I bought a set of drop springs for my non-Buick related money pi-er-project, and I've gotten some interesting results. Hours of research and the wisdom of having ever seen how a 2wd chevy pickup sits stock, I decided that a 2" front/4" rear drop would bring it just close to level, and not be so low I scrape the dirt off it with every speed bump. Well, it looks like I actually got some 1/5 drop springs, which begs the question: if they both add up to 6, does that mean these puppies were, in a way, "as advertised?" Just gave me a chuckle, nothing I can't fix. It's what all the truck people are after these days anyways, right?
I dropped the Buchev 1 inch in the rear. The idea was to put a hair more weight on the rear wheels. With Nailhead torque it was a little too easy to "light 'em up", It did help.
I bet the nailhead added some weight to the front, too. Mine may be nose up right now because of the six, I'm sure they plan for 99% of end users to have v8's. When the 350 and saginaw 4 speed go play relief for the tired 250 and sm465 it might come down some.
Au contraire, my friend - the Nailhead lightened the front end. The pickup was originally a Diesel, getting rid of the 6.2 liter 130 hp V8 with it's injection pump and all sorts of other Diesel-related paraphernalia actually lightened the front end by over 100 lbs (I had the truck weighed before and after the swap, and I know where the weight slips are, but it's a huge paper file and I'm too lazy to look for them). Picking up 210 hp, losing more then 100 lbs, and gaining 169 ft/lbs of torque isn't bad, and engine accessibility is better then when the truck was stock. I've done several engine swaps; this is the one that I'm proudest of (although the one where I put a 264 Nailhead into a 6-cylinder '56 Chevy is a very close second). I was thinking about it, and I have only done one swap where I didn't install a 'Nail.
Oh I see, I was assuming sbc. I've driven a 6.2 before. It was impressive. Not in a good way. It did sound more gas v8-ish than the newer turbo diesel hd pickups do, I guess that's a positive. How many can say they swapped a diesel for a gas and GAINED torque? Buick. Nice.
I actually liked the 6.2, but like most non-boosted Diesels it just didn't make any power. With a truck that weighs 4,800 lbs ya gotta have more power then the 6.2 makes. If I ever got to the stage in life where I had a pile of money to dispose of, I'd like to swap one into something that weighed about 3,000 pounds total. Perhaps I'd finish someone else's hot rod project with one. BTW: I know that I wrote 5.2 liter in my post, and I have corrected it. Edit: I must be getting fuzzy in my old age, I previously said that the truck weighed 4,800 lbs. It didn't. On 5-15-09 with the Diesel it weighed 4,460, on 6-25-10 with the Buick it weighed 4,300. This was on a scale guaranteed to be within five pounds. Gaining the HP that we did and losing 160 lbs in the process is a huge win!
I haven't heard of them being problematic, just slow. They seem better than the 5.7 olds based ones, but I have limited experience with diesels. If I didn't have another goal in mind for this truck, I'd be putting a 455 in it. Maybe that's my excuse for grabbing a short bed
I totally agree. The 6.2 had 157,451 miles on it when I bought it, and the engine ran beautifully. I think that I yanked it at around 164,000 miles and it still ran perfectly. The 6.2 was designed to be a Diesel, the 5.7 wasn't. There was no excuse for the 5.7 Diesel. GM has been building Diesels since the '30s and they do know how to design and build them. I wish that I had kept the 6.2, but I would now have stored it for more then 10 years. I have more junk (good stuff) then I know what to do with.
I understand that. I have more engines than vehicles as it is, but there's a 305 GMC v6 on marketplace for $150 near me and I keep looking at it. Got no use for it right now but I think they're neat engines
I would never swap an SBC into anything. I have nothing against the engine, but I can't be bothered doing a project that has already been done by just about everyone who owns a set of wrenches. Having said that, I was involved but simply provided coolie labor, in a swap of a 283 Chevy into a 1963 Jeep pickup that had wiped out two sets of bearings in it's Continental flathead six in 8,000 miles. The Jeep's owner loved the truck but hated the engine. The truck was one year old at the time of the swap and other than it being a major PITA to access the distributor (We cut a hole in the firewall and made a very close-fitting door to get at it for service), the SBC was the engine that should have been there in the first place. This Jeep had twin positraction, a wrecker hook, and was set up for a plow. In New England snow it was just about unstoppable.
