580 HP NA Buick 350 that raced the circle track

Could you display any and all dyno run info from you recent tests.

 

Here is the thread about the 551 HP 350 and how the build went. After the build was done I actually sent my old sheet metal intake there and payed for more testing to be done. The HP numbers are lower in the later tests compared to the early tests however we did our best to make a fair comparison between a TA intake ported right out and matched to the heads vs the single plane I had built. The TA and Single plane intake were tested onthe same day, in the same dyno room so it helps up learn some information for sure. You will notice a few pulls have low HP numbers on the low RPM, that is due to easing into the throttle being a 1000 CFM carb on a 355 inch engine.


Build thread:

http://www.v8buick.com/showthread.php?40660-She-s-Alive!!!&highlight=alive


Dyno thread:

http://www.v8buick.com/showthread.p...actor-Singleplane&highlight=single+plane+dyno

 

Very interesting, thanks for sharing, Sean.

Interesting how the Buick 350 uses such a big carb on higher end applications. It might as well have been a 455 with those CFM and power numbers!

Truly incredible.

---------- Post added at 03:17 AM ---------- Previous post was at 03:07 AM ----------

Derek:

I'm not ready to build yet. Seems when I have money, I don't have enough time; when I have time, there's not enough money! Sucks how that works.

But then, if you never make time, how can you ever have time? Same holds true for money. :laugh:

Unless some super sweet deal falls into my lap (I'm not holding my breath on that one), I'll most likely end up using a G body Regal as the project (Though finding a nice Chevy truck somewhere that I can "Buickize" has entered my mind a time or two...).

The cars are easy to find, they don't cost a fortune, parts are readily available from other G body's, the Buick 350 is still pretty plentiful and not too expensive...

I have a plan, I just have to round up resources. I have other things that are pressing in my life at the moment, so even though I would start on the damn thing tomorrow, I can't.

It WILL happen though.

Believe me, chatterbox Gary won't keep his project anything that remotely resembles a secret once it's underway...

I intend on pics, possibly even videos/tutorials, etc.

I might start up a Youtube session or something, who knows. My wife keeps bugging me to do that anyway. :grin:

Meanwhile, I'll hang out here in the forums buggin you guys. :Brow:

 

Bump to the top for new people to read

 

Bump

 

Sounds familiar.

 

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Not that much.

 

I havn't thought about Bud Ketterer in years. He ran a 68 skylark with the 350. I guess you remember the manifold, as well as some of the R&D work we did on the sbb. We were just good old boys having a good time. My memory isn't as crisp as it used to be, but I'll answer any questions you might have. Only problem is that with my lifestyle, I dont have internet access on a regular basis. Might be a week or more before I can check back in, but otherwise, ask away


The old louisville speedway was a 1/4 mile short track, and was not banked. Bud ran in the stock class. This was back in the late 70's to the early 80's, before the track was closed.

All of my notebooks, if they still exist, are back in Louisville, so I dont have any exact numbers to quote.

The stock class was a low-budget form of stock car racing. Stock bodied cars with stock type engines. There were different classes within "stock" for SB, BB, etc. There was also an unlimited class.

The buick was competitive because it had BB torque, as well as a weight advantage. We also managed to find a couple loopholes within the rules that gave us an advantage. For example, we used tall front spindles and big brakes from a full sized GM car. All the suspension bushings were machined from bronze. The battery and fuel tank were in the trunk. This, along with the light SBB gave the car a much better front to rear balance than any other car on the track.

Along with a 4.56 gear and a good weight savings advantage from both the SB class and the SBB, the little car was a terror.

The trans was a SP-300 2 speed auto with the switch-pitch. Bud had wired the SP to a switch on the shifter, and he worked it constantly, and to his advantage.

The turns is where the car was so powerful, as it was torquey down low and so well balanced. Coming out of the turns, bud would switch the SP to high stall and be on the throttle. About the time the BB cars were catching up to him, he would drop it to low stall, and the car would jump forward just enough to hold off the competition till he could get to the turns. Ultimately, the BB cars had the power, and the car would not have been competitive on a long track... But the combo sure worked good on the short!

It was the only buick that we were aware of running on any track anywhere. The class was dominated by Hemi's, BBC's, and BBF's. In the SB class, it was all SBC's and Ford 351-C's.

The BB's were nose heavy in the corners, but made up for it on the straights. The SB's were better in the corners, but always got run down by the BB's in the straights... That's where the buick was special. It could out-corner EVERY BB car, and it could hold it's own against almost everything on the straights.

The hemi RR that almost always won was owned by a guy named Darrell. Cant remember his last name. Darrell always used to comment that no matter how hard he tried, that damn cream colored 71 buick with red lettering was ALWAYS on his back door. Every so often, when Darrell would have an issue [miss shift, spin, traffic] the little buick was right there to take advantage, and move out in front. Sometimes, he could chase the buick down, sometimes he couldn't.

Back in those days, the stock class was just a bunch of good-ole-boys having fun. Not like today where it's all so serious with big money. It was a lot more like today's bomber classes. Only, back then, you could pick up GREAT muscle cars for dirt cheap. Soup up the engine, tweak the suspension, strip the interior, and go racing for $1500-$2500 total investment.

The engine we used were SP code exclusively. We started out with a '70 motor. Ported the heads to the best of my abilities, stock aluminum rockers, built Q-jet, reworked dizzy, hot cam, and headers. It was a strong contender in the SB class. Eventually, it threw a rod.

The heads were salvaged, and we next got a hold of some cap-screw rods that I polished. Built up a new engine with stock replacement SP pistons. The block was shaved on the new engine [along with the heads], so it was probably close to 11:1. Suddenly, we were dominating the SB class, and knocking on the back door of some of the BB cars. Eventually, that engine threw a rod as well. All this was done with a stock intake manifold.

The next engine was built along the lines of the previous one, but with a little more cam. That's when we hit a wall. The car performed a little better, but we just didn't have enough intake for higher RPM performance, and it showed at the end of the straights. That's when I found staufer engineering's intake kit.

Though my aluminum welding skills sucked, we gave it a shot. The upper part of the manifold is SB mopar. The intake proved to be what the car was needing, and all of a sudden, Bud was finishing at the top of the SB class on every race, and 3-4 overall, but again, rod failure put us on the sidelines for the last 3 races of the season. Bud actually ran in the final race with a bone stock junk yard short block just for giggles, and I think he finished 5th in a 12 car field.

Over the next winter, we got a little more serious.
We were able to get cars from the police impound auction for $10 each... Yep, $10 for a complete car. Sometimes wrecked, sometimes impounded because they broke down and the owners never claimed them... Sometimes they were perfect. This was back when gas was expensive [$1.25] and minimum wage was $3.35, so it was not un-common to just abandon a V8 car.

We bought everything that had either a 68-70 4V 350, or 76 up for the rods. Best part was, after we pulled the engine and a few other goodies, the junk yard would give us $25 for what was left over

I remember that a set of GM .30 pistons for the high compression SP was around $50. Bearings were $25, gasket set was $12.50... The machine shop would do all the work to a short block for about $60. You could actually build a complete hi-po shortblock with a decent cam for around $250... Aaaah, the good old days. Of course, that's like $1500 in today's money.

I cant tell you how many nights and weekends I spent reading books so I could learn how to do it right. Polishing side beams, chamfering and knife-edging cranks, cleaning and enlarging oil passages.

We built the first motor, and put it on an old water dyno [anybody remember those?]It made a little over 500 horsepower. We all put our heads together and decided the engine would benefit from more cam, but we were up against the rule book, already running as much cam as the stock SB class would allow.

After reading thru the rules very carefully, it was decided that Bud would switch to the unlimited stock class. This class allowed for unlimited internal engine modifications, but restricted you to a single 4V, and limited tire size. Nobody else at the speedway was running unlimited, and since we were already in BB territory, we decided it was a wise move.

A custom made cam from Isky was ordered. As I recall, it was patterned after an olds w-30 cam, [as there was simply no performance data for the SBB to base anything off of], so Ed Iskendarian himself, after an hour long telephone conversation with me, Bud, and Charlie [dyno guy] made us a custom cam.

We used Olds w-30 as our baseline pattern because the olds heads were, more or less, flowing the same way as our Buick. The ramp up profile from the olds was copied, but the centerline was tightened up. It also came out with monsterous lift and durration numbers... Something close to 300* and .500. It was also a hydraulic cam... Right at the limits of what was capable with hydraulic lifters.

Bud also decided that since he was no longer limited by stock pistons, a set of forged ones was in order.

We finally got the motor back together and went back to the dyno. We had some serious money in this motor, and we talked at great length about what RPM the buick was limited to. Several days in fact!

Every previous 350 that had come apart had done so north of 6500 rpm, so we settled on 6000. Yea, we probably could have squeezed 6500 from it, but we had real money on the table at this point.

It dynoed out at 580 HP @ 6000, and it was still climbing. The tq was over 500 in the 5500 range. This thing was a beast, and we were all as happy and giddy as a room full of school girls

That's when I began experimenting with my own motor. Since we had a mountain of parts sitting around, I made a call to Isky and requested another cam, but with 110* lobe centers, 292* and .476 lift. 2 weeks later I was on the dyno with my motor. This motor had the single 4V tunnel ram.

We made 4 pulls with it, tweaking and tuning as we went along. It was on pump gas, and it made 520ish HP. All the power was in the upper RPM's, and we were really leaving good power on the table by limiting the RPM's, so the 5th pull, we went "balls to the wall". At about 6600 rpm's, it violently spilled it's guts!

Built another motor, and decided 6500 was the limit. Each Isky cam cost me $120, and took two weeks to get.
8 dyno pulls on it, and we were looking at 550 HP. On the 9th pull, it too split a rod. This was all very heart wrenching, as Bud was involved in both of my motors. Not just as a friend, but this was R&D work for the race car as well.

We had 40 cap-screw rods on the shelf, along with a dozen cranks and blocks. We got busy...
We started with the cranks. Had them tested to the best of our machine shop's abilities. Any that were found to have a defect were chucked in the junk pile. Next, the rods. Same procedure. Measured, inspected, magnafluxed, sonic tested... Then the polishing and modifying. Measuring and weighing EVERYTHING as we went along. Then we drove 3 cranks and 22 rods to a top of the line machine shop in Indianappolis, where they were tested even further, untill we had 2 perfect cranks and 16 perfect rods. Then all of it was shipped to New Jersey where a specialty shop stress relieved them, ion nitrided them, and then hard chromed them. After all that, the two cranks were ballanced to perfection.

When it all finally arrived back home, the racing season had already started, The car ran in the first two races of the season, but missed the third and fourth. We pulled the motor and put the new crank and rods into it. Bud had installed an MSD box with a 6000 rpm limiter. After the new crank and rods, he upped it to 6250.

That's when the car became super competitive. Since he had missed two races, he dropped in points and was forced to the back of the pack for the start, but it only took a few races and he was back in the top 6. A week later, top 4. It was on that race that Darrell spun out, and Bud won the race. Because of this, the next week he was moved to the #2 position. Darrel had a huge points lead, so we stayed in #2 for the rest of the season. Bud never could quite catch the hemi unless Darrell made a mistake, and Darrell never could get the Buick off his ass unless Bud made a mistake.

While all of this was going on, me and Charlie were assembling a new motor based around the special crank and rods. TRW forged pistons were ordered. I polished the tops of them to a mirror finish. They were all balanced to perfection.

Bud called Isky to order another cam, and then called me telling me to call Ed. I called, and we talked for about two hours about our experiences with the SBB. Ed soaked up every word, nd a year later, the SBB cams became a regular in his catalog. I'm sure there were others out there requesting SBB cams, so I dont think we had any direct contribution to his decision to offer them, but maybe we were the tipping point. I remember Ed was very impressed whith what we had accomplished, and we both agreed that if someone would offer aftermarket rods, the SBB could be a serious contender.

There were others in the Louisville community that got on the SBB bandwaggon, so we had a good group of guys to draw R&D out of.

It was during this time I assembled manifold #3. Same mopar pieces, but with a front water crossover from a pontiac manifold complete with thermostat housing, and modified to work with the buick motors water hoses. The plan was to put it on the replacement racing motor. Not that the first racing manifold didn't work without the crossover, but more for convenience... You know, pick up parts at NAPA instead of having to make them. Just simplify our lives.

Everything was going our way. The motor held together perfectly and made amazing power, and we were all having a blast. At the end of the season, we tore the race motor down and discovered absolutely nothing... Everything was still perfect, so we buttoned it back up and left it alone. Also, when we added it all up, with 2 first place finishes, 8 second place, and 6 third place finishes, along with being in the #2 points position, we had actually earned a profit on the season.

We were never in it for the money, and had never even considered we would have a profitable season. Every dime we got out of it, we rolled back into it... But the "profit" had thrown a monkey wrench into our plans. We worked out a deal where I got the spare engine. This was the one with the special crank and rods. Bud kept the money,,, and of course he owned the race car. Charlie, who was employed by the machine shop, had already earned his money, but in the spirit of brotherhood, we bought him a brand new hurst shifter for his camaro. I also gave him the tunnel ram and the race cam out of the spare engine... More on that later.

Over the winter, we managed to score a '71 skylark that was perfect for racing. We had been using a '68. The 71 was a 6 cylinder, non A/C, non P/S, non P/B. About as basic as it could be... This was our new race car!!! The local MACO, which was conveniently across the street from the machine shop, was running a $49.99 special, so the dark green was covered up with a fresh coat of tan. We got about 6 guys together, and over a weekend, swapped all the suspension, roll bar, and drivetrain over to the new car. By Feb., we were more than ready for the track to open [in may, LOL].

The next summer's racing season, tho fun and exciting, was mostly un-eventfull. It took us the first four races to get the new chassis dialed in, and after that, it was always Darrell first, Bud second, Bobby Stansburry third in a 429 Ford Torino, and then everybody else. A couple of the SB racers upgraded to the unlimited class, but they just couldn't compete with the Buick's torque or Bud's ability to work the SP to his advantage.

There was a recession on in the early 80's so attendance was down. I also believe attendance was down because you could always count on the same 1-2-3 finish between Darrell, Bud, and Bobby-joe.
Of the 18 races that season, we finished 1st 3 times, 2nd 10 times, 3rd 2 times, 2 times in the middle of the pack, and one DNF when a U-joint let go.

By this time, I had installed the trick SBB into my own 70 skylark along with another "mild" race cam from Isky and the custom intake manifold with the pontiac water crossover. It was a screamer, but I didn't care for having to use such a loose converter. I installed a dual plane intake and de-tuned it to make it more streetable, along with a 2200 converter and a 125 shot of nitrous. Thru a trade deal, I ended up with the tunnel ram I had given to Charlie. It was being used by a drag racer, along with the special cam. He wanted a low rise manifold to try and cash in on some street racing money.

When the end of the season rolled around, Bud had again come out money ahead. Other than support crew, I hadn't been required to do any actual work, as far as engine building or anything,,, just general maintenance and lending a hand. I also had not been required to invest any of my own $ into the season. But Bud was generous, and he bought me a brand new set of Cragar SS wheels along with 4 new tires for my own skylark. He also hooked me up with the trick Q-jet carb that was on the race car a couple years before. [he had switched to a Holly 900 cfm 3 barrel when he went unlimited]. I was very happy with the deal, and we were all enjoying ourselves very much.

A couple days before Thanksgiving of 1982, I got a call from Bud's son. While cleaning his guns, he had accidentally shot himself in the neck and bled to death before the ambulance even arrived at his house. He died in his wife's arms, and some of his last words to her were about how much fun he'd had with me and charlie racing the buick. He then told her he loved her, and he was gone. He was 51 years old.

I really took it hard.
A couple years later, his son called me again and said he had a buyer for the car. I went and met with him, providing all the details and the history. He took notes, and then a week later, another call from his son to tell me it had sold.

Sometime around 1990, I was attending college in New Orleans and I got a call from an old friend of mine. Bud's race car was in a junk yard deep in the hills of Kentucky. The first thing I asked was about the SBB, but he said it had a SBC in it, and a ratty looking one at that. He also said it had been banged up pretty good and wasn't worth salvaging.
I never heard another word about it until 2004 when the manifold surfaced here on V8Buick.

The other manifold, with the pontiac water crossover was lost when a fuel line came off and caused an engine fire. The entire car was a total loss


I ran my skylark with the special motor for several years. It was a screamer, but I still didn't like the handicap of a high strung small block. I switched to BBB and sold the motor to a friend of mine. He swapped the cam to a Crower 280, and he put a lot of miles on it before it spun a bearing.

The year after Bud's death was the last year the Louisville speedway was open. After that, they closed it and bull-dozed it to the ground.

Darrell and Bobby continued racing at the southern Indiana sports-drome raceway untill the mid 80's and I lost contact with them. I heard the RR was restored back to stock, as it was an original hemi car.

Bud's engine made 580 HP at 6000 RPM [rev-limited] and was clearly capable of over 600 with more revs.
It used 10.5:1 forged slugs, MILDLY ported heads, small tube headers, that intake, Holly 900 cfm 3V carb, and a hot ignition.... And a HUGE cam.

Everything else inside the engine was pretty much built up from stock parts!

I do remember that engine had MEGGA torque in the 4000 rpm range, pulled like a hot big block, and it kept it's power right up to the 6000 limit.

With the tunnel ram, my engine made 540 on motor alone at 6500 with a smaller cam and the same mild heads. We tried to feed 200 hp worth of nitrous into it, but expirenced that gut-wrenching rod failure at about 6200 revs..... TWICE. That's right, I built two motors,,,, and blew both of them up on the dyno.

That's basically how it played out. It was a long time ago, and I'd give anything to re-live those days again. Hope some of that is helpful for your book. Any questions, just ask!

 

I hit the rev limiter at 6200 out of low gear on nitrous, and beat that supercharged Mustang. With 420 rwhp I guess that would be over 500 on the motor had 460rw TQ so I would think that would be 550ft lbs on the motor there on a 125 shot of nitrous
But that was a little 11.80 run 114 no issues.

 

Bump

 

guess got to have something to look at since this section is about as dead as dead.
what happened to all those hot 350's I heard about on here they all blow up?

Hey, don't look at me I been there and done it mine is apart right now waiting for some parts.

 

Well TA doesn’t have heads or cams so yes it’s not a bright future for those people who didn’t stockpile stuff LOL

 

What the heck does that have anything to do with it all those TA heads were sold then? So, I take it and they should be on the engines by now. Cams, Heck I bought mine last year in May got it in two months and it was a solid cam the only thing I am waiting for now is the longer pushrods I need to get it all hooked up and that is because I dragged my ars into this year and waited till mid summer to start to work on this thing.

TA should have 350 cam cores on the shelf no one has put one together in 5 years on here there should be at least 2 on the shelf now. At least in the last 3
This is what happens when no one wants to build this engine parts go away so what ya waiting for, another Christmas Buick 350 boys?
580 hp from a 350 Buick ya sure about that anyone else confirm this?

 

That’s what I’d like to know/hear.
I know there’s more than Sean that bought heads, unless Sean bought ‘em all
They get lost, never put on?
I was hoping to get some track times from the set I had 2 grand deposit on, but nearly two years waiting and nothing done to ‘em I got tired of the run around.
I’m forging ahead with my new to me irons I picked up this past Saturday, with some guidance from Stevem on here hopefully I’ll go faster
Well we got a single plane intake, roller cams, forged rods and pistons available for us 350 guys, I’m working with what I have right now
IRON HEADS RULE

 

My build will be completed over the winter with dyno results to follow. I was not in any rush since the car it was intended to go in was totaled. I still have that to deal with as well.

 

Feel your pain on that one you'll be back

 

Did you ever complete your book?

 

The book is almost done except I need to dyno and track test both of my 350s before I release it. My head porting guy was out for a few years with health so he’s all backed up. I get my 12:1 350 engine parts shipped to me very soon.