I’ve been looking around these forums for some info but haven’t found much, maybe I’m doing it wrong but, I have a 69 bird that came with a 400 but now has a 69 350. Tomorrow I am going to look at a “untouched” 74 455 for $750, I’ll read on the plugs and do a look over and hopefully buy it. To me it’s a good deal but am somewhat concerned how cheap it is. Has anyone swapped a 455 into a 69 bird? If so what issues did you run into? From what I’ve read, all Pontiac blocks, big and small blocks, use the same mounts?
I’ll be using my current Muncie with the 455.
If I get the 455 in and all is good, what could I sell my 69 350 for? I do know the rear main seal is going out and I have the small chamber 47 heads.
I’ve got a 455 going into mine this winter. No big and small blocks. All Pontiac blocks are the same size. The engine weight might be a few pounds more but it’s negligible. Should be no issues. Everything bolts up the same.
Thanks for the info Bob! That’s another thing I was worried about, the weight so thanks for adding that info! I plan on replacing the clutch as well, any input on a good brand or anything?
What would you think about selling price for the 350, 1k?
IMHO, you'll be lucky to get $100 for a 350 or 326 non-HO engine. The accessories (brackets, timing cover, oil pan, etc.) are worth more than the engine. I tried sell my Lemans 326 long block for $100, no takers, went to scrap.
It's a shame the 326 gets no love, back in the 70's, during high school, my buddy Rick owned a 67 FB, 326/3 speed, I'm guessing a 3:08 or numerically lower gear, chrome reverse wheels with N 50 15's, my other friend had a stock 1970 GTO, 78 series tires, 400 WT, 4 speed, 390 open rear. They decided to race one afternoon, right after school, on Hwy 54 S, right in front of the Ramada Inn. They were side by side both doing about 45 mph and took off, I was 15 and riding shot gun in the GTO. The goat had the bird by a car or two up to about 100 -110 mph, then the bird came around us and was gone. I still can't believe it! I see Butler sells a stroker kit for the 326, I think it'd be neat to build one.
Why scrap a perfectly good 350? If it is the at 69 block it has different, more solid build than a 74 smog era block. As mentioned, a pontiac block is a pontiac block, the 455's have a different sized crank journal than a 400. Depending on who you talk to, punching out a 400 or 350 to a larger size is preferable, as you are keeping more iron around the crank. More iron, more RPM. I am far from an expert, but my 400 block has been in engine jail for 3 years (getting tired of waiting on it). It'll come back as a 462. .035 over with a 4.25" stroke. I pick up any 60's pontiac block I see if it is in good shape. Posted a while ago about a cool one I found with factory 4 bolt main's that was in a Bonneville. Great find if I really want to build a monster.
If I were in your shoes, I'd pull the 350, strip it down to the block, have it machined and cleaned, and build it fresh. You've got the sweet sweet 4 speed, so putting a nice cam in it and some high flow heads will really wake it up (it's not that simple, but it a little research turns up a lot of info).
Hokie... I'd have bought that 326 all day. Those things will rev forever after a good rebuilt. I have a C-20 with a 327 that runs to 7000 rpm after a relatively inexpensive rebuilt.
1957 Thunderbird 289 1967 Firebird Base 461 1968 C-20 327
The other thing good about a 455 is they all have the 5 motor mount holes so they will work with 69 and earlier and 70 and later mounts. With the later 400 blocks, you might only have the 3 holes and you can't easily install in an FGF that needs the other 2 holes.
The answer to all things is "yes". The 455 should be a pretty easy swap. Whether or not it runs, or runs well, is a totally different animal. As for the 350 it has tons of potential. Especially if someone has a 70's era bird with a smogger in it. Those 47 heads would freshen any 70's 350 nicely. Either way i would wait until that 455 is up and running before you move it.
Thank you all for the great info, defiantly appreciated!
I got the 455 the other day and, it barely turns 90 degrees then stops. I pulled the plugs and cylinders 2 & 4 had rust on the plugs so I'm soaking all the cylinders with MMO and wd40. Hoping it comes around! I didn't get a chance to pull the heads yet but, the casting on them says "5" and that it, i can't find any info out there that in '74 they used a "5" casting number, the secondary casting is 16, any ideas on what heads these may be? I'll get pics soon.
My plans for the 455 is to at least get it up and running and run it for a few years until i can afford to have it gone through and put some better parts into it.
I am definitely going to keep the 350 around until i know for sure the 455 is a runner, good idea unconn86hgiv!
All I can say is go over to PY under parts for sale and search for 326 and count how many got top dollar for a complete engine. Parts yes but the block nobody appears to want.
It's worth the money just for the block & crank. Only issue you may have is having the correct engine mounts locations on the block, there are adapter plates that solve that problem. Listen to engine run, if seems fine, clean it up & put it in! If and/or when it goes belly up, perfect bottom end to build. Lots of quality parts out there now, can build a nice stout 455 for not a ton of money. You might get lucky & have it run strong for a good time. Buy it!
Nope. I think someone else touched on this as well. When you start looking at what you have for your 350 setup, depending what kind of torque and HP is generates, you will want to make sure that the 455 is going to blow the lower rated parts off the car... figuratively speaking. Factory that 350 was something around 325 HP and 375 FP/t... if the 455 is going to do what a 455 does (generate massive amounts of torque) you may find some clutch slippage. My Firebird is an auto, my Chebby is a stick (327), and that is built with heavy duty drive components. Firebird TH400 built to withstand 1,000 HP.
There are a bunch of guys here who can point you in the right direction for best bang for your buck.
1957 Thunderbird 289 1967 Firebird Base 461 1968 C-20 327
I’ve got a 428 in my goat with a Muncie and a mild aftermarket clutch and it goes fine. My bird is getting a 455 with a Muncie and mild aftermarket clutch and I’m not worried. As long as you stick with street tires you shouldn’t break anything. If you take it to the track with slicks and thrash it things will break
Its not all black and white when someone will break something it happens or doesn't happen at any ungiven moment. I have seen plenty of new things break too that supposed to be the cats meow. As far as rear ends go, as long as the bearing pre-load is good and the bearings are good i wouldn't loose much sleep over a rear end. On the other side of the coin when running a manual transmission and dumping the clutch at 5000 RPM, you will find the week points of a driveline.
Don't be thinking right off that any 455 is going to be a screamer, if it is really a 74, performance could be very lame, check this site, you need to find the block ID under the passenger head in the front, it would be a WZ or YH etc etc, then look at the center exhaust port on either head and try to figure out what that says, then look around the distributer for the year code, the long set of numbers would be when it was made and the large 2 numbers should say 74 if it is, meaning that is what year car it is meant for, now look at this chart. You will find that all 74 455's (except the SD) were 250 hp with 8-1 comp and the 067 cam, if you want to stay low comp for todays poor fuel and get some real boost go with the 068 cam, it will leap that motor, probably to over 300hp, if you find the heads so so, either rebuild or go with edelbrock which are based on the RAIV heads in either D or round and with the 068 cam you would have a 455 superduty.
let us know the numbers, I'm dying to find out
if that is a Y8 block with 16 heads it is the 74 SuperDuty and a rare find,
As far as I can tell from pics that is not a 74 block, no 74's had a 5 in the head, that I can find info on, I'd recheck the block info, look on the bottom side and see if 455 is cast in the block, around the dist should be the year,
I did a little more sleuthing because I am a curious bugger.
When I blow up your pics the best I can figure is the head says 5X, and you may not find a 5X head listed, there is diff info on diff sites, there are also oddities like @72-73 Pontiac got nailed by the EPA and had to redo engines and codes and they also had a strike, some engines ended up with a ZE code and you'll never find it, anyway... it could also be a 5I or 51 all the same head.
The engine may have a build date of 1974 but it was built for the 75 models, that head looks original as does the entire block.
I believe what you have is a 1975 455 and I would suspect the block says YU or YW because it's an auto, it has the 067 cam and 5X heads which are 7.5-1 comp, don't worry about too much power in it's present state it's like 200, torque will still be ok, that is actually a good head if you had it milled and rebuilt maybe to 9-1 and pop in the 068 cam you will have a 300-350hp terror. When you factor in the cost of rebuilt/milled heads vs edelbrock it should be much cheaper, most Pontiac heads are desirable except for the post 71 lower comp which may be ok if they are 8.5-1, but the 7.5-1 was just Pontiac trying to get by the emissions and they don't go.
Low compression 400 heads provide decent streetable compression on a 455. I have 4X 400 heads on my 455. 98 or so cc’s. Mid 70s 400 heads are plentiful
Agreed, but he was concerned about too much power from the swap, these are good for cruisers, hiway riding, it'll have pretty good torque, 4X is 8-1, these are 7.6-1, with some carbon build up it's probably now 8.5-1, I would still consider the 068 cam while it's out, the 067 is the station wagon family car cam, the 068 will boost it 50-70 hp easy, great heads for a blower application.
Sorry i haven't had a chance to post, been traveling a lot for work.
I finally had a chance to pull the pass. side head off and not so good news, looks pretty rough, pics are attached. Must be a blown head gasket?
So the numbers are as follows:
Number by freeze plugs: 455 Pass side by head: 0245443 YW Pass side by pump: 25P489182 By Distributor: 74 F174 Back pass by head: 485428
I think Bartbird is right in the thinking that this is an early 75 engine. The guy i bought this engine from still has a set of 46 heads i could buy for $200 for the pair, might do that after the holiday's, will the push rods be the same size do you think? I also took apart the old distributor and primed the engine, got about 60psi of oil pressure.
I will bet that the lower end is fine, as a low comp it probably never saw any real strain, a clean up, head rebuild and cam, put in a new timing chain and oil pump, it's still a valuable motor, how do things look in the pan?
Bartbird, hoping it cleans up well, i was pretty disappointed to see that. What are your thoughts on that, the stuff that i pulled out was chunky, if it was a blown headgasket i suppose if it sat long enough it could get that way? I haven't pulled the pan off yet, i need to get the other head off still.
Bob S., it was just the way the sludge was, no cracks. On the #8 cylinder you can still somewhat see the crosshatch but not on the others.
I'll update the form once i get the other head off. Do you know roughly what machine shops charge to do a cleaning? I haven't had a chance to call but, figured i'd ask. Thanks everyone!
Pulled the other head off and those cylinders look good. I also pulled the pan off and on one of the crank counterweights is stamped 9/23/91 which leads me to believe that this engine has been rebuilt at that time. I also noticed some white goo in the pan and on the #7 rod, almost looks like assembly lube? All the mains and rods look good!
I put MMO in all the cylinders when i first got it, that's what's in those 3 cylinders
MMO is a great idea, keep it all soaking especially the cylinders that had gunk and water and keep rotating that assembly while lubing.
The 46 heads would be 10.5-1, it's a shame someone let this engine sit like this, I'm wondering if it wasn't a head gasket, wondering if it was left outside on it's side and the elements got in? It's still worth saving IMHO, a shop probably isn't going to want to touch it without taking it all apart in order to have any kind of warranty. I would say find a reputable one in your area, bring him pics and see what they say. It's probably not going to be dirt cheap.
I was finally able to pull the pistons out of the block and, this thing is going to need to be bored out. Number 2 was stuck in there pretty bad with all that rusty gunk on the cylinder walls. The engine has already been bored 30 over so its probably going to need it again unfortunately. So that means she'll have to sit wrapped up for a while until i can afford the rebuild. I found a reputable machine shop in town that i need to send pics over to him to confirm that it'll need to be bored out.
Another topic though, when i bought my bird there was a quadrajet in the trunk. Apparently the guy i purchased the car from was tracking down a fuel issue so he did a rebuild on the carb, then bought and installed an Edlebrock, then finally replaced the whole fuel system. I did some research on it last night and its a 7027262 carb so its a 67 Pontiac automatic carb. Beings my bird is a manual, will this carb work on the 350 i have in the bird now? If i don't use is, what's it worth?