Buick 350 Cam/Intake Swap.

I thought that I would Document the Camshaft change that my recent Purchase of the Poston 350 S-Divider aluminum intake manifold from member longroof79. I could not see keeping the stock Camshaft when changing the intake Manifold so these are my plans.

1 - Replace Intake Manifold with Poston S-Divider (Purchased But not yet arrived)
2 - Replace Camshaft with TA Performance & Hydraulic flat tappet lifters (purchased but not yet arrived)
3 - Install new front cover (that I have had on the shelf for 5 plus years)
4 - Install melling High Volume Oil Pump Kit (also purchased long ago)
5 - Install Cloyes True Roller Timing Chain. (ordered but not on delivered yet.)
6 - Install 1" 4 hole carb spacer if there is enough underhood Clearance. (also on the shelf)
7 - Install ALMARK Brand Valve cover Clamps to cure Stock Valve cover leakage issue.

As you can see the simple intake manifold change has morphed into some serious work. I do not plan on changing valve springs, or modifying the engine further at this time so the low 8.0 Compression ratio remains. So this limited the Camshaft selection to the Mild side, as did the stock Torque Converter, and highway friendly 2.79 rear gear ratio.
This will be a street driven summer DD not a 1/4 mile car.

Work accomplished on Friday 2-12-16

Masked and painted Front cover, Drained Coolant from car.

2-13-16

Drained Oil, and started removing Parts, Radiator, fan shroud, Cooling fan removed, Drive belts removed, Alternator removed, spark plug wires and Vacuum hosed labeled. As I had just replaced all the Hoses, Belts, and Vacuum lines a year ago, as many as possible will be reinstalled.

Before work starts

Things I have learned so far, the aftermarket A/C system will greatly ad to the PITA factor of this!

Upper radiator Shroud and cooling fan removed


Alternator, belts and Pulleys removed.

And the Oil Filter Adaptor still on the Oil Pump. I have yet to decide if I want to run the original V-8 Adaptor, or the V-6 Style adaptor that would let me run a smaller Diameter Oil filter that would solve the interference problem with the lower radiator hose. Either way I have to make up my mind soon.
I went to remove the adaptor bolts, but they are stuck, soaking with penetrating oil and will probably need some heat to remove. Kinda surprised as this is a low mileage car, less than 40,000 original Miles. So I am soaking all the front cover bolts as well.

 

Why go with an HV oil pump?

 

In my experience with Buick V-6's and 455's (this is only my 2nd Buick 350 and the other one was left totally stock) the weak point of Buick engines is the Oiling system, the High Volume pump kit is a Band Aide to make up for some of the oiling issues without enlarging the Block Oil Galley. So just Piece of mind, I will also step up the oil pressure 1 spring to average 40-50 PSI.

I see I forgot to add the Picture of the Prepped front cover and the Oil Pump Kit.

 

Is there a boss on the backside top of the engine, where a pressure gauge can be attached? I would think seeing what pressure's at the farthest point would be a first step, as a high oil volume at a given pressure can cause some serious problems, notably oil backing up under pressure to the filter, causing it to bulge or even blow out the seal on the filter housing or the cover oil passage. Even on a Buick engine, as long as the highest point pressure doesn't drop below 25 PSI at hot idle, there should be no problems with the use of the proper weight oil. Now, if the engine had 140K on the clock, then a high-volume pump would bring a measure of protection back.

 

Thanks For the Link, I am torn over the Stock verses High Volume Pump now. I haven't played with Buick engines in 10-15 years. And the few that I have I always put a High Volume pump kit in as it was the known established thing to do at the time. I ran one 350 that I put a High Volume kit in when it had 60,000 miles and ran it with no issues till the cars body dies at 290,000 miles so over 200,000 miles with no issues. But that 77 Buick 350 was otherwise stock, and always ran around 40 psi hot at idle. But that is pressure at the Pump outlet not at the back of the cam oil jornal. I also have a stock Oil pump kit that came with the front cover. I also ran High Volume Kits on all the Buick 231 V-6's, and the 215 & 455 V-8's I ran over the years. All of the engines other than the 215 had stock Oil systems. I only put about 10,000 miles of use on the V-6's and a lot less on the 215 but have had no issues. But I also kept the oil pressure just above stock. I may just drill the 2 Dowel pin holes needed for the HV pump kit (so it will be easy to just install at a later date if I think its needed) and go with the stock kit.

Well most of the parts arrived Tuesday, Intake Manifold, Gaskets, Timing Chain, and Valve cover Clamps. So most of the time was spent inspecting, cleaning and painting parts. The other issue that happened was even with soaking the Oil Pump cover bolts in penetrating oil for 2 days, and applying generous amounts of heat I still snapped 4 of the 6 heads off the bolts and so far the cover has not agreed to come off for reuse. If I can't get it off without damage I may be forced to use the V-6 cover that uses the smaller Metric Oil Filter.

The intake arrived, was cleaned and Painted GM Blue, It looks good, I still have to clean up the overspray and chase all the threads, but starting to come together. Something I did not think about when looking at the pictures of it is that it was intended for a Carb with a Divorced choke, the type that has a coil mounted to the exhaust crossover on the intake. My stock 78 Carb uses a Hot air choke. So it will need to be converted to an Electric Choke. Another $50 or so dollars I did not plan on. Oh Well. The good news is it does have provisions for mounting the stock EGR Valve. So that will not be an issue. I do plan on keeping most if not all of the emissions equipment on the engine.

The Almark Valve cover Clamps arrived, I purchased the Primer coated ones as I planned on painting them engine Blue like the valve covers to keep a more stock appearance. For anyone not
Familiar with the product they bolts on top of the stock stamped steel valve covers to put an even clamping force across the surface, preventing distortion of the cover and hopefully preventing valve cover oil leaks. We will see. In the past I always swapped on Cast Aluminum Valve covers to do the same thing. This time I wanted to keep the stock Valve covers so I went with these. They also make them for Pontiac and Chevy engines as well. The only issue I see is that the provided longer bolts do not have the protruding upper studs that the stock Spark plug wire holders are retained by. I may have to drill and tap 4 of the 6 and install 3mm threaded rod or bolts with the heads cut off to keep the look. I don't know yet. Should be easy enough to do.

And just a shot of the Timing chain Box.

 

The reason I asked is I am in the process of parts gathering to rebuild my 390FE in my Mercury. I keep seeing people advocating the use of HV pumps, but then adding restrictors in the heads because under hard accel, the oil pan can get pumped dry. From what I can tell the use of a HV is because people like seeing a high number at idle. This is in a street car, not drag racer. One of the guys that sells FE parts and builds engines said he runs standard volume pumps in his engines but puts HV pumps in customer engines because people seem to equate higher number on the gauge as better.

In my head I'm wondering with all that extra volume and then the need to restrict the heads, how is there not back pressure in the system.

 

Lookin' good, Jeff.
Hope everything goes smoothly with your upgrades. I'll be following your progress.

Jack

 

You will have some back pressure; that is essential to ensure the bearings don't starve at idle. It's the relief valve that regulates it on a good-running engine. High-volume pumps are really only for race engines, which run greater bearing clearances and heavier single-viscosity oil, IIRC. A decent-running Street engine should be 20 PSI and above at hot idle, but a worn engine should be taken out of service when hot idle pressure gets to 10 PSI.

 

Well I hit a snag when trying to remove the front cover of this Buick 350, evidently if you don't keep up the anti freeze bad things can happen. The front cover bolts were very corroded into the Aluminum front cover. At least I was not planning on reusing the stock front cover. I did finally get all the bolts removed late last night after soaking them for over a week with Kroil I had to break out the welding torches for the 1st time in years, and after heating up the entire front cover the bolts finally came out using my Electric Impact gun along with the Heat. I was so relieved I did not break a bolt I quit and had a few beers before going to bed.
I will Post some pictures later. I do now have all the needed parts exept for the Electric Choke Conversion, and new hardware for the Timing chain cover.

 

Well it took me more time to accomplish and I had to use so much heat to get the fuel pump and water pump bolts out (and I still broke 2 water pump bolts) that I do not trust reusing either one. So lucky me Rock Auto had Close Out A/C Delco parts for under $20 each. So they are on order. Well here are a couple of shots of the engine with just the front cover off. I will say that it looks like this is a very low mileage engine, very clean inside, also still had the stock plastic camshaft timing gear on it. And in good shape.


Close Up of the Plastic Timing gear.

I must be getting old as I found the Stock cast iron intake manifold to be unbelievably heavy!!!!!!

More Heat was needed to get the front 4 bolts of the intake manifold out. But here its finally off.

Very Clean internals, here is the intake gasket off.

another small amount of work added by the aftermarket A/C I had to remove the A/C condenser to get the camshaft out. but now finally done. Camshaft and lifter look very good for almost 40 year old parts, Anyone interested in the old parts? I will make you a deal!!!!!

Naturally I broke one of the 4 ports off of the Thermostatic Vacuum Switch on the intake when I removed it. But doing some research last night I found out its Tomco P/N is 13217, and the white paint on top is the color code for it. A NOS replacement was still available on Ebay for $27.43 delivered so it is on the way, I will also be ordering a bolt kit from T/A performance, it will have more hardware than I need as I am really only after all the front cover, water pump, fuel pump, and intake bolts but for $99 I think it will be worth it as I know they will fit and I won't have to chase down bolts, or try to reuse corroded and stretched bolts. Fingers crossed the hard part is over.

 

Don't chase down bolts, but do chase down threads. It's interesting to note how some of those items (corroded T/C bolts, nylon-covered timing gear, etc.) are the same as Ford engines.

 

Andrew,

Sorry about my wording, when I wrote "chase down bolts" I actually meant finding and buying new bolts, as this Buick engine uses 2 sizes and several different lengths of both size bolts on the front cover, and 4 different length bolts on the intake manifold. I actually will not be reusing many if any of the original bolts!