Thanks! Next week we are doing the final assembly on the good engine and then dropping it in the car! The engine assembly will be documented and photographed for the book. Many sites only list them as a 28X12.5R15 which is the same as the 295/55R15: http://www.mickeythompsontires.com/strip.php?item=ETStreetRadial 90000000974 3755R P295/55R15 28 X 12.50R15 Well I found a guy getting rid of a "stock 400 SBC", but when I went to look at it there were AFR alum heads on the engine... Scored the whole engine complete from carb to oil pan for $700... A friend of mine is retiring from building stock car engines and he just got his last SBC bottom end assembled and needs some heads.... Then traded the AFR heads to my stock car buddy in exchange for ALL his engine building and measuring tools which are worth over $2800, he was happy to give them to a friend not a stranger. Now I still have the rest of the 400 and and an engine stand that came with it... Selling the 400 for cheap to another friend and keeping the stand. Great day!
A 434 sbc in your truck would be SWEET,in your tow vehicle to the track for your Skylark!! If your Skylark broke down for some reason,you could run your Chevy truck tow vehicle. Forged 4340 steel crank on ebay,for $375+ about $35 shipping,and all the rest the cheap sbc parts out there,sbc 400 blocks are getting rare.(factory blocks anyway) For $700 bucks(is that Canadian,or US)for a sbc 400 with AFR heads is dirt cheap!!(thats like buying one AFR head,and getting the rest of the engine for free!!!:Brow: Even without stroking it,your truck would of loved the torque of that engine. Great trade on the tools for the heads,but the rest of the 400 (the block,more than the rest of it)you may regret offing that "for cheap".(its not a run of the mill sbc 350 block) But hey,great day for you anyway!:TU: Building a sbc 434 right now,waiting for the block to come back from the machine shop,should have it done before winter.I installed splayed 4 bolt main caps on the center 3 caps,it will be block filled to the water pump,torque plate honed,and internally balanced with a Chinese halo girdle with ARP studs. Trying to make the bottom end "bullet proof"(to be able to upgrade at a later date),but the top end will be less expensive,with Vortec heads and a used flat tappit cam,with a China Vortec RPM Air Gap knock off,with a Holley 750 vacuum secondary carb. This combo with the cubes and flow characteristics of the Vortec heads,should make this mill run similar to a BBB,in a smaller package.(although not lighter,but not heavier,unless the BBB has alumnum heads,but then the both will be very close) I love Buick,but other brands that the General made are still good stuff! :beer Derek
Sean. Where do you come up with all of there kinda deals? Everyone Has to be eating their heats out. I know I am. Eat Dung and Die Buddy. :TU: :moonu: Keep up the pictures, It's looking great. One way or another. PONCH :eek2:
Great gift,you're a good friend! Now as long as he doesn't turbo charge that sbc 400,he shouldn't be able to keep up with your car.:Brow: What's he putting it in?(as long as it doesn't go in a Buick,LOL) Maybe he can post his build on [h=2]The "Other" Bench section?[/h] :beer Derek
I live just South of Flint. You would think there would be a lot of BUICK stuff around here. NOPE. If it's over 5-7 Years, Scrap it out and get your money. They don't realize they could part it out and make more that way. But I want my Munny NOW!!! SHAME. PONCH
The pistons have a 15 CC dish, sit 59 thou in the hole, and static compression works out to 8.9:1 which is about as high as I would want to go being turbocharged. I set the ring gaps slightly looser than for a naturally aspirated build.
I use a 650 on my supercharged 455. The main thing is to get enough fuel into the air stream. With the small carb and annular booosters you get a very strong vacuum signal. Bobb and Anthony used my carb for the dyno pulls shown.
The four barrel v6 intakes only came on the larger bore 252 engines .gm must have thought it needed more than the 210 FM carb on the 3.8
I will get you the compression height spec when I get home however it is very close to stock spec. With a Zero deck and 52 CC chambers it would be over 10:1 compression. In my case with a block that is not milled much just squared the pistons sit 60 thou in hole and the head CC is being enlarged over the stock 58 CC. Shooting for between 8.7 and 9.0 for compression. I just noticed a few days ago that from the factory the heads chambers are slightly smaller than the bore and it creates a major "hot spot" around the whole perimeter of the chamber. There is about a 1/8" ring around the head and that with just a 30 thou overbore! I am going to match up the chambers with the cylinders with some grinding then equaling out the CC of the heads. I am making the head chambers smooth as glass and polished right up anyways. Plus I need to gain a few CC in the heads to lower the compression a tiny bit. My plan is to put the heads on the engine with the pistons out and with the engine upside down I will use a thin marker to draw on the head chamber edge, then remove the heads and remove material up till the marker line is gone, blend it in and then do a rough smooth on the chambers, CC match them all, and finally polish them all up perfectly. It takes a lot of time but I think this is WELL worth the effort! Until the other day I had never put a set of heads on the head and then flipped it upside down without the bottom end together... the 350 is an open chamber head design and by its nature it is very efficient however somewhat prone to pre-ignition. I feel this will be a huge prevention in Pre-ignition. I will post pics of this ASAP... Here is some info on pre-ignition and "hot spots": Pre-ignition is a technically different phenomenon from engine knocking, and describes the event wherein the air/fuel mixture in the cylinder ignites before the spark plug fires. Pre-ignition is initiated by an ignition source other than the spark, such as hot spots in the combustion chamber, a spark plug that runs too hot for the application, or carbonaceous deposits in the combustion chamber heated to incandescence by previous engine combustion events. Typical causes of “hot spots” are sharp edges in the piston head or head chamber. Pre-ignition and engine detonation both sharply increase combustion chamber temperatures. Consequently, both effect increases the likelihood of the other effect occurring, and both can produce similar effects from the operator's perspective, such as rough engine operation or loss of performance due to operational intervention by a powertrain-management computer. For reasons like these, a person not familiarized with the distinction might describe one by the name of the other. Given proper combustion chamber design, pre-ignition can generally be eliminated by proper spark plug selection, proper fuel/air mixture adjustment, and periodic cleaning of the combustion chambers. Causes of pre-ignition include the following: - Carbon deposits form a heat barrier and can be a contributing factor to pre-ignition. Other causes include: An overheated spark plug (too hot a heat range for the application). - A sharp edge in the combustion chamber or on top of a piston (rounding sharp edges with a grinder can eliminate this cause). -Sharp edges on valves that were reground improperly (not enough margin left on the edges). -A lean fuel mixture can also cause this issue.
sounds like it will help your plans.i was looking for a similar compression looking at a set turbo v6 pistons with a 1.860 compression height with a 58 cc chamber and .020 down the hole will net about 8.69. to 1 but not thrilled about the depth depending on custom cam. if I have enough offset on my crank and can offset the rod pins since rods are originally for .827 pins and need 9.27 I think I can use ford 3.8 supercharger wiseco pistons at 1.615 compression height and +15 cc dish with .060 down hole a can get 9 to 1 and still do some valve unshrouding
I have 24 Turbo V6 pistons in 60 thou overbore I will never use... PM me if you want... I bought enough V6 pistons sets to do 3 Buick 350s LOL... Or for good pistons call finishline Motorsports and ask for Bobb. tell him Sean sent ya... Order the custom pistons from him and you can get custom compression height for no extra cost.
If those pistons are the Auto Tec sbb pistons,those are made from the 4032 alloy(a excellent piston for a max effort N/A build),and not good for high boost applications. The 2618 alloy is better suited for an all out boosted app. "AutoTec is a High Quality, Precision Manufactured piston option. That comes at a very respectable price. Our Design Specific Forging allows us to manufacture our parts with less machining time, thus allowing us to keep production cost down. Then pass that savings on to you, the customer. Made out of 4032 High Silicone Aluminum Alloy, it has great wear resistance, a low expansion rate, is very durable, and is very low in friction. These pistons accommodate multiple uses including. Your local auto shop, muscle car restorations, performance street rods, as well as many spec racing classes. They can also withstand mild nitrous kits and small turbo or super chargers. Just about everyone can benefit from the excellent value the AutoTec line carries. Keeping in mind these pistons were originally designed for about 600 Horsepower. In Small Block applications, we have customers that frequently fine tune engines that yield 850+ Horsepower with a bit of Super Charger boost. Bore, Ring Pack, and Compression Distance changes can be made to any shelf part at no extra charge. Meaning that if you do not see your application listed in the guide, we can make what you need without charging a custom price. Every part is made with same high quality machines and tools as our RaceTec line including diamond turned ring grooves, and skirts. Not to mention our parts are 100% made in the USA." http://www.buyracingparts.com/pistons/racetec---autotec-pistons/ Maybe they can have the sbb 350 piston made in the 2618 material(the Racetec line) for a max effort boosted app? o No: If boost will be under 10 PSI,the 4032 might be OK to use? Derek
their pistons look decent and come with rings for 650. pretty decent. I didn't see that they do any piston coating. but for n/a pistons they have 2 options. their flat top will be is good for a higher compression close to 10.5 to 1 with 4 cc valve notches and an extra .040 taller compression height. and the dished piston at 9.4 decent for street motors both are. their stronger turbo v6 piston is actually a diamond piston close to je specs. claims their piston maker war a JE machinist. im sure the 350 pistons can be used for forced induction but from what I read about them the piston isn't designed to create best air flow into chamber for that use. still how many of us are gonna reach 600 plus hp. for those people looking to build 350s this is a great reasonable priced piston set with rings. I know wiseco no longer adds rings to their piston sets.
I have been busy building up my daily driver which will also tow the Buick to the track: In the next few days I am going to take the old engine out of the Skylark and start removing the rear end and fuel tank and then I am going to wire brush the whole underside of the car, use POR15 on any surface rust, and then paint the underside black... Then I can move onto installing the rear end with the tubular adjustable arms, rebuilding the brakes etc.
I was about to button up one of my good Buick 350s when I decided I needed to take it back apart and improve some things first. 1. There are some sharp edges on the Custom Diamond pistons and I am pretty sure they would have caused some detonation which would have damaged the engine. 2. A few of the piston rings had sharp edges from where I had file fit them to the bores of the blocks. I took the pistons out of the engine, removed the pistons from the rods (easy due to spiro lock retainers), and then removed the rings and numbered them so they could go back on the right pistons when I was done smoothing the pistons and smoothing the rings with a file. Here are some pics of the pistons before and after smoothing them out. I still need to polish them but they are 100% better then they were: The black marker was used to draw the areas I wanted to "roll over" to eliminate the sharp spots. Someone "rudely interrupting" my progress by phoning me LOL. I used the cardboard box under the piston holder so that Leanne would let me bring it in the house as the piston holder was dirty. I used the little stands again today as they are very handy... And I added some "art" to the walls. Here is one completed piston, just needs to be polished: All cleaned up and stuff moved so Leanne can park on her side: That was yesterdays progress and I will post today's progress tmrw morning.
I got all 8 pistons smoothed and polished: Now I am going through all the piston rings and smoothing the edges from where I file fit the rings to the cylinders...
Here was my technique: 1. Used masking tape to protect the piston from possible damage on the sides 2. Draw out the areas I wanted to "roll over the edges" 3. Use a variable speed pencil grinder with a stone tip to roll over the edges. 4. Used a coarse Emery cloth by hand to slowly remove small amounts of material on remaining areas that needed more work. 5. Went to a 200 grit emery cloth and removed scratches left by the heavy cloth 6. Went with a 800 grit to smooth out the scratches from the 200. 7. Used some "Never Dull" to shine it up 8. Wiped the piston clean and blew it down with air 9. Removed the tape (you can see a tiny bit of tape in one of the pictures) 10. Cleaned the pistons well, and put them away for when I am ready to assemble the engine for good. I am sure there are better ways to do this but this worked fine. There are some scratches that I could not get out but overall I am happy with the results.
