I just picked up a 1931 Buick "pickup" (80 series sedan shortened to a pickup during the war). We pulled this thing out of a cargo box back in the woods in missouri. It hadn't seen the light of day for 30 years. We at Xotic Customs are bringing it back to life the way it should have been. I'm looking for any advice on what we should do drive train wise. It's the 110hp straight 8 that turns over very nice and upon tearing it down to the head, it looks very clean inside (minus the normal oil build up). The car only has 54K on it. We definately want to use the motor and possibly 3 speed trans. What kinds of things can we do to it to punch it up? I'm thinking dual stromburgs, open exhaust but I'm not sure how big it can be punched out. The rear end is stock with the single nut wood spoke wheels but I want to change them out to a 5 spoke model a wheel. What are my options? Replace the rear end with a 37-39 ford closed drive shaft and have an issue with the u joint being hard to match up? Swap gears and axles? Or can I somehow get a sealed bearing made for the tranny and run an open drive shaft with a 9" rear end? This part is where I'm really struggling to decide. Already chopped the top 3", running 19" spokes with white walls, channeling the body 5-6". No fenders or hood Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
Model A wires will look like Model A wheels on a 31 Buick. Not so good. How about scrounging around for a 40s or 50s Buick closed drive rear? Might be able to join that to the earlier trans. Not sure on the wheel bolt pattern, but I thought it was 5" BC, and there are some reasonable old wires out there with that pattern. Old motors had very low compression ratio for the poor gas they had. Bump that up a bit.
I would love to run buick spokes and the rear end is a great idea. What sizes did they make? I've got an engine builder in town that says it's no problem to freshen up this motor since it's so clean to start with and he said we could get 200hp conservitively out of it.
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