455 Buick Rehash

19. As with most intake swaps, we needed a few extra things to complete it. Foremost were new shorter bolts (the Buick uses overkill 9⁄16 intake bolts), plus a few 1⁄2-inch pipe plugs and a heater-hose connector. We normally prefer brass plugs instead of steel, because the steel eventually rusts and looks bad. Please don't use that pink heater hose either. It's bogus. Get black. Since the stock aluminum thermostat housing was corroded, we dug around the boneyard for a good one and found a clean iron housing on a '73 model.

20. All those trips to Pick Your Part failed to net us a Buick HEI distributor from a '74-and-later car, so we made sure the shaft wasn't too loose in our old points distributor and threw in some new points, a condensor, a cap, and a rotor. For the stock look, but with added performance, we had to have Jacobs Electronics' Energy Core resto wires. It's tough to find spiral-metal-core wires in black, but these are them. Not only that, the Jacobs Uni-Clips used to terminate the distributor end of the wires make them the easiest-to-assemble cut-to-length wire we've used.

21. We also got a new Speed Pro fuel pump. If you got a double-roller timing chain, expect it's added width to rub on the arm of the pump. You may need to clearance the arm a bit, or just eliminate the manual pump and get an electric one. For a clean sleeper look that also helps keep the engine NHRA-legal, we were able to reuse the stock fuel hardline from the pump to the carb. It had to be rebent a bit to fit with the taller-than-stock Edelbrock intake. The carb is the stock 800-cfm Q-jet (note that '70 models used a smaller 730-cfm unit) that we simply cleaned up with Gunk carb cleaner since it ran fine.

22. We converted the engine to use a 12SI, internally reglated 66-amp alternator instead of the wimpy externally regulated unit that came on our '65; Poston offers a conversion wiring harness to fit both the 455 engine and the newer alternator into the older car. We used the stock upper alternator bracket, but cut off about an inch that had a hole in it for the A/C compressor mount. Pep Boys had cut-to-length alternator spacers that we used for the lower mount. Those spiffy pulleys are March units from Poston designed to work with the short water pump.

23a&b. Further tricks from Poston include the beefy, tall-style, cast-aluminum valve covers and the double-trick, two-piece, finned-aluminum oil pan. The valve covers require machine work to install a breather or an oil filler, and the cool pan was overkill for our stock engine. We intalled this stuff to make the motor look zoomie for the cover. (By the way, can you believe there's a Buick on the cover of Car Craft?) In reality, our sleeper mill uses the stock valve covers and oil pan that we sandbasted and painted.

23b.

24. Here it is--the done deed. Well--nearly done, anyway. It's amazing how clean this looks, considering the grease-pit we started with. There's still some nickle-and-dime stuff left to do, then we'll drop it in the '65 wagon for some real fun. Look for it in a few months. CC