I have owned a 1971 W30 for the last 14 years. I bought from an estate where the owner had died suddenly and have no background to speak of on the car.
I have started a frame off restoration of the car. Although I have not found a build sheet all things point to it being a true W30 except when I pulled the motor to send to Mondello's for a rebuild I noticed that it had G heads on the car. The motor had benn rebuilt once before and bored 30 over.
The question I have is if any of the W30's went out of the factory with G heads as apposed to the H heads. I have been told this did happen and an oldsmobile fact sheet has the G heads listed as being installed on the W30's.
Any help on this would be greatly appreciated.

Scott Bradley

 

Never heard that claim before.

 

On the Olds fact sheet it indicated that the H heads were on W30 only and the G heads indicted that they were on the 442 and the W30 as well as one other model. This is a numbers matching 344 car built in Lansing. It has numerous W30 options. (W27 reared end cover, rear air foil and heaven duty trunk lid spring that lifts up with out helping, red inner fender wells, Ram Air, aluminum intake manifold, front and rear sway bars and correct badging.
The only thing not spot on so far are the heads.

 

You said the engine had been rebuilt previously. Swapping out cylinder heads was common @ machine shops for various reasons. If the car is in fact a W-30,it came with H heads. Check the valve size,if it has the small valves,there's your answer.

 

X2 on having H heads on W-30s. Is your car an automatic? If so it should have an OW tag. I would not send the engine to Mondello's. At one time (a long time ago) it would have been ok but it has turned into a place to avoid.

 

Is that Mondello in Paso Robles Calif or Mondello in Tennessee ?

Gene

 

Should be H heads from everything I have seen or read.

Maybe you can find a set for sale.

Unfortunately 1971 is one of those years that the W30 option is not in the VIN, so any and all such parts could be simply added to a 442 to basically Build Your Own W30.

 

Absolutely nothing wrong with the Mondello's in Crossville,TN.

 

The positions of the torsion rods in the trunk can be adjusted for various amounts of "spring openedness" so there is nothing special there.

 

I don't know what "fact sheet" you are talking about, but every single 1971 W-30 motor came with "H" head castings from the factory. Every other 455 built in the 1971 model year got "G" castings.

For the 1972 model year, the W-30 got the same GA heads as all other 455s, but not for 1971.

 

Thanks to 66-3X2 442 I checked to see if the valves in the G heads were the big ones or the small ones. They were the small valves. This motor had been rebuilt once before because we found it had been bored 30 over before when taken apart. It is my understanding that the G heads with the small valves were originally used in two barrel carb applications. These are not the original heads for the car and must have been swapped out during the rebuild for one reason or another.
Currently the block is at Mondello's in California. To date they have been great to work with and no problems.

 

Actually, only Toros and 442s got the big valves. VCs, 88s, and 98s got the small valves even with a 4bbl.

 

Big valve, small valve ,on the street you will NOT notice the difference!!!!!!
"G" head have factory induction harden valve seats,which are good for today's gas. If you are going for the show car, then "H" is what you want, good luck finding them, or get your check book out and prepare !
Is it Bernard Mondello in LA
Or Lynn W. in Paso Robles?
Bernard no problem

 

What makes you think it's an original W-30? The rear wing was not part of the W-30 package, neither was the W-27 cover. The front and rear sway bars were on all 442s in '71, not just W-30s. And the red inner fenders, fiberglas hood, aluminum intake manifold, and badges are easily added. And the most expensive parts -- the rare H heads -- are conveniently missing.


I'm not saying you're wrong. I'm just saying the stuff you listed isn't very convincing. Does it have the correct transmission? Carb? Distributor? Do the date codes on all of these parts make sense with the car's build date? Did the car appear to be unmolested (not restored) when you bought it? Anyway, good luck with your project.

 

The carb is the same for 442/W-30 in 71=7041257 for automatic trans cars. I think the distributor is also the same but too tired to look it up.

 

There were no W-30 exclusive carbs in 71 as Mike has noted. The W-30 distributors are exclusive though. There is a auto and manual trans W-30 distributor.

Don W

 

H head replicas are readily available.