My friend is thinking about placing a 455 in his very clean 1965 Riviera which currently has the original nailhead with 2X4 carbs? How difficult is this? What motor mounts are needed? Will the pan have to be modified? Will the accessories off the nailhead bolt up to the 455? Will the trans bolt up? Are headers available? I am sure many people have done this type of swap. What do you guys do with the extra two cylinders?:laugh: :laugh: Thanks.
He believes that the 455 is a more modern engine and will give him better reliability. As for the extra two cylinders, who needs a V8. See signature.:laugh: :laugh:
Your friend is stoned and needs to put down the bong. The nailhead has a tougher bottom end, and the heads will flow just as good as 455 iron heads when worked. If you're really serious about this, I've got a GS Stage 1 and a 64 Rivi 425 with TA shorties on it, sitting side by side in the garage. I can take a few measurements and see. Oops - forgot the rest. Custom made mounts, use a 67-70 center sump pan with TA 5/8 pickup for the Rivi pan, no - trans bolt pattern is unique to NH. Accessories and their brackets are different. Is your friend interested in selling off these perfectly good parts (so he can go buy more dope)?
John K: How do you really feel about this.:grin: My friend just started browsing this board the other day. Maybe all of that "weed" for his California cataracts short circuited his cranium. His favorite movie is "Up in smoke". I want him to put a 3.8 turbo in it. You should have seen the GN he sold. :eek2: He still regrets that one. Maybe I'll work on that angle.
Moses - I guess what I missed the mark on yesterday, is that he would have to do the same things to the 455 that he should do to the Nailhead. It has the advance curve of a slug, and needs to have those carbs rejetted for performance. The exhaust on that thing is restrictive, if its still stock. Skinny pipe with lots of bends, and a single muffler the size of a 50 gallon water heater under the rear axle. Passenger side has a flapper valve to force exhaust under the carb when cold, and there's a tube running thru the exhaust manifold to supply hot air to the choke. Seems like there's good head flow info in this forum, just need to go back thru and find it. Another item is your friends expectation of the Riv's performance. They are heavy cars, mine weighs 4250 lbs curb weight, and its a low-optioned car. I'm constantly amazed at how big everything is on mine when wrenching on it. It's like working on a truck. Then there's the driveline, a two-piece wonder with 5 u-joints, and a couple of CV joints. That turns a 9.375 inch ring gear in the rear. Jeez, I wonder how much horsepower gets lost making all that turn around. I don't think a Turbo 3.8L will make enough torque at the bottom to get the car moving from a dead stop. Your friend might be disappointed. Seems like a couple of folks over on the ROA discussion have experience/know of someone that transplanted a SBC into a Riv, and they were disappointed with the swap because the low end torque to get that much weight moving was no longer there. Another thing to consider is that with an engine swap, he might as well plan on owning it forever, not much market for customized Rivis, they can't even find suckers to buy them now on Ebay.
I'll do it for him... I'll swap the 455 in for him. Just leave the Nailhead here when he picks up the car. I'll even give him a BOP TH400 to bolt up to the 455. And as much as you love the V6's they don't have enough low end torque for a car that heavy without really leaning on it. Just get him in touch with me I'll do the swap, then watch the 425 go right into my '57....
After reading this thread, now I feel better. I know the 430 wasn't as good as a 425, but sometimes think the 455 from a '70 would have been a better choice for my '67. I know the 455 has more torque, but I just love the Nailhead. What could possibly be cooler than factory dual quads? I guess all the extra work making it fit was worth it after all.:laugh:
Well guys, my friend has been reading the thread and didn't realize the potential of the 425. Guess what, no 455. One of these days he'll chime in with some comments or questions. Thanks. ZMAN: The V6 definately has enough low end torque to handle the fat Riviera. The stock GN comes in a few hundred pounds lighter and has the power to do so without effort. Do you remember the guy who put the GN drivetrain in the big Cadillac ? Sweet ride. Sorry, no pictures.
Assuming the v6 has enough oomph to get the 'fat' Riviera moving off the line, I'll bet when the things rolling down the highway at 65 and you nail it, you'd be lucky to make it up to 95 within 20 seconds. Add a few passengers or head up a hill, my guess is that it would slow down. And on a long, high speed trip maybe even overheat. You could put lower gears in it, but what good is a car that won't go faster than maybe 85? Put it on the bottle, then what, blow it up? I wonder how long that Caddy held up and what the top end was like. Maybe you should try it, then let us know how it worked out. My money is on it being a bad idea. IMO, v6 are for lighter cars. Also, you might make that riv go faster w/a 455, but you will ruin it's value doing that. How much would you pay for my '67 with the wrong motor in it? Probably not much. It's the way I like it, so I don't care. If you do that to the '65, plan on keeping it for a long time. :Smarty: :beer
Joe: I am not the owner of the 65 Riviera. The owner agreed with the other nailhead gurus and is keeping it as is. However, he is not the type of owner who is worried about resale value. He builds the cars for his personal use and liking. Ouch. Joe, I think you need to take a ride in a Grand National with four 200# guys in it and nail it at 65. Maybe you could have the Riviera running with it side by side. It won't overheat, it won't slow down going up the hill. It would probably shift out of 4th gear and run out to about 124 MPH at which time the computer will shut it down. With an aftermarket chip, hang on and hope for Z rated tires. Have a little more faith in the V6. Buick did. When was the last year Buick put a Buick V8 in their car-sometime in the late 70's with the 350. Now that Buick is the GM truck division of the future, they are stuffing Chevy V8's in their bigger trucks. PS: Bottles are for babies and Fords:laugh: :laugh:
I learned a long time ago that my Riv can't touch a Grand National. They do haul a$$, that's for sure. I never got into racing, but as far as I'm concerned a v6 would have to work too hard in order to propel a Riv that weighs over 2 tons. Even if it makes more power than the v8 it's replacing, that motor is being pushed to it's limits. In the past, Buick experimented with supercharging a Nailhead. I heard it made over 800 hp on the dyno. They pushed it until it blew up, and scrapped the idea. Every motor has it's limits. I gave you my opinion from a practical point of veiw, your freind can do what he wants. His idea may have worked quite well. I'm wrong quite often where new stuff is concerned, but you'll never see a v6 in my Riv.
