting really hard to find them. I've also been playing with the idea of throwing up a new thread for everyone to submit suggestions for projects of a smaller (aka less expensive) scale like the alternator bracket that they would like to see. I don't think I have released it yet but we reproduced the thermostat housings in cast aluminum as an alternative to original used, corroded housings or the iron one's we used to stock (which we no longer do). We've also produced a billet oil pump cover and a billet adapter plate to use 401/425 oil filter housings on a 364 block, both are really nifty imho. As for stuff for the 350, we came out with the hydraulic roller camshafts or you guys first, yeah I know its pricey but you'll be able to get the valves open to your max lift sooner and for more duration. More air = more power along with all of the added benefits of a hydraulic roller. A SP intake will come eventually, we need to take a junk SP1 and play around with it to get it to fit on an engine or somewhat close so we can have a pattern made up, and 350 heads is basically what we just did with the Rover head except putting the extra cylinder on the other side of the head.

But hey all that matters is long live Buicks right? May all the other cars on the road have someone to fear :TU: :3gears: