Dear Bob, Dr. FrankenBuick, and Team Buick members,
Sadly, there has been very little to report on this project. After getting my car painted, the body-shop has slipped back into taking care of the newer victims first. So I found the car outside in a light rain with nothing more than a piece of paper over the exposed tailgate area. I registered a complaint with the management and hope I'll see more progress next week.
Switching engine builders has put that project at the back end of Jim Weise's busy spring engine building season. There are four engines ahead of me so until Jim catches up on his existing work, all I can do is explore a few ideas to squeeze a little more fuel-economy out of the car.
Thanks for explaining these differences. I'm still puzzled though by Buick's choice of a "shorter" rear end for wagons after 1965. The horsepower of these midsized wagons was still modest (250-280 hp). Perhaps towing needs were increasing through the decade so Buick made a quick concession?
Given that I'm not short of power and torque, I'm sorely temped to go with as "tall" a rear-end as the mechanical components can stand. Paul Muller has suggested going with the 3.08 ratio and a limited slip differential to protect the rear-end from excessive stress.
I'll certainly provide reports as Jim starts to explore the problem. It is one of his engines that convinced me that a big-block Buick engine could actually give me better fuel economy than the 300 cid engine that in the car now. However, for something reason, people don't start with a large-displacement engine when they want fuel-economy . . . . I can't imagine why? . . . So Jim hasn't gotten a lot of requests like this!
One suggestion he has already made is to go with hydraulic roller cam. Since that opened the door to a custom cam, Paul Muller has been suggesting to me "variations" to the 212 cam (thus the request to Dr. FrankenBuick).
It is a certainly an interesting idea for a vehicle that has only local duties where LP is available. However, since my goal is to make the wagon a road-trip cruiser so that's not very practice. Paul Muller and I also discussed an engine designed for E85 Ethanol, but again the fuel just isn't commonly available. So the compression ratio will have to cope with anemic 91 octane California gas.
On to the good Doctor's contribution:
Thanks for making any runs at all! This sort of a cam strategy is getting radical, but computer simulations don't break any engine parts! When Jim Weise get to designing my engine, I'll toss this idea at him in case he has some clever simulation tool to examine this strategy for higher compression ratios.
Thanks for the plot and I've already squirreled it away in my collection. Let me know if your Internet services give you trouble and I'll gladly take over the hosting duties.
From the standpoint of what is graphed, indeed the previous arrangements of the 212 cam produce more power. What makes this arrangement potentially worthwhile is something that cannot be simulated I assume. The higher static compression ratio should provide a more efficient engine and therefore provide more fuel economy. Since the engine has so much torque that Jim was worried about the choice of the 200-4R transmission - I could certainly afford to lose a little torque without diminishing the car's tow-capacity.
So one more potential trick to squeeze a little more MPG out of the car!
Thanks again for everyone's help!
Cheer's Edouard
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