Twin Turbo Skylark 350 Progress by sean Buick 76

76 minute(s) of a 265 minute read

3-2-2015

3-13-2015

I did not rev it over 3500 but it sounds good!

Yes the track is not going to be open for a few more months at least, we are expecting snow tmrw. I am taking the engine out, doing some stuff to the car, and it will not run again until the girdled engine has been dynod with the alum heads and turbos. I have some things I need to do to make the car street legal again, and other things need to be done to pass tech at the track. I am not going to rush for anyone else I am doing it how I want and I am not going to rush out to the track. My life is worth a heck of more with a family to take care of and I don't think it makes me a pussy because I want to upgrade the axles etc to handle the power. I recently found out the engine has bone stock early style rods so it is not going to last long. As many of you know when a rod lets go in a Buick 350 it makes a huge mess, taking out a lot of parts when things start hitting each other... Im sorry but I have seen pictures of 350s that have let go and i certainly do not want to oil down the track and or loose control at speed
WHEN the rods let go. Sonny Seal lost his car over a coolant line they are pretty sure, it happens quick! 

I considered taking the car as is to the chassis dyno and cranking the boost to see what it does, and I might still do that. 

It must be making about 650 hp as is, would be nice to see the dyno chart and I may still do it.. If the engine blows no big deal on the chassis dyno compared to at 130 mph. 

I am out, you guys can wait and buy the book if you want to hear how it turns out or not I don't care... All I know is that this is a hobby for me and I enjoy helping others... I have been helping others on here for years and I really enjoyed it. In fact when I joined I needed a lot of guidance from people on here and I am still learning as we all should. 

I am not afraid to hire a pro to build me an engine or do my head porting, its a smart investment! I never claimed to know everything or be a pro engine builder i just love helping people build better Buicks to enjoy. Part of that is compiling information, data, and knowledge about sbb performance. This does not mean I claim to know everything or have the fastest car etc. Someone will always run faster, run to your own goals and enjoy the hobby. 

Like Jim in another thread I do deserve to be given a hard time by the 455 guys because i bash their week blocks, but its the 350 crowd that should help join my effort to prove the 350s advantages over the 455 not just give me a hard time. 

Even if i never shared any of my future dyno or track times the truth would come out about the potential of these engines. With the heads and intake, it wil be a home run! Thank goodness we kept promoting the potential!! 

8/18/15

I have been having a blast with it so far!









Yes the Tubs and Twins car is here in my garage and running very strong. I have had the engine apart a few times lately and I think I have most of the bugs worked out. The car gets a lot of complements, MANY people are surprised by how quite it is! It idles like a stock NA T212 cam 350 till the boost comes on and it is just plain scary fast with the current 20 PSI setting.



My little man Shane Buick Gaskin loves the car! He grins ear to ear when I start it up and he claps and cheers! 





Look daddy there is a Chevy in the rear view! 

























And my old car now Owned By Blake at Roadrunner Towing, now a friend of mine lives just down the road! 

8/18/15

Over 6000 I had valve float so I got some better valve springs in there. Revs to 7000 fine now... 

Had a head gasket leak at 23 psi, got that fixed by adding arp studs and MLS gaskets. Lowered boost to 20 psi.

Had an electrical issue on the dyno got that sorted out but ran out of dyno time that day...

It is coming along. 

Have not got a clean run on the dyno yet, but it is frying the tires at 60 MPH. Working 13 hours night shifts right now but taking the car back to the dyno a week today.

No we did not get any dyno numbers because of a bad connection at the distributor that we did not track down till it was too late to run it again.

It smokes the big meats even at 60 MPH in second gear when you cruise and then ease into the throttle it gets insane when the boost hits, although the street is not good for traction anyway. It does hook up well on clean road, almost breaks your neck when it shifts under full throttle... But you can cruise it around at light throttle and it just drives like a low comp 350. 

8/20/15

Well guys just 6 days till it hits the dyno machine. I decided to take it for a spin with the camera rigged up for your viewing pleasure! 

I did not have much time so I just did a quick drive but as you can see and hear it runs very strong. 

There is a part throttle hesitation that I need to get worked out, hopefully the dyno tuning will get that sorted out. I have a full carb calibration kit and the guys at the shop have done a lot of these blow through setups. 

In this video I have it in second gear for pretty much the whole video, I try not to get into boost in first gear as it gets crazy so second gear is where i test the boost out. I also avoid getting into boost in third as it gets to 120+ MPH QUICK and I need to keep my drivers license! It has a 4.56 gear, 3800 stall converter, mild cam, 8:1 compression, pump gas setup. 

Yes my spedo is not working, and the rattles you can hear are the windows, as I have not put the new weatherstripping and window sweeps in after the new paint job... 

So without further delay I hope you guys enjoy, crank up the computer speakers because this is pure MUSIC to a SBB Lover: 

I am trying to be very responsible with it... I have never driven a car with this much power, it is a powerful tool and must be respected... I floored it once in first and I was NOT prepared for the crazy acceleration, tire smoke, and car drifting sideways at speed. At NO point in the video did I floor it, this is just dipping into the throttle for a second or less at a time. It is a HUGE rush!

8/21/15

Yes I have the Rev limited set at 7500 because I HATE hitting the limiter, I do not think it is good for anything. Ever watch a video of some car bouncing into the rev limited over and over, no thanks. I set it a little higher than my max RPM and I would rather see and extra 200 RPM than bounce of the limiter. So I try to keep it under 7000 but if it goes a little higher oh well. 

Like Jay 3000 was talking about recently when I leave the car in drive and let it shift itself it really seems very fast even at part throttle if it shifts at 5000 it just pulls so hard in the next gear that it almost makes you wonder if it is worth it to rev it up over 5000 but only track testing with different shift points could tell us the answer to that. 

When the previous owner had this car he spun a rod bearing, and called me... I gave him all the info about the oiling mods, smoothing stress risers on the rods, late vs early rods etc. as well as the ARP part numbers and my advice for a custom camshaft. I am not sure how close he followed my directions but I guess we will see when I take it apart after the next engine goes in. 

I have 2 sets of Herche connecting rods for the Buick 350 and they are stock replacement specs so no machine work or BS, they work just like a stock rod but WAY stronger. I have one set for my mild engine that is a fully blueprinted block, internally balanced stock cranksahft, SFI balancer and flexplates, the Herche Rods, Diamond Pistons, ARP studs throughout, Poston 114 cam, Ported iron heads with oversized valves, SP-3 Intake. 355 cubes. 




And I have another set of the Herche rods for my girdled engine with the Billet crank and also Diamond pistons in that one. This one will be roller cam and external belt driven oil pump, ported SP-3, and the alum heads with max effort porting. Also 355 cubes






I am looking at ordering a custom aftermarket rear end assembly, it may be a better option than beefing up the 8.5. I am currently going to leave it together as it works well and the 4.56 gears are absolutely crazy for low end pickup, and the 32" tall tires cut down the RPM on the highway to a reasonable number. 4.11 will be in the next rear end though.

8/26/15

I am working night shifts but I managed to find time to get the car on the dyno today quickly before work.... 

I felt a little bad for the poor original numbers matching 350 so just before the test I lowered the boost to 16 PSI from 20 hoping to keep from spitting the stock rods across the dyno room.

The dyno operator let off the throttle at 3500 RPM as we had a header gasket blow out. So we do not know the peak HP or TQ yet but we did get some good data. The carb was set a little bit lean for a boosted engine so I will dial that in before it goes back. The calculators say that 450 HP at the tires is about 550 HP at the crank. I guess 450 HP at 3500 RPM is pretty good! Was planning to rev to 7000, oh well next time! 

It may be a little while till I get it back on the dyno, work and the new little guy are keeping me busy...

Yes it was running great at 7000 RPM yesterday but it is a lot of pressure on everything when running high boost levels.... I have a lot more than 3 Buick 350s though, got a whole stockpile here in case I need em... Going to go get another 350 soon and two 455s. I ship the 455s to my buddy Chris Skaling who builds em up and sells em.

8/27/15

Thanks for the support you guys, I am having a blast driving it! Got the header gasket fixed today and drove it a bunch, then had to go to sleep as I am working nights... It gets a ton of attention, smoked a young guy in Porsche today and at the next lights he hung back about 3 car lengths so I couldn't even see his sad face LOL. 

I have a G-tech pro SS in the car and it tells me it is running 11.06 in the quarter mile. Not sure how accurate that is but it must be close. The spedo is still not working but my GPS logged a top speed of 140 MPH on a 3rd gear pull I did on the freeway. 

Jay there is a guy by the name of Ethan (V8 user name Hugger) who is going to be making a turbo kit for himself and he has offered to make them for others. He knows his stuff

Yes I am very fortunate to be on one of the only big projects that is busy right now! I am currently taking 11 University Occupational Health and Safety courses to keep my credentials up so hopefully in a few years when this job is over I will get another good one right away. 

On a funny note I had my car on the trailer in the parking lot at work the other night and the workers thought it was pretty cool that the Safety guy had a fast car...

8/29/15

Here is a winter project I was working on about 6 months ago... I drove 250 miles each way to get 7 Buick engines.... It snowed like crazy! Had to tow in 4x4 the whole time. I know i needed a lower drop hitch to level the trailer but it towed well anyway. 







Got 10 mpg towing in 4x4 not bad..

The roads were still pretty bad yesterday when I went out to drop off the engines.... Most of the way I was able to keep it up to 70 MPH, revving 2500 RPM in 3rd gear is where the engine was happy:






I got them all unloaded at Blake's Shop using his forklift! Blake is the guy who bought my project Skylark and he was in need of a few 455 engines for another car so we worked out a deal where he would drop off the 4 engines to be shipped at the depot for Chris Skaling... And he bought the other two that were not on pallets. 





Then I got home and took out my new 68 $50 350:









Mission complete! 

Got the car out for another spin, added some more footage to the last youtube video:

9/1/2015

Well I was looking for some intercooler stuff on line and found this Hc5a Holset turbo off of a 20 Liter Kta-19 Cummins engine. 

This turbo is brand new remanufactured with 0hrs. Has an upgraded dual vain 41 cm exhaust housing with T6 flange. Both compressor and exhaust wheels are brand new. Center journal bearing section is brand new. 

Compressor is 88mm and exhaust is 139mm. Turbo produces 2450 cfm peak. Good for close to 2000hp.

My plan is to use this huge single on the engine dyno to test my good engine when it is done. Shooting to break the 1021 HP world record. 

Will keep the two small twins on the car, but just want a big single for testing purposes. Added some better head gaskets to the car tonight. Went great, so easy to work on this car... I know all the wrench sizes and keep em handy!

9/26/15

I have been putting some miles on the car, no issues cruising around at idle to 100 MPH at part throttle. Got the steering tightened up, and an alignment, much improved. I borrowed the old tires that were on my other Skylark when I sold it, little tiny 12" wide BFG street tires made the car look ridiculous and spun big time on the dyno. Blew a head gasket again, third time on one side, and the other side has not given me any problems. I took the head to be milled flat and will put it back on ASAP then get a few more miles on it before winter hits. I am lowering the boost to 8 PSI for a while as my converter is getting blown through when the car is on high boost levels. The dyno guy said it went RIGHT up to 6000 RPM as soon and he floored it and he knows what it is like when a converter is overpowered. On the street the converter feels great, but the resistance against the dyno and likely drag racing causes the engine to fly up out of its usable powerband. If I reduce the boost then this should reduce the overpowering of the converter and help things out till I can replace the converter. 

Which brought me to the custom Hughes converter I had built a long time ago for my other car... I bought a 4L80E yesterday and have a paddle shifter steering wheel setup to electronically manual shift the trans, will have toggle switch on the dash. No rush to tackle this trans swap I want to keep the car on the road and make good use of it with the minimum of changes as it is really well engineered by Mark. Lowering the boost, and hopefully solving the head gasket issue on the one side should result in some good reliability gains. 

The stock 350 bottom end is really impressing even me! 

Thanks Walt, used ARP studs after the first time they went. They should be fine for a few uses. 

Mark, the fel pro gaskets are blowing out at their thinest locations and the MLS gasket it is tough to determine where it started leaking as they stay completely intact but once the seal is broken coolant got into all the holes. 

The best I can determine so far is that the felpro gaskets are not going to hold up well to high boost, and that the MLS gaskets should have a fresh smooth surface to seal best. 

Next up is the factory steel shim gaskets, then pulling this engine if that head gasket goes again...

Im super proud of the passenger side head though, its hanging in there without an issue.

9/29/15

Here is my old car! It is now running, but not tuned:

Lowering the boost to 7 or 8 PSI for a while till I can swap out the converter... The bottom end has passed my torture testing so it deserves a break, RPM limit is 6500 now.

On a good note I got my torque converter. Talked to the techs with TCI and they say it should stall at about 3800 RPM with my combo and can handle 1200+ HP without an issue. In fact they said they have guys running 2500 HP on these converters. My current converter was a 3800 stall rated for 700 HP but it could not handle my little 350 on high boost both dyno shops said it blew right through the converter: 

TCI 251412

http://www.summitracing.com/int/part...1412/overview/

UN-loaded my 4L80E, may be a while before I install it but will be a good winter project for maybe next winter. I love these little carts, makes it easy to un-load trans, and the 80 is not light! Still have my paddle shifter setup on the shelf ready so I can manual shift electronically. 





And a pic of the TINY 12" wide tires on the car, they spun on the dyno so looking at getting some bigger street tires for street and dyno testing so I do not have to use the ET streets on the dyno... Seen too many horror stories of blown up drag tires on the dyno:

10/1/15

I keep on buying good running 350s for between $50 and $150 they are piling up! I need some more cars I think! these are so cool, well designed engines weighing 450 pounds fully dressed! Remove the stock intake manifold that weighs 53 pounds, bolt on my 14 pound custom intake, remove the exhaust manifolds, and bolt on some turbos and at about 440 pounds total you have a kick ass engine!

I ran a 125 shot on stock 350s on the highway for a long time.... 2.56 gear and nitrous made it a stang killer. Spun a rod be\earing at about 7500 RPM one time, got a replacement engine for $100 back in and going. But hey I am just a typer not a doer, but at 16 I had a lot of fun:







The data that we have so far about the stock rod strength is based on Dyno testing completed way back when when Darryl R was building circle track engines with custom singleplane intakes, high compression, and nitrous. They had experienced rod failures in the 6200 RPM range and I do not remember off the top of my head what HP was however when the nitrous hit like a sack of potatoes the rods let go... They even rebuilt the engine again using a new block and the same thing happened. I think they were forcing a 200 shot or something at an already 450+ HP NA engine. So that is where the limitations came from and if you search back in my previous posts over the years I have this data documented and on my other computer I have it as well. 

Other than that not one has even broke a rod on the 350 that I know of... Even when Bill M did his testing he was at about 700 HP before he decided to have custom rods made and the stockers never did break for him (he used the 74-80 rods). 

I will did up some quotes to help quantify my info: 

Quote from Bill Mah regarding the stock rods: 

"We had mine hummin' at the 700hp mark before we decided to have the billet rods made. That was also in excess of 7k rpm.
The late model rods seem to handle the pounding well."


Quote from Darryl Roederer, A.K.A. "Professor Buick"

"Jim- The rods WILL be the limiting factor, and will fail somewhere around 575-600 HP in the 6500 RPM range..... WATCH OUT!!! 

I'm assuming your running "late" style cap screw rods in this engine? Side beams polished? Balancing pads "shaved" to reduce weight??? Mine were completely polished on all surfaces, sonic treated, and hard chromed... and 600 HP was "THE LIMIT"! Tho I was running heavier 10:1 "street" slugs and nitrous. With the "light weights" your using, you may have bought a little insurance."

Another from Darryl Roederer:

"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[s] 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 experienced 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."

And the success of these engines off the nitrous was impressive they were winning races and having a good old time with these little 350s with little more than home porting and some hard work:

http://www.v8buick.com/showthread.ph...ghlight=darryl

I do not think that running 20 PSI on a stock bottom end is a good idea, but I wanted to try it anyway for gaining data. Sure it held but not going to be long term reliable I would not think. 

The felpro gasket is living just fine on the passenger side so I do not think that head gaskets are the limiting factor right now. Either I made a mistake when I did the head gasket, or the head is warped, or I have some strange issue causing the one gasket to blow. 

Yes there are a million things I would love to do for dyno testing, track testing, etc. however I can only do so much while working 80+ hours a week and having a young family.

I have been attacked on here, but those who know me know I am a hard working guy doing my best!

There are two separate things:

How much PEAK HP can a stock Buick 350 rod hold with a turbo application
How much LONG TERM HP can a stock 350 rod hold with a turbo application

So if I said that stock rods should be limited to about 600 HP I stand by that, I do not expect people to push the limits like I am and why should I. Lets give sound advise to help people build reliable engines. 

Naturally aspirated, I would not be scared to make 500+ hp with a stock rod, but you always stand a chance of having a defective rod or bad lemon. 

Here is some more info on the rod and piston topic:

The stock 68-73 rods are 630 grams each
The stock 74-80 rods are 675 grams each
The Herche rods are 545 grams each (stock dimensions)

Stock piston is about 704 grams
Diamond piston is 555 grams (stock compression height and 30 over)

Lets do the math:

630 x 8 (number of rods) + 704 x 8 (number of pistons) = 10,672 grams
545 x 8 + 555 x 8 = 8800 grams

That is a savings of 1872 grams of weight saved and a huge upgrade in strength. PLUS now I have a BOB weight of 1755 so now the crank gets to be lightened to match the parts. Both my good engine and my other OK engine both have Herche rods and Diamond pistons so now I can interchange parts if I ever need to. And when I had my custom Billet crank made they made it an exact copy of stock except with my custom bob weight and custom pin diameter to get my oil clearances perfected. No balancing needed, bolt in and go. 

At 7000 RPM the mean (average) piston speed of a Buick 350 is 4491 feet per minute or 22 metres per second, how much will 1872 grams LESS reciprocating weight help my engine life?

And another note here is the weak part of a early 350 rod, although obviously many people have made power and never broke one so I use the term loosely: 

17 psi is the highest i have dynod at... 

The huge Holset HC5a will be engine dyno tested on the girdled alum head engine and 20 psi from it will be way more cfm than the same psi with my small turbos... That Turbo can produce 1800 hp. The engine dyno will remove a lot of variables... Then I will swap that engine into the car and retire it to an easy life at low boost.. Should still be able to run my goal of 10.00 on low boost with the alum heads. 

Yes the book will be worth the wait... New Iron head flow head porting project as well as the alum head porting project etc will all be released in the book. The publishing company will print it as soon as I give the final draft. Then it will be fo sale on here, in chapters stores and on amazon books.com!

Got my car back from an alignment, and some new steering components... Hope to get it back out before the snow flies.

I looked into stroking the 350 and man is it TIGHT between the cam and the big end of the rods. I did not even bother pursuing plus it is cool to stay with the factory specs for rod length, piston height, stroke etc I think. 355 cubes in enough for me with some boost. The only way I see it working is using a smaller diameter rod pin on the crank to gain clearance with a smaller big end but then you give up some crank strength. I just do not think it is the answer for most people. 

Derek has the tools, skills and he can make the nascar rods work with a stroker combo but most of us would be paying a lot of money for machine work etc and you never really know if the rods will clear the cam until you mock it up in the engine (after the machine work) and get a cam installed to see if the lobes hit the big end of the rods. 

Boring the block out larger seems to have potential, especially for a NA build, but for boosted I will keep the bore as close to stock as possible and leave more material for both strength and options for more rebuilds later.

10/6/15

Good news! The head was in need of milling and the surface irregularities are most likely the cause of my head gasket issues. The head is back from the shop now all smooth and freshly milled. Waiting on some intake gaskets and then I can get some miles on this car before the snow flies.

10/24/15

Pulled the engine out today so I can swap the new converter in without removing the trans. Had the heads off anyways so decided it was easier this way. Was my B day today, bought another 350 to use for dyno testing with the alum heads NA before i put them on the good engine. Will be 10.5:1, huge solid lifter cam, stock rods.

No I do not have the heads but I will get the first set once they are done the prototype phase. I got an update from Mike jr today things are moving along well. 

The heads are going to Torque Master Performance for a max effort porting job. And my new 350 was purchased at his location so I don't have to ship an engine to him to test the alum heads on. Before and after porting flow tests then dyno test at the end NA with high compression and big solid cam but stock fresh shortblock.

12/13/15

I also had time to measure up a Buick 350 engine I am rebuilding! It only had 35,000 original miles on it but I had to take it apart to put it in Leanne's SUV for transportation across the country a few years back. She told me "no engines in the back of my SUV on this trip"... So I took the engine apart and loaded it up rubbermade bin each day till it was all in the back:

A few years back I yanked a great running Buick 350 out of a car I was parting out due to rust... Here is the engine running in these video, it is bone stock and has 35,000 miles on it. The car was owned by an old guy and it rusted out under the vinyl roof from too much rain in the area and not being garaged. 







After I pulled the engine I sat it on the engine stand, removed the plugs, and squirted in a bunch of engine oil then rotated it over a few times and put the plugs back in. This engine was stored at my parents house which is 1200 KM or about 800 miles away from me over a snow covered mountain. 

Leanne and I were going back home for X mass anyways so instead of flying like we normally would we decided to drive and take back this engine and some other stuff. My truck is in the shop getting a lift kit so I decided to stuff the Buick 350 in my wives SUV. The first trick to this is not telling her it was a complete engine.... They are just "Engine parts" that happen to be a complete engine together LOL... Bought some rubbermade containers, tore it down and loaded it up. 

So if you need to move an engine and don't have a truck to use at the time, steal the wives baby mobile and make it a parts hauler:











I am going to have to make a run to my little house and drop off a few engines.... 5 Buick 350s here in the garage at the house we live in....



Then engine came apart SO easy! Not one bolt was tough to loosen, they all came right out! When I pulled the rocker arms off I was impressed with how tight they are! When I pulled the lifters out they were all looking brand new even after the abuse I put the engine through, same with the cam. 

The only thing that needed to be replaced was the timing set, it was LOOSE! So anyone with a stock timing set should think about getting it off and a new one installed. Keep in mind this was with 35,000 miles and it was sloppy.....

The heads looked really nice, and the cylinder bores and pistons all looked like new. 

My plan is to rebuild this engine with a custom cam built for turbocharging, re-ring kit from Northern, no machine work, TA intake to save weight, and use it in my 75 Regal when the original engine has an issue after adding the turbocharger. 

Yes for sure the heads will be flow tested before porting... I will have pics of the porting, information and dialog from the professional head porting guy etc... Then we will dyno an engine NA with the heads. Otherwise if I just use them on a boosted engine it will be tough to say how well the heads actually work... 

Even with poor heads it's easy to make lots of power with boost.

12/15/2015

I have always planned to build a 4x4 winter beater but have never got around to it... This $500 Range rover fell onto my lap today, has the 4.6 L V8 that derived from the old 215 Buick engines. A small turbo sure would make things interesting! 

Some better pics of the custom Billet Crank:

No velvet case just a girdled block to keep it all cozy! 

12/27/15

Santa brought some new Buick's for Shane and I: 

2/10/16

Just got off the phone with Blake who bought my old car. He says the car is now up and running well. They are heading to the dyno soon and I will take the day off to see this as well. The car presently has a fully fresh 350 with balanced assembly of 74 rods, arp bolts in rods and mains, TRW pistons, 9.3:1, stock camshaft (you will love this Gary!), ported iron heads with stock valve size, and X factor intake with blow through Holley carb. 200R4 by CK Performance, 3.42 Moser 12 bolt, all new suspension, steering, 4 wheel disk. new interior etc. 

2/20/16

Not much new with the Buick, but I have been busy buying and selling vehicles, and collecting stuff...I normally would never buy a Ford but this one was a super deal so I grabbed it: 

1991 Ford F-350 with 460, 5 speed overdrive manual, 4x4, 4.10 gears, 10 foot tilt flat deck, 25,000 pound PTO winch. It even has an engine hoist setup that mounts into the flat deck. 











Well I have been up to my old tricks... Got some more Buick 350 engines for pretty much free: 





My new enclosed trailer, dirty, but darn nice unit. That is my friends truck he loaned to me but it pulls well. 





A friends Vette that just got painted:





Most of the snow melted it has been WARM: 

3/2/16

I was going to pull it out this winter anyway so I set the boost at 20 psi and rev limiter at 8000 and wanted to see what would break:



It spun a rod bearing and blew a head gasket. 3rd time on the same gasket found it was a warped and that's why it kept blowing gaskets. The oil pressure was low on the engine to start with and the early rods and stock pistons somehow survived the beating. 

Now I just need to decide if I want to swap in one of my good engines or wait till the girdled alum head engine is ready. I am leaning towards waiting for the girdled engine as I have a ton of car and truck projects going on right now.

3/15/16

Getting ready to assemble a good engine with Herche rods and Diamond Pistons, just waiting for a custom Scotty Brown cam... And I have to clear out some chevy and ford engines!! 









Got my cool old chevy truck outfitted, body work will be done this summer: 



And got a spare 460 for my tow truck: 

3/23/16

Got the parts I need to complete the mild iron head engine: 

3/24/16

I was able to fit 4 LS engines in the back of my truck, and tons of LS parts in the back seat. Picked up a bunch of LS engines for my NON Buick projects, including a few turbochargers... Check out the GT-45 turbo I got compared to my big holset one! 












Maybe I need to build a compound turbo setup??

I measured up the smaller gt45 

Inducer diameter = 70mm
Exducer diameter = 82mm

Larger holset turbo

Inducer diameter = 88mm
Exducer diameter = 96mm

3/29/16

Why not buy a 3/4 ton version suburban with the 6.0 and 4l80e? 

Don't think about fuel mileage it's a 4 ton boat.... 

I only got a 1/2 ton because I could not get a short box quad cab in 3/4 ton it was extra box length added. 

Thanks for chiming in. I won't talk about how nice these LS engines are to work on and how good the fuel mileage is but I will say that my plan is to have a well built 4L60e trans and do no other mods to the truck other than conputer tuning and the turbo. I had my local trans shop spend some time researching the weaknesses and upgrades and then swapped out trans in 4 hours and I was on my way. They rate the trans to hold about 400 hp with sticky tires or 600 hp with my all-terrains. This was a lot less hassle than switching the driveshafts, crossmember, wiring etc for the 4l80e. If it was 2wd I would use my 4l80e that's in my shed all built fresh and ready but 4x4 makes a big diff. 

If I were drag racing I would use a 4l80e but it still cost $2000 to have that done well I have the papers. For mild street use truck the 4l60e can do the job. 

I know I won't have this truck for over 2 years, will be a newer used version so for me the trans should be fine.

4/2/16

Well Blake has been driving my old turbo car and it's working great! AC, leather interior, overdrive, 4 wheel disk, and 11 psi of boost!i

Here these pics show the kick ass super short piping that Mark designed: 

Well yeah, eventually I will put the new stage 1 grille in there but its low on the list of "to dos" with the little guy running around and the new baby on the way... I

I think it was more "mad max" when it was in primer: 

And here is the plan for the tow truck to car hauler conversion, paying a pro to weld it up for me: 

Derek, just using the gas 460, it runs great and the gearing is perfect. I have already drove it around with my 75 Regal 4 door on the back and it rides nice and has enough power for the hills... It is not the type of truck I would want a mega HP engine in, it is great for normal speeds not something you would want to go super fast with. I do have a spare 460 engine that I am going to slowly build as a stroker engine for max low RPM torque but no rush as the current engine works great so I am leaving it alone. The only thing I am doing to the tow truck is the flat deck upgrade, then use it and see what upgrades I want to do. I already have some long tube headers to add, and will get a shop to do new exhaust with magna flow mufflers.... 

I personally don't use diesels as they are tough to start in -30 F and they stink LOL! This gas truck fires up great after sitting no issues. I don't care about the MPG, its not an issue for me... I would guess I would use about the same if not less fuel with this car hauler truck compared to pulling my enclosed trailer with my pickup but it would be interesting to compare the two setups for MPG just to know. 

Had my 88 Daytona 2.2 Turbo car out today and it is a blast, 20 PSI down the throat of that little engine and it just loves it... Tires don't stand a chance under 30 miles per hour, fun highway car. 

I also have my 80 Chevy 3/4 truck running really nice and I can use that to tow my enclosed trailer, it also has good gearing for towing.

4/12/16

Got some skinny street tires mounted and balanced, lots of tread on these ones should keep the cops from pulling me over thinking my tires were slicks. Will use the big meats for the track and these pizza cutters for the street. 

4/25/16

Well some good news from Blake who has my old car! He put it on the chassis dyno today and it made 460 HP and 460 TQ at the wheels with max RPM limited to 5500 RPM! There was some tire spin so there is a lot more left in the combo and this was at 10 PSI of boost. The engine in the car is a fresh build with 74 rods, TRW 30 over forged pistons, and ARP studs in the mains, No fancy parts. The cam is a used poston 114 and the heads are fresh but almost stock 71 versions with stock valves and a little bit of home porting done. X factor alum intake, and blow through carb. 

The car has a 3.42 gear, 200R4 trans and hauls down the highway at 100 MPH like its nothing... All steel, about 3900 Pounds, full street car setup. I will post pics and video when I get it!

I see your point, but here is the scoop! 

I have a publishing deal for a book about Buick 350 engines, so I need to break the world record for Buick 350 HP and build the best one around. 

I will have the dyno testing done naturally aspirated once the alum heads are ported, and with a custom turbo camshaft. 

Mark Burton is building me a single kit to use with both of these turbos on the engine dyno (ran separately) so that we can see what it does for power. 




Then I will drop it in the car and run it on low boost to see 10.00. 

Because I have this publishing deal I need the best of the best, I need the cutting edge parts such as the girdle, the billet crank, etc etc. I want to show what the Buick 350 can really do and I want it to be reliable... 

Reading many books about max effort engines, I found that many good engines go bad due to a crankshaft that flexes and causes bearing and block issues... There was a crank failure recently that spooked me into the billet crank, better safe than sorry.... 

Weaker parts can be good for a while, and maybe a long while but you never know when they will give up.

5/1/2016

More pics! 

5/4/16

Some pics of my engine coming together. I plan to use my belt driven oil pump but I wanted to be able to use the stock setup if I wanted to for some reason down the road: 

5/6/16

Dragged home another cool chevy truck... 383 stroker, 5 speed, swapped the starter out and now it runs great! 







Much lower than my daily driver truck: 

Pulled my friends vette out of my trailer so I can put my stepside in there... 

5/16/16

Got my tires mounted and balanced, these are for dyno use only so I don't trash my drag tires on the rollers: 

15X12 Steel rim with 295/50R15 BFG Notice how I used a nice wide rim to make a really wide flat contact patch... Put these on some 15X8 rims and you get far less contact patch: 

6/15/16

$200 got me a running parts car: 

It's too bad it sat in a field so long the frame is rusted out. Glass is good, engine is good, trans was rebuilt before it was parked, even came with a nice rear bumper and two new quarter panels... I was surprised to get it so cheep!

7/3/16

Well, just an update... My girdled short block is at Chris Skaling's shop, he will do the alum head porting final assembly and dyno NA then ship it to me. 

The car hauler project is coming along! I will use this to carry light vehicles around when I don't want to hook up the big enclosed trailer. Next thing to do is headers and new exhaust off the 460, and then air bags in the rear to help level it out under load. 

7/20/16

Unfortunately the new owner of my car is having some issues. This is the same thing I had happen on my engine, so we are closer towards sorting out the problem. The car was running great on 7 PSI of boost, good at 10 PSI and then at 12 PSI it blew the head gasket on number 3 cylinder. I gave him some Scotty Brown gaskets and again it blew the number 3 cylinder head gasket. It was making 460 HP at the tires on 10 PSI and running 11s in the quarter. 

This is the car: 









The plan for both of us is to add a Air Fuel (02 sensor) in the header tube at the #3 cylinder as well as an Temperature probe so we can monitor things better. Right now we are only seeing an air fuel ration of an average of the 4 cylinders on that bank.

7/20/16

Well things are coming together with the car hauler project it is 95% done I just need to finish up a few details like fine tuning the ramps, and then adding some air bags to help carry the load when hauling. There are spare ramps secured at the rear of the deck as well to help with low cars. 











And the 88 Daytona is QUICK! The boost is raised up on the turbo and it is a nice little car! Going to sell it though once I have it fully fixed up: 





And the 75 Regal is running well... It has a SP code 10:1 350 in there and a 200R4 right now, makes a great highway hauler: 

7/24/16

I traded some crap I had laying around for my old engine and trans that I sold with my other Skylark last year. The new owner had it making good power but blew the head gasket due to a bad tune up and then he dropped in a LS engine with turbos and it is now 1000 rear wheel HP street car with 6 speed and 4 wheel disks. 

I had bought this engine from Jay 3000 a while back, nice setup well built and the short block has handled the turbos well:







Balanced engine with some mallory metal: 



74 capscrew rods with ARP: 




It sat for a while and then I sold it with my old car: 



I sold the car with the second turbo kit which I also got back! 



And as tough as it was to let go the nice single plane intake went with the car too so its nice to get that back! 



These ported heads came with the engine from Jay but I never did let them go, I gave him some stock rebuilt heads instead. 





This 200R4 trans was $3600 originally was happy to get it back. CK Performance rated for 800 foot pounds of TQ: 





Here was the results of that good bottom end with some stock un-ported heads with 10 PSI and this is rear wheel HP. He had some air/fuel distribution issues and it looks like it went lean on cylinder 3 as it blew that head gasket a few times. It ran 11s in the quarter at almost 4000 pounds and 3.42 gear.

8/26/16

Well today I picked up a cool car! I am going to put a Buick 350 with forged pistons and a single turbo kit in there and back it up with the CK Performance 200r4 trans and make it a street/strip car. I am planning to paint it all black myself and have fun with it and not worry about scratches or rock chips. The rear end is a fully built and spooled 10 bolt with 4.88 gears. With the gears and overdrive trans I will be able to launch it like a bastard and still drive the highway. I could not resist it and the price was right! I have been around this car for years, it was last running 10.35 in the quarter with a 6.0 LS engine and it hooks and goes straight so it should be a lot of fun!

I am not into the stroker builds personally or large overbores I will stick with 355 cubes either boosted or NA... 

I have considered doing a mild NA build with so much gear it could still run well... Will likely go single Turbo though as I have the kit and it would be easy to get it to run fast. Plus boost is addictive. The sound is fantastic and no need for high compression big cam etc... 

This will be a low buck fun car no alum heads or expensive parts.

I have built plenty of good running 350s,old street versions with self done head porting, mild cans that kept the low rpm torque etc. And yes I may build an NA engine but not a max effort one. 

Yes Anthony's engine was 630 hp at 5 psi but they did raise the boost after that and that is where the higher HP estimate came from after they swapped to a higher boost level they never re dynod. 

I have a nice engine here that just needs 60 thou milled off the block (pistons are 60 thou in the hole) and it would be 10.5:1 with diamond pistons and hershe rods and I have 2 big flat tappet solid lifted cams new in the box. That would be a good combo and cost me nothing. This block is all blueprinted and align honed and internally balanced with arp studs in the mains. I likely won't ever use it for boost as it was setup to run iron heads and if it was zero decked it would be too high of compression for boost and the alum heads... And for the alum heads I want a zero deck piston like in my girdled engine. 

Or my other engine I just got back with the high compression TRW forged pistons would be 10.5:1 with some 48 CC ported heads I have and steel shim gaskets. That one is proven reliable bottom end with 74 rods arp etc. It may not have stayed reliable under high boost but it handled the abuse fine at about 580 crank HP on low boost. It only has about 500 miles on it, most of them about 120 mph lol!

8/27/16

Got some better pics of the new car and getting parts together for an iron head NA engine.

Some rod weight info:

Herche rods are 542 grams I measured them today on my good scale. 

The eagle rods we just had done are 580 grams

And from an old post we have the weights of the stock rods and the Nascar take outs: 

The H-beam nascar takeouts for Andy's engine weigh about 530 grams.

So all in all I am happy with the weight savings of any of the aftermarket rods that we have available all of them are much lighter than stock, and also much stronger. 

This is the cam I am stuffing in there:

http://www.crower.com/buick-350-comp...m-292-fdp.html

I will have to have 60 thou milled off the block, and then use the steel shim gaskets but it will give over 10.6:1 compression with these heads. TA roller rockers. the Herche rods, Diamond pistons, X factor intake, Holley 750 carb. MSD dist, just stuff I have kicking around. It will not be optimum but it will run well I am sure. I will drive it around a bit on the street but more of a track car. 

Better pics: 

Got the rear end opened up and holly crap its a 5.57 gear, WOW!! This may just run okay without boost. 

Crunching some numbers with the 200R4 trans and 26" tall tires and 100% converter lockup via toggle switch:

RPM at 65 MPH would be 3135 RPM which is not that bad actually and the car would not be driven long distances on the highway. 

RPM at 125 MPH would be about 6030 RPM so that would be good for a relatively low HP engine to run fast in the quarter. Lots of torque multiplication. 

The last time this car ran with a Th400 trans it would have been revving the below RPM and actually more due to converter slip: 

RPM at 65 MPH would have been 4700 RPM
RPM at 125 MPH would have been 9000 RPM

Will be using fully ported iron heads with oversized valve and TA roller rockers.

Thanks for the info and relevant experience with your Nova. This one is a 75 Omega with a 77 Skylark front clip. A car like this I would not be too worried about fuel mileage, and I will have the car hauler done before this is done so I can piggy back the cars anywhere I want and not have to worry about breakdowns or issues at the track I can just winch it on and drive home... Best of all I will not have to use my trailer its a pain in the butt trailering. I know you mentioned before that a turbo diesel would be a better option for the car hauler and that is what I am doing now its a 2000 E-450 with 7.3 Turbo Diesel and a tank that costs about $900 to fill up LOL!

Roller rockers are 1.6 ratio

I am not sure if Burton is making the roller rocker kits again? Last I heard he was understandably annoyed because there was a ton of interest in turbo kits and then he made them and had very little sales so not sure whats up...

I looked up the specs on the trans and torque converter package and it is a 3400 Stall converter so that will flash up nicely...

8/30/16

I am not interested in more than 10.5:1 and that is the max I could get with these spare parts I have. Not interested in stroking the engine, 355 cubes is fine and I think the big solid cam is enough for the combo. 

The head flow numbers are: 

1.92 and 1.55 valves

INTAKE

.050 - 35
.100 - 62
.200 - 118
.300 - 177
.400 - 218
.500 - 249
.600 - 258

EXHAUST 

.050 - 28
.100 - 54
.200 - 104
.300 - 147
.400 - 177
.500 - 179
.600 - 180

I did some dyno testing on a hot 350 with 1.92/1.55 valves on a 355 cube Buick 350 a long while back with a single plane custom intake, 10:1, large cam, large tube headers etc. Note there was a typo it was a 350 not a 455.



We were not going any higher than 6500 RPM due to stock rods however with better rods there was more RPM potential in the engine if not for the rods.

This was with the very first single plane intake that I had built and the engine used was Rob Margel's that he let me use for testing. 

As a generality I feel that the optimum operating range for a close to stock Buick 350 with ported heads is 2500-6000 RPM. Any time you push up to 6500 or 7000 RPM the reliability and maintenance needs will be effected. Sure with fancy parts and high $ builds 7000 may be a reasonable goal for peak HP, but like always the idle to 3200 RPM range will be losing torque as a trade off for the high RPM power.

This is where I come to the conclusion that turbocharging is the best way to make about 450-600 crank HP with the 350:

1. You can use the stock bottom end and get adequate compression without milling the block or custom pistons
2. You can use a mild cam that does not give up the bottom end torque
3. You can extend the RPM range of the engine with properly sized turbos, my engine was peaking in HP at about 5500 RPM (Poston 114 cam) before boost and it kept rising past 6300 with boost
4. You can make good power with 4-6 PSI and no intercooler and then it simplifies the setup not having an intercooler. 4 PSI is enough to turn a stock 350 into a healthy engine.
5. Even without expensive head porting or alum heads you can still make 450 HP at the wheels as we proved with my old car as it had stock heads on it, 9:1 and also a Poston 114 cam, this was at 10 PSI with intercooler.

yes we do have to dial in the tune up and ensure that #3 cylinder is getting the right amount of air and fuel and we are not sure yet if it is a carb issue, manifold issue, or if it is making so much torque the engine mount is twisting so hard on the block that the block distorts. Is MPFI the answer or can it be dialed in with the carb? We will see. Either way on low boost things are happy and long living, it is when the boost is raised that both me and the new owner of my other car are blowing out #3 head gaskets while the rest of the engine is happy. Adding exhaust temp probes in the headers to gain more data, and going to try to systematically rule things out and get things happy in all 8 cylinders. it is no issue for me to do a MPFI but this is not an option for a great many people that may be on a tight budget so I am not going to be too quick to get away from the carb. 

I set the rev limiter at 8000 RPM on this run, just to see what would break and although I thought it was a spun rod bearing initially it actually turned out to be that the timing chain broke and the bottom end of the engine looks fine, including the stock rods and pistons. The heads are in good shape too, no issues to be found. 

I did this as a test dummy to see what the stock 350 bottom end can handle, take pics of the broken rods or pistons etc for my book but the engine survived 17 PSI and 8000 RPM. 

Turn up the speakers, it sounds good! 

8/31/16

This was the engine was was claimed to have made 551 HP at 10:1 compression and then was sold to a fellow who is not into drag racing. He has the engine healthy and burning rubber in a 70s regal street car. As far as I know it has been reliable over the years, regardless of the actual HP numbers this is a nice engine. 

Jim B did complete a lot of really good engines, however when he tried to step up to help Buick people get the "Bulldog" 455 blocks he ended up involved in a HUGE fiasco that led to him going out of business. Jim B seemed to have good intentions and good Buick knowledge and reputation in the early years however by the end his reputation was screwed and he was putting up some bad engines due to a various amount of reasons which involved stress and who knows what else. I know of a few guys who got the Bulldog blocks, one of which broke in half.. many others ended up loosing the money. 

I do not think that Jim B meant to screw people around but when people gave HUGE deposits to him so that he could get them a Bulldog block and then "Bradshaw" the guy behind Bulldog who was a real con artist never really made good on the promises of all the blocks even after taking all the deposits from Jim B. So after going through all that and Jim trying to pay people back the deposit money he went under... 

All accounts from old school Buick guys say that Jim B was a far different guy in the early years then how he was perceived at the end...

I could be wrong but this was the impression I have gotten.

10/14/16

Custom oil pan was needed as the stock pan was hitting the frame with the girdle:

More pics of the pan: 







Chris Skaking Whi is breaking in and dyno testing the engine will for the pickup into the side of the pan. 

11/14/16

Got a few things done today while waiting for the TA alum heads... Took down the winter tires for Leanne's SUV and put them on... NO snow on the ground and its mid NOV!!!!:rocker:

Welded up this engine lift crane as it was leaning sideways and getting dangerous. Nice and true now. 





Washed up the car...







Put these tire skates under the car so I can push it around the garage... Nice quality bearings, wheels and THICK plates really sturdy. Shane and the neighbour boy were super happy to help me do this...

Added some winter weight to the back of the truck:



Been messing with a lot of LS trucks too... Doing a single turbo on one of my 6.0 trucks.

12/5/16

While waiting for the alum heads I am keeping busy! Sold the two transfer cases that came with the truck for more than I paid for the truck. 

Putting a Buick 350 and 4L80E into this truck that had a solid axle swap with 1 ton suspension and roll cage.





This 1990 gmc came with independent suspension but for real off road abuse you want some solid axles... Tons of work went into this and it's really well done. 



Pulled it up onto the flat deck for safe keeping, love that PTO winch: 

1/15/17

Some cool pics of my engine build: