Thread: 1951 Buick questions?

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I have a good lead on a '51 Buick sedan that has been in a barn for a number of decades. Some initial searches say that it has a 263 cu in OHV motor with 126 HP, and Dynaflow transmission. It sounds like the motor may be an inline 8. Is there any motor magic here, or should it and the tranny be scrapped for a replacement?

The straight 8 would make a cool street engine with some accessories, but I don't know where you'd get them now. There used to be tri-carbs and headers, etc. available. They are a good old engine, but heavy.

Those straight 8 Buicks were great engines.......dependable, and torquey enough to move the cars reasonably well. The trannys were a little primative, and shifted a little on the mushy side, but were not horrible. I always thought the engines dressed up real pretty, and were not bad in stock form either.

But, there is room in that cave for almost any V8 engine swap, so something like a 455 Buick and modern turbo 400 would not be too out of place either. IMO a small block looks like a lawnmower engine in one of these engine bays, but they sure do drop in easily.

Don

Pope and Don, interesting. I saw the torque numbers on this and it was over 200, which was somewhat surprising. Is there a tranny other than the Dynaflow that would match up?

Mike

Other than the stick setup some came with (hard to find) there are no other trannys I know of that will bolt up. But the stock Dynaflow is really ok for normal street driving, and this isn't going to be a tire scorcher anyway.

Don