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- Straight Eight Engine Specifications
- Straight Eight Casting Numbers
- Buick F-263 Head/Gasket Swaps, effects on compression
- 263 Head X-Sections
- Straight Eight Intake Manifold X-Sections
- 263, 2X2 Engine Mount Modification
- Compound Carburetion
- Buick Compound Carburetion
- Buick Fuel and Vacuum Pump
- Straight 8 speed secrets of Don Montgomery
- Looking to get rid of the torque tube 50 sedanette
- T5 Install on the '50 263
- Straight 8 sets two new Bonneville Records
- Building a High Performance Straight Eight
- Buick Straight Eight Lifter Adjustment
- Straight Eight Oil Supply Update
- Dual Points in a Buick Straight 8 Distributor
Been doing some str8 8 design work
- Thread starter dlomshek
- Start date
If you go to an external oil pump and a distributor less ignition system you no longer need the stock cam. Now you can filter all the oil before entering the block end if you run a mechanical fuel pump off the end of the oil pump if the drive belt for the oil pump breaks the engine will stop before damage is done.
However as you pointed out with an over head cam design the appearance of the engine is no longer Buick. For some that may matter and for some it may not.
Paul Muller
If you leave the cam in the engine you can just get a drive pulley setup with one to one ratio FROM the stock cam as it would drive the OHC at half speed as required. this leaves the stock distributor and oil pump where they are doing, what they need to do. For a Buick look just adapt the Buick valve cover. All this stuff about making a head for the buick str8 and then trying to make it look like a stock engine etc is going to be a very consuming job both in time money and effort. Making a head in order to gain horsepower means hi revolutions, the srt8 isnt going to be a high rev'er.The plain truth is the best way to make power in it is to supercharge it. The the bottom end of the srt8 is very strong, its main limitation is RPM,s. A supercharger gives it torq from the bottom all the way to its top RPM,s which are limited. The crank with its extreme stroke and especially length will will only allow so many R,s till the it becomes a writhing snake and pulls out the maincaps or something. Even the Duesnberg used a blower. Just my cents worth.
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Thanks for your input. I agree with every thing you said. Here is my story. I have one person restoring a 1933 Victoria 2 door and another doing a 1952 Woody Super. Both were thinking about the V8 swap until the guy with the woody went to a car show a few months ago and after the 6th 502 crate engine under the hood decided keeping the S8 was the way to go. The Victoria guy wants 8 velocity stacks with EFI and the woody guy said just build a second one for him. There is not enough room in the 50 series Victoria for a 320 so we will base everything on the 263 which is still 2 inches longer than the 230 that’s in there.
Both of these will be show cars so the “WOW” factor is more important than tons of power. The hopes are that we can offer this head package to anyone after these initial 2 engines.
ok now understand the idea, a new head would be great especially if made available to others. Seems it would be very expensive, but some would probably still buy one. The 263 is a good choice and a blower would give em' V8 power, and if they use the blower and oldtime 36/37 valve and side covers painted stock colors for a period look from the past,it would ring my bell, all the modern chrome it, inject it, billet jewelry, doesnt do it for me. But then I am old and stuck in the past.
If you look in the showroom section of this website. You will see the pictures I took of Bob Oppermans straight 8 lakester I took in '91. They are credited to Fryguy because I couldn't figure out how to post them and emailed them to him to post. He is running four side draft Weber carbs. At one time these "Y" shaped adapters were available, don't know if they still are. Anyway these things had bosses cast in them for mechanical fuel injection nozzles if you wanted to go that route. They could also have been machined for electronic injectors. If the guy wants 8 stacks it would be a hell of a lot easier to go this route. Hilborn can make butterflies and shafts for just about anything. Make 4 "Y" shaped adapters, hang butterflies in them plumb them for electronic fuel injection and put 8 curved stacks on them. I would be just like converting an old V8 mechanical injection set up to modern electronic injection. You would just have to build the mechanical set up first. This to me would also make a lot more sense if you are just going after a look instead of real performance. Although I think there would be some performance benefits once you got the bugs worked out.
If you guys would like to see some real food for thought on the subject of a new cylinder head, go to your favorite search engine and type in dmd australia. This is the type of head that the straight 8 needs. Forget the crossflow design, with pushrods it ain't never gonna work. The intakes need to stay in pairs to negate the need for a special cam. Also take note of the prices. Although they are in Australian dollars I think they are realistic if you add 25% for the two extra cylinders that the Buick has. Also note the prices for the manifolds and accessories, all this needs to be factored in for this type of change. Nobody would love to see an aftermarket head more than me (for the 320) and I have spent a lot of time and research on it myself. I've learned two things for sure. It's gonna be expensive and it needs to be kept as absolutely simple as possible. Smaller combustion chamber with some quench, divide the intake runners and raise all the ports, but leave them on the same side. Obviously use a modern runner shape and design and maybe play with the cooling a little, but leave the rest of the head alone. My 2 cents worth.
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I’ve been following on facebook and am impressed. Also sorry to see the trouble with the last 3 records you set. I’m not familiar with the saltflat rules. Will you still be able to use the 16 port head in any of the classes you run?
Yes we will be able to use it again, but only on the 325 Cu In motor in the class with the cast-up and billet heads. Still very competetive. It shows that with a little work, the stock head can be made to work very well. We are going back next week with the 367 Cu In motor and a stock head with serious porting. Hope there may be a couple of 200 MPH runs in it. [That may have to wait for next year] Putting the motor back in today as we had to replace a piston that we damaged at World Of Speed in September. Went 188 MPH there with a less serious ported head. Bonneville is a great place to test ideas and have fun. More Buick guys should step in there. A lot of vintage class'. With any luck, we should hold 10 vintage engine class records. They are only rented, and we now are the target for others. That's the fun. Everybody start thinking out of the box and build something. You won't be alone, and everybody is very helpful out there.:car:
Yes we will be able to use it again, but only on the 325 Cu In motor in the class with the cast-up and billet heads. Still very competetive. It shows that with a little work, the stock head can be made to work very well. We are going back next week with the 367 Cu In motor and a stock head with serious porting. Hope there may be a couple of 200 MPH runs in it. [That may have to wait for next year] Putting the motor back in today as we had to replace a piston that we damaged at World Of Speed in September. Went 188 MPH there with a less serious ported head. Bonneville is a great place to test ideas and have fun. More Buick guys should step in there. A lot of vintage class'. With any luck, we should hold 10 vintage engine class records. They are only rented, and we now are the target for others. That's the fun. Everybody start thinking out of the box and build something. You won't be alone, and everybody is very helpful out there.:car:
Do you run gas or alcohol? Could you fill in the water jackets above and behind the exhaust ports so can remove what you need to when porting?
If you were to make a crank where the piston pairs (1 and 2, 3 and 4, 5 and 6, 7 and 8) traveled together rather than in opposition then the intake stroke for each paired cylinder would be every 360 degrees of crank rotation apart creating even flow through each siamese port with even distribution for each cylinder. The crank would look like a V8 configuration. Balancing might be a challenge. Just an outside the box idea.
Thanks for the pictures of your 16 port head. Gave me some additional ideas for my 263 head. I would like to ask more questions later about your 367 if that’s OK.
Paul
We port to water and use industrial epoxy to fill in where we get into water. [Don't know how reliable this would be on a daily driver] Can't do this on the exhaust side as the epoxy will melt out. With a turbo, extreme exhaust porting isn't as critical. We run gasoline, but alcohol is an option. Cut up a sacrificial head, and look at how much thickness you have to work with. Only port in one direction at a time so you don't lose your starting point, and remember core shift. You still can hit water at any time. Good luck, and keep thinking.
We did 1/8 stroke and .200 bore.[ Didn't work! Broke a hole in a cyl. wall on a test pass]. Had to sleeve all 8 cyl. with spun silicon steel sleeves. Very expensive. May have worked for a normally asperated engine, but too much cyl. pressure in a blown one. The sleeves held up at World Of Speed in September, and we'll retest them next week. I wouldn't recommend this for a daily driver. We live on the edge. 200 is a goal if we live long enough. We'll leave our children memories, they'll have to earn their own money. :shifteroug
ougWe did 1/8 stroke and .200 bore.[ Didn't work! Broke a hole in a cyl. wall on a test pass]. Had to sleeve all 8 cyl. with spun silicon steel sleeves. Very expensive. May have worked for a normally asperated engine, but too much cyl. pressure in a blown one. The sleeves held up at World Of Speed in September, and we'll retest them next week. I wouldn't recommend this for a daily driver. We live on the edge. 200 is a goal if we live long enough. We'll leave our children memories, they'll have to earn their own money. :shifter
Thanks for the info. Was there any merit in my crankshaft idea for even intake port flow? It would create a constant air flow in the port and would work well with a constant flow injector system.
One of the cars I work with is a 49 Ford business coupe running in the PSCA Outlaw 10.5 class. Its best is 6.82@ 210mph using a 430 inch small block Ford, twin 88 turbos, Bigstuff EFI on methanol. Stepping up to a 522 GM Hemi twin 91s for next year. Must go 6.50s to be competitive.
Love your final quote.
Paul
Buick Guy, 193 mph! wow we certainly will be listening to what youv got to say!
MULLER9, I was talking to a guy that runs GMC,s at Bonnevll and asked about how well his siamesed port Jimmy did against the 12 ports, and he said he held a record with his, runnin against them. GMC,s are different than the str8,s tho. The port splays out entering to the valve pockets, like the early Buicks. Thats maybe why the Jimmy,s do so well, just an idea if you go with the siamesed ports. Also another hint is that oversize GMC 228 pistons have been used when going for 356 in. on the Buick 320. They also have 2 sizes of popup domes. also needs sleeved wrist pin to fit smaller Buicks. Egge has them.
MULLER9, I was talking to a guy that runs GMC,s at Bonnevll and asked about how well his siamesed port Jimmy did against the 12 ports, and he said he held a record with his, runnin against them. GMC,s are different than the str8,s tho. The port splays out entering to the valve pockets, like the early Buicks. Thats maybe why the Jimmy,s do so well, just an idea if you go with the siamesed ports. Also another hint is that oversize GMC 228 pistons have been used when going for 356 in. on the Buick 320. They also have 2 sizes of popup domes. also needs sleeved wrist pin to fit smaller Buicks. Egge has them.
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We did 1/8 stroke and .200 bore.[ Didn't work! Broke a hole in a cyl. wall on a test pass]. Had to sleeve all 8 cyl. with spun silicon steel sleeves. Very expensive. May have worked for a normally asperated engine, but too much cyl. pressure in a blown one. The sleeves held up at World Of Speed in September, and we'll retest them next week. I wouldn't recommend this for a daily driver. We live on the edge. 200 is a goal if we live long enough. We'll leave our children memories, they'll have to earn their own money. :shifter
Doug,
In a normally aspirated 263 daily driver what do you recommend for a maximum safe overbore?
For anyone interested, there are more pictures of the engine/car on the Salt Cat Racing Facebook page. Also several videos. We will be finishing it up today and packing up to return to the Salt for World Finals probably tomorrow . Here's a short video as we finished putting the engine together and into the car. Should be a fun week. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tBmYTlaO5vM
Doug:hurray:
Doug:hurray:
Doug
Thanks for the video. Always interested in what you are doing.
Best of luck in World Finals.
Paul
The sleeves on our 263 block measured around .165 using calipers.
If you went .125 over that would leave just over .100 wall thickness.