1956 Buick Century Project

I drove to Yuma, AZ near the Mexico border this weekend (about 650 miles). Very happy with how its been running, 19 miles per gallon with hills and passing every semi in sight.

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such a beautiful car! I actually am building a 57 4dr special with a l92/t56/8.8 axle combo hopefully its roadworthy before May for my wedding. I used your brake pedal setup as some inspiration but mine includes a clutch pedal and the original plenum design is different. I would like to update the front suspension down the road either with a c5 or crown vic setup, we'll see. I hope to drive mine regularly as well.
 
such a beautiful car! I actually am building a 57 4dr special with a l92/t56/8.8 axle combo hopefully its roadworthy before May for my wedding. I used your brake pedal setup as some inspiration but mine includes a clutch pedal and the original plenum design is different. I would like to update the front suspension down the road either with a c5 or crown vic setup, we'll see. I hope to drive mine regularly as well.


Thank you, and that sounds like a great project! If theres anything I can help with let me know. You should post some pictures on this site, I would love to see it!
Are you doing the truck trailing arm rear suspension?
 
Thank you, and that sounds like a great project! If theres anything I can help with let me know. You should post some pictures on this site, I would love to see it!
Are you doing the truck trailing arm rear suspension?

Thanks. I will definitely post pics once I clean up around it and can get it out of the garage for some decent pics. the rear axle is a triangulated 4 link 8.8 the previous owner made work ,fairly easily done from the looks of it, I may need to reinforce it once its ready to move under its own power but well see when the time comes.
 
Few things in life are better than new high performance parts. When I was 16 with my first hot rod, someone told me that the problem with too much horsepower is that it's never enough! The intake is one of the few original things on my engine (which itself is far from original to the car), so I figured it needs to go. This is a Fast LSXRT intake. It has a 102mm throttle body, compared to the 78mm now. It is several pieces- an upper and a lower shell with 8 individual runners that can be removed.

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Got the new intake installed today! Took a little longer than planned but so far so good. I think the intake looks much better but I can't run the corvette covers any more. With the throttle body being higher up I was able to route the intake piping much more directly and witless bends. I also put my previous air filter back on, in front of the radiator this time


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I removed a coolant tube and it all fell on the exhaust! the heat wrap did a great job of holding the moisture in I guess.

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1956 Buick Century project

Just finished a 1,500 mile road trip! Las vegas to hollywood to the coast, then san francisco, and up to washington with several stops and detours on the way! she handled it like a champ. only burned 1.5 quarter of oil LOL


I'll try to attach a video of driving through san francisco.


[video=youtube;BPxmN1dD1oc]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BPxmN1dD1oc[/video]

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1956 Buick Century Acceleration video

Here are a couple acceleration videos, the speedometer is about 10% off, showing slower than actual speed. this is 0 to about 85



[video=youtube_share;62qEfzCzyDk]https://youtu.be/62qEfzCzyDk[/video]
 
1956 Buick Century video

It looks like I can only post one video at a time, heres the other one


[video=youtube_share;cJtD_zZK--M]https://youtu.be/cJtD_zZK--M[/video]
 
1956 Buick Century Project- Air Conditioning

Played around with air conditioning some more this week. I will be selling my factory AC parts- evaporator, evap housing, and condenser if anyone is interested. I'm far enough away from original I would rather have great working AC over great looking AC. The car in the pictures is a friend's century, using it to test fit all the parts.


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1956 Buick Century AC condenser replacement

I removed the original condenser and put the new aluminum one in today. I put them on the bathroom scale just because- the original weighed in at a whopping 37 lbs! new one was about 7 lbs LOL. also, with the slim new condenser, and sitting a little more forward, I was able to put a 14" electric fan behind it, sandwiched in front of the radiator and transmission cooler. The mounting brackets came out pretty good, I used the factory bolt holes as templates to make some flat pieces that the condenser is screwed to. No cutting or drilling planned for this project. I will be using a trinary switch to automatically turn the fan on and off. Here are some pics:


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Got some more work done on the AC today. The air box looks the same in the previous pictures but I've had to make many adjustments to get it situated just right, and fit the evaporator well. This has turned out to be a lot more in depth than I first thought. Today is the first time I've had one of these boxes functional and installed. I have the blower motor hooked up and there is plenty of air flow through the vents, can't tell any difference from the factory ac for air volume. I have the warm side of the ac lines plumbed in, just need to finish the cold side. I'm debating putting the accumulator where it is in the last picture or putting it behind the passenger inner fender. Either way I should be able to get it pressurized this week and test it out!


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I'm glad to report that the AC is a success! I finished the lines today, and ended up installing the accumulator in the area underneath the heater control valve. I had the system vacuumed out, then filled it with 2.65 lbs of refrigerant. its blowing significantly colder than the factory system ever did! I couldn't be happier. On the last picture you can see the condensation forming on the cool line.


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Another day, another engine down the drain. I've noticed slight power loss and significant oil consumption lately, and it would appear that I have a ring (or all of them) going bad. look at this blow by! I have had a few hundred full throttle runs and Im guessing a combination of that and pushing the original pistons well past their factory power output has damaged a ring land. Time to save up for some forged pistons and rods! I still plan on bringing it to a couple car shows. this will likely be a winter project.


[video=youtube_share;m2VUY3b8mb8]https://youtu.be/m2VUY3b8mb8[/video]
 
I got a new sway bar installed recently. it looks about the same but made a big difference in handling. This thing is starting to handle like a regular modern sports car... plus or minus a few hundred pounds haha



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I've been playing around this week with air conditioning. I was able to make a bracket setup that worked on an original 322 nailhead and uses a modern pump. I didnt use an electric fan this time, and there was a surprising amount of air flow through the condenser even with all the gaps around it, so the air stayed nice and cold even when the car was idling at a stop. You can see my hokey support from the top of the ac pump to the manifold. just temporary LOL, I have a nice aluminum threaded tube and ends in the mail.

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