Q: We have a 3rd-Gen. Buick Skylark. Under the hood is a 350 bored over .030, with a 750 cfm Holley carb, Edelbrock Performer RPM intake, Federal-Mogul pistons, a 284°/284° Melling cam, 1.6 ratio Summit Racing roller rockers, a Pete Jackson noisy gear drive, and headers. The cylinder heads, rods, and crank are all stock, and it has a TH-400 transmission.

The car sounds great, but it has no low-end power—it can’t even burn rubber from a dead stop! We’d like it to lay a nice patch, run strong from low to midrange on the quarter mile, and still run on pump gas.

We’re thinking about the Summit Racing street-and-strip cylinder heads, along with some Keith Black performance pistons. Where will that put our compression?

We’re also planning on adding a 3,000-rpm stall converter and an Edelbrock Victor Jr. intake. Should we keep the cam and rockers?


A: We have a few ideas to help your existing setup. Try advancing the cam for more low-end power, and then jet the carb down a bit, as the 750 is too big for your application. Once you tune everything up, the car should run much stronger.

Next, if you use those Summit Racing street-and-strip heads and the Keith Black pistons, you should be around 10.5:1, which is another big step toward the performance level you want. However, the stall converter and intake you have in mind are both too large for your car. Instead, we’d recommend an Edelbrock 7101 Performer RPM intake and a B&M 20412 Holeshot torque converter.

Vintage Brown Buick Skylark Coupe
(Image/Public Domain)
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