So I was looking through some pics I took on a yard crawl about 7-8 years ago, where I saw 3-4 fireball 8s in their original frames. I kind of wanted one just for the novelty of it, but didn't get back before everything was crushed out a couple years later when the yard was sold. Moment silence please... Anyways - I have wondered over since: I know the straight 6 Jimmy engines were popular about the same era as these, the flatheads, and the heavily modified B and C engines. Displacement and manufacture dates are about the same as the others, they are OHV, so presumably breathe better than a flathead, yet I have NEVER seen a picture of one in an hot rod, and for that matter NEVER EVEN HEARD OF one in a hot rod (not that it hasn't been done). I have not even seen them in the newer "traditional" cars, many of which seem to be quite lacking in the tune-up and power output category (leading me to believe those particular owners don't care as much about the actual performance, as much as visual appeal.) What gives? Why no Buick OHV Fireball 8s - then or now??? Anyone know? The combination seems to make sense in theory, but the question keeps popping up in my mind.
Blu As I remember, the Buicks were good engines. Smooth and pretty powerful. But, they were very very heavy. Maybe that's the reason Jim
When I was a kid in the '50s, there were a few guys around who had very fast Buick straight 8's. Most of them were built around '37 Centurys, which were probably the lightest Buicks to use the big straight 8. A well prepped Century could run with most hot flatheads, '50 Oldses (quickest stockers until the SBC showed up), maybe even a Chevy or two. A guy in the Bean Bandits named Jarvis Earl ran a Buick straight 8 powered dragster in the same early-'50s period. Not a world beater, but a fast enough car to be interesting. There have been several Buick-powered cars that ran at the Lakes and Bonneville, where weight was not as significant a concern as at the drags. Jimmy2car is correct. The main reason not to build around a Buick was engine weight.
There were a few in rods back in the day, mostly in the late-40s/early-50s. They seemed to really only be used in a few lakes-cars and some want-to-be-different customs. Callifornia Bill put out a book with a section on how to hop-up thse motors, so they must have had at least a small following. The problems with them now seem to be essentially the same as back then; virtually no off-the-shelf speed equipment for either the 248/263 or the 320 engines. I've got the 248 in my '38 buick project, I'm going to have to fbricate, or have made, virtually everything that I don't want to keep stock. Edmunds did some dual-carb manifolds back in the day, and Buick offered a dual-carb setup in 1941-42, but outside of that you're really on your own with these motors. Its a shame, they really are strong engines with biblical torque numbers...
Our vintage racing club has two of them in track roadsters. I've heard they bore out a 320 Roadmaster 1/4" (!) and put in International tractor pistons for 356 cubic inches. add 5 or 6 97's on a homemade manifold and a reground cam, and they go like hell!
There were a few Buick straight eight hop ups but very few. For one thing the cars were too heavy, for another too expensive. California Bill of Chev fame did a book on hopping up the Buick. By the way it is a mistake to think that an OHV is automatically more efficient and breathes better than a flathead. It definitely does not, especially on the old long stroke motors. The long stroke, small bore dimensions restrict the size of the head and the valves must be inside the bore, therefore OHV valves are rather small. Flatheads have no such restriction. Look at a typical flathead with the head off, notice the valve chamber is wider than the cylinder, you can see it on the head gasket too. A flathead's intake and exhaust passages can be just as big and well shaped as an OHV right up to the valves. The valves can be bigger. The only restriction on the flathead, is the passage between the valves and cylinder. This is where the problem came in as gas got better and compression ratios went up. The highest compression ever on a stock flathead was 8.5:1 on the 54 Packard and they had to do a few tricks to get it that high. Otherwise, if you try to go higher you restrict the breathing too much, in fact the fastest Fords had less than 8:1 compression, more squeeze lost more breathing than it gained power. Only when the new generation of big bore, short stroke OHV engines came out did the OHVs shine for the first time. Go back before 1950 and compare the long stroke Chev, Buick and Nash OHV engines to similar flatheads from Plymouth, Studebaker, Chrysler, Packard etc and you will see the OHV had little or no advantage, in some cases the flathead was more powerful than the OHV.
I suppose you have never heard of Jeff Brock or Bombshell Betty? Or the Salt Cat guys? Or that Hart Buick? Do a search. The big eights are pretty well represented here. And Rusty--I notice the absence of GMC on your list. Hows that?
Good stuff guys. You guys that grew up around all the stuff make me want to go buy you dinner and beers and just listen to the stories for days on end... Good point about the valve shrouding on the small bore early stuff. I had a head off of my 53 Pontiac straight 8 (flathead) once, and was shocked how small the bores were. "No wonder this thing barely makes 60" I thought. No, I never have heard of Jeff Brock or the Hart Buick. That Bombshell Betty car is beautiful. Shocked it is not more famous. I actually hadn't heard of that until I found some pictures on the Bonneville thread from this year - just a few weeks ago. I had not heard of it either prior to that. I plan to see it in person out there next year.
In the day, most rodders found the inline engines too long for most of the popular Ford engine compartments. The GMC six was lots more popular yet still not common. Good Luck: Fred A
I have a 320 straight 8 in my 40 limited. Was hotrodded by my grandfather in the late 40s early 50s and I am just now bringing it back from its 56 year slumber. The motor is llloooonnnnggggg. I think from tranny mating surface to fan is almost 40 inches. I dont think these would fit in anything else. I always wanted to take its little brother the 263 and a t5 and install in a 50s chevy AD truck Got mine to run and idle but I can't run for morw then 20 second i have no cooling system. Need a water pump Amd also need a fuel pump.soon though Ken
No real info here, but one of my favorite you-tube videos, they sure sound good. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=71QbhORKCb0
two drivers <TABLE align=left><TBODY><TR><TD vAlign=top> [SIZE=-1]Pete Shadinger [/SIZE]</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>were awarded the Competition Eliminator title. Pete Shadinger, from my neck of the woods in <?XML:NAMESPACE PREFIX = ST1 /><ST1:STATE w:st="on"><ST1LACE w:st="on">New Jersey</ST1LACE></ST1:STATE>, ran Glen Blakely, and when the clocks showed identical numbers, the officials said it had to be a malfunction of the clocks and both guys were declared Springnationals' champions. This car was a terror in the early 60's ran a straight 8 Buick. Pat
Straight 8 Buicks are very durable and many have found there way into stationery engine applications..such as saw mills..for one example. I have now, and have had previously, several Buicks from the '40 / '41 era. I like the old straight 8's. My '40 Super coupe currently is running the stock 248, but I have a lightly bored 263 (269.9) on an engine stand for build up. My intended use is just a pleasant 'driver'...not a race car..and the Buick's long stroke torque characteristics should fill the bill nicely. Ray
Here are a few. I'll search my files fr a local Roadster with a 320 straight eight that does attract some attention with a home built five dual throat down draft carburetors and reworked head with an HEI. It is a torque monster. 2:88 rear end ratio and it rockets out off the starting line Normbc9
Some forced induction will help compensate for the small valves. I really like the idea of an early-style badassed "gentleman's" hot rod. I dream of a '37 Roadmaster coupe...basically stock appearing...even with mohair interior, woodgrain, wide whites, etc. Maybe slightly lowered in back. Skirts too. But with a 320 that sounds like THIS. Minus the crazy pipes.
Here's a shot of the Curtis brother's Buick cutdown as it raced at Stafford Springs in the early fifties, with Whitey Brainerd driving. There were a couple that ran at Danbury later in the sixties. the 007 by Eddie Richie, and the 09driven by Lou Funk. Lou actually won a feature with his, quite an accomplishment against maybe 60 hot flatheads. Sure there were more, as well.
I remember reading a rod mag article years ago about a well known hot rodder who put a warmed up 320 in a '38 Buick Special coupe. I think the car was black. He recessed the firewall. I think he built it in the '50s. Shoot...can't think of his name right now...
Problem with the Buick eight is you spin it much over 4500 RPM and the rods tend to exit out one side or the other of the block. All but the last ones (the 320 anyhow) were babbit bearings, too. By the time they fixed that, the Olds and Caddy V8s were already out and the writing was on the wall for them becoming obsolete. You also had the fact that they were long and heavy motors, requiring a lot of work to shoehorn into a rod.
Near 800 lbs. Long and tall...like a wall. Long flexy crank. Small valves. Long stroke. Limited rpms. Torquey. Smooth. Beautiful "big car" engine. Unique. Cool. And I always enjoyed when somebody would see one of my I8s and ask, "What...is that?"
So I have a 50 Buick Super, top speed in this beast all stock like mine is about 50 to 55 MPH. Anything more than that in mine is pushing it to the max. I am hoping to change the rear gears this winter along with the clutch. Regardless, this sum bitch is fun as hell to drive around! Chuck
That's fine, how's yours? We were talking about car engines but if you want to add truck engines the same basic parable applies. Small bore, long stroke engines do not have a lot of room for overhead valves. Especially in the conventional, valves all in a row design. Now if you want to get icky, some motors got around this by using hemi heads like Riley, BMW, Jaguar, Duesenberg, and Stutz. All long stroke motors with hemi heads, the last three had overhead cams as well. The domed head with valves at a slant allowed larger valves and better breathing but of course this design was way out of reach for bread and butter cars .
Jeff Brock / Rocket Heads Racing Bombshell Betty 1952 Buick - 1950 straight 8 big block XO / GCC record : 162.48 - 2 way measured mile, average speed A lot of car, good old motor with a strong heart. All the fun I can take!
A tuned OHV GMC inline makes more power than any flathead in a similar state of tune.GMC came out in 1939.Looking through old tuning guides you'll see the crappy OHV design of the 216 Chevy OHV 6 was able to make more power per cubic inch than the flathead designs of the era. I believe the Hudson big 6 was the last flathead that really challenged OHV engines,at least in stock car racing.
The "Small bore, long stroke" 302 GMC is 4 X 4. Not what I would call a small bore or a long stroke. And mine ran quite well I think
So it wasn't a small bore, long stroke engine was it? Which proves my point: in the era when long stroke motors were the norm, OHV engines had no advantage over flatheads. Only when the design trend turned to high compression, oversquare, OHV engines did the flathead become obsolete. This is a completely unimportant distinction in 2012 UNLESS some younger person comes along and wonders why anyone ever bothered to make a flathead when they are obviously inferior. They weren't inferior back when they were being built. For technical reasons already described, they were equal to, and in some cases better than, an OHV. I would go farther. If you look at the record, the turning point was the introduction of the Ricardo head about 1922. After that nobody bothered with OHV engines anymore, every new engine design was a flathead. The superiority of the Ricardo head design over all others was so great it became nearly universal. The only exceptions were companies that had already nailed their colors to the mast so to speak, and could not go back on the OHV engine without admitting they were wrong. This included Chevrolet, Buick and Nash all of whom had been making OHV engines for years and touting them as superior. There were a few others that went OHV but these were out and out luxury and sports cars that came with overhead cams as well as overhead valves. This camp would include Wills Saint Clair, Duesenberg, Stutz and Bentley. They may have gotten a small performance advantage over a good flathead but it was bought at a cost in money and complexity that few wanted to pay. The point is that the flathead engine, while it may be obsolete today was the state of the art for 30 years. The cars that featured flathead engines between 1922 and 1952 gave away little or nothing to their OHV contemporaries in performance and had the advantages of low cost, reliability, simplicity, silence, and light weight.
I guess you could be right. But then I would have to think Duntov and Miller and Rutherford and all the others who made OHV conversions for both racing and heavy hauling were on the wrong track. Odd that the OHV conversions were as popular as they were and are.
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