Considering Sacrilege...

Not sure if Im posting this in the right place, but what the heck. My uncle had a really nice 1970 Skylark given to him for Christmas (a merry one indeed). It is a super clean mostly original car (been repainted about 10 years ago, new color). It has the good old 2 barrel 350 sitting in it with 68k original miles on it. AC, PS, fairly loaded and it all still works as it should. I Love the car the way it is, but its not my car. I am trying to get my uncle (an old bracket racer) to spend a little money and "hoop up" the 350 a bit, some head work, cam, intake, headers....maybe get it up to 320-350 horsepower and have a fun little wheel spinning car. Here comes the sacrilege part of the story...he has sitting in his shop a really really good 500 horse 502 and a th 400 transmission. Its just sitting there and he is considering putting that down in the old skylark. I told him to sell the 502 and put the money in the 350...but his argument is there is more bang for the buck in the big block. I see his point and ultimately it is his car. It's never going to see a drag strip (not on a regular basis anyway) and I hate to mess with what is a perfectly good car as is. If it was a car that needed a complete restoration, that would be different, but the car as-is is a time machine, the key buzzer still works, the AM radio still works, the original polyglass spare and jack are still bolted to the trunk floor. Maybe some thoughts on options I can present? What would a 350 horse build cost me for the buick engine (3000?) Know that we do have a pretty well equipped shop and can do all of the engine removal, assembly, etc that can save on costs. But a chevy swap will require motor mounts, headers, exhaust, probably a new radiator to cool that big block. I dont know, just casting a line.

Thanks

 

Its only a skylark... Drop in the 502 and have some fun while your building the 350.

 

I-LIKE-YOUR-9jivp0

That does sound good, but it does sound like a lot of trouble swapping in one motor and all that just for a temporary thing, if we put the chevy in there it will most likely stay. Also that 502 may make mince meat out of the 10 bolt rear end as well...I think a good alternate plan to that would be go find a junkyard 350 buick for a couple hundered bucks and build that one up, and leave the original one as is and mothball it on a rack in the back of the shop.

 

If this were a stage 1 gs I would say keep the original driveline in tact. However, being a regular skylark (albeit a clean one), it isn't the end of the world to either build the existing 350 or swap in something else.

As far as the rear end, the 10 bolts can be plenty strong with a few improvements. Spend a third of what you'd spend upgrading the motor and have the rear end beefed up.

 

'70 has an 8.2 rear which has very little aftermarket support. One reason most change to an 8.5. Much more readily available parts. Another problem is unless it has a combo case TH350 it will also need another trans. as the bellhousing bolt patterns are different. Also, I don't know how long a TH350 will last behind a 502.
Just my thoughts.


Tom T.

 

"I hate to mess with what is a perfectly good car as is. If it was a car that needed a complete restoration, that would be different, but the car as-is is a time machine"

X2! Keep it original---sell it to someone who appreciates it for what it is.

 

Get it ready and drive it on the Power Tour. Have some fun with it.

 

It's a 4 hour drive to get to the LAST city on the tour this year, I'm in a bad area for anything fun motorsport wise except for mud racing. Flat roads, no hills, no curves, 1 drag strip that is a 1/8 mile joke, and no road courses in a 5 hour radius. I need to move, lol.