Tim,
Last winter I transplanted a 3.5 engine into my TVR Vixen. This was the
completion of a project of putting a aluminum V8 into a sports car that I had
wanted to do for more than 20 years.
The project was started in Mid. October and the engine ran on April 6.
All the work was done in my basement shop without any help or information from
others that have done the same conversion. I did have help from a close friend
that has done some conversion work in the past. I can`t tell from your message
how much info you may know about the engine or even what country you are from
so I hope I don`t bore you with "common knowledge".
The engine was designed by General Motors corporate engineering for use in
their upcoming "compact cars" arriving in 1961. The engine was known as the BOP
215 (CID) and was used in the Buick Specials of 1961-63, the Olds F-85 of 61-63
and the Pontiac Tempest of 61-62. There were two versions of the block and
heads, the Buick unit, also used in the Pontiac, and the Olds unit made
exclusively for them. It came in a two barrel version of 150 hp, a four barrel
unit of 185 hp and a turbo charged version of 215 hp.
I believe that covers the US usage, the engine was discontinued at the end of
1963 as being too expensive and they had experienced overheating problems that
damaged the reputation of the engine.
The tools were then sold to Rover (the Buick version) and they subsequently
came out with the Rover 3500. To my knowledge they have since put it into the
up market Land Rover, the TR-8 and Morgan used it in the +8. I am not aware of
any other applications.
The Buick engine differed from the Olds. The visible difference was the heads
and the block had one more head bolt per cylinder in the Olds. version. The
Buick heads flowed better which made it the favorite of "tuners". The Buick had
the "vertical valve covers" making it look like the other Buick engines of the
time.
I was fortunate to have both a Buick and Olds engine. To do the transplant I
stripped the Olds to the bare block and pan and used it for the "engineering"
work to fit it to the TVR.
It was nice to be able to put this bare engine in and out by hand! At the same
time I rebuilt the Buick for the final installation. In 1963 a bell housing
with the "modern" GM transmission pattern became available. By using that one I
was able to bolt on a Borg Werner T-50 aluminum 5 speed from a 1979 Chevy
Monza. I used a original Buick clutch assy. with a Chevy pickup throwout lever
and adapted the original TVR slave cylinder.
I installed a Crane 280 degree camshaft, variable duration lifters and two coil
valve springs. No further work was done on the heads to improve breathing other
than a little cleaning of edges. I`m using a 500 cfm Edelbrock carb, stock
ignition (so far) and had to custom make 1.5 inch tube headers. The headers
were the major portion of the labor in the conversion taking about half of the
man hours of the total job! I was able to get all the lower end parts from JC
Whitney, a local machine shop did the valve work including replacing two
exhaust valves, cutting out to clear the oversize springs and installing valve
guide seals on the intake valves only. I used the original crank which is well
supported in the block and with the short stroke (2.8 inches) is not known to
be any problem. There is not a lot of after market hop equipment available as
the engine is becoming rare and I even had to go direct to Crane for the cam. I
believe the engine puts out about 200 hp in my car and at 1750 Lbs. it the has
PLENTY of power.
I still have the Olds engine so If you need some basic dimenisions I could
scale it for you.
I could go on and on about the conversion process but I won`t bore you further.
Hope this info helps, if you have any further questions I would be glad to
correspond.
Best Regards,
John
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