I found a neat car for sale, a '70 4 door buick lesabre with 80K miles and mint interior. I am a mustang guy, and dont know anything at all about this buick 4bbl 350. I talked with a few of my friends and they said it doesnt offer much performance value, there arent many parts for it, and that swapping to say a chevrolet small block may be hard.. anyone offer any info?
a) swapping to a chevy smallblock wouldn't take all that much work. b) DON'T SWAP TO A CHEVY SMALLBLOCK! your engine would be making a little under 300 bhp and and little under 400ftlbs, assuming it's a low-compression 350. i couldn't tell you the exact compression...i'm always hearing different numbers. i think the low-compression is at 8.5 or 9 to 1, while the high comp is around 10. you cam get aluminum intakes, camshafts and all other valve train parts, headers, pistons...just about any performance upgrade you might have in mind. NO, they will not be as cheap as as a chevy or ford. but they are around. what you won't find: aluminum heads. supposedly in production, but not yet available. anything else short of more 'exotic' stuff (stroker kits, blowers, efi, ect) is available. check out taperformance.com, as they are the biggest buick performance company around.
thanks ill check there for some parts to give me an idea. Whats the fastest anyone has managed to run with this engine? It does have some impressive stock numbers. Also the guy wants 2K for the car.. anything i should know about the cars themselves? any reliability issues with the engine? transmission??
The LeSabre is considered a luxury land yacht, smooth and comfortable. It is quite popular for what it is, but it usually not the first choice of Buick performance enthusiasts, who prefer the Gran Sports and Rivieras. When you talk with LeSabre owners at car shows, speed is never mentioned. If you are looking for performance, this might not be the car for you....
I had a '70 Lesabre convertible and a 4-door parts car with a 455. I sold both to my brother. It was kinda funny though, I blew my brother away in his 2001 V-6 mustang with that car.LOL! Btw, any car will go fast. it just depends on the amount of money is thrown at it. Put a healthy 455 in it and make a sleeper! Rob
FYI.. for $2k you can usually find a 70-72 Electra 225 already with a 455 and usually in pretty good condition. You get all the luxury of teh LeSabre and then some but with the added power of the 455. Heck, I just helped someone sell a decent 70 Electra for $900 ! That particular year 455 was rated at 370 hp and 510 ft / lbs of torque!! Now, the 350 Buick is not a weak little engine either. The design makes it probably one of the strongest "small blocks" out there. It is basically a design of an aluminum engine (read: much re-inforcing, extra ribbing, etc) but made out of a high nickle iron. It is VERY strong yet the lightest 350" of all the makes. I've heard of people running 11's with these engines. Its not too hard to make one run 13's in a lighter car (GS/ Skylark). The LeSabre is heavy so you lose a lot of performance right there. The 70 Le Sabre might have the high compression 350 last offered in '70 as optional on skylarks and standard on GS cars. 315 hp and 410 ft lbs of torque. The lower compression (9:1) still came in at 285 horse and 375 torque (which was the same rating as the previous years ('68 and '69) 350-4's which were all high compression. The factory heads are really good, they are basically scaled down versions of the 400/430/455 heads.. Plenty of room for porting and they respond well to it, btw, if you didn't know, head porting is the secret to horsepower, on any engine. Granted, the variety of aftermarket parts is slim, the ones out there are very high quality so even though you may spend more, you get more. HTH Dan
In a bigger car like that I'd defiantly swap in a 455... no question about it... Unless this is just gonna be a cruiser and you just looking to get some more pep out of it.
72lark, you are pretty much on par.. after reading into this car a little more i was thinking about just making a neat cruiser out of it.. its this god aweful olive green color with a green interior. There is no way it would be a real quick car without BB power. i was just looking at giving it a little more pep, and seeing if there were any major issues with this car/ engine/ transmission. I keep getting turned away by performance enthousiasts, but i still cant get this car out of my mind for some reason. The interior is mint and the engine fired right up.. only 80K on the ticker. Id love to have an old boat like that to motor around in. Is 2K a bad price for this? should i hold out and find something better for that price? how much work will i probably have to put into the engine since its been sitting for a little while?
"Id love to have an old boat like that to motor around in." If that's your criteria, then: If the engine is already running, depending on how it sounds and smokes, you might not have to do anything beyond routine maintenance. If you can buy a great looking, comfortable, good running car for 2K - then get over there with your money now!
I bought my 76 lesabre about a year ago, and I've never had one problem. Great car! the 350 block also puts out hella torque.
Thanks for the info everyone... Hopefully ill be joining the v8 buick owning ranks soon! glad to hear someone with a no complaints lesabre Anyone else out there own a similar car? any complaints? issues?
Also.. This buick 350 is unique to its own, is it not? does it have anything in common with the olds or pontiac 350 of the same era?!
Great car I've owned my '69 Lesabre with the 10.5:1 comp. 350 for 6 years now. It is very low mileage 35K. I've had no problems to speak of. It's a great ride! The factory A/C still works great! Mine has 4 wheel power drums and stops very rapidly. I added a TA alum intake, a pertronix solid state ignition, and a custom full dual exhaust this past summer and that helped immensly. I haven't even done any serious tuning yet! I'm still planning on a distributor recurve kit, and I need to tune the carb...think I'm a little lean with the new intake. Granted it's not a ultra high performance car it'll still get up and go. It'll do better on the highway than running from light to light. I once raced a '81 Vette from 45 mph. I had him by 2 car lenghths until I hit 105, he started gaining then so I decided to tap the brakes to let him know I was quitting before he blew past me.(this happened while the car was completely stock, points ign and all)These are cars that were definately built to last. I'm certain you'll enjoy it. If you decide to get it, you might find yourself liking the old 70's green color. You'll definately stand out in the crowd with a great cruiser like that.
The LeSabre is a cool sled. It'll never be a drag car. but it makes a heck of highway ride. I don't own one, but I'm familar with Matt Gartman's (furious_goat, damn pontiac fan:moonu: ), and it's a super sweet ride. Really get's up and goes from a rolling start, since the addition of the intake and exhaust. Sure feels like it would blow the doors off my stock 68 riv (this explains why the entire drivetrain has now been removed from my Riv) If it's in great condition, two grand isn't to bad for it. What ever you do, don't swap in a chevy motor . Brett Schmahl
Thanks for the compliments, Brett:beer I'd be certain not to do any cross corperation engine swapping myself. I'm sure it would work just fine, but you lose an identity with the car... the power, the sounds, the reliability. I'll wait till Brett gets his Riv done before I do anything more serious, performancewise, with the Lesabre.:grin: :moonu:
you guys have def. talked me out of swapping corporate engines. maybe if i do get it ill go bigblock buick someday :blast: im sure that 350 would get me around just fine for a while. I also like the car color, since its so remeniscent of that era! Im working out finances now, hope to have it soon!
We have a Buick Apollo that we run in NHRA and IHRA Stock eliminator. It has the 350 in it with stock cast intake, stock heads and valve size. Our cam also has stock lift .392/.408. With a good trans and convertor along with 4.56 rear gears, we have run a best of 11.67 @ 112 with our 3500# vehicle. Many of our parts came from TA Performance. If you are anywhere near, our engine work was done at B&B Automotive Machine in Lynbrook, NY (Long Island) Yes, those Buick 350's can be made to run. Good Luck
If you worried about the Buicks 350s reliablity...my 72 Skylark has almost 230k miles now all orignal...along with the rest of the drive line..It really doesnt smoke that bad...Goes through a quart of oil every other week and only runs about 5psi of oil pressure at idle.. And ive given this motor HELL...Being im going to either swap a 455..or rebuild it eventually anyways. Had it 6months now, and it starts every morning. Now i dont know how it compares to a Pontiac 350...but i can tell you, my friend got a stock 76 Formula 400 Firebird, Beat him by a car length...keeping in consideration I KNOW my motor isnt running 100%, and its pretty close. Ive have way more torque too.
Issac, That's impressive for sure. Can you give me more specific details on the combo? I also emailed you. Thanks.
