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Originally posted by LONGBOX55:
The Rover engine, which is still being produced, is the 215 aluminum Buick engine that was used on '61-'63 Specials, Olds F-85, and Pontiac Tempest.
Small addition here, the Buick version of this engine had very different heads, the traditional (at that time) 'nailhead design. Easily identified by the vertical valve covers. The piston were also different because of the head design.. You can put the Olds pistons in a Buick and get 11.5 compression. Nice back then, but not on todays gas! The Tempest used the Buick version.

The V-6 was based on this engine as a replacement when GM sold the tooling to Rover.

The v6 was offered as the base engine (except for Pontiac, who used a 1/2 a 389 V8 slant 4) with the aluminum v8 an option. The v6 was always cast iron though.

GM then sold the V-6 tooling to Kaiser for use in Jeep products, after tooling up a cast iron V-8 based on the V-6. In the '70s, during the "gas crisis", GM scrambled to get the V-6 tooling back from Jeep, which had been bought out by AMC by then. Unfortunatly, GM ended up retooling the engine, as the original tooling had been filled with concrete and used as filler in a plant floor by AMC. Ironic, aint it. By the way, very little, if any, parts from the Rover engine will work with the 300,340,350 Buick small block. I do beleive that the moderd efi intake will fit on the original 215 though.

The later version of the v6 was even fire, the basis for the GM corporate 3.8 engine. The early ones were odd fire. The cranks were just 3/4 of a v8 with the 90 degree throws.'


The big block Buicks differ from the small block mainly in deck hight and cylider casting thickness. Otherwise they are very similar, unlike other makes small and big blocks.
By the way- oldblu, your Regal has a Chevy engine, the Buick V-8 was dicontinued in '76. For the most part, by the early '80s the small block Chevy had become the standard "corporate" engine in most of GMs products, with the 307" Old hanging on to the late '80s.