1969 Skylark 455?

[Clayton]

Happy to have found this web site, hello to everyone, thanx for looking. Have chance to buy 1975 455 w/400 trans. Will this drop in my 1969 Skylark or will I have to do some modifying. Is this a good year 455?

[carmantx]

Hi and welcome. Not too far south of you.

Any 455 is good and fun. But the 75 model had low compression and crappy heads. You could swap out the heads and really improve the performance.

As far as the swap. Not too tough. Need to change the frame mounts for the engine to 455 units. Will have to move the crossmember for tranny, but it will work. New drive shaft. Different fan shroud.

[Clayton]

Thanks for input, been restoring this car trying to stay on a budget. Maybe having original 350 rebuilt would be better.

[twenty]

i have a 66 skylark that came with a 340 motor. i was thinking of swapping mine out for a 455 as well. either way the motor is going to cost you a fortune because no one sells parts. so be ready to spend 2500 to restore the motor. I have decied to go with the 455. i figure why half do it?

[MrWizard]

ANY 455 Buick is one hell of a TQ monster, the king of em in fact, and the one you have a chance to purchase is no exception to the rule. As far as putting it into a 69 Skylark, NO PROBLEM if it was as i expect a V8 car to start with. I know this by way of building a 73 Stage 1 455 and TH400 and installing same into a 1969 Sylark Cpoupe that originally had a 350/th350 combo and did so with no alterations at all by using a short tail TH400 trans, if u use a long tail trans a slight shortening of the driveshaft will be need and in either case you will need a TH400 Yoke which is the same as the GM manual shift trans yokes.
I expect that i am biased toward Buick 445 Power since it is my all time favorite v8 engine for any and all purposes, such a Buick 455 fanatic am I that i have 2, a 70 Stage1 455 and a 70 Stage1 455 Based Stage 2 455, that i run alternately, in an 88 3 series BMW Post coupe w/ TH400 n 3500 verter in front of a 9" Ford axle suspended on Mopar Super Stock leaf spring suspension and sporting up to a total 300 shot via a 2 stage wet platte nitrous oxide system.
With a somewhat mild build, a 2800 rpm converter, 3.55 posi and a single stage 150 shot wet plate on 28 x 10 MT Slicks i was able to click off consistant hgh 11 sec passes on pmp gas thru a full exhaust including tail pipes, on PMP GAS tween 114-117mph after driving the car to the site of the pass and back home afterwards.
IMHO your idea for a build is an excellent one and NOT just because i have owned a simular set up.
Done i am positive you will enjoy hours of carefree trouble free driving pleasure, not to mention offering any number of stop light bandits their come upance. Good Luk with ur project and anything with which u think i may be able to help, please do not hesitate to ask.
ANYONE looking to Build a 455 Buick Bruiser is a lifelong friend of mine sight unseen....

[twenty]

Mr. Wizzard,
any ideas or advise for rebuilding the 455? parts? what i should put in and should not? looking for a hard street runner. but something i can put on the highway and cruise with as well. so the balance would be nice. i am located in the chicago land area but will tow and travel for a deal or a good 455 mechanic.....

Thanks for your reply it has made my decision to go full throttle a lot easier.

[MrWizard]

Yes i have many upgrade tips for u to consider but 1st a little background info about the 455 Buick. Much of this may seem redundant and long winded but it is indeed nesswecary to post, since to effectively improve the performance of anything, engine or otherwise its imperative one know what works and how, but just as importantly, WHY, since failing this understanding one has little hope of effectively produceing performance above whatever there is to begin with, not to mention the prospect of spending a lot of money for a very lil if any gain.
1st, no matter what u hear or read from me or anyone else on Earth, never stop thinking and experienceing for urself. Trust and believe when i say that any and all improvements in perf with any engine was arrived at by someone combining what they may have heard or learned with hands on experience and expertise.
2cnd, bone up on ur mechanical and driving skills because the better you are at these tasks the less it will cost you to achieve any level of performance not to mention reap the most satifaction and pleasure from same. remember any hgh perf ride is never just an engine it is a well thought out COMBINATION where all things work in concert with everything else and the most important ingrediants in ANY combination of perfomance orient is the operator and chief wrench, have confidence in urself that done carefully and diligently u can achieve whatever level of skill u need to accomplish ur goals.
The Buick 455 engine is an extremely ligtwieght casting, dressed in cast as they come from the factory it is less than 50lbs more than an SBC while having a 543" cube limit(535 safly) vs a 400 SWBC's 434 safe limit. dress both in aluminum heads and intake, headers and the Buick is nearly 10lbs less than is the SBC simularly equiped.
This is both a big plus as well as a big minus, the plus is obvious, the minus is that it makes for a somewhat weak casting which needs to b adressed before u go building gobs of power with one which is exceedingly easy to do.
The 455 Buick, indeed all BOPC(Buick, Oldsmiobile, Pontiac, Cadillac) engines are tq monsters, affectionately known as "grunts" that make massive amounts of low rpm tq with relative ease. This is because they are purp[osely restriced on the exhaust side coupled with a relatively long rod which increases the lenth of the pause at TDC and BDC while the piston changes direction...this has the effect of promoting a leaner and cleaner burn and any engine creates its maximum amount of tq and at the least amount of RPM at the verge of detoination which is simply an over lean condition that causes hot points in the cylinder that ignite ur mixture before and after the spark plug does. what sounds like that annoying rattling at that time is just that, the pistons and rods rattling around in the bore as these opposing flame fronts crash together.
The hgh low rpm tq nature of the grunts like the 455 Buick has an unwanted side effect that gives them an undeserved rep of not being able to rev very hgh. wholely untrue, a 455 Buick properly preped will rev as hgh as will any simularly sized and preped engine will, but they run fat and lazy if u allow them to do so too quickly because one enters a situation where u are introducing a greater mixture into the combustion cycle than u can cleanly burn and exhaust before the next incomin charge arrives, this contaminates the incoming charge with unburned and unexhausted hydrocarbons making for an essentually over rich condition. Next, by 65-6700 with any cast iron head in any configuration that will physically fit the engine block the heads are going to enter into this situation by way of u spinning the engine faster than they can effectively promote clean burn and exhausting. Fortunately ultra hgh revs are not needed with a grunt to achieve good power numbers. This is explained by the fact that horsepower actually only exists in HORSES, while in reference to ur engine it is simply a mathematical expression of some amount of TQ multiplied by the specified RPM labeled in a format the average layman can grasp the concept of for advertisement purposes. Thus it follows that the more TQ an engine produces and the lower the rpm at which it achieves it peak of same, the fewer rpm one need turn to achieve any amount of HP. Also, remeber, no matter how much power ones engine is CAPABLE of making, it is only going to actually make whatever amount of that u can present it with enough load to produce, simply because past that point it has no reason to produce any more, this is why dyno numbers which are achieved by increasing the load on the engine until it reaches it peak amount of hp production seldom tranlate into the expected ET's and Mph that they indicate once ur actually running the car in a race where one may not have the load present to force the engine to produce these numbers. This is also why heavier cars with TQ monster engines seem to run quicker and faster than lighter ones with the same engine. This because one can achieve a greater amount of traction and the comensurate load with any size or type of tire with more weight applied to same.
Next, TQ monster grunts are exceedinly easy to unload and when u unload an engine at any rpm, no matter how well preped it is or what brand it is it not only produces less power but the engine life, specifically the bearing life is severly shortened, this is doublely true with any externally balanced engine like the 455 Buick or the 454 chevy, which is why many spend the exorbitant money they do to add mallory and such to internally balance such engines. These engines can still b easily unloaded and thus comensurate life shorteing vibrations occur by something as simple as excess tire spin, too hgh a numerical gear ratio, or even too hgh a stall speed factor in auto applications. Tho different types of grunt style engines will produce increasin amounts of power at hgher rpm than will others, NONE will long tolerate too fast a speed at which u allow them to rev up to that hgh rpm no matter how hgh or low that is.
With the 455 Buick they respond much better to split pattern camshafts with lobe sep and lobe center numbers tween 105 and 110 with hgher factors of these in favor of the exhaust which is restrictive as well as duration numbers. best duration numbers for a moderate compression engine of 10.2 or less with a 455 Buick are from 300* up, the hgher the mechanical comp, the hgher the duration factor needs to be, for engines of 9-1 or less these duration numbers should not exceed 314* on either exhaust or intake and centerlines of 110-116 are much more effective in power production. In either case with the 455 Buick lobe sep number are most effective when kept at or below 110* hydraulic of solid. With the 455 Buick ur better served to avoid big roller cams and their associative hgh spring seat pressures, the lite weight of the 455 block comes into glaring play with these and u won't b long before u'll crack the block in the lifter valley, trust me, i learned this the hard way. If u must go with a big roller either solid or hydraulic, or even an exceptionally large flat tappet cam in a Buick a wise investment would b the TA performance lifter valley girdle set up. If u plan to produce much over 500bhp then the TA Performance block girdle and halo kit is also a wise investment, tho relatively expensive to purchase and requireing machining to afix by a competent machine service they come with full detailed and illustrated instructions for ur machinist to follow.
Heads, contrary to popular belief ANY cast iron Buick head that isn't a Stage 2 casting is just about as good as any other since it is exceedingly easy and inexpensive to machine same to the 70 Stage 1 specs which is the very best spec for a cast iron non stage 2 Buick head. One may as well not even try to actually find a set of stage 2 heads, the option was available 68-69 on the 400" Buick v8 and 70-72 on the 455" v8. Thruout the entire production run of the option as far as i can assertain only some 250 sets of these were ever built and not all of these ever left the factory before being melted down and recast as something else. his is because the Stage 2 option was always a dealer owner installation option which in addition to being quite expensive, voided ones engine warranty as well. Not to mention the option was never an availability in anything other than a GSX which itself was a relatively expensive option. Also Stage 1 and base 455 Buick heads have a diff exhaust port configuration than do the stage 2's and require an expensive set of custom built exhaust headers. In fact, if one had ordered a Stage 2 optioned car back in the day, it would have actually been delivered with a Stage 1 short block toped by a base set of heads and sporting the stage 2 cam while the stage 2 heads, intake and a custom set of headers crafted by David Lunkas' Kustom Speed eqquipment of Flint Michigan which is the home and birthplace of Buick which is the parent and founding division of GM, Chevrolet GMC and Pontiac were created out of existing Buick facilities or those built BY Buick for oakland motor carriges with chevrolet always intended to b divided from GMC with GMC going to corporate control while chevrolet to this day remains under Buick Divisional control as did Pontiac before its demise, Oldsmobile is ALSO under Buick divisional control and contrary to popular belief yet exists, it was simply morphed into what u knew as saturn then partially divested as was AC delco when it became DELPHI. Nowe it is simply refered to as Cadillac and as long as cadillac has been a GM brand the engines, including todays Northstars, have beeen actually Oldsmobile productions crafted on Oldsmobile engine blocks. Even today BOC is yet the name that appear on all cadillac, Oldsmobile and Buick facilities, with the "O" standing for, u guessed it, OLDSMOBILE. The only facility that ever had any other name attached to it was the springhill TN facility which was final assembly only, NO production was ever done there. Oakland Motor carriges which is what became Pontiac was an independant company that used chevy 6 cyl engines and Buick drivelines to motorize their luxury carriges. Willian C. Durant Jr. the personal founder of GM coerced Oakland into building him a specific model in a new facility which is in what is now Drayton Plains, MI, a Pontiac suburb at which time he incorporated the brand as Pontiac into GM and discontinued sales of parts and supplies to Oakland forcing them out of Business. Their original facility was then bought by Walter Chrysler who began his own auto company after being 1st an engineer and later CEO of Buick Motor Division, this is why the mopar world HQ sits adjacent to I-75 in what is now Auburn Hills Michigan, this is where the Oakland company was. Tho Buick is not know for it, their history is actually based in performance, one year after the incorporation of GM in 1908, at the 1909 Indy 500 race it was won by the Buick Special or Buick Bug as it was know, sporting a 622" 4 cyl buick and an average speed of 105mph+. In fact this is how Billy Durant Jr gained control of Buick and trhen incorporated it into GM. The Buick Motor Company, headed and founded by David Dunbar Buick made only luxury motor cars and to enhance sales they invested heavily into racing, too hevily in fact such that the company was in dire finacial straits and would have closed had it not gone public. The Chevrolet Brothers who then worked for Henry Ford wound up at GM after the aqusition of Cadillac/Lassalle since they were workin for Ford but racin BUICKS.
I have entered no specific cam or comp recomendations because these are things that are best left to the judgment of the owner of the ride in question after an honest and carefull assesment of what they expect of the completed ride, this is why allthe background teh info, sio that one can make an informed decision about such things.
Intakes; it is very hard to beat the performance of the stock cast iron Buick 455 4v intake which is a dual plane low profile affair, especially if one port matches it to a set of also port matched 455 heads 1/2" into the runners. Resist the ineveitable advice to use early 400/430 heads on a 455. These misalign the oil passages at the front between themselves and the 455 Block which leads to galling and failure of the cam bearings from oil starvation w/o relative expensive machining to both the heads and the 455 block to correct this misalignment. Beside, as earlier stated any 455 head can be somewhat inexpensively converted to either stage 1 or stage 2 configuration by a number of concerns.
For Buick aftermarket parts and supplies, far and away the best of the bunch is TA Performance of Scottsdale Arizona(Phoneix), as far as an actually Buick engine builder with fair price and a complete machine service dedicated exclusively to Buick's TA is also the best of the lot, but a concern closer to our local is Geof Ketchum of Ketchum Machine service and Finishline MotorSports of Freeport, Michigan. Owner Gef Ketchum as well as his son in law and HIS wife Geof daughter practice what they preach and own hghly competetive Buiick 455 based engine powered rides. Geof's is an 87 Regal with one of his BullDogg engineering headed 435 stroker production block engines on pmp gas runs 8.20's to 8.30's at nearly a buck 65 mph. The Son in law Bobb Mackly run a stock suspensioned 71 Skylark GS@3700lbs dry that has a set of Cast iron 75 455 heads he converted to Stage 2 configuration which runs consistant 8.80's at nearly 155mph, both cars are procharged as well. The daughter, Amy Mackly runs an 87 Regal also sporting a 12.7-1 470" 455 Buick also at 3700lbs like her husbands and sporting a set of her husbands Stage 1 converted heads and runs consistant 10.30's at 128mph w/o a Procharger and this is a nodular iron crank stock block engine. ogher than Bulldogg engineering these folk almost exclusively use TA Performance parts while also have an on call tq converter construction service as well as a specialty cam grinding service for the apps where an off the shelf cam JUST WON'T do.
Insert Finishline Motorsports; Freeport, MI in ur search engine window and their concern will pop right up for ya. These are some awful nice and fair as well as dedicated Buick performance enthusiast who know their business and started same as a way to support their own racing efforts. Tell Em Dallas, Mr. Wizard advised u give them a call.
Done i assure u that ur project will yield u untold hours of Buick 445 motivated driving pleasure with a minimal amount of outlay, not to mention make u a stop light bandit killer and competetive in whatever class u fall at ur local track. Buick 455's are affectionatly known as Hemi Killers,a title they richly deserve
Pics of my Buick Powered BMW during latest phase of construction, rather REconstruction

[MrWizard]

Expecting that i have built and am builing among the most unique Buick 455 Powered rides in History, i present more pics for the viewing of fellow Buick fanatics of all stripes, im ever glad to have come upon this forum guys and u folk have not only tolerated me but also enlightened me on the world of Buick powered car crafting as well, thanx a mill folk.....Dallas

[bob k. mando]

that i run alternately, in an 88 3 series BMW Post coupe w/ TH400 n 3500 verter in front of a 9" Ford axle


there's a guy who has a Buick 455 in a Jaguar. you two ought to get together.

[MrWizard]

Bob, have u any way i might contact the fella with the 455 Buick in the Jag, i'de sure like to find out how simular or dissimular our builds are, especially in cost.
Twenty, 1st, there are a whole host of Buick HGH per parts suppliers, and i have found a surprising number of expert dedicated Buick performance crafting concerns as well scattered across the nation, TEXAS, ARIZONA, MICHIGAN, ALABAMA, and NEW JERSEY to name some of the places that have more than one crafting and or parts supply concerns. Next, do not let em kid ya, if ur using new quality parts, which is certainly what u want to do if ur planning on any type of motorsport activity with any brand of engine in the BIG BLOCK catagory or even the small block catagory, cursory checkin will revel that cost of construction is PARITY in effect. For Instance, for my BMW; and before i realized that to make any real use of it in my car required a major and expensive revamp that would take the car away from my prefered theme; I built an all aftermarket 4.5" bore x 4.5" stroke 573" Stage II 455 Buick with TA Aluminum Stage II Heads retaining the Stock Stage I exhaust port configuration(diff from the Stage II's requireing a very very expensive custom made set of headers, that would require that u drop the car, mtr in it off at a reputable crafting concern for at least 2 weeks at a cost of at least 1500 in the case of my BMW and at least 3/4ths that much for anything else u might put a StageII headed Buick 455 in. TA's heads are available in 4 stages, Stage I and Stage II are pretty much an aluminum dupe of the factory Stage II head that retains a Stage I exhaust port configuration, as does Stage III, tho the latter has extensive porting and can b had with valves larger than the Stock Stage II 2.14" in x 1.71" ex in custom stem sizes and lenths, while the Stage IV version of these heads are ported fully Stage II's complete w/ 2.25" in x 1.81 ex useing an intricate offset shaft roller Rocker set in ratios from the stock 1.55 ratio to as much as 1.7's for all out competition). I used a BullDogg Engineering cast iron after market block with a 604" cube limit, TA 4.5" stroker recip assembly and custom wisco ultra lite pistons w/ floating wrist pins which yeilded a 92 octane friendly 10.33 comp ratio w/ the TA heads; (NOTE: avoid hgh comp ratio's with any v8 Buick for engines u hope to have decent durability and or hope to run on pmp gas of 93 octane or less. had i used iron heads with this combo, the large bore size and the slower heat disipation rates of iron heads would have made this strictly a race gas engine when tuned and timed for max power, especially on spray; besides, there is nothing u can do to any iron head that would yield enuff flow for such a large engine outside of a set of exotically ported stock Stage II's and ur most unlikely to find, let alone b able afford a set of those. The relatively LONG rods used in BB Buick's, especially a STROKER( mine were 7.068" custon TA Steel) make for some serious dwell time at TDC and BDC such that a BB Buick at 10.33-1 when at op temp will have cyl pressures as hgh as a BBC at 11.33-1 or more, and no matter how u hear or read what, past 12-1 on a BB Buick and ur going backward in power production not to mention makin for extremely short starter life if ur doin much hot crankin of the engine, while just accellating wear and tear on ur lower end, and thats even with the hghest octane race fuels). My engine on an engine dyno made 764bhp@6,130rpm and a whoppin 704lb/ft TQ@4,065rpm over 600bhp 5,100rpm thru 7,200 rpm and over 600lb/ft TQ 3,400rpm thru 6,400rpm, makin for a phenominally wide and flat power band, all with a flat tappet solid lift camshaft a stock out the box 1050cfm Holley Dominator, and a TA/KB KOOL RUNNER DOMINATOR air gap intake on 92 octane sunnoco fuel. Total construction cost, carb to pan, less rocker set and Valve covers was 13,456.++. I venture to say u could not construct a pmp gas domestc V8 that size which made those power numbers of any brand for less than that, and it would have had to have a full roller cam set up with costly, short life valve springs.
well over 500bhp with a 455 Buick can b had with exceptional durability and driveability for well under 5-6k and that counts getting a good core to start with, and that cost is hard to beat for that amount of power output as well.
AND, any decent rebuild of ANY domestic V8 is going to cost 2500 or more; in fact, for a decent performance v8 u can expect to have at least 1500 in machine work alone, that usin the ever popular SBC.
Next, contrary to popular belief as well as appearance, ALL BOPC V8 engines use the same frame mounts and almost identical engine mounts, i once had a 69 Skylark that came with a 350 Buick n TH350 trans, a 455 Buick n short tail TH400 were a drop in swap, and i only had to change the trans yoke usin the engine, frame AND trans mounts from the 350/350 set up. Also Small and big block Buicks share camshafts, dist, exhaust, carbs as well as all accessories and brackets as do Oldsmobile small and big block tho with each the small block engines are physically smaller than the big blocks in width they are the same in height and lenth as well as not really appreciably much more weight.
ALL Pontiac v8 engines from the 1st 287's thru the 455, year to year use the same blocks, including the 301, tho it has a diff bore center than the rest, and have the exact same outside dimensions as well as fastner sizes and placements. Thus, effectively, ALL Pontiac V8 engines are Big Blocks.
With a Big Block Buick, resist the tendancy to try to create in it the power production characteristics of some other more popular brands and seek to enhance those it already possesses such as the hgh low end tq production. Then, seek to widen and flatten the power curve as much as possible.
An engine that makes 500hp over a 3k rpm power window will out performce a 600hp engine that has a 2000rpm power window....AND, with any engine, the more TQ u make and the lower rpm at which u make ur peak tq the fewer rpm u need then turn to create ANY amount of hp. HP in representation of an engines out put is simply a result of a mathematical formula which expresses the power of a given amount of tq multiplied by a specific amount of rpm.
Also, as a indication of real world perfomance of any ride, neither a wheel nor an engine dyno's numbers accuratly indicate what the car will perform like in real world practice for a number of reasons, the biggest of which is that ur unlikely to b able to introduce the load to the engine in real world practice that can b introduced to it by a dyno. It may b hard to understand or accept but an engine, regardless of the power it CAN make will only actually produce as much of what it CAN make as it needs to equal or over come whatever load is introduced.
Think of it as if ur bench pressing weights, ur never going to generate the force needed to lift 300lbs if ur only actually lifting 100; u can't, since once u overcome the 100lb load ur muscles will not produce any more force than that requires, simply because they don't need to and an engine is the same way. once an engine exceeds the power to overcome the load introduced it becomes what is known as unloaded and there is no more damaging circumstance under which u can operate an engine. An engine will hold up at 6000rpm under a load much longer than it will at the same rpm unloaded free revving; any engine. This is especially critical with a V8 Buick or any BOPC engine since their hgh tq production capability makes them much easier to unload than is the case with most other engine brands. Wheel spin unloads an engine, too hgh a numerical final drive ratio of even 1st gear ratio will unload an engine by over multiplication of its tq factor. BHP, for many reasons, is easier to hook than tq is, not least of which is that the latter is created at much lower rpm than is the former which is when the car is at or close to rest and NEEDS more traction to b moved." Bodies at rest tend to resist being moved while bodies in motion tend to resist being stopped". Trap MPH/rate of speed is more a determination of hp while ET/rate of accelleration is more a determination of tq coupled with the nessecary traction and chasis rigidity to place it on the ground effectively. Drag racing is not so much about how fast one goes but how QUICK u do so. U run a 10.00 and i run 10.50 ET it won't matter i am going 200mph faster than u when i reach the traps, i still lost by 1/2 second.