Engine is alive and assertive!! (Re: trusty "billy-goat" Wagon!) Dear V-8 Buick assertive engine fans . . . . Jim Weise has been working real hard at the dynamometer lately. The engine for my trusty wagon was dynoed just after Larry's. Everything looks great . . . . err, with one surprise. The engine is a good deal more assertive than anticipated. Jim was very surprised!! I'll still allow Jim to write up the blow-by-blow . . . but it appears to have been a pair of very good dynamometer sessions for Tri-Shield Performance!! Stay tuned!! Cheers, Edouard :beer P.S. Feel free to guess the horsepower and torque, but since Jim hasn't given any specs . . . . kinda hard to do!! :Brow:
Edouard, Does your engine have Iron heads or TA aluminum heads? roller cam? looking forward to reading the results. Bob
See the second picture in post #17. Appears to be stage 2 se. And I believe I read somewhere that he has a roller cam as well.
OK I'm game.. Lets guess the output of this unique beast 1967 430 Block .050 offset grind crank 6.8" H beam rod Custom Diamond Racing Conical dish pistons- 4.250 Bore- 448 Cubic inch displacement TA STG 2 SE with TSP upgrade portwork- 315/225 cfm at .500.. the standard "minimum set" I refuse to put on cylinder heads with square corners in them.. STG 1 valve size TA/Schneider Hyd Roller cam- Fundamentally a copy of a STG 1 cam- 215/225/115LC 2515 B4B intake, out of box plenum, mild port match to heads TA 1.6 Roller rockers, Roller lifters, HD pushrods TSP stroker conversion to a stock oil pan 10.2 compression, 8.0 Dynamic CR TA 2" STG 2 headers Fast EZ-EFI Built with the number 1 goal as smooth operation/ fuel economy above 700 rpm, for a grocery getter wagon.. the STG 2 heads are there because that is what fits as far as headers for the 65-67 A body. I WAS NOT TRYING TO BUILD BIG POWER. Hence the small cam, dual plane intake, small CI engine, safe DCR ect.. As a background- With iron heads, with a good valve job and a bit of cleanup, or about the same amount of work as these alum heads have, something with this size flat tappet cam is going to make about 400 HP, give or take. It is a stage 1 cam, albeit a hyd roller- that choice was about economy and reliability, not power. With good ported irons, maybe 410-420 HP- remember, small cam, they usually are all done around 5200 rpm.. So let's add 20HP for the alum heads over the ported iron heads, and 20 for a roller cam.. which is a decent guess, considering we found previously that in a 600 HP motor, the roller cam is worth about 30-35HP.. and gain is always a percentage, so in the 435 hp range, maybe another 20 numbers. I walk in the shop today figuring 450-475 would be nice numbers, with around 500 torque.. remember its a 448, not a 470. So what does this economy minded, 448 ci grocery getter make for power? My educated guess was 460HP/500 Torque. I gave it the nod for being a BBB with alum heads and a roller cam.. so just over 1 HP per CI. But I had never built a STG 2 headed, STG 1 Hyd roller cam motor. It is a true pioneer for us here, and I had to re-organize my though process for reliably economy first, power second.. It was tested with a 750 Holley, a 1000 HP Holley, and the EZ-EFI. Your Guess? Which was the most powerful fuel delivery How much difference was between the 750 and 1000, in an off the shelf jetting situation, we did not jet any carb in testing, they were "in the ballpark" with stock jetting. Now be realistic.. it didn't make 550 HP.. it's a grocery getter motor. consider the small cam, small intake, the fact that it idles at 650 HP with just barely a hint of a lope, at 16.5 inches of vacuum.... at 800 rpm, it's making 21 inches and smooth as glass.. JW
In a word: YES!! (Re: trusty "billy-goat" Wagon!) Hi Bob, Peter and V-8 Buick fans of assertive engines. In a word: YES!! In a few more words: Stage-2 heads and . . . . well Jim will explain the cam choice! Me too!! So, any horsepower torque guesses? :grin: Cheers, Edouard :beer
OK, 500 HP / 490 TQ. :TU: You better hold on, the Billy Goat is going to need tires.:bglasses: What a great family story. Love the Stage 2 heads and the 2004R. Is that the new TA water pump? Keep up the great work.
And the answer is . . . I don't know!! (Re: trusty "billy-goat" Wagon!) Hi Bob, Nick, Luke, and assertive V-8 Buick fans, So you really want to know the answer? Well . . . I can't tell ya! Jim only gave me numbers for memory and the paperwork was in his truck when he wrote his reply. So I only know with certainty the neighborhood of the numbers and . . . . yeah, you guys are in the right neighborhood!! :3gears: Uh, all of a sudden I'm going to back and review everything. This isn't exactly what I was expecting!! :shock: Yes it is the TA 1537BHP pump. Could I have gone with anything else? :grin: Stay tune for new updates as they become available! Cheers, Edouard :beer
Tale ain't over yet! (Re: The grand adventures of a trusty "billy-goat" Wagon!) Dear Raoul and trusty wagon fans, Well the story ain't over yet. Jim Weise has been desperately trying to get the engine ready to ship so that it would arrive in time for the Orinda Classic Car show a week from Saturday, September 21st. I made matters much worse by being greedy and trying to add a Vintage Air system to the mix. Should have been easy. It went from easy, to hard, to damn well impossible in a week. Now it is looking like . . . . perhaps within the realm of a miracle. Stay tuned!!! Cheers, Edouard :beer
Great story, i love Biquette. Do you speak french, since your parents immigrated from France? Where they come from exactly ? I live in France and i own a Buick Wagon too but not the same year, 1969.
Not as bilingual as in the past . . . . (Re: trusty "billy-goat" Wagon!) Dear Two tone and Francophile Biquette lovers, . . . . . Well, it is a rather sad story. When I was growing up, I had learning disabilities as a considerable number of kids do. To "help" the situation, the school insisted that my parents stop talking French to me. That put my French at a serious disadvantage. I managed to keep it up until about 1990 or so when I last managed to go to France. However since then, my French has declined badly so I can hardly converse anymore. Actually Mom came from around Toulouse and Dad was from Normandy, they met in . . . . where else? . . . . Paris. This led to some "interesting conflicts" when the culinary traditions of southern France didn't exactly mesh with cooking expectations of Normandy! :grin: :grin: Well, what are you waiting for? What is the francophile name of your Buick wagon? :Brow: Seriously, thanks for sharing your story!! I certainly respect your efforts in trying to take care of a "mature" wagon a long way from where it was built. Supposedly it is a lot easier to take care of the wagon I've got. It is a relatively popular model and obviously I'm in the USofA. However, I've found it to be plenty hard to get the parts I need!! :shock: Stay tuned to this channel for the latest news updates about . . . . . da' engine!! :3gears: Cheers, Edouard :beer
Do you have the engine yet? You have to have it running by my B-day(21st)!:TU: Would you mind sharing the engine cost(or PM it to me). Those are some great numbers in Jims thread about it,seems even he was suprised!:Brow:
Shipment delayed by "cool thoughts." (Re: trusty "billy-goat" Wagon!) Hi Jamie and fans of assertive 65 V-8 Buicks . . . . . Well . . . . no, but it is 100% my fault. The August heat waves got me thinking . . . . Do I really want a super deluxe road-trip wagon - without air conditioning? It looked simple when I started out to add a Vintage Air system, but . . . . . . it became messier and messier, until it looked darn-right hopeless. At which point the great JW stepped in and offered to cobble together the missing piece: a bracket for the A/C compressor. When he made his offer . . . . there was plenty of time. Alas, more snafus promptly happened. So, poor Jim is struggling this weekend to complete this bracket so that the engine can ship Monday morning . . . . . because, It isn't going to be running by the 21st, but it will (I hope) be displayed at the Orinda Classic Car show which happens this year on your birthday. That's why Jim has to burn the midnight oil to get the engine ready to ship Monday morning. I just sent you a PM. I don't mind sharing the price publicly, but I don't want to just drop the number without some explanation. Basically I funded an "experimental" engine because no one had ever decided to use a big-block Buick engine in order to achieve extreme high-efficiency - not just high-power. In retrospect, there is no doubt, I overspent. My goal was an engine with around 400 hp. So this engine exceeds that by 20%!! I don't want potential Tri-Shield customers turned off by the price unless they understand which pricey components were used and why. The really interesting question will be to see if the engine delivers on that goal of high-efficiency. My goal was anything but a drag race engine. However, a 500+ horsepower engine - that'll get you moving. Now just imagine the car that starts and behaves like a modern car (thanks to EFI,) does get something like 20 MPG city and over 25 MPG highway, can tow better than the average SUV, and can haul like a only 60s station wagon could. A car like this could be a genuine dual-purpose car. Practical enough to please . . . . . SWMBO, but still able to be really fun. If you can eliminate a SUV or equivalent car and replace it by a classic, that frees up a lot of the budget to pay for an engine like this JW-masterpiece. I'm really hopeful this engine will be the first of many more that Jim ends up building. If this engine works out as planned, I hope that will encourage many more people to save their classic Buicks and actually drive them, instead of letting them languish because they are not practical enough to use. Cheers, Edouard :beer
*IT'S* . . . . . Comin' . . . . (Re: trusty "billy-goat" Wagon!) Dear V-8 Buick fans of a certain trusty "billy-goat" wagon, The great moment has arrived. The great JW shipped the engine out on Monday. It is supposed to arrive in Orinda Motors sometime on Thursday. Just in the nick of time to be displayed at the Orinda Classic Car show before being installed. Jim sent me a bunch of pictures of the engine as it was being crated up to ship. Here is one just as a teaser: Stay tuned!! Cheers, Edouard :beer
Quickie debrief on 2012 Orinda Car show. (Re: trusty "billy-goat" Wagon!) Dear V-8 Buick fans of a certain trusty wagon, Yesterday was the 8th Orinda Classic Car show. Since 2010, I've kinda of got roped into bringing the car this year because Orinda Motors is trying to drum up more classic car work. It is the only show I've ever managed to take the car to because there has always been a problem of some sort when other shows were scheduled. This year (as last) the car was displayed in the service bays although for different reasons. This year's theme was longtime Orinda Motors classic car customers, and Orinda Motors was particularly anxious to show of the JW masterpiece that they will be installing soon. That's why poor Jim had to work his tail off to have it arrive on Friday. Here is a picture of my trusty wagon with the engine in the background above the passenger front fender: On each side of the engine are some posters I made describing the design choices that made the engine perform as well as it did. I had hoped to get some feedback from you'all but I ran out of time. I'll be posting them soon here on V-8 Buick so that everyone can at least look them over in retrospect. Can't describe it any other way, the show ultimately was more of a letdown than anything else. It didn't attract that many car enthusiasts and the crowd was mostly a car-ignorant general public. There were over 200 cars at this show, so people were racing through trying to see everything - so they ultimately got very little out of the experience. The most disappointing part of the show were the thoughtless parents who insisted on taking their young children to see "the monster wagon." It hurts me personally to have people treat this car as if it was some sort of living fossil that essentially (given their attitude) should have gone extinct. Even if some of these folks drive SUVs that are even larger than this wagon. The baby-boomer wagon bias has sadly been passed on to succeeded generations and now are so deeply ingrained that people dislike wagons but have no idea why. The engine on display didn't fair much better actually. Lots of people didn't understand that the engine was going to be installed in the wagon (I'm so happy that literacy rates are improving . . . . . ) When people asked, most people weren't very interested in understanding why this engine had been built for the car. I can be resigned to the idea that people increasingly don't understand how a car works (even if there is so much more science taught in the schools. . . ) What's much harder to understand is why such people would come to of all possible things . . . . a car show? Still, there were a few exceptions that made up for the majority. There were a number of genuine wagon lovers who were elated to see an old survivor. One woman was tickled pink to see what she perceived of as an exact copy of the wagon she had grown up with. The wagon in her family had lasted for 200,000 miles. She was specially happy to see the Seafoam Green color like her family's wagon. There were a few gearheads who understood what they were looking at when they saw the engine and realized the technology that was going into it. There was even one fellow who was a Buick engine fan and was very happy to see the TA-Performance parts. Alas, he was the only such V-8 Buick type. Another man managed to integrate my entire project see how the engine was going to work in the wagon. This is because he had done something very similar with 51 Chevy. That Chevy has an engine that has been modernized with a roller cam and roller rockers, and an overdrive transmission. He uses it to tow a 46 vintage teardrop trailer. He had just come back from the Reno Air races and got 26 MPG!! So there is hope for my great vacation cruiser scheme! I would like to talk about all the other great Buicks at the show, but . . . . mighty slim pickin's . . . . . Compared to the 2011 Orinda Car show which had 4 Buicks and a fifth Buick powered specialty car, my trusty wagon only had two Buick companions. A new visitor to the Orinda show was this 1954 Buick Skylark: Another repeat Buick visitor from last year was this 1970 GS 455: So that's the news from the Orinda Classic Car show. Now that all the fuss is over, I can get on to making sure that this JW masterpiece engine actually gets installed . . . . as it is supposed'ta!! Stay tuned for the next installment in this soap opera!! Cheers, Edouard :beer
Feeling like autumn to da' ol' wagon . . . (Re: trusty "billy-goat" Wagon!) Dear V-8 Buick fans of "properly seasoned" vehicles, In California, Santa Ana winds are the signs of autumn approaching rather than frost. Still, there is no denying the sun's steady progress to the south at this time of year. I had the garage door open to cool everything before a day of expected hot temperatures. As the sun started to rise, it reflected on my trusty wagon's fresh wax job and it made a pretty scene: Definitely a sign to folks in places where cars must hibernate for the winter that you'd better get your driving fix now - while you still can!! Cheers, Edouard :beer
Very nice! Yeah winter is coming here. I'm getting my driving in while I can. Hope to make at least one more trip to California this year with the Skylark before too much snow flies. Then a tear down for some winter upgrades :TU:
