Oh, I did call but got no help with the parts I needed! I needed a single-plane intake, called you up and no luck. I call Mark Burton he made me one, perfect! I wanted some forged rods and you do not carry them for the 350, I know you could have them made but you did not. So I got in on this Hershe deal and got the best 350 rods available! Forged Pistons, nope do not have any. Diamond came through thanks to Mike at AMP and we even have boost specific additions to the design as well as custom cut valve reliefs for oversized valves. The best pistons for a 350 so far! Head gasket for my 350? No, you did not even had no high performance head gaskets. We had Gaskets to go make us some awesome multilayer head gaskets and now we are happening! And as for the alum heads, I will most likely die for old age before they come out so until then, I am just going to do my best with the Sonny Seal heads I have and lots of boost! I am only asking for a 10 second street car, not a big deal really.
TA and all others associated with making Buick parts in general- I would like to thank you for everything that you have done and continue to do for our tight knit community. I have the upmost respect for what you do, it's hard merging your work with your passion and hobby but you guys have been successfull at it for a very long time now. Having said that- which ever comes first: when my current motor lets go or when I can save up enough cash, I will be putting a BBB under the hood to replace it. The 350 motor is a very capable and rugged engine but in my opinion is not worth the inflated $ associated with making the same HP as 455. I will however be coming to you guys for parts for the 455 motor for what it's worth...
I have had nothing but good luck with TA. That being said, I would not be comfortable "fronting" money for parts that aren't even being produced yet. Not that I don't think TA will be around, but look at Poston. How long was Poston around before poof, gone. I have seen this with many businesses in many different areas. I hope this doesn't happen to TA because I hope to use TA on future projects. I think I am pretty well set with my 350 for now. In a few years I might look to add some power, but for now, I'm happy getting through my first summer on the rebuild. I would love to see some smaller projects for the 350 come about. How about a nice serpentine setup, similar to Billet specialties or March? I like the idea of the alternator bracket as they are getting harder to find and nobody makes them. Something that I think alot of people need to remember is business is business. TA does alot for us Buick guys, as does Burton. You don't see Edelbrock making much of anything for Buicks. The companies will make what they can make money off of. If they figure they can make money with 350 heads, they'll make em. Me personally, I'd love aluminum heads, but don't think I could justify 1500-2000 for a pair of heads for my cruiser. Maybe that will change some day, but for now, it's not in the cards.
Well the intake thing is totally different, if you want to shell out the $XX,XXX amount of money it would take to make a single plane intake we'll gladly make it as soon as we can. Im sure we could have, but that would require dad devoting quite a bit of time from his already youhavenoideahowoverlybusyhealreadyis schedule into making a rod that would barely sell. If we had people constantly asking for a forged rod for the 350 we would have them, but the time and effort that would be required to do such a thing isn't worth the handful of sales it would make, theres just not enough time to do everything. Piston, once again we cant do everything, theres been plenty of things that when it became unavailable dad went way out of his way to find how ot make it available again, because once again he obviously felt that investing such time was not worth the returns he would see. Same thing for head gaskets but even more so, for a couple guys here on the board. And heads? Cant get anywhere without support, there's only so much money you can borrow to do this stuff before having to stop and pay some of it off. The unfortunate thing is, is to do alot of this stuff for a handful of people (please understand this, you guys here on the board are basically it, we cant count of 2 hands how many times we've been asked over the phone for some of this stuff and no we will not buy into the if we make it they will miraculasly show up and buy it thing, too risky) just isnt worth it to my parents when in all honestly, we've got more people calling and asking for some nailhead stuff than 350 stuff. Last I heard we get more calls about a non dual quad nailhead intake than a SP 350 intake, and to them thats what counts, what people are calling and asking for because that shows the really determined people. Because that half as many people isn't enough to make some of these projects viable and worth while. To kinda put it in perspective, Edelbrock sells more Pontiac heads in one year than we have sold in our entire 25 years of business of all heads combined. So when you widdle it down to costs to make a head and how small the sales will be in perspective to everything else, its hard to justify it. What seems like more that enough support to you guys isn't enough when looking at it from the business end and having to pay the bills. If we were to say put the money towards making a new 350 head, but weren't able to sell enough heads to pay enough of the proect off, you would never see a new intake because we wouldnt have the money to do so, it would still be tied up in the heads. So we're trying to do whats best for everyone and bring the parts everyone would like to have to the market that can keep the cycle going, not stop it dead in its tracks. A new intake would be easier to recover from than heads and once paid off and starts showing a profit, that money will be used to making heads, the other way around doesnt quite work as well. The Rover engine has been produced since the '60s up until the '90s and is all over the entire world so they're everywhere and they are enormously popular in Europe and Australia (the race the HECK out of the things), its just a second market we're trying to get into to diversify.
insted of waiting for a part every 30 years from the little people like t/a and poston why not use your valuable time sending letters to people who have the resources and money to make something really happpen like edelbrock.:Smarty:
Hey guys, isn't having an engine that you have to be creative with; ie can't just thro money at it so it will go fast, part of the fun of building up a SBB. It is REAL old fashioned hotrodding. Any fool with a big wallet can build/buy a hi pro Chev or Ford.
He's got a good point, the main reason I like the 350 is that it's kind of like a final fronteer, ever imaginable part isn't available for it so to go fast you have to do it yourself. It gives true talent and creativity a chance to shine through. Also I missed the whole 455 hayday I didnt get to be around at the beginning when heads and intakes and all of the common day stuff for the 455 was just starting to be developed. With the 350 it's fresh and relatively uncharted territory that I can have a chance to be part of, but I understand that may take some time. I'm now in college out of high school, I would have loved to been able to build a hopped up 350 to show off in and still really want to before I'm done with school, but then you lose the thrill of doing and making something unique. Everyone can but aluminum heads and slap em on to make big power, only the select few with the creativity and drive can do so with what is currently available this making it that much more special. The stuff will come, just give it time. Before we came along the 455 guys were having to deal with stock iron heads and the only intakes available were the b4b the coolrunner or stock, they made due back then with what they have and here was a ton more guy doing so then than there are 350 guys now.
I could not possibly care less about Edelbrock and their "resources". I'll pay for TA's R&D and products all day long. I'd rather buy from a small, passionate business with limited resouces than the Edelbrock "where can we make a buck next" jokers. Call me strange, but I'm actually proud to say that people like Mike T. and Greg Gessler are among the people responsible for my engine work. Devon
I've bought just about every 350 perf part from TA that I can at this point, and will continue to do so when/if there's more to come, alum heads included. Granted, not everything is available, but I do buy what makes sense for what I'm planning. I don't think there's enough sbb/bbb business in the world to get much attention from an Edelbrock, etc.
Thanks for the reply on the Rover story. I know you need to do other projects to make extra money on something so popular. I hope that you can get a intake made for us 350 guys. I can't tell you though how much fun it is to beat someone then they ask you if it is a 455...then I tell them NO it's a 350 with no aftermarket parts. I am glad to see that you made roller cams for the 350. If I can get through this schooling and get a new career out of printing I would like to get a roller cam and redo the motor. ALL of my parts came from you guys and I always will when I need something in the future.:beers2:
If you read closely I am not blaming you for not making these parts just explaining why I did not spend $XX,XXX at TA. For only $6000 I bought a Custom SP intake, Custom Forged rods, Custom pistons built and built a engine to handle big boost. So my iron heads have $2000 work of work into them, oh well I want to have a 800 HP small cammed 350 for the street. I am happy now and certainly not begging for any parts. As they say in Canada when you want it done you.... GETRDONE!
TA flat out refused to make me 40 thou copper gaskets even when I tried to pre-pay for 20 pairs! And yes you have the patterns from those gaskets because I have a set here in my hands you made 8 years ago. I had O-ringed blocks for these gaskets, and the set I had was damaged so needed these.... I was forced to have gaskets made elsewhere so do not wonder why you did not get my $.
Who did you talk to? I asked dad and he said he cant recall anyone talking to him about copper head gaskets for a 350, and that if someone would have wanted 20 pairs he said, "Hell yeah I would have made them if someone wanted to order that many, if it was 1 or 2 probably not it wouldn't be worth my time but 20 is a lot, yeah I would have done that". We have close to 0 people ask for copper head gaskets, we still have some for the 455 that we ran years ago and if someone asked for 20 pairs for a 350 I'm sure he woulda remembered, so I'm presuming you talked to one of the employee's who took it into their liberty to say no after being told we aren't carrying copper head gaskets anymore without bothering to ask dad if we would consider to make em if we could sell that many.
I do not remember his name but I do remember the conversation clearly, I was told "no we will not make copper gaskets even if you want a large batch". I also remember speaking with your dad about having Cometic make a batch of 350 head gaskets using the files that TA has on the computer. Mike said he would see what he could do and get back to me but never did hear back from him. Although like I said, I am happy because we had Gaskets-To-Go make us GREAT multilayer gaskets.... They made thousands off the group deal that TA had first shot at.
As a owner of both a SP intake and MLS head gaskets, I couldn't be happier. If TA had the parts I would have bought them there, but since I successfully obtained these things the old fashioned way, my wallet is officially closed. The whole fiasco with the TA head gaskets is flat out bull crap. In my opinion, there is no way you can justify that. I guess it's time to reel in all those customer service reps that think they are in charge.
Thats on top of the 9537249584630902 other things he has to do and things that other people have asked him to look into, sometimes it takes a follow up call or two as a reminder. Its :dollar: cost for the cams versus :dollar::dollar::dollar: for an intake or :dollar::dollar::dollar::dollar: for a head, cams didn't cost nearly as much to do.
jr, we can do the iron head ported, hydraulic or roller cams is not an issue, getting the third leg is essential in making h/p for the 350 and that would be a s/p intake. right and left coast has proved the benefits. if you want, mark and i will be glad to send you our intakes. do you have a best guestimate of what it would cost for the s/p?
i'm willing for the aluminum heads already got myself an s/p intake i still want someone to make a a reversed valued gs-114 flat tappet on a ls1 fireorder :-D and a girdle
