The Silver Buick's well Silver Buick!

[langleylad]

Randal are you suprised ? . There are alway suprises with every project . A $1000 budget always ends up at $1500 , there is no way around it . Been there done that . Good luck buddy .

[hauen]

Minor thread hijack...Who does good machine work in Elko? When I lived there we sent everything to Carlin's 50/50, I don't know if Ennis is still alive, but he used to do good work. That was over 20 years ago though. I figured you'd use a shop in SLC or Vegas, being from Ely and all...and now back to your regularly scheduled thread.

[stage1scott]

I've used them often, a quick blast of air seems to clean them up nicely.

But IMO the sandblasters aren't worth crap, you can have a totally shiny looking plug and it be no good. Measuring resistance on the plugs is a good way to monitor their health.

Yep, big blast of air for the gritty stuff. AND as DG notes, it certainly doesn't mean they are good-just clean....Posted that in the context of, he was gonna clean em up anyhow and NEVER comes around when he is in SoCal! : )

[stage1scott]

and in that 10,000 miles you've replaced the cam how many times? It pains me to say this (j/k) but I agree completely with DG - if you're going pack anything; pack gaskets, two or three camshafts, engine stand and an engine puller

nearly fell out of my chair and my coffee came out my nose laughing-Randall is the undisputed king of needing zip ties and zippers for engineinstallation. Seriously, though, if I had his stamina for pulling that thing apart, my Buick might have actually been completely worked out...I would get it fast or reliable (rarely the two at one time) and leave it that way untill it self imnploded again. The tissue paper cyl blocks and 1936 Harley splash oil system is what finally drove me out of them.

[stage1scott]

Rut roh. Things just got more expensive.....




I've only pulled the first four pistons, this is number 3. Two and four look fine, number one on re-inspection has a crack in the ringland. Must be all those years of detonation catching up =\ Actually I have a decent idea when things started to go south, driving home from the Anti-Tour in May it started smoking a bit and blow by picked up some. Mind you I actually ordered the aluminum heads back in March (and yes it took that friggin long to get them) so the engine was coming out anyways. Guess now I'm going to buy a set of pistons. These are cast, when I was building the engine a few years ago there was a three month or longer back order on the forged ones, so hopefully I can get a set of forged ones quickly this time. I didn't really want to spend the extra money on them, oh well, but if they have them in stock this time I can have a set to me by Wednesday. I have to go to Elko to pick up the engine blocks and heads anyways, I can get the pistons swapped then.

Hey Randall, I had a whole bucket of 455 Buick pistons that looked like that, or worse! and the forged piston deal in these engines is maddening-when its apart and you need them, you can never buy them, when it is together and running nicely, someone offers up a set of never used been in storage for years forgedpistons for a deal. The forged pistons did finally cure my detonated ring lands in all my Buick 455s though.

[TheSilverBuick]

Before I pulled any pistons out and found I had a real problem I did look at all the bores with the pistons at BDC and didn't notice anything. I'll be doing a full inspection of them of course when I get the other four out today. I'm glad Scott you know exactly what I'm talking about on the piston avaliability!

I'm using High Performance Machine shop in Elko. Seems to be a family operation, the local shops here in Ely send heads and such there for surfacing, that's how I got the name. The shop is filled with all sorts of neat equipment, so I don't think he sends stuff out.

[SuperBuickGuy]

the good news is now you can get lower compress and put turbos on that thing

One day, Scott, you really need to do full list of pros/cons of a 455 - and how to fix them.... it might save one or two people here some trouble (and no, the proper advice is not to buy a Ford - we have enough troubles already).

[Scott Liggett]

Is this going to put a dent in your Drag Week plans?

[stage1scott]

the good news is now you can get lower compress and put turbos on that thing

One day, Scott, you really need to do full list of pros/cons of a 455 - and how to fix them.... it might save one or two people here some trouble (and no, the proper advice is not to buy a Ford - we have enough troubles already).

Actually TA performance has completely fixed all these issue-it's a little pricey at 7k but thier new block takes care of all these things......

[TheSilverBuick]

Is this going to put a dent in your Drag Week plans?

No, I'll call monday for pistons. Hopefully I can get forged ones with out issue this time around. Then arraign it so when I go to Elko to pick up the Pontiac OHC blocks and heads to have the pistons swapped on the same day. Worse case scenerio is I do still have new 8.5:1 cast pistons in the basement.

[Beagle]

I just scrape the big carbon deposits off plugs, I don't bother trying to blast them or anything. Except the lawnmower plug...I'll blast it with carb cleaner if it soaked with gas.

I hit the lawnmower plug with a cigarette lighter when it's soaked with gas. I had an RM125 that would eat plugs with regularity and they would look perfect. Worse yet, I had to put the expensive for me at the time NGK plugs in it. Any American made plug wouldn't make it through a tank of gas.

Randal, that sucks. My concern if you change pistons and go to a forged one is they are gonna weigh more and jack the balance.

[stage1scott]

Randal, that sucks. My concern if you change pistons and go to a forged one is they are gonna weigh more and jack the balance.

ALSO-piston to wall clearance is going to need modified at the machine shop-take your block with you too!

[TheSilverBuick]

What I really need to do is get the knock sensor system working in my car. I "think" the sensor itself is broken, as the module outputs a steady voltage and it never pulls low like it should when it pings. I'll be trying a different knock sensor, it came out of a Camaro instead of a truck, so may be less ideal, but I don't know for sure.

Also the 3.42 gears should help as well, the 3.08's just may of been too harsh on the pistons =/

[SuperBuickGuy]

29.96 @ amazon.com for a knock sensor; and you're going to risk a used one? even if you buy a Camaro or truck specific one, it's $54.00...

[TheSilverBuick]

The deal is this time I'll test it before installing it, or at least before putting coolant in the engine. The test just involves using a small ballpeen hammer on the sensor nose or on the block around the sensor, that is usually enough to get it to read. If I can't get a read off my "spare" I'll go new. These things rarely go bad, if the sensor truely is bad it's likely because of mistreatment by me prior to installation (the plastic connector).