Buick/Universal Sabre + Super Sabre

there use to be an all aluminum v8 i remember in 1962 or so i believe it was clled the nail head, i dont know much about it, i just remember an aluminum block that early on

Both of these V6s are based on the Buick 225 V8 “Nail Head”. It just has two cylinders cut off.

The 198 had a bore of 3.63 and stroke of 3.20, on the 225 the bore was increased to 3.75 and stroke to 3.40, increasing displacement to 225. I also read online that there are very few interchangeable parts between the two engines even though they are based on the same block.

An interesting thing about these motors is that they are odd fire so even when perfectly tuned they run rough at idle. With 6 cylinders you would think that it would fire on increment of 60 degrees but they fire on 45 and 90 degree increments. This was later changed by Buick in the mid 70s and it became an even fire engine.

A friend of mine just bought a 67 CC Skylark so I have recently learned quite a bit about this engine. You could of course get a 225 and put it in your boat. I would think the exhaust manifolds would be the same, but there may be other compatibility issue you run into.

Vince

Oops, I guess I didn't post my picture correctly, I'll see if I can figure out how.

It is surprising that many of the parts do not interchange. I think what I was reading pertains to internal parts, perhaps heads and intake as well. From the outside they look very similar and I would suspect that the marinized parts are the same.

There is something about these old Buick V6s that I like. They are just neat motors.

Vince