So since pulling the engine apart I've started on getting the last few things wrapped up on the new engine as well as pulling all the non-stock wiring out of the car and re-wiring it. Much like the engine, I never expected the wiring to be the long term set up. So what was once nicely rolled up wires got bird nested as I added a few inputs here and there over the years and needed specific wires.
One of the things I wanted to use was an SFI flexplate, which has turned into quite the ordeal! The crank flange hub ID is much smaller than the usual Pontiac and is just a smidge smaller than a Chevy's. The machine shop made me a precision sized ring spacer to use a Chevy flexplate, which I got an SFI one to use..... but I just recently found out that the ring gear isn't welded in the same spot as the Pontiac's! The Chevy ring gear is centered on the flexplate and the Pontiac's offset to one side, which made it so the starter gear couldn't reach the flexplate! So digging into my spare parts pile, I found that the Buick 455 hub diameter is the same as the Chevy and off set ring gear BUT has a bigger bolt spacing. Using the torque converter bolt holes as alignment holes, I re-drilled the Buick flexplate I had.
My flexplate hub spacer.
A stock flexplate.
A Chevy flexplate
The drilled SFI Buick flexplate. The plate is twice as thick as a stock flexplate.
The diameter is ever so slightly larger than the OHC plate, but has the same tooth count. It was easy to shim the starter as needed.
And a short video of the Buick flexplate doing its job!
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/oNmyUPaNjbg
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"How I learned to stop worrying and love the OHC Pontiac L6"
The Silver Buick- '77 Skylark coupe w/455, SPX, MegaSquirt 3 & TKO-600 (Drag Week 2011, 2012 & 2015!)
1969 Firebird with a turbo'd Pontiac L6 controlled by a MegaSquirt 3 and backed with a microsquirt controlled 4L60e and 4.56 gears! (Drag Week 2018!)