215cid aluminum

[Guest Rupe620]

anyone know anything about the 215 aluminum that came out in my 62 F85?

[Larry Schramm]

What would you like to know about it? Made by GM/Buick for a couple of years and was sold to Land Rover and used for decades. Veryl difficult to change the mechanical fuel pump if the vehicle has A/C

[joe_padavano]

There are many forums available on the web dedicated to this engine (and it's Rover descendants). Google "aluminum 215".

I bought a 1962 F-85 wagon earlier this year. Note that while the architecture is the same, the Olds block and head castings are different from the Buick/Rover parts. GM built the motor for about 3 years, then sold it to Rover, which built them from 1967 through 2006. Just to give you an idea of production scale, however, GM still built more in three years than Rover did in four decades!

The Rover blocks interchange with the GM blocks and are available in displacements that range from the original 3.5 liter (215 cu in) displacement through 4.6 liters in Range Rovers and even 5.0 liters in the TVR sports cars. This motor is the small block Chevy of the UK and Australia. There are TONS of aftermarket parts, including blocks and heads, but all must be shipped from either UK or Australia.

As for your original motor, watch for the problem I had, which was that the previous owner had run straight water in the aluminum block, causing a corrosion hole in the water jacket. These can be welded, but I dropped in a replacement 215 for now. I'll eventually build a 4.6 short block for this car.

D&D Fabrications in Michigan is the resident 215 expert in the US.

[Mark Shaw]

This is out of my Buick period, but could this be the Buick engine that was sold to the British for use in Rovers, etc...?

[Larry Schramm]

Yes it was sold to Rover. I had one in my '63 Buick Skylark stationwagon. Good running engine. Finally sold the car with I think about 125,000 miles.

[Rusty_OToole]

It weighs 320 pounds. Olds F-85 used the same engine with different heads. The Olds was the first turbocharged car on the market, sharing this honor with Corvair.

[joe_padavano]

It weighs 320 pounds. Olds F-85 used the same engine with different heads. The Olds was the first turbocharged car on the market, sharing this honor with Corvair.

Don't know how you can be first and still share the honor.

Yeah, us Olds guys are sensitive.

[Rusty_OToole]

It was a photo finish. Both cars debuted the same year, 1961 or 62 ( too lazy to look it up). I think Corvair may have beat Olds to market by a couple of weeks.

[joe_padavano]

It was a photo finish. Both cars debuted the same year, 1961 or 62 ( too lazy to look it up). I think Corvair may have beat Olds to market by a couple of weeks.

It was 1962 and the Olds was first to market by about a month.

[rocketraider]

I don't know... Turbo 'Vairs come in handy sometimes!

There's a twenty-something here who is eat up with 80s Turbo Buicks. He hangs with the tuner crowd since they share a love of turbocharging and hearing a waste gate blow off.

City puts on an air show every summer (except this year, bummer ) and there's a car show too. Two years ago the tuner boyz had their own "elite" show area (their term, they could not care less about our type of cars) and the Buick boy had his Grand National and display set up. You could barely see the front of the car for the trophies. His display board pronounced loudly "First production turbocharged American car!"

Well, me being me, had to ask, "Bo, are you sure about that?" "Yes sir, Buick was the first, in 1976!"

I said "You might want to ask the guy with that white Corvair over in the next row about that." 63 Spyder convertible, BTW.

The kid got his feelings hurt a little bit when he saw the Turbo Corvair and the 'Vair owner told him about the Spyder and the Jetfire, way back in 1962. Kid comes back to his car and says "I still think he put it on there!"

One of his tuner friendz pointed to me and said "Ask Glenn. He knows about them old cars".

Yup. Turbo 'Vairs can be handy.

:rolleyes::cool: