our buick gs
I remember in the fall of '72 when the GS first appeared. I was in my bedroom, which was over the driveway, and I heard my father pull up to the garage as he always did around dinner time after work. But this time he was running late. The first thing I noticed was the sound of his car was different. Even at 12 years old I could tell it wasn't his Chevy! I looked out my window and gazed down to the driveway. WOW! The first thing I noticed was hood scoops, this alone had me going. "Hood scoops!" I exclaimed. My Mother and my Sister said "what?" I ran down the stairs past the kitchen yelling to my Mother and Sister, "Dad bought a new car with hood scoops!" My Mother replied "WHAT!" (it was our first new car.) We went out to the driveway, and there it was. My sister was 16 at the time and had just received her drivers license. Her first words were "ALL RIGHT!" I examined the car. Hood scoops, dual exhaust, sport mirrors, a/c, power windows, mag wheels, I was going to be one of the cool guys in junior high when I told the guys about our "family car". The car was used as an everyday driver for 10 years. It had limited duty some winters when my Dad was car pooling. We skipped a family road trip vacation in '73 because of gas rationing and the car ate to much gas. When I was in high school I would take my mother to work and I had strict orders to take the car straight home. (Sure, no problem). So straight over to the high school I went, picked up some of my buddies and went cruisin'. The big deal in those days was to flip the air filter cap so when the 4 barrel carb opened up it would make a loud moan. I used the car to go to my high school senior prom in '78. In '82 the unthinkable happened. The car was hit by a driver running a red light. This began my 2 year career in Auto Body and Fender. The shop I brought it to for repair was owned by a young guy by the name of Ed Brown A.K.A. "Mister Wizard". We became friends and I started working for him restoring cars. The Buick received a new fender, grille, front bumper. The hood was masterfully straightened by Ed. The car originally was painted "Camel Tan" which was sort of a butterscotch. We looked at it and Ed said "Paint it Black"! Now that the color was changed a motor change was due. In '85 a 455 engine was acquired (the car originally had a 350 which I kept).The engine was rebuilt, .030 over, forged Arias super light pistons 8:5 to 1 (pump gas was terrible in those days), balanced, blueprinted and a RV type cam for street use. The transmission was rebuilt for street-strip and a W-30 type stall converter was used. I finally made it to the drag strip in '96 for the National Muscle Car Association Event at Great Lakes Dragaway in Union Grove Wisconsin. Running street tires traction was non existent. To date the car has run a best of 14.44@96 mph. Not bad for a 4,000 lb. car without the driver. This month we have pulled the engine and are going to go through it with some new stuff. The engine went to the engine builder and upon inspection the cam bearings were wiped out and there was some scratching of the bearings. The valve springs that were installed by the engine builder were way to stiff for the mild cam that was there. Also Buick's have a weak link in the cam bearing area. The "clock" position of the oil hole is in a bad place. This is remedied by machining a groove in the cam bearing openings, so you can index the oil hole in the bearing to a more favorable "clock" position. We plan on decking the block to "0" deck to raise the compression to around 10:1. Some pics are beginning on the next page.