Hey everyone,

I have a 1972 Olds Cutlass S that originally had an Olds 350/ TH350, but now has a 455" and a TH400 A/T. It is said that the Engine, Cylinder Heads, and Transmission came out of a '70 Olds. Not sure what car, but the guy I purchased it from was certain about the year. I just wanted to put the casting numbers up to see what you guys could tell me about my drive train...

The Cylinder Heads: "E"
The Engine Block: 396021F
Random Number: CFD403686 (not sure what this is)

I don't have the car in front of me. These numbers were pulled by the current owner who still has this car stored at his house. I asked for the casting numbers, and he texted them to me.

The engine, heads, and transmission have all been rebuilt less than 1k miles ago, documented, and still under warranty. Fuel costs have kept this baby garaged.

So... How is my situation? Good components? I just want to make sure I don't have a pair of smogger heads, and decent compression. Anything you can chip in would be useful.

Thank you for your time.

-Jon

 

The CFD403686 is the head casting number, which is consistent with the letter E. These heads were used on all 1970 455s (except the W-30). The block casting number is a generic 68-72 455 casting. You can get the precise year of the block by checking the VIN derivative stamped below the No. 1 exhaust port on the side of the block. The second digit of this nine-character string will be the model year. An "0" would indicate 1970, a "3" would be 1973, an "8" would be 1968, etc.

Pending the VIN derivative, indications are that this is, in fact, a 1970 motor.

 

Sounds like you have some fine parts. E heads fall into the "above average" category. I had them on my 455 with a comp cam decent intake,carb and headers with 2 1/2 duals. excellent power,was very pleased. I actually went with a cam I thought looked a little big for the street and was pleasantly surprised how well it worked. good luck and try to keep away from mondello. Your checkbook will love you for it.

 

Can you remember what cam you had? I'm shopping around right now for performance components.

 

Yes I can. It was a crane cam from the summit catalog. it had 480 496 lift with 222 230 duration at .050 lift. The cam I was going to use was the 484,512 lift with 216 228 duration but it was backordered when I was building. Ideally I would have liked a but more lift with a tad-VERY little less- duration. As it was this cam pulls like a mother. Big car 71 delta 88 conv,leadfoot owner and I loved every moment.Building a new engine for my 74 delta conv. Going up on the cam,edelbrock heads,roller valvetrain, the works. Should be a lot of fun. Shooting for 530 hp,540 torque. We'll see.