WOW!!! Let me bow done in front of you!!!!!!! A lot of assumption here. I never once put myself in the same league as Joe, ever. Please show us where I did that. Making a weekly show has to be difficult, I know how much we did on mine, a weekly series has to be 10 times harder. But we did it with a crew of 3, they have a crew of many more I'm sure. But even with those "professionals" you have editing and producing the show, how is it there are mistakes virtually every week?
I don't know man I'm not in the editing process and we have a crew of 3 as well. Did you have a bad encounter with the Galleys? I feel that your frustration isn't with me but so much with them. what is the name of the Machine Shop you own or work at? Your background says sales>
It always amazes me how people on forums feel it necessary or even acceptable to keyboard bash one another. I would bet that this discussion would have gone an entirely different way if it where face to face. The guy who posted earlier "justa350" is the one you should contact about bolt on parts to make an easy 500hp he is the one that produces a turbo kit for these little brothers. I personally think you could have added 105 cubes and 12 psi for good measure. Mark("justa350") also makes a turbo kit for the big brother. It was nice to see Buick on Horsepower this weekend. I like how they compared the build to the anemic low compression 455's. Keep up the good work, and give Mark a call for some serious street hp/trq numbers!
All this back and forth and you all have to agree....We build our buick motors because we LIKE BUICK's. Given that, you would be hard pressed to build a chevy or ford motor with the SAME parts and make the same hp/tq #'s. They have alot of aftermarket parts out there because thier engines are a dime a dozen and everyone has one. You take the same buick man and has to MAKE the power with what he knows not what he can buy. I can drive down the road and lose afew. BUT I will tell you I win alot more than I lose. GO BUICK !
John, I think what you're doing is great, and the way you're going about it seems pretty darned good too. While I think your results are just fine I also think shooting for more will give a more even perception compared to more common builds. But I'm one of those guys who tries things you don't commonly see like 7" rods in an aluminum headed 340 Buick with a blower: http://forum.britishv8.org/read.php?2,274,page=18 I have my reasons, but what I'm saying is that I think a little bit outside of the box. So I have a little different idea of what I'd like to see in a 350 Buick build. I'd like to see you put a set of CNC ported TA Rover style aluminum heads on it. It'd require a custom grind on the cam which should not be any big deal, and it would require an intake which could be an iron intake from a 340, a Willpower 300 Buick single plane with spacer plates, or get Mark Burton to build you one. Or use an IR intake with Webbers or injector bodies but that's getting real pricey so the 340 iron intake probably makes the most economical sense whereas the Willpower should make decent power. We've hashed out this build over the last few years while waiting on the TA heads and the only objections we've seen that have any substance relate to the intake choices. Sanderson 300/340 headers will work fine, the worst pushrod angle is only a couple of degrees, and about all that leaves is the objection that the heads are off a different engine. But they aren't. They're brand new heads and produced for the SBB/Rover market, so why not use them? Certainly it's nowhere near as strange as putting Ardun heads on a FHF. JB
Dude, just let it go. WTF? Car Craft and other mags make mistakes every issue too. Big deal. Why not focus on the good points, like a BUICK 350 ON TV!?
Well to be totally accurate, units need to be included so it should read "...It should be 295/313 **degrees** at .050,..."
Was the engine dyno'd on an engine dyno, or was it in the car on a chassis dyno? I haven't gotten to see the episode yet.
As far as I'm concerned any press is good press. Overall I thought it was a nice build that anybody could have done for their 350 powered car and many have. Anybody who thinks their stock '70 GS350 engine is putting 315 HP out, well, I have a bridge to sell. JW already posted elsewhere that the Buick 455 factory numbers were fudged for PR numbers by doing his own testing plus info from the factory guys that were there like Dennis Manner, I believe. I'm sure the 350's suffered from the same optimism. I could care less what non-Buick "power" people think. Who cares if this show converts somebody to the Buick faithful? As far as I'm concerned when my "real Buick" powered car(although not a 350) kicks some Brand X powered car it makes it even better because they think I have a slug under the hood and can't figure out how it could do it. I'm sure there are some 350 Buick fans out there that have the same feeling. Back to the build. About the only thing I could find fault with, which I mentioned in an earlier post, is the cam selection. I can't believe anybody recommended it for such a mild build. If it truely is the largest Thumpr (243I/257E@.050") just as it is making power the rest of the engine is starting to stall. Comp claims power out to 6400 and no way it is going there. IIRC on the show when running the dyno somebody mentions how it seems to be coming on at 3000 rpm which leads me to believe that was the cam used. I should have taken a screen shot of the dyno graph but I think the torque peak was out near 4000 rpm which for a mild 350 would be very high(4000 stall converter anybody?). Can anybody get a screen shot of that graph?(One thing all the car shows miss out on is when mentioning TQ/HP they never mention at what RPM which tells alot and the curve is only on the screen for a few seconds.) I'm wondering what kind of vacuum it produced at 800 rpm. That would tell alot. This is one of those circumstances where somebody got what I call the "small block Chevy syndrome". If you want to make better power just keep putting a bigger cam in it and rev it up. Unfortunately without a single plane intake, as mentioned before, that would be tough with the SBB. John, I have a simple idea for a show segment. If my thinking is correct and the cam is too big you can try swapping out the 2 smaller Thumpr cams in to see what happens. I'd bet the smallest(227/241) makes the best overall power picking up both TQ and HP compared to the biggest, especially if you go by average over a "real street" rpm band. Overall it could be a "bigger isn't necessarily better" segment. All you'd need is some Comp cams and lifters and some gaskets. You already have the engine. Heck, I'd even try to wrangle a 268H which might be suprising. If nothing else a 1" open spacer under the carb would help perk up the higher rpm power. 2" maybe? I'm going to assume the distributer was recurved with full advance by 2500 or so. Those springs looked heavy. I don't know how much AMP milled the deck and heads but even though those pistons are listed as 10:1 unless the deck and head was cc'd after cutting Im pretty sure it would be something less than that, especially with the later heads and Buicks usual optimistic compression ratio specifications. This is just an FYI but the better earlier heads in 1970 and 1971 came with the pushrod oiling. 1969 and earlier used the oiling through the head passages. With the intake port cleanup done I'm sure there wouldn't have been much improvement there. Like I said earlier I'm happy to see the Buick get any kind of exposure. Thanks.
Hey I got a rust free Sportwagon that could use that engine. You should put it in there and dyno it. matter of fact you can leave it in there for real time testing. Maybe a EFI later on. I think 309HP is fine. Why no mention of the cap screw rods Early 350's are not too hard to find. That said it was nice to see AMP and TA get some air time.
Mike("No Lift") I agree with you. I have never been involved in a dyno session, but I am the track operator of a small 1/8 mile track. And I have seen many low RPM street projects come to me and say "I put a huge cam in this weekend and it should gain 4 tenths" And yes it changed by 4 tenths only the wrong way it always goes slower. Not to say a bigger than stock cam is bad, I just don't understand why people buy cams that are so big that they require a converter that is almost as high as the shift point. I have seen guys put cams in that don't even start making power until 4000 RPM and they always want to shift it at 5000RPMou:
The way I see it, you are never going to convert someone to a different car brand / engine when they are already in "Insert Car Brand" here type of guy. Cars are like a religion. It's very tough to convert someone to a different faith. That being said, I'll admit that being a Buick 350 guy, I wanted to see 400hp + plus from this engine. I did have a little disappointment when it came in at ~300hp. Then I realized this was a good thing. When ever I tell people I am building an old Buick I usually get laughter. The general population sees Buicks as Grandma Grocery Getters (3G's). I like being the underdog though and I like having a sleeper. No one expects a Buick to be a fast car. Seeing the shock on someones face when they get beat by a Buick (in a sanctioned non-street race of course) is a great feeling. The look of dumbfoundeness (if that is a real word) is a great feeling. There are two types of car guys; guys who build cars and guys that buy cars. A guy that can build a car can always make their car better (performance wise, faster, etc.). Guys that buy cars are always limited to what car they have and after they bolt on their "cold air intake" and underdrive pulleys (maybe), their car will always be stuck at a plateau. All of us on v8Buick are guys that build cars and we have this great site with so much knowledge to make our cars better. We are the guys that are holding the winning hand of poker and baiting a guy to go all in. Its that sense when you know you are better that we share. All non-Buick guys will think that the best a Buick can do is ~300 hp, and we can have that internal smile knowing what we are about to unleash.
I thought it was great to see a SBB 350 built on the powerblock. I say good job to the guys on horsepower. I really liked the build and thought it was a good example of what a guy could do without having to spend a fortune on porting heads. Not everybody is looking to pull the front wheels off the ground. Well done with what you were working with. I especially liked the reaction to the torque numbers when it was run on the dyno. That being said, I think a follow up would be cool. Too all those that have problems with the shows on powerblock, why keep watching? If it's so bad, change the channel. Good job guys, and Thanks.
John, as a long time viewer of the powerblock. I thank you and your crew for presenting a SBB on national tv. Maybe a revisit like you did with the 455 in blue collar. Tim
