The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area Engine Shop Buick 350

I am looking into buying a Buick 350, Does any one know a lot about these motors?
It actually in a 69 Jeep Gladiator, The owner had an adapter plate made and put on a Quadra jet carb.

Any info would be great.

Great engines. They produce good power & strong torque. They weigh less than a small block Chev. & are very rugged. The only drawback is there is not much speed equipment available. The only aluminum intake I could find for the one in my skylark is Poston. It runs close to $300.

You'll have to use a BOP bolt pattern trans/bellhousing as it is different from Chevy engines. Any tranny from a Buick/Olds/Pontiac V-8 or Buick rear drive V-6 will work. Wrenchbender's right, not much speed parts, SOME parts will interchange from the V-6, though. Mainly front components like water pump and cam drive.

www.v8buick.com

Is your place for info on Buick engines.

I think they have an external oil pump which is driven off of the front of the crankshaft. That would be their weak link I beleive. They're wider and heavier than a small block and more costly to rod. If you're dead set on using Buick, go with the 455, it's externally identical to the 350 but a whole lot more cubes,
Scott

Its actually in a 69 Jeep Gladiator truck that I was pondering on purchasing.
It’s a running and registered project for $1200. The guy says it runs great but it has a valve sticking when it warms up. He called it a "Dauntless" Buick 350

I wouldn’t put a Buick motor in my bolt unless it was a 455. But my bolt is keeping its 235 until it dies.

Those are good motors, mostly. I wouldn't be shy. They make a whole lot more torque than an SBC.
It would have been the original motor in that truck. Jeep used Buick engines from about 1966-72.

I had a CJ-5 with a Buick 225 V6 with a quadrajet manifold. It had enough torque to snap the spider gears in the front differential in low range.

If you are interested in a Buick 455 I have a neighbor that has one in his garage for $150. (Kansas) It is missing the camshaft. They produce more torque than any other 455 out there. Perfect truck engines.

The 455 is larger & heavier than the 350.

Seems to me I heard those engines were used in a variety of applications including original Rovers and marine because they were goodies.

Learn something every day. Always thought a 350 Chevy was the same. My 81 Malibu has a 267" as does my 81 Buick Regal. I presume they are the same.

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

Outstanding info. If only my memory wasn't shot I'd know alot of stuff...

....I used ta know all dat stuff...
Speed

Longbox 55 thanks. One reason I bought that Buick was because it had the same engine as my Malibu, which just goes and goes and goes. Very high mileage on it now, near half a million kilometers.