questions from The Netherlands

[Nineman]

Hello,

I'm from The Netherlands and own a 1975 Buick Electra with a 455 Buick engine.

http://home.wanadoo.nl/9man/Buick.htm

I am planning a rebuilt of the engine, because i have some wear on the inside bearings, and a
leaking head gasket (for the 2nd time).

I have a couple of questions:

1. What original color should the engine be? Should it be RED like in this picture?

http://www.buick-riviera.com/picture...455-600pix.jpg

2. When i do dismantle this engine, what things can i do to boost performance? I'm not looking for any high-price solutions, but maybe there are some small things i can do that result in significant change?

Maybe these questions should be on the tech-talk page, if so let me know, and i will move it.
Thanks in advance,

Kind regards,
Sjoerd
The Netherlands

[rcull]

Because you'll still want the car to drive nice and get good milage, I would suggest you simply make it breath better.

At the heart, I would use a good "mild" camshaft, just above the stock specs. You can retain the exhaust manifolds and use a good performance dual exhaust. Have the distributor curved. You could add a K&N air filter.

That should help it a bit without bustin' your pocket book.

Let us know what you decide!

[bobc455]

1. What original color should the engine be? Should it be RED like in this picture?

2. When i do dismantle this engine, what things can i do to boost performance? I'm not looking for any high-price solutions, but maybe there are some small things i can do that result in significant change?

Sjoerd,

That color red is the correct color (I think). It's the color of my 455, anyhow.

I would caution you about dismantling the engine: whoever is going to put it together should also be the one to take it apart (in my opinion). That way, all of the critical items can be marked and stored in a system that will be easiest for the assembler to remember. My first time I put the wrong caps on the wrong connecting rods, and hilarity ensued (much money).

Besides that, I think the TA212 cam would be a great upgrade over stock, especially for that motor. Most upgrades cost money- some "shorty" headers would probably work nice (I'm not positive they will fit but I think so), some ignition upgrades like MSD, and maybe a fancy intanke manifold. Stage 1 valves would help the heads, and so would some porting- however head modifications can be expensive.

Another thing you can do, which costs much less, is put a lot of effort into tuning- get the timing and advance curves just right, and get the carb tuned exactly. Maybe some slightly richer secondary metering rods would help. (Personally I would stay with the Quadrajet carb, and not go to a Holley, unless you plan to have this as a race machine). I think the Q-jet is the best "all around" carb. There are some guys that specialize in carb rebuilding (John Osbourne and The Quad Shop come to mind, although they are both in the U.S.) and this will go a long way toward a great running motor.

One more thing- whoever does the machining should have Steven Dove's book about the Buick motors. Great information in there!

-Bob Cunningham

[bob k. mando]

1. What original color should the engine be? Should it be RED like in this picture?


no, the 75 and 76 engines are oldsmobile blue ... because they were cast at Oldsmobile's Lansing plant. the Buick engine plants were shifting over to 6 cyl production in 75 and didn't have capacity for big block production.

this is why the 75/76 blocks are considered to be the highest quality, because they were cast with thicker walls from new molds at a different plant. it's also why they're referred to as 'blue blocks'.

i do prefer that snazzy red though.

2. When i do dismantle this engine, what things can i do to boost performance?

unfortunately the 75/76 engines, while having the best blocks, are paired with the worst heads. earlier versions of the big block had 69cc (1967-70) or 71cc (1971-74) pent roof chambers while you have 78cc open chamber heads.

i would recommend buying a new set of heads or acquiring some from an earlier year but the first option is very expensive and i don't think you're going to have much of a selection for the second. also, you need to be careful about the water passages matching up. some years require special gaskets in order to prevent water leaks when matched up.

if you should decide to go with new heads anyways, here are two vendors:
http://www.taperformance.com/Cylinder.htm
http://www.bulldogperformance.net/buick.html

Bulldog is a smaller outfit that farms all of their casting out so you might have a little more of a wait with them.

there isn't much you can do about the chamber shape without spending beaucoup bucks. you could have the heads and intake shaved and gain some compression though. be prepared to upgrade to a 4 core radiator and run higher octane fuel if you do this.

since you're going to tear the engine down anyways make sure that you have the oil passages modified as detailed at these sites:
http://www.trishieldperf.com/455_block_mods.htm
http://www.buickperformance.com/oilflow.htm

buicks are notorius for poor oiling which isn't helped by their huge diameter mains. it won't give you any added performance but your bearings will love you if you do this.

the stephen dove book is here:
http://www.paeenterprises.com/bookinfo.html

[regal1973]

Your correct Bob all buick V8's from 75 on that I have seen are blue in colour.
My old man's got a 75 225 electra & thats a blue colour mtr.
In my trips to the U.S and visting dismantlers for Buick parts the 350V8's have been blue in colour as well.

regal1973

[Nineman]

Thank you all for your quick replies.

@rcull&bobc455: yes i think a different cam-shaft is a great idea, and will try to find a TA212 cam here in the Netherlands.

My engine is allready fitted with a Holley carb, but i do not run it on petrol/gasoline very often. Here in The Netherlands almost every oldtimer car runs on LPG (liquid petroleum gas).
I know what you probably think: “a motor is built for petrol so don’t try to run it on anything else”. But let me explain: gas prices in the Netherlands are the highest in the world.
http://money.cnn.com/pf/features/lis...bal_gasprices/

Normal gasoline/petrol costs about 3 times as much as LPG. LPG is the cheapest fuel.
When you fit your car with a LPG installation, you do have to pay more taxes, but oldtimer-cars are free of taxes. As a result, the most of the oldtimer cars run on LPG over here.

@bob k. mando: oil pressure was indeed always an issue with my car, I have already renewed the sprocketwheels in the oilpump, and fitted the pump with a steel thrust-plate.
I also used a thicker oil, 20W50.
This way I got some more oil pressure, but now, a couple of months later, I’m still losing pressure on the main bearings and you really hear them when the engine is cold.
I’ll definitely take a look at those pages about modifications to the oil passages.

I’m also thinking about polishing the innerworks of my intake manifold. There are companies here that can do this, and I heard that it really helps the flow in a good way.

Concerning the color: I really like the red, but maybe I’ll change it when the engine is out.
Maybe it’s cool to have the original color (blue) back.

My exhaust manifolds are really rusty and leak sometimes at the heads, so I’m also looking in to that. Maybe I can find some headers for this car somewhere around the globe, second hand or something.

I’ll shoot some pictures of my engine and the LPG installation this evening, just to show you guys what I mean. Thanks again, and I’ll go and order the Steve Dove book.

Kind regards,

[bob k. mando]

oil pressure was indeed always an issue with my car


oop. better inspect the inside of your timing cover for wear while you're at this. the timing cover mates to one side of your oil pump gear and if the aluminum gets worn you won't have the proper seal around the pump to produce pressure. once that happens there isn't anything you can do to get pressure.

needless to say, new covers are available ... for a price.
http://www.taperformance.com/pumpkits.htm ouch

possibly, you could make contact with someone in the US to send you an old one in good shape.

as far as LPG goes, as i understand it, LP has a much higher octane than gasoline? you could shave as much off of the heads as you wanted to and get pop up pistons. it might even make more power than it did on gas.

[Nineman]

I will definitly take a good look at the oilpump and covers.
Here my engine setup, as promised:
http://home.wanadoo.nl/9man/engine.htm

Picture 1 clearly shows the alternate airintake on the Holley carb.
And the end of it there is an LPGmixer mounted along with an airfilter.
Lower right corner of the picture shows the "vaporizer" which transforms the liquid LPG to a gas-state which is then fed to the mixer.
Mixer then adds air, and through the grey tube it's transported to the Holley.

The reason for mounting this grey tube is: building the mixer and filter on top of the engine/holley will result that all this becomes too high so the hood doesn't close anymore.

Picture 4 shows the 100 liter LPG tank in my trunk.

Higher octane is true probably, because it's a known fact that your engine becomes a bit hotter then when running it on normal gas.

I might use some weird words, i hope you understand....or i could explain it in dutch if you want... LOL

I painted the intake red last time i changed the headgasket.
I was thinking, maybe my engine should be red. Here's why:
bob k. mando said that the engine was made in an Oldsmobile plant in 1975/76. I'm not sure this is true, my car was assembled in Antwerpen/Belgium in 1975, where there was an assembly plant. Engines could have been shipped earlier to Belgium, and it just might be an original Buick engine. Anyways, that's something for me to check.

Could someone explain a little more about this STAGE1 and STAGE2 thing?

Thanks,

[rcull]

Here's a chart that may help.

http://www.buicks.net/shop/reference/stage.html

[bob k. mando]

my car was assembled in Antwerpen/Belgium in 1975, where there was an assembly plant. Engines could have been shipped earlier to Belgium,

ah, there is that. well, if you get us the casting # for the block and heads we might could cross reference it to find out what year it was cast.

you have to pull a valve cover to find their #. how to find the block #'s:
http://www.buicks.net/shop/reference...g_numbers.html

there is also a 2 letter engine code. the 'AF' is the normal 75 block where an earlier block would have a 'Zx' or 'Xx' or something like that where the small 'x' is variable and the first letter codes to a year.


say, there's an interesting question; none of my books list VIN codes for plants outside north america. could you post your VIN number and body tag info? that'd be a good learning experience for us 'mericans.