REGAL Project: "Blue Jay"

[307 Regal]

Speaking as a man with a SBB regal, done twice now, I enjoy the SBB. Light, torquey, slips easily in place of anything with a 3.8. 350 Buick swap the world.

I really like your car man. Wish mine was as straight as yours, even with the replacement fender.

Thanks, man. I was impressed at how clean your T-type wheels are when I first saw them. Did you acid wash those? And you've got the center caps to boot! I've only ever had three and the p.o. had to silicone the tabs back on.

All being said between us about the SBB, I do enjoy it. I mostly just wish it had about 100 more hp. I'm sure you've read up on them. Any idea how much power the bottom end can take (safely)? I know there's that one "procharged" one on youtube that makes like 400 N/A / 700 boosted; but that user doesn't want to share details.

glad to see you back to the build! like you, I fear my Regal's original thread may be too old to bring back to new, and I may just link to the old in a new one anyhow, as the engine direction may have shifted from my original course....

still love your car, and look forward to the updates!

Thank you! I mostly wanted to start one back up to better organize my goals and keep track of what I want to get done. And it's nice to have a record of it all afterward.

 

[MrSony]

Thanks, man. I was impressed at how clean your T-type wheels are when I first saw them. Did you acid wash those? And you've got the center caps to boot! I've only ever had three and the p.o. had to silicone the tabs back on.

All being said between us about the SBB, I do enjoy it. I mostly just wish it had about 100 more hp. I'm sure you've read up on them. Any idea how much power the bottom end can take (safely)? I know there's that one "procharged" one on youtube that makes like 400 N/A / 700 boosted; but that user doesn't want to share details.

Yeah, those wheels really clean up nice. Pressure wash, acid wash (Eagle 1 Mag Cleaner, if I remember right, some type of mag cleaner). Not bad for $300 bucks and a 4 hour round trip to pick em up. Gbody parts makes some new caps for $100 with a snap ring that I'm heavily thinking about buying soon. Stock 68-73.5 stud/nut rods can take about 450hp and repeated wings to 5500+. 75ish-80 cap screw rods (use a bolt instead of stud/nut) are good to 6,000rpm repeated and 450ish hp. Both would yield better results with new hardware and the hole rotating assembly balanced. The cranks are all the same, basically 450hp/6000rpm as well. That boosted SBB is actually a 370 stroker SBB (3.99 stroke if I remember right, crank is offset ground and nascar takeout rods used or molnar rods, clearance issues with big base circle cams), with heavilly ported heads and about 8.5:1 compression. 420ish hp NA at 6000rpm is damn fine for an 8:1 small block of any make, naturally aspirated. Cam I belive is a custom one, don't think you'll get that info out of him. With the SBB the torque comes with just putting it together (stroke, long low runners, etc) but the hp comes with porting the heads. TA sells ported heads for about 2k. No aluminum heads on the market, but TA is working on that. There is a guy also that runs low 13s in an all stock full steel body full interior all iron sbb in a '68 skylark. If he can do that with the stock intake, heads, and exhaust manifolds, anyone can do it with standard hotrod parts. a 300hp Buick 350 will almost always have at or very near 400ftlbs to play with, so it doesn't need to be no 600hp monster to have some grunt to it. Unless you want it to be.

I'd bump the compression to 9-9.5:1, use a crower level 3 cam, and basically keep the rest of your setup. Heads can be ported of course. Later heads are thicker (but marginally smaller ports) and can br ported further before cracking is an issue, but other than that all 70-80 heads are 55-58cc (production tolerance), open chamber, 1.88"/1.5" (1.55" after 74/75) valves, non adjustable shaft rocker heads. 68-69 oiled through the shafts instead of the pushrods, 68-73 have different water jacket ports than 74-80. Mix the two and coolant either goes into the valley or nowhere. 68/69 can be converted to pushrod oiling, all it takes are the hollow rods, standard lifters, and filling the holes in the block.

 

[307 Regal]

Little tiny update:
Been busy with work and such (glad to be working again), bad weather, and my new/first relationship (which I have to thank for a lot of things but this probably isn't the place), BuUuUuT: I've gotten a bit accomplished today. A few months back my '99 Buick Century ceased to be usable and with my bank account down to almost literally nothing at the time I had to transfer daily driving duties to the Regal.

Well, anyone else living in the rust belt knows that one of the most important things you can have for your G body is another car to take the hit during the salty winter months. So with my savings account back up enough now I went ahead started resurrecting the Century. Since this isn't a W body forum I won't ramble long on that, but I will say that I'm trying out some Dorman blue splined lug nuts (cheaper alternative to McGards) if anyone's curious about them. Hopes aren't high for the blue plating lasting long but all I really needed anyway was a set of solid, closed-end nuts. I won't mind the flaking.

More importantly I'm doing some rear brake repairs on that vehicle. One of which involves the emergency brake. And the biggest problem there is that I'm having a hard time identifying/finding a replacement part. It's a sort of "clip" or something, reminiscent of a tie rod sleeve, maybe about 6 inches long. The driver's side brake cable would plug into it on one end somehow (if it wasn't rusted, broken, and bent) and the other end seems to be clamped in the same way around the end of the main brake cable. I might post a picture of that trouble maker tomorrow. It all comes together (all 3 brake cables total) in a sort of narrow "Y" shape with the top of the Y actually being made up of the main cable and the driver's side cable, with the bottom of the Y being where the main cable and the passenger's side cable meet end to end.

Anyway, e-brake aside, the hydraulics will be fixed tomorrow (weather and luck permitting) which means pretty soon here I'll be able to give the Regal (and my ears) a much deserved break. Then I'm sure I'll have time to sit down and finish the rest of my build thread's front page. Just need to post the overall concept/objectives and the overall situation.

Have a good night!

EDIT: It's called a "parking brake equalizer" I guess. Rock Auto seems to stock one but the picture might be wrong. The adjoining part number claims to fit Grand Prix, Monte Carlo, Century, Regal, and Intrigue. I'm going to give it a shot since I'm buying new cables from them anyway.

 

[85442/86buick]

looking forward to your updates and Welcome back.

 

[307 Regal]

We're still kickin'!
A couple nights ago after work I went over to my dad's and put my new engine mounts in. They're from HRpartsNstuff. They weren't cheap, but the mounts I used for the swap were TOO cheap! (Less than 3 dollars a piece if I remember correctly.) It was like the engine was mounted in Jell-O. Not anymore! I took video and if I have some time this weekend I will upload it in one file. I wish I had done this years ago but the cost and fear of interior vibrations scared me off. Great news though: there's hardly any interior shake! I also took some video of my T5 trans concerns for "The Final Objective."