Reading the recent thread regarding the sale of the '69 Chevelle 300 Deluxe small block car made me wonder... Could one expect similar et/mph results from a similarly prepared and equipped (read: stripped) '69 Skylark 350-4? :Brow:
yes and no Maybe, if the Buick enjoyed the benefit's of a 4" Bore, piston's that aren't .080-.095 down in the hole, heads that don't have ANY quench whatsoever, then maybe yes, a Buick 350 could run the number. But..... without these much needed ingredient's, the Buick 350 will remain a good engine to pull a car around to the grocery store and to Church on Sunday :bglasses: It's a good engine, it's just a shame the Buick/GM never spent any time with it as far as searching for more power, I guess they spent their R&D on the big cubic inch engine's o No:
Olds at that time had pulled all the good talent off the performance cars and put them on emissions development. The Buick 350 appears to be from the same cookbook as the Olds small bore, big stroke 400 that came out in 1968. (Don't know when the Buick 350 came out). Lots of competition between the divison engineering centers as GM started to centralize everything. There were 4 uniquely different 350's, 3 uniquely different 455's (and a 454 at Chevy). Resources were tight and some engines didn't get much development other than financial and manufacturing compatibility. Olds 400, and Buick 350 kinda got left out of that. GM's relaxing of the 400 cu in max in an A body went aay when they realized the savings of just using the existing 455's and dump (sic) the 400's. Not sure what Pontiac was doing, seems that their 400's continued to run pretty good! Every division of GM agreed that they needed one common small block design, and one common big block design..........as long as it was their own. Arab oil embargo in 74 took care of the big blocks. Everybody keeps saying build a small bore 68-69 Olds 400 and shut the old man up........ I got a better idea. Spend the money on beer, it ain't gonna happen.
The Buick 350 came out in '68 as well. You can make the Buick 350 run pretty decent, but doubt you could do it in "pure stock" form.
