1993 Total Performance Jeep Engine Booklet - 225 V6

I picked up this booklet awhile back. It's a rambling and not well organized document which covers several engines, but focuses mainly on the Vigilante 327 V8. It does not cover the 134, other than a brief mention. Though outdated, I just thought I'd share the pages covering the 225 V6.

Here's a link to the portion on the Dauntless. Readers on this forum will notice several errors. These are interesting, in that the history of these engines apparently wasn't well known until sometime after this booklet was written in 1993.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1e8Troknwj1u_Xdl8-cdgMf3yxUZIcq96/view?usp=sharing

 

Thanks Maury I think you need to update the sharing to public though

 

Thanks, Grant, I think that's fixed now.

 

That's a Dick Datson book. I have a couple of them that I bought directly from him 15 years ago?





He had a website that I think was "Total Performance" and an early forum. These books are collections of 1-3 page treatises on related topics. No TOC, no index. He's big with the Studebaker enthusiasts - may still be - https://www.amazon.com/Books-Dick-Datson/s?rh=n:283155,p_27ick+Datson

Wrote a lot on Studebaker and AMC engines and home-brew superchargers too.

 

Yep, it is a long stroke relative to the bore:


It's also 100lbs lighter than a small block Chevy. However, it will never make the absolute power of a small block Chevy because the small bore size limits valve size. Great engine for low end torque, not a great engine for max power.

 

They were a good fit for the Wagoneer - of course, to Jeep they were just a commodity engine that replaced the preceding AMC 327 in 1968. The 327 worked well in these Jeeps too. I wonder if AMC had their eye on Jeep that far back, and declined to accommodate them by providing the new 290-343 engines, or they simply needed their entire output for their cars. Or possible Jeep had a better relationship with Buick by that time, based on the 225 purchase.

In the Wagoneer, the Cadillac 472/500 fits in nice, in place of the 350. Probably just as easy as the big Buicks. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cadillac_V8_engine#472_series

 

If high performance was your goal with the 327, that supercharger would be absolutely necessary. The Buick heads are screamers compared to that mess that sat on the AMC 250/287/327 blocks.

 

I have to say that even though the valve sizes are small, the ports on the Buick 350 heads look quite nice. Very nice transitions, no casting flash, and consistent cross sections. They look much more like modern aluminum aftermarket head ports than OEM cast iron stuff from the 60s.

 

I had a 350 Buick in a Gladiator plow truck. I bought it with a bad factory 350 and swapped in a Buick car 350. It had incredible lugging ability. I really liked that engine.

 

In general all of the Buick V8's (with the exception of the 215, maybe) were better at low end grunt, than top end horsepower, it's just a nature of the design. I actually knew a few guys back home, that had Square Body Chevies, and even a couple Dentside Fords, that they had swapped 455 Buicks into. Fantastic engines at "low" rpm.

 

The non-Chevy GM big blocks (Pontiac,Olds, Buick, Cadillac) always had a long stroke crank that was known for producing tons of torque, but they didn’t rev as well as a Chevy with the relatively short stroke. Its funny that Buick, Olds, and Pontiac all had 455 engines that were all different engine formulas, yet still different than Chevy’s 454. In my opinion, the Buick had the best combination of bore/stroke producing the highest torque that rivaled the Cadillac’s 500 cu in engine. Interestingly, the Buick 455 had the biggest bore/shortest stroke of the of the 454/455 range of GM big blocks.
I had a friend decades ago that swapped out his original 402 big block in his Chevy pickup for an Olds 425. He towed a John Deere 410 backhoe, and the Olds just pulled so much better with all the additional torque. With the truck unloaded, it was also noticeably quicker than with the BBC.
Another friend had a ‘69 Buick GS with a Stage 1 400 that would embarrass big block Chevelles of the era, due to the torque in a relatively heavy car.
I still liked my Buick 215 in my ‘65 Tux. It had plenty of grunt, but I weighed in at around 2000lbs, so didn’t need tons of torque.
-Donny

 

Donny, this struck a nerve for me. I still have the 215 that was in my first car, our old family wagon '63 Special. I have always wanted to get it into a jeep, if nothing else, just for old time's sake. So how did it perform in rock crawling situations? I assume you can't get the heavy flywheel on it.

 

A good book with lots of Buick V6 info.
Years ago I made the mistake of loaning it to a friend and never saw it again.

 

When I was in high school my dad bought a 1970 Buick station wagon with the 455. He bought it to take our family of 8 out to the desert flat towing a Manx copy dune buggy. It was mom's car but it was my date vehicle when I was in high scghool. The wagon had an am/fm radio WITH an 8 track player built in! That station wagon had some power. I wish Dad would have popped for limited slip in the rear end.