BUILD THREAD JRP's '87 Regal Thread

[MrSony]

Joe I'm really curious to see how your engine turns out, and more importantly, what #s it puts down. Over in the V8 buick forum they were surprised my literally bone stock with cam engine made that much power to the ground at such high rpm. Most SBB I've seen that are "mild" peak around 4000-4600rpm. It surprised the dyno guy too lol. I was thinking at the very lowest it would do 150 to the wheels, I was secretly hoping for 250, but I'm very happy with 211. And that was with only 30* total timing, rich as hell afr at wot @ 10.8, moldy 14x2 paper air filter, stock intake, heads, exhaust manifolds that leak, and chambered mufflers. I'm very excited to see what numbers I'll make with proper adjustments here and there. And hey, you're on team SBB too. Anything I do, you can do to yours.

 

[joesregalproject]

Joe I'm really curious to see how your engine turns out, and more importantly, what #s it puts down. Over in the V8 buick forum they were surprised my literally bone stock with cam engine made that much power to the ground at such high rpm. Most SBB I've seen that are "mild" peak around 4000-4600rpm. It surprised the dyno guy too lol. I was thinking at the very lowest it would do 150 to the wheels, I was secretly hoping for 250, but I'm very happy with 211. And that was with only 30* total timing, rich as hell afr at wot @ 10.8, moldy 14x2 paper air filter, stock intake, heads, exhaust manifolds that leak, and chambered mufflers. I'm very excited to see what numbers I'll make with proper adjustments here and there. And hey, you're on team SBB too. Anything I do, you can do to yours.

Believe me I can't tell you how excited I am for it. Bob, the guy who is machining and building my engine has been building and machining engines longer than I've been alive, and this is far from his first SBB so I'm confident he knows his way around them. I believe he just finished a Buick 350 for a customer right before I brought mine in.

I literally just got off the phone with him and he said he had contacted Racetec and the .030" piston weighs in at around 500 grams which is great, the stock ones are 674 grams. That'll make the balance job cheaper and easier. He told me he has the engine mounted up in the boring machine and is going to do a "test bore" at .015" over to see if I can possibly get away with .020" pistons. If they don't end up perfectly round at .015" over, then he'll just step it up to .025" and I'll go with the .030" pistons. No reason to take out more material than I have to. The last .005" will come out with the hone.

 

[MrSony]

Believe me I can't tell you how excited I am for it. Bob, the guy who is machining and building my engine has been building and machining engines longer than I've been alive, and this is far from his first SBB (probably more like his 30th or 40th) so I'm confident he knows his way around them. He just finished a Buick 350 for a customer right before I brought mine in. I dont know the full specs on it, but I know it was decked .010, had stock sized valves, had JE forged pistons in it and a T/A cam (I don't know which one). It made 360-something HP at the crank, I don't know what torque it made.

I literally just got off the phone with him and he said he had contacted Racetec and the .030" piston weighs in at around 500 grams which is great, the stock ones are 674 grams. That'll make the balance job cheaper and easier. He told me he has the engine mounted up in the boring machine and is going to do a "test bore" at .015" over to see if I can possibly get away with .020" pistons. If they don't end up perfectly round at .015" over, then he'll just step it up to .025" and I'll go with the .030" pistons. No reason to take out more material than I have to. The last .005" will come out with the hone.

There's really no reason to not go .030 over, unless you plan to rebore in the future. Some SBB have been .100 over, but blocks that sonic check for that much are few and far inbetween. And if it made 360hp, you can bet it made over 450ftlbs. HP with SBB is in the heads. Sound slike your guy knows his stuff, have him work the heads. Stock they peter out at something like 190cfm on the intake at .400 lift. They're pretty terrible. Have him do the oil mods too. Maybe an oil balance line, but that's more of a Turbo3.8 or a 455 thing. The 350 doesn't really have the front to rear drop off in pressure that the 231 or 455 has, but it wouldn't hurt to do it. And there's a few pics of people taking out one of the threaded galley plugs, drilling a hole through the bellhousing and running the oil pressure gauge off of that. 7 and 8 are the last things to get oiled, and they are the first things to go on a SBB. if you got oil pressure at the back, you got it at the front.

 

[joesregalproject]

Stopped by the machine shop this morning and Bob had this waiting for me-

So I am gonna be able to do a .020" overbore. It's currently at .015" over, and it'll get honed to .020". It's been decked .010", just enough to true it. You can also see that the flashing in the lifter valley has been ground out, so MrSony can sleep easy . The reason for not grinding the flashing all the way to the edges is because the more material in the block, the stronger it is (even if only marginally) so he only ground out enough so that nothing is gonna break off. Bob told me that if there is a weak point in the block, it's the lifter valley, he has seen cracks in that area on other Buicks, although mostly on ones with big cams. The pistons are ordered and paid for. I ordered them directly from the manufacturer and they are MTO so it'll be about 2 weeks to get them.

Also I got door panels-

So lots of progress this week!

 

[MrSony]

Awesome man! And yes, now I can sleep soundly. Which pistons did you end up ordering? The dish or the flat top with valve reliefs? Did you go the stock .940 pin route?

 

[MrSony]

Also, if you get the chance, use a wire bottle brush chucked in a drill in all the coolant passages. You'd be surprised at the amount of crap comes out of there.

Question: are you doing the final assembly... or just bolting the top end on... or just installing?

 

[joesregalproject]

Awesome man! And yes, now I can sleep soundly. Which pistons did you end up ordering? The dish or the flat top with valve reliefs? Did you go the stock .940 pin route?

I went with the dished pistons. It'll still be over 9.5:1 compression. I went with the .940 pin size and when we talked to the guy at Autotec, he said the pins are actually a little larger than .940 to account for any wear in the connecting rods. So I may have to open up the pin hole on my connecting rods a few thousands, not a big deal.

I will be doing the final assembly, but Bob will be holding my hand through the whole process making sure I don't **** anything up.

 

[1evilregal]

 

[MrSony]

It will really just go together like any ol engine. common sense is a good companion. Buick rods don't have dowels to align them, slide the biggest feeler gauge inbetween a rod pair to set the spacing. Squeeze the rods close together against the feeler. Torque, then remove gauge. I would stake the cup plugs on either side of the front cam journal, they can come out under high stress. I haven't seen it personally, but you might as well. Buick heads (for the 350 at least) are swappable side to side, so don't worry about that. Make sure the headgaskets are the right ones, earlier 350s had different shaped water jackets than later 350s. Loctite the cam gear/pump eccentric bolt. It can walk out.
I'm sure your engine guy already knows this, I just felt like typing. 😛

 

[DRIVEN]