The latest I heard was guys are putting Buick 350 heads on a SBC short block. What is the advantage since there is already so many SBC heads out there.
Thats the old buick heads made for a SBC,..predecessor of SB2 head They were made by buick for circle track competition,...then trickled over into drag race stuff,...they were the hot ticket back in the early 90s late 80s,....they can be picked up cheap now,..outdated and probably wore the hell out ha
Back then most, if not all, GM Nascar teams were running small block Chevy engines. Not sure who built the Buick heads but Brodix built them for the Pontiac guys. I have a pair of those on the shelf at the shop. Nice thing about the Pontiac versions is they have the name Pontiac cast right into the heads in addition to the Pontiac Arrowhead logo. I'll snap some pics today when I get to the shop.
Pontiac designed heads for the SBC also! There's nothing wrong with those heads even today and since the are Aluminum even though they may be worn the heck out of they can be fully rebuilt and even re-tempered by Brodix if need be . Both the Buick and the Pontiac head flowed over 280 cfm out of the box, the only down side is that for a street/ strip 350 the power band kicked off too high due to there out of the box port volume, no less if they where ported which most where!
I had my set of Pontiacs flow tested and I have the flow sheet around here somewhere. I'll look for it later. Seems to me from memory that the exhaust side flowed high in comparison to the intake, not lending them well for street use. Obviously designed to focus on high rpm.
I found this on the internet but it explains it well: After Pontiac released castings for NASCAR for the GM "cooperate SBC engine" (AKA Small Block Chevy) Buick decided Bobby Allison and others needed some help so they commissioned DART to build some "asskickers". I think NASCAR could see that things could quickly get out of hand so those heads and others were quickly denied race eligibility. The NHRA Comp Eliminator guys went wild for them and Larry Torres built a business around his development contract from Buick for creating a rocker arm system for the DART Buick heads (T&D rocker arms) I will give Larry some credit as he spent a lot of time and effort on the V6 Buick in drag racing before others discovered it's potential. More info: https://www.teambuick.com/reference/library/hybrid_head.php
True , but they make a great conversation piece. I need to put these things back together one of these days. Flow numbers aren't all that great considering the port volume and 2.08 intake valves.
Oldsmobile had entire engine blocks made to suit SBC architecture. Regular and tall deck height, dry sump or wet sump. Four part numbers. Called 'em the "Rocket block". GM is still selling over-the-counter blocks, but I bet they don't have the Olds logo cast into them any more.
Flow isn't great compared to these days but they were on only 350 ci's and revving to who knows where? Nobody cared what happened down low. Not far off what a good iron 455 flows. I thought I heard the Buick versions were based on some of the racey Buick V6 heads.
They were running them on 270-310 cubic inch SBC and 8000-10,000 RPM. I have read they hit 680 HP NA and 950 HP with a blower.
