Buick Olds Pontiac 455

[pontiacpower]

im curious to know some more about bop engines. I know much more about Pontiac than Buick and olds because I drive an Indian but where can I find some good info on bo in bop?
Like for instance one would wonder why the smaller 400p was the one battling on the streets when there was a potentially more potent 455 in the same size package that could have dealt a better hand to the chief. Confusing to me other than the fact that a 400 revved higher than the 455 but still, cubes are king right?

was Buick and olds 455s “the” engine to get from the bo lineups or did they too have an equivalent of a ram air like Pontiacs offering? I’ve heard the olds 350 is actually a diesel block blueprint that they converted to gas. Any truth to that? An old Buick salesman friend of my dad just passed away and I got to talkin with dad about the Buick’s this man had and dads not into cars at all but he was talking quite a bit about that 1970 stage 1 455. Like it was larger than life itself.

I’m only 24 so I didn’t drive these in high school and the fastest car I’ve ever been in was an lt1 Camaro so I don’t know what a torque monster feels like.

Looked at some dynoes and The 455 lineup from every brand seems to be more of torque production than horsepower. Why sell on horsepower when torque wins races?
p455- 380 hp. 500tq
b455- 400hp. 500 tq
o455-427hp. 510 tq
ls5 454- 427hp. 510tq

these numbers are from dyno videos where the build was said to be stock. Pretty good ball park?
i didn’t use stock ratings cause they’re bs insurance ratings.

[pontiacpower]

Oh by the way I’m not trying to start 1 of millions of threads based on which is better. There’s no such thing as the best in my mind.
There’s only the right tool for the job, wrong tool for the job and then there’s that tool that was meant for another job but we got by with what we had.
pickin up what I’m laying down?
Course not you’ve never tried to pick up rubber

[SuperBuickGuy]

each motor was built for that division's 'ideal' customer. Olds was the traveling salesman so reliability and torque were king. Grandma bought Buicks, torque was king, but fuel economy mattered. Pontiac was the performance division so hp was more important and so was light weight..... not perfect rules, but general rules.

Oldsmobile 455s ended in boats because the blocks were more robust and capable of handling higher rpm.

Buicks did well in the Buick/Mopars wars because they had the torque but not the weight of the others (including Mopar).

With that said, many times the 'choice' was more because it was the car that the kid ended up with - and you race what you got.

[pontiacpower]

If Pontiac was the performance division why didn’t they net better numbers than the others? Or was this based on earlier reputations (tri-powers etc) was the olds 455 block much more robust than the Indian? I’ve always heard the Buick’s were super light but super thin, Pontiacs were stout but you have to be mindful of the large journal crank in the 455. Is there more meat in an olds block compared to the Pontiac

[SuperBuickGuy]

If Pontiac was the performance division why didn’t they net better numbers than the others? Or was this based on earlier reputations (tri-powers etc) was the olds 455 block much more robust than the Indian? I’ve always heard the Buick’s were super light but super thin, Pontiacs were stout but you have to be mindful of the large journal crank in the 455. Is there more meat in an olds block compared to the Pontiac

Pontiac was always the interesting one because they never seemed to have one group to claim as theirs - granted with Delorean's help they were the first muscle car, but their problem was they were more expensive then Chevrolets and to a kid.... the nominal person buying that car - 'not worth it.' Later, of course, BMW proved you could have a brand that appealed to the middle manager, but at that time.... I dunno, maybe they were just too far ahead of the buying curve. Perhaps if Pontiac had kept with the wide-track stuff it would have been different but the bean counters wouldn't allow it so it killed them.

Buicks, they are a challenge because the windowed main webs, but they also have a pretty stout crank that can be offset ground to pretty reasonable stroked numbers (520). All that said, to make my Buick 455 live, I sleeved it and added a main girdle.... how effect that will be is conjecture at this point.. motor is still in pieces in my shop.

[Dan Barlow]

I couldn't tell you how many olds motors my friend blew up in his jet boat . They just can't take sustained high rpm in stock form at least . The whole reason big inch motors came about was to pull heavy weight. GM even banned the bigger big blocks from the intermediate cars till they saw the dealers doing it and then Delorean snuck one past them if my memory serves me . Not trying to rile anyone but I do find it funny that the economy or the blue collar factory works division is the one that ended up with the best design small cube or big cube . Don't get me wrong , I love them all but I especially have a soft spot for the tin indian . Dads two were both boats ( 66 389 Bonneville and a 400 Catalina ) Those tug boat out ran many a small block pony car . Yep torque is king in drag racing light to light .

[squirrel]

The olds diesel was the gas engine, converted. to diesel....they were kind of flaky, lots of running design changes, etc.

Pontiacs were ok, the bigger ones were mostly installed in full size cars and a few Trans Ams? The 389 and 400 were installed in midsize cars, and were pretty popular. There were also a few 421 and 428 engines that were more hi performance oriented.

Performance Buicks had relatively few customers....they worked ok, but Chevy outsold them by a big margin

btw HP wins races, while Torque makes a nice driving car.

[Shep48COE]

I couldn't tell you how many olds motors my friend blew up in his jet boat . They just can't take sustained high rpm in stock form at least .

Race boat engines are way more impressive IMO. Imagine a drag car that had to run with the harshness of the launch but all the time for 30 minutes instead of seconds.

when you get a minute check out Teague motors, they sell 1500 hp marine race engines with a 1 year warranty. They do a ton of work on the blocks for oil paths. I had the opportunity to go to their shop, it was amazing!

[Loren]

As a resident non-BOP guy I just dragged home an old 21' day cruiser jet boat with one of those Olds 455s. '76? Decent hull and interior with some nice style for the age, said to have run good last time out a decade ago. (with trailer, I offered $300 and blammo it was mine). So I now have some interest here as well, particularly if someone were to have criticisms of the Olds. I've got a set of Chev motor mounts which on a boat are big aluminum things that go across the main stringers and which include a flywheel cover, and enough BBC stuff sitting around, but Gail says who cares what's in it just make it run.

[pontiacpower]

Love the info so far. I’m curious how the Buick would be a car with a mileage reputation when all other things being equal, the b455 comes with a much more bore than stroke compared to the others? Wouldn’t a lower end torque motor get better mpg than a top end motor?

[silver_bullet]

[pontiacpower]

i know oversquare engines are better in both torque production and in pony power but for a street motor most of the time I hear that low end torque is a better trait to have. Undersquare engine would almost always fit the bill in terms of low end torque production at the sacrifice of horses right?

[DanStokes]

Big Block Buicks were amazing engines but they needed oiling modifications to live at higher RPM. I don't know if this is still the best fix but back in the day folks would drive copper tubing down the main oil galley and send less oil to the top end so that more oil stayed in the bottom end. BBB cylinder heads flowed among the best (except for the hemi, of course) and the small (5/8" hex) spark plugs were originally designed for the BBB heads. Once the engineers laid out the intake and exhaust ports there simply wasn't enough room for the old-fashioned 13/16" plug bases. BTW - I the mid-'60s - early '70's I worked at the Buick dealer about 5 miles from the GMPG in Milford MI and a number of our customers were engineering staff from GMPG. They would pump us mechanics for situations we were finding in service and in exchange drop tidbits of engineering info on us in return.

One can make a point that the Olds main journals are simply too large. At high RPM they tend to throw oil off the journal because the surface velocity of the oil on the main journal is past optimum. There are, of course, fixes for this which, I hear, work well.

If we can get Todd to weigh in he has literally forgotten more about Pontiacs than I'll ever know. He's REALLY sharp on these.

Dan

[SuperBuickGuy]

As a resident non-BOP guy I just dragged home an old 21' day cruiser jet boat with one of those Olds 455s. '76? Decent hull and interior with some nice style for the age, said to have run good last time out a decade ago. (with trailer, I offered $300 and blammo it was mine). So I now have some interest here as well, particularly if someone were to have criticisms of the Olds. I've got a set of Chev motor mounts which on a boat are big aluminum things that go across the main stringers and which include a flywheel cover, and enough BBC stuff sitting around, but Gail says who cares what's in it just make it run.

BBC you can easily swap, SBC is tougher because of the exhaust manifolds.... I'd run the Olds 455, it really was a good boat motor - especially when it was driving a pump

[SuperBuickGuy]

Love the info so far. I’m curious how the Buick would be a car with a mileage reputation when all other things being equal, the b455 comes with a much more bore than stroke compared to the others? Wouldn’t a lower end torque motor get better mpg than a top end motor?

real numbers, 13-15 city, 20 highway... 455 Buick, intake, cam, headers, Skylark 3.73 rear gears (which was waaayyyyy too high, but made for fun stoplight wars.) The biggest issue about checking mpg was it sloshed out the fill neck