Has anyone ever heard of a 72 Olds Cutlass with a 429 motor in it?

I know it sounds crazy but i wonder if anyone has done this. I'm trying to build a budget drag car out of parts I have laying around.

I have a 72 Cutlass that I was parting out but now I'm thinking of gutting the rest of the interior out and turning it into a drag car. I have a complete Ford 429 good running motor (from a friend that owed me some $$$) a 12 bolt chevy rear end and lots of performance parts laying around in the garage (MSD ignitions, carbs etc).

So if I can slap all this stuff together somehow I could have a drag car for what I think would be a relatively low budget project.

I'm not trying to compete or race for money, just for fun!!!

 

Why on earth would you want do a thing like that, unless the Ford was set up for drag duty. None of the mounts are going to line up, including the tranny mounts. Stranger things in the drag world have hapened though. Recall a TV Horsepower episode, where guy was running a strong 70' Camaro in the 5.7 class. His mechanic talked him into Chrysler 360 with new designed heads. Was a hard pill to swallow at first, but shut up pretty quick, when he started spanking evertone.

 

Sell/trade the Furd motor - they're in demand, and get an Olds 455!
Build it to taste, and go fast.

 

X2....a lot less headaches.

 

You got that right, as my car originally had a a SB 403, until I broke it. Built up a nice 455, and other than a few brackets and belts, dropped right in.

 

Well, the fact that you have parts lying around does NOT mean that it will be a "low budget" project. Let's start with the obvious problems that will incur cost.

The Furd motor doesn't bolt to the GM trans, so either you need to adapt the Ford trans (which means custom mounts, shifter, and driveshaft) or you need to get a SuperBell to bolt your GM trans to the Ford. Incorporating the Ford trans means moving the crossmember, and since the e-brake cables hang off the crossmember (and are different lenghts for different crossmember locations) you may have a problem finding something that works.

The Furd has a front sump oil pan, so you'll need to buy one of the (not inexpensive) aftermarket rear sump oil pans and pickups.

Obviously all accessory brackets are different, so you'll need to modify the Ford parts to accept GM accessories (at least the alternator and PS pump). I don't even want to think about the belt alignment issues.

Of course you'll be fabricating custom motor mounts and exhaust.

I have no idea where the Furd wants to have it's radiator inlet and outlet, but if different you'll need to have your radiator modified to move these points.

Can it be done? Of course. Will it be cheap? Unlikely. The least expensive path is to get a used 455 Olds. As noted, you can probably sell the Furd and break even. Then all the costs I listed above go away.

 

Not to be too contradictory , but I don't think F_rd and GM made different electricity .

I would bet he could use the F_rd brackets and accessories, plumb the Rotella P/S pump into the Saginaw box, connect the F_rd alternator to the usual hot wire (through a F_rd regulator, if it's externally regulated), and even hook up the York compressor to the Harrison lines if need be.

A big question would be whether the CL of the fan would be in the same place - if not, he'd need to fab a fan shroud (possibly from a F_rd donor).

Would it be worth the trouble? Of course not, in any realistic terms of labor and cost, but for someone who likes a project for the sake of a project (like my buddy who welded a Volvo V6 into a Chevy Luv pickup), it'd be a way to pass the time.

- Eric

 

Sounds like too much of a headache to me. I agree, I would sell the Ford motor and get an Olds motor. This would reduce the modifications needed to make everything work and would save you money and aggravation.

 

It can be done. Inexpensively, as Joe put it, doubtfull. It would be easier to adapt almost any GM engine in there, and as the others have stated the Olds of course being the simplist way.

 

I think the Olds 455 makes the most economic sense and not just because it is an Olds. You can probably pick up a pretty good 455 for less than what you get out of the Ford motor.

 

If this is a drag car only, then this isn't that bad of an install if u fab some stuff up on your own. Just run a C6 and have a mig welder handy. First I would buy motor plates to make this real easy. 2nd cut out the trans tunnel for easy access to the trans. Dzus the tunnel back in. Gut the wiring and look for a used painless wiring switch box. Dime a dozen nowadays.

 

I had a '72 Mercury wagon for a while and it had a 429 in it. I was impressed by how smooth and velvety that engine was however I was quite unimpressed by its performance. The compression was down to 8.5-1 by than and it churned out a total of 200 net horsepower. It could still do a mean power brake with that open rear but in terms of performance it was lacking.

So my recommendation would be to first get the specs on the engine like build date and compression ratio to see if it's in the realm of being a performance version. If you have to do a rebuild to get the power up than you might have just lost out on that low budget idea.

Chris

 

Big ford

Welded\

Strong AMIGO

 

Too bad you don't have a Hudson Twin H laying around to drop in her.