To Alleycat

Alleycat, regarding coatings, I have had success with Tech Line coatings, CBC2 cermet thermal barrier on piston crown & chamber. Coated the SBC pistons on my Cobra back in 1997, and years later, when I swapped new heads, the coating was intact (yet covered with soot)
 
great thread

i hope this thread keeps going it has been an interesting read i have the factory dual carb intake an twin exhaust manifolds on my 53 263 am going to try an run 94 holley carbs i have on it unless someone knows of better carbs , ignition is stock distributor with 12volt pertronix ignitor conversion an im going to try the msd al 6 box i have laying about sounds like a good idea have a th400 out of a pick up for a transmission using bentdsens adapter hope it runs good :thumbsup:
 
strt8 dragster

hey guys, If you wanna see a real old staight8 dragster check out 'CHUCK HAMANN' on the net! He campaigned a Buick dragster for many years, taking on all comers in his class. And doing it well i must say.
 
Hello again!

Hi guys, I just wanted to let everyone know that I tracked down the guy I met at B'ville in '91 throught the SCTA-BNI website and sent him an email. I hope to hear from him soon. I also saw that the record that he set in '91 for vintage engined lakesters was still standing at 176 mph. I thought I recalled it as being higher, but like all good stories, we tend to remember things a bit better or faster than they really were. I think that this guy will be a wealth of straight 8 speed info. I also tried to upload the pictures that I took but the file size is to big so I have to figure out how to shrink them or something. I'm trying to wrangle a teenage computer geek to show me how. To alleycat; I found your post of the smaller straight 8's "running circles around the 320's" very interesting. I believe you but I'm trying to figure out why? I don't think that internal friction is the main culprit. I know that the cranks are real heavy. Trust me I've moved mine around the shop plenty of times! and that internal component weight is very important to engine response and acceleration, but I would think that power output would still be tied to engine size. Do you think that the breathing ability of the head is playing a major role in this or is it a lack of any good aftermarket parts or modern upgraded modifications?
 
Hi there bigrivy!! Welcome to the site. By all means find that lakester guy, I would like to hear about how he got around or solved the problems inherent in the str8. As to why my "small blocks" will eat up a 320 is really a matter of engine dynamics. The bore/stroke ratio of the 263 with its shorter rod, bigger bore is not too bad considering the 248 which is bad and the 320 which is worse yet. The internal friction component of each engine is determined by how much surface area the engine has and it increases to the square of speed, as does the reciprocating weight. Then there is the piston speed. At low rpm's it's not such a big deal, in these engines it gets outa hand quickly. And then there's the thickness of the piston rings, and there's four (4)!! of em, and the bearing size!!! Bigger is not better! A bearing that is 1/16" bigger, all things remaining equal, will cost a engine 20 hp. These engines have bearings 1/4 to 1/2" bigger than engines of comparable size. This is partly a problem of crank lenth, bearing number and location. A cranks strenth has a lot to do with journal overlap, there's not much overlap in any of the cranks, and the 320 is longer by 4 or so inches and has to live with the same 5 mains! We have limited options. The 248 due to a "goofy" bore spacing will only go so far befor insurmountable problems. So, it's not a candidate for a all out effort. 250 hp or so is it. The 263 is a very different engine. It is a way more moderen engine. It still has huge bearings but it is a shorter engine and with a up to date piston/ring package, aluminum rods, harmonic damper with a aluminum hub, the bearings can be cut down, the crank itself can loose a LOT of weight and best of all...this engine can be bored out at least .250. Displacement inches don't have anything to do with power, torque is a function of surface area, hp is a function of engine speed. With these changes the 263 now has has a very serious leg up making lots of both. Then there's the head, but that will have to be for later. alleycat
 
Pictures

Fryguy: your personal settings are such that I can't send you any kind of email. Let me know what your email is or email me and I'll send you the pictures to post.:confused:
 
Actually, upon further thought, some actual numbers might go a long way in explaining why the 263 has more potiental than a 320.

1. bore/stroke ratio. This is a compairison of the stroke lenth divided into the bore size. It shows first off what the potiental rpm range of a engine possiably might be. A. 320: .80
B. 248: .75
C. 263: .77
These are not good ratios. A good ratio would be something like 1.2-3 and up. SBC have ratios like this. There is no way to get these ratios up by much.

Piston speed. This is a average of the distance and rate the piston is travelling. As the piston is approaching tdc and bdc it is slowing and acclerating respectivly. If plotted on a graph this would be a bell curve.
320: 2 x 4.312 x 2000rpm/12= 1437 fpm 2x4.312x5000rpm/12=3594fpm

SBC 302: 2x3.00x2000rpm/12=1000fpm, 2x3.00x5000rpm/12=2500fpm

248:
263: 2x 4.125 x 2000rpm/12=1375 fpm, 2x4.125x5000rpm/12=3437fpm

The chevy is good speed for the size. A lot of engines now have speeds lots lower. Piston speed has a direct relationship to internal friction. None of the str8's are good, but the 263 is lower. Major destroking and boring can change this problem somewhat. You will notice that at 2000rpm the speed is not really very bad, it gets really out of shape at higher rpm's, fast!

Inertial load. This could be a really involved calculation, so I'm keeping it simple. This number showes just what the crank has to handle. We'll just do the weight of the rod.
320 rod: 2lb 2oz, making it easy, 2lb. 2lb x (2000x2000)rpm=8000lb
2lb x (5000x5000)rpm=50,000. 8cyl x 50,000= 400,000lb.

263 rod: 1lb 10oz. 1lb 10oz x (2000x2000)rpm=6500lb
1lb 10oz x (5000x5000)rpm=40,625lb. 8cyl x 40,625=325,000
I've not included the piston, rings, bearings, etc, but in the case of the 320, total inertial weight is well over 1/2 million lbs!!!! The life of your roadsmasher engine is in your rt foot! The weight of the 263 components is not insignificant, but it is lighter by a ways. By now it should be apparent that these engines have some problems. The real advantage of the 263 is that moderen up to date components can, with some work, bolt in. Seriously reducing weight. Moderen pistons alone are worth 5-6 hp a hole,= nearly 50hp.

Rod ratio. This is a numerical value arrived at by dividing the rod lenth by the stroke. I left this last because rod ratio is a very funny/odd thing, it can make or break a engine. It is tied directly to intake volume, if these values are not in balance the result can be a major unhappyness.
320; 8.25/4.312=1.9, a nice ratio!!
248; 7.625/4.125=1.85, not bad
263; 7.375/4.125=1.79, this looks like it going in the wrong direction, but with a shorter rod and deck, rod lenths can be juggled around to fit the intake dynamics.
The 320 looks like it has a really nice ratio but at 8.25 long its not so great. In all cases, a high ratio tends to make a small intake work better, which we have and a really big intake work nice, which we don't have, and never will. A really long rod has a tendency to stay at TDC and BDC for a rather longer time, hindering flow and a few other things, piston needs to be moving. 263 has a smaller intake but it can be opened up and flow vastly improved, and with a little choise in rod lenth, dwell time is reduced and the rod lenth would give more intake signal which would work much better with a "real" intake manifold. Could the 320 be built up to the same level as my 263? Possiably. Would it be easy? No. At that level would it "get" my 263? Yup. alleycat
 
cooling system

Once upon a time, when I was going to the big school, I met some grad students that were doing a project on a small one cylinder engine. I've forgotten what the original expierment was because things rapidly went wrong. We discovered that the cooling system and how good or not good it is, has a big impact on power production. We found that there is a optium temp in a engine and lack of uniform temp control through the engine can and does cost power. The expierment ended up persuing that end.

With summer and hence, hotter weather, just around the corner and if anyone is going to build a all out engine such as has been hashed around in this column, the cooling system needs some upgrades.

The basic operation of the str8 cooling system is out the bottom of the radiator, through the water pump, out through the dog leg pipe and into the left front of the block, somewhat acrossthe block to the right side, then quickly drifts back to the left side to the back of the block and up into the head via the big hole at the left rear of the block in the deck. It then flows to the front of the head where the thermostat housing is, as this is the location of the systems pressure differential. By the time it gets here, it's HOT, providing little cooling, and the head is the place that needs it the most.
I've run my buick through some hot places and I've found it likes cool weather better than hot. I'll bet that most are that way. So what could be wrong with the cooling system? Look at the size of the radiator!!! And the guage hardly ever shows hot!? Well, 1st problem is the dog leg port. It puts the cool water right into the side of #1 cylinder. If the cooling system is nice and clean and in good order, it will cool that cylinder so well that it will distort the bore in that cylinder. Then the flow is mostly down the left side, leaving the right side hotter. The cylinders need to be cooled but the head needs it more. The 248 has no coolant transfer holes in the deck, except at the rear of the block. The 320 may be the same, I'm not sure, I don't recall. The later heads have holes in them for this, early heads may not, I've never had the opertunity to check. Head gaskets are punched for the holes. 263's have got the transfer holes in both the deck and head. I suspect that the head being poorly cooled, particulary in the exhaust port side, has a lot to do with all the destroyed rings&pistons I've found in all the str8's I've ripped down. The biggest problem is the big (1") hole in the rear of the deck. Water follows the path of least restance. That big hole is the least restant path, all those other smaller holes will get little flow. The hottest point in the head is the exhaust side and all the exhaust ports are side by side except front & rear. A odd thing happens when these sites get really hot, which is most of the time, the heat causes the coolant to burst into little steam bubbles on the surface of the metal. These little bubbles remove heat pretty good, unless they get togather and form pockets of steam, then things get really hot and things get bad. You can't hear this and the guage sender is in the wrong place to ever show it. The passage between the exhaust ports needs to flow. The stock system won't do this.
How do we fix this? All the holes at the rear of the block with the exception of the two holes at the very rear, need to be pluged. If the block is on the stand and bare, idealy, get a 3/4 internal hex pipe plug, thread the hole and crank it in. The 3 remaining smaller holes will take a SBC front oil galley plug, 1/4 pipe, I think, thread the holes and crank em in. Some of the plug should stick up. The block will have to be decked. This is the best way. If the engine is togather, put the plugs in the head. If you have a different way, go ahead, just plug em. Next, using the head gasket as a template, drill a 3/8 hole through the deck between the exhaust ports, if you have a early head and it does not have the holes in it, drill it as well. On the right side of the deck, opposite the just drilled holes, drill 1/4 holes. There diffinatly won't be holes in the head, so matching holes must be drilled as well. At this point we have now got a flow from the cooler bottom of the block between the hottest spots in the engine, the exhaust ports. This goes a LONG way towards equlizing temps in the engine, and its diffinatly ok at this point, but one more change makes it excellent. Eliminate the dog leg pipe. Make a block off plate for the port on the block. Fab up a pipe going from the water pump to the middle freeze plug port. I did this out of stainless steel bathroom grab rails. I put a little "jog" in the pipe just aft of the water pump exit, in order run it close to the block, machined up a o-ringed bung that plugs into the freeze plug port, drilled 3 holes in the boss, theres more than enough meat, a little silicone, and "bingo" the best cooling system ever. What this does is put the coolant through the widest cylinder spacing, over to the right of the block and front and rear split, pulling back across, up into the head, flushing the exhaust port space with a good steady stream. Excellent temp controll. alleycat
 
Straight 8 pics.

Guys; I have emailed my lakes pictures to Fryguy and I am hoping that he can figure out how to get them up so everyone can see them. You will be able to see some of the cooling system mods that were made on that engine. I have not had a response from the emails I sent to the guy that built the car. I agree with alleycat that the Buick 8 has cooling issues. Alot of other inline engines, if not all, have cooling problems. Ford 300 sixes are notorious for wearing out the front cylinder because it sits right behind the water pump and cannot stay up to operating temp. I have had to offset my boring bar to get them to clean up at .060 over on the first rebuild when the rest of the cylinders will easily clean at .030. Also many other inline engines have copper water distribution tubes inserted in the water jackets, Chyrsler flathead sixes are this way. Triumph 2 liter sports car engines have a water distribution tube in the cyl. head. All are attempts to improve temperature variations along the length of the engine. So any improvments that can be engineered into the Buick will probably help the engine survive in todays environment. Many OEMs are reluctant to change anything on an existing design unless there are a large number of in-service failures or a large number of customer complaints. As long as the general customer gets a reasonable service life out of their product then hey, no problem. Given the time period that they were built and the way most Buick owners operated and maintained their vehicles, any shortcomings that were cooling system related were probably considered a nusance and not a problem requiring any design changes. Sorry if it sounds like I'm rambling on.
 
Allycat I also have had Delta cams do cams for my inline Triumph engines so we must live fairly close. I work at Valley Freightliner and one of the things the big truck engines did to help cooling was to reverse the flow of water so it hits the hottest part first. I don't know if that would help as it sounds like you have it under control.

I also have a 1953 Buick Super that I won't be using the rear end on as I am switching it to a 1962 frame.

I would like to build my 52 263CID up enough to tow my trailer as I don't need high RPM just lots of torque but I don't think I have enough smarts to do all you guys have done. What A Group!!
 
Bigrivy is right on! Since most if not all inline engines derived from 4 cyl engines, and with a short engine all the cooling sourced from the front, everthing worked ok. Buick engines are basicly 2 , 4 cyl engines back to back and the cooling just barely works. I think that most if not all my engine failures are cooling related. I thought about a reverse flow system but it would have to come in the ends, not helping much. Then I thought of what I described earler here, and I think that these modifications will solve all the problems and would be a very good thing to do even to a bone stock engine. Considering todays driving climate and the gas we have to live with, if you want to drive your car and you want it to live....well...As a side note, when I first did this modification to my 248, the coolant temp droped by about 20 degrees, I had to block part of the radiator, even in the summer!! The radiator is too good! alleycat
 
Hot 8

Alleycat, this is interesting, I thought that just 39's had the heating problems. Haha. Well Mine did, and after purchasing it in Provo Utah I started my trek back to my home in Riverside Ca. As soon as i got on the open road I noticed the temp going up. Finally I pulled over and lifted the hood I was greeted with a very hot blast of air and the radiator boiling. Well I happened to have my Dads old 'desert cooler bag' and we waited for it to cool. Back on the road i noticed that if i stayed at about 50 mph it would stay at a reasonable temp, but that wasnt a reasonable speed. I thought maybe blocking the hood up a bit might help. Well it sure did and then i could let er rip, and she got up and cruised at a good 70mph and kinda hot but not boiling. Later I decided to look for a cause and noticed that 39's didnt have much in the way of underhood ventilation, and remembering the scorching heat coming out of that blocked up hood i realized that it might have an 'air dam' effect, and the air was 'packing up' under the hood, slowing cool air thru the radiator. Well i just got under the cent, and looked around , and finally noticed that there was this big open gap under the radiator, and,the front crossmember looked like a regular 'air scoop'! It was causing a lotta air to go right under and behind the radiator causing a high pressure area. So with some sheet aluminum and some rubber mat i blocked that 'scoop'. Havnt had anymore heating problems since, maybe some extra louvres later. And Alleycat I might try your fix for engine protection. Any way its an easy fix and anybody can do it with either thick rubber or sheet aluminum and some sheetmetal screws. guys check your Buicks, you may have similar problems.
 
I was thinking and like alleycat said, the straight eight is just two four bangers put together. what would happen if you blocked 4 cylinders? there was a guy running at the lakes who ran a SBC with only one side. is it possible to only run with 4 and if so, what kind of power would it make?
 
Reading this post I was thinking about the staged 2 barrel carbs on Ford Pintos and thought they might work well on the Buick. They might even fit the manifold as they are mounted with 4 bolts. I think they were a Weber design and worked real well on a Datsun I tuned for a friend with much better power and fuel mileage.

By the way I spent a pleasant few hours reading jiriky's web page, what a neat thing for him to do.
 
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Hi guys, just checking in - I've been building my house lately, and haven't found the time to write here. You have done a great job at keeping this thread alive! Why didn't I have all this info available when I started my project. :angry:The cooling stuff is pretty important, and what Alleycat suggested would basically have been easy to implement when the engine was in pieces. I recall the 1946 Shop Manual (supplement to 1942) stated there was a cooling modification that year, and that the earlier head gaskets won't work on a 1946 engine.

Now there's already so many need-to-do's along this thread, that I'll have to make a list to be at hand when the time comes. And it will. :thumbsup:
 
Beam me up Scotty!

BuickBoy; I think that the casual browser to this thread would think that most of us straight 8 guys are from another planet. Then you warp in from another planet in another dimension. The straight 8 is like two 4cyls. One 4cyl cut in half and hooked to the ends of another 4cyl. You would have to run on the middle 4 cyls. of the straight 8 but I think it would be a real dog. Its possible, I've seen a demonstration of a V8 running on one cylinder. But it labors considerably under the load of dragging the rest of the rotating assembly with it. I know you are talking about removing the other pistons and valve train but the same principles apply. I think that it would actually make less than half the power of all 8 cyls. working together. The reasons being everything listed in this thread already, high component weight, piston speed, friction, bad head design etc. The reasons they do this to small block chevys is 1) to meet a displacement rule of some class or sanctioning body and 2) to take advantage of the phenominal amount of research and development that has been done on the chevy small block. Arguably pound for pound the most versatile and powerful, for it's size, engine ever created. I would bet that more time and money has been spent on the chevy than all other engines combined. If I was displacement limited this is not the engine type that I would start with!
 
Aren't we Straight 8 guys from another planet???!!!! Thats what I was hoping was true.


Just wanted to let everybody know that I am creating a thread called Bonneville Salt Racer. It has the pics that BigRivy(Kent) has sent to me to post. They are also in my gallery under Fryguy.

Check out the pics and let me know if you guys want them bigger or not. This racer needs to be seen in person!


Fryguy
 
Hey fryguy, be sure to mention how to get to where the photo's are, as I, at the very least, am not worth spit at gettin around on a 'puter. I also lost you out of my PM file, so, in case you did'nt get my last pm, yah, it'll all bolt in, no sweat. alleycat
 
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