GM's STRANGEST and WEIRDEST V8 engine | CRAZY 455s you didn't know about!

My uncle had a 1974 LeSabre with the two-barrel 455, and I remember it being the smoothest ride ever. Even with just 175 horsepower, that car had such a powerful low-end grunt. You could just feel the torque when cruising around town...

1973 Delta 88 with the two-barrel 455. Growing up, I remember the long road trips we used to take in that car. It was like riding on a cloud. The engine wasn’t the most powerful, but it was so reliable and had that 'effortless' kind of power that made it perfect for those highway cruises.

Damn man… almost 2 minutes in and all you’ve done is say the same stupid half ass catchphrases over and over again.
Edit: almost 4 minutes in and you still haven’t said anything interesting. I’m out

455 4bbl quadrajet 3-1/2 high intake and dual exhaust. (Or edlbrocks big barrel) POWER HOUSE for my 74 cutlass supreme. I love it! Use traction bars or you'll just burn off rubber playing sit and spin. Lol

who ever came up with tis is full of crap, any body taht knows Carberators will tell you that a 4 barrel will get better a milage and be more responsive until you stand on the gas. you may be able to fil this BS to someone that cut their teeth on Fuel injection, but all carb guys know the Smaller venturis in a 4 barrel will have better response than a two barrel.

Cheaper to put on 2 barrel vs a 4 barrel instead of a new engine design why not use the inventory?

My best friend has a Boneville that came with a 455 2bbl. Hauls ass

Ford had a 429 2 venturi also.

A video guide on making something out of nothing

I rebuilt a junkyard 455 4 bbl Pontiac with a mild cam to replace the stock 350 2 bbl in my 70 Pontiac esprit and installed a free flowing dual exhaust with headers . Traction was non existent !!! Everyone else was doing break stands to try to smoke their tires and my bird would melt the tires with the speedometer shooting to the 160 mark right through the 3 gears of the automatic turbo 350 just by flooring it in drive .. Unbelievable power and it would top out above 160 on the speedo as long as the headers weren't crushed which I was constantly fixing because the car sat to low and would drag on speed bumps ... The 2.73 rear gears allowed that car to cruise easily over 130 mph quarter throttle in the primaries easier then most cars of the time which was the mid 80s could do 65 mph ... Those engines made effortless low and mid range power and the smart move was not to go with a giant cam which many would choose and their engines would have no bottom or mid range power .. Mild cams , big cubes , and free flowing exhaust was a most powerful, unstoppable ,dependable , and durable engine choice ...😮

well, heh. Not the 455 but the....400? Friend had a 67 Catalina and it really performed, had the 2 barrel Rochester. My fam bought at 68 Bonneville with the 4 barrel Quadrajet, with the small primaries and big secondaries, and one pump. Well it sucked for the entire 6 years we owned it. That carb was a total POS. 50 years later I still have scar tissue over that. What a piece of crap.

I suspect the decision to use the 2gc 2bbl instead of the quadrajet was all about the up front costs. As mentioned in the comments a q jet actually has smaller primaries and in theory should have better response and economy. The existence of the half a q jet dual jet carb that replaced the 2GC reinforces this assertion. BUT the quadrajet was a complicated and expensive carb, combine this with the fact that the largely elderly clintel these cars were marketed towards would have absolutely believed that more barrels = more gas and I can see why GM did this. Chevy also had a 2bbl Big block 402 and ford and Chrysler were absolutely terrified to put a 4bbl on anything mainstream so you had tons of 2bbl FE's and RB's that were only a little smaller than these. So these arent really THAT weird in context. It only seems weird because GM would put a q jet on ANYTHING.

From what I recall about the 455 Oldsmobile, it was just a taller deck from the 260-403. The heads would interchange between the two deck heights, so no small vs big block like what the Chevrolet had. Another example, just like the short and tall deck so called Windsor 302 / 351 engines.

Ford also put two barrels on some big blocks, including some 429s that wound up in police cars. I also recall a 390 two barrel available in police cars. Chrysler had some large per V8s with two barrels too, Anyway, 455s and the like with two barrel carbs weren’t muscle car motors. They were torque producers for daily drivers.

I don't have the 455, since my Buick Wildcat is a 1966. I got the 425 Nailhead. Also a great engine!

Starting in 1972 the HP ratings were measured as Net as opposed to the prior Gross rating. They are not comparable means of measurements.

A friend parents had a 71 2bbl 455 in a Delta 88 station wagon. We used to see what the top end was. It would do 120 mph.

Nothing weird about BOP 455s. There were plenty of them made, and in the 70s a lot of motors got the squeeze because of the oil crisis and new emissions regulations.

Jeffrey had a 1968 Buick with 455 Rocket. In big winter storm, seeing 4x4 trying to pull vehicles out of the ditch, Jeffrey just plowed into the ditch with the Buick, rolled down window and asked if everything was ok. Jeffrey then floored it and drove out through 3 feet of snow back onto the road.

I'm guessing this video is geared more towards people that are 30 years old or younger ,and know nothing about the gas crisis , or GM 455s, or maybe even cars in general.
If you're old enough to have grown up without a smartphone stuck in your hand all the time, chances are good, you know about these engines.

My best friend has a 1970 455 Cutlass SX that is a factory 2 barrel car. That has to be a rare intake manifold

This wasn't weird it was only a cost cutter!

I loved my 1971 Buick Riviera with a 455 four barrel it was a beautiful, cruising car that had animal horsepower and torque

Actually if you stay out of it the quadrajet had smaller primaries and would actually give better milage and better throttle response than the two barrel carb .. true story..

Mr. B. Here ! 🍩☕️👀😎👍 : Weird ( LOL ) un-like today the key word is ( Choices ) most consumers were informed on how they would make a big purchase, many today believe the ( BS ) the salesperson hands out ! ( Choices ) . Have a nice day ! 🍩☕️👀😎👍

This repeats saying the same things over again that I already heard in the introduction.
Lame writing.

Honestly, the two barrel 455's and 400's weren't better on gas than the 4 barrels and weren't much fun to drive. They more or less replaced high compression 350 4 barrels. The low compression made them pass smog laws that the high compression engines struggled with.

As to the Olds 455 2 bbl in the 1970 Delta 88, it literally ran out of air at 105 MPH. And trust me we tried, but it just hit a wall. It got there fast enough, but that was it. There was no more no matter how much road you had and how much you pushed the peddle through the floor.

As to the 1976 Buick 455 4 bbl I have one in a 1973 Electra 225. Without cats (not required in the 1973 car) it easily passed smog for a 1990. Of course the compression is around 7.5 to 1 and it actually gets about 17 mpg with EGR enabled.

As to the 2 bbl Pontiacs, I had a 1970 Bonneville with a 400 2bbl with the duel exhaust. It was lethargic at best and got pretty marginal gas mileage.

Simply put the 2 bbl GM big blocks were a smog friendly replacement for high compression small blocks. Otherwise, and to be fair, they are smooth running quiet engines that didn't do anything that badly. But there was a reason they died out... the newer fuel efficient Rochester 4 bbls blew them away in terms of performance and economy. Just another smog project gone marginally wrong with the help of bean counters.

The 2bbl Engines had slightly lower Compression and could run on Regular Gas.

They wanted economy, lol.

Worked on plenty of these two-barrel 455s back in the day. They were a strange decision by GM, but honestly, they were easier to keep running right compared to the four-barrel counterparts. Less fiddling with jets, more consistent power delivery at lower RPMs. These two-barrels might not have won any drag races, but they kept a lot of family sedans on the road longer than you'd expect. Buick’s version was my favorite—tons of torque and built for smoothness