I have a fella trying to sell me a unicorn in my eyes. He tells me that he owns a set of 1970 cast iron stg 3 heads that where developed by Crane for Buick's racing department in 1970. Haven't seen them nor have I got a casting number from them. I think he's thinking of Pontiac series 3 heads. My question is,are they real or no such thing exists?
Yeah I definitely want to look at these things to at least find out what they are or could be. I just don't understand why they would have crane stamped on them.
Maybe he has Crane stamped on his forehead and its reflecting onto the heads. Let me know when ya look at em Id like to see them too.
IIRC I have seen crane stamped on chebbie bowtie heads an older friend on mine had on his stock car. I'll check into it more tomorrow. Here's the low down...The pair of heads I saw were not bow-ties. They were the 461 camel hump heads that had the humps ground off, the rocker arm studs were drilled and pinned and they were ported. They were stamped Crane on the inside where the rocker arms were and covered by the valve cover when installed. I have NO proof to my claims due to the fact they were lost in a garage fire. But the old fella that I talked to that owned them said that Crane used to do all kinds of work like that back in the day. It would be cool if somebody could post some pics of a pair of heads or anything else that they might have worked on. Rob
The only Crane heads for SBC that I'm aware of were the old "Fireball" (Crane's name, not mine or Chevy's) heads. Those were nothing more than a Crane-provided port job on Chevy's best pre-Bowtie head, the so-called "Turbo" casting. The Turbo casting was based on production molds, but somewhat modified by GM/Chevy for best potential. A couple of years later, GM/Chevy released the first of the Bowtie series of heads based on entirely new casting cores and molds, and it was all over for the "Turbo" head.
Still waiting to get my hands on them to see just what they are. They still claim they're NOS cast iron stg3 1970 Buick heads complete made by Crane that have never been run. We shall see.
While I was at KB we had a factory set of what we called Stage 3 heads, (not ported Stage 1') the intake was twice as big as a Stage 1 intake port and had a pushrod tube that went thru the port. My brother got them from KB and then either returned them since he didn't use them. In any event these were sold off. There were only a few sets of these that I knew about. They are only worth looking at and not worth putting on a real race engine compared to the heads we have now and heads we will shortly have. If I had a shot at them I would only use them for display but my wife said I could not put them on the kitchen counter or kitchen table so I guess I'm out!
Interesting! Take a look at http://www.v8buick.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=84414&d=1165762126 Page 6, post 136...http://www.v8buick.com/showthread.php?88540-Factory-Stage-2-heads
Yep! That be them!!!!! There was another intake that was very tall. It was a box with long tubes on it also a weber set up for the same with cast iron elbows. I think some of this was displayed on the cover of Hot Rod magazine. maybe May of 1970. I have a photo copy somewhere. None of it was very practical. That is why Jim Bell ended up with it, we never used it but I did look at it every once in a while in storage. I'm not sure anyone really has a use but display. Our new heads will not have a pushrod tube in the middle of the port.
Here's one of the experimental intakes: http://i48.photobucket.com/albums/f221/gsgns4me/May 1970 Hot Rod article/hr_5-70_1.jpg based on a Weber intake. Here's another: http://www.v8buick.com/showthread.php?110558 Devon
Mike, This is very interesting. A friend of a friend told me he knew of a guy out in the Euclid, OH area that had a set of Stg3 heads. I didn't inquire any further because I just assumed they were the KB's. Let us know what you find out!
I have a copy of that issue. The intake is exactly like you describe it. IIRC, the intake was yellow in color (too lazy to dig out the magazine right now).
I don't remember if that shot is inside the magazine. I know the cover is in full color, but, yeah, that's it.
Over the years I have been able to visit with several Buick engineers who worked in the engine development area back in the day. They were able to relay some very interesting stories of projects that they worked on and that were developed for testing on the BBB. They stated that the tunnel port heads mentioned by Ken were in fact Stage 2 tunnel port heads. KB gave them the Stage 3 name just to be able to differentiate them from the Stage 2's. One individual that I visited with mentioned that YES there was a Stage 3 project that involved cylinder heads. He stated that the Stage 2 intake port was put together with a special exhaust port to come up with the Stage 3 cylinder head and that cast iron exhaust manifolds were cast for testing the heads. These heads were indeed tested but never put into production. If there is another set of these heads floating around out there they are easy to ID but may not be usable without the exhaust manifolds. I was able to obtain some pictures that I have attached.
