I bought a '70 455 out of a riviera. The engine is going into a '65 Skylark that is my 2 year frame off restoration project. The purpose of the car will be for cruising and possibly showing. I'd like it to be around when I retire so I need a reliable setup. I'd like some horsepower to smoke up some rice-burners in my area. Furthermore I'm about to finish school and don't have a whole lot of money to blow hence the 2 year timeline. Big questions in my machinist's mind are cam specs, valve cut job, and any other information on building a reliable, fast, budgetminded engine. Also is the only difference between stage1 heads and the stock heads is the valve diameter? I ask only because I can cut the stock heads out to stage 1 diameters for only $130 in labor. Write with ANY information you can tell me. I only have enough experience to get myself into trouble.
welcome to the board! There's a lot of good info to be found around here, if you do a bit of digging. I am no expert, but I know enough to know that I'm not. Here's the golden advice I have gleaned so far: Don't have a Chevy or Ford guy work on your motor. Whether it's adjusting the timing, rejetting the carb, or maching your mains, they will probably not do it right. Go to a Buick guy for Buick work. It is worth the extra money because it is always cheaper to do things right the first time. There is a good book or two on rebuilding a Buick motor out there, and they are a good place to start, but there is little substitute for experience. I'll now leave the more technical commentary to the experts. Where are you from? - Freed
Yes, the heads are the same casting for all '70 455's. Add the big valves and they are identical to the Stage 1.
Rebuilding that to stock will give that comparitively light '65 plenty of power. Keep in mind that your tranny may not hold up due to increased torque, ditto for rear end, if you go too crazy. Also do some thinking about gearing and torque converters, I'm assuming it's an automatic 2-speed. There's several routes for distributors, too, including one that looks stock but is anything but. For simplicity's sake, I used an HEI, but you can do better than that. The TA catalog has a dual quad intake manifold...:Brow:
