Was the '67 W30 available with power brakes? I thought that it was like the other years where, due to the cam/lack of vacuum, power brakes were not part of the package. I saw two vintage magazine articles today, where '67 W30's had power brake boosters in the pics, one an auto, the other a 4 speed.

 

Popular Hot Rodding Sept 1967 has an article testing a 67 W30 with power brakes.

 

Keep in mind that the 1966-67 cars only used the 308 deg cam, not the 328 deg cam.

 

I supposedly have a "w-30 grind" cam in my 67 442, and it has power brakes and they work fine. Car is still a basket case, but the brakes work well.

 

True, but wasn't this the reason that '68-70 W31's were not available with power brakes?

 

And, while were on W brake questions, was the '70 W30 with the automatic trans., ever available with the manual disc brakes? To my knowledge, only the manual trans. cars were equipped this way, with the auto cars getting power disc brakes. The reason that I ask as there was one at the Gilmore Car Museum yesterday, on loan for display inside the museum, owned by Dan Jensen, it was a column shifted auto, but the placard beside the car indicated that it had manual disc brakes, he also had an "experimental vehicle" window sticker (repro) on it, which makes no sense, as why would there be a window sticker for a car that would have been sent to the crusher, or at least sold to someone at Olds engineering, like Dale Smith? I believe that this car has been at Homecoming before, and it is a nice car, my pics of it aren't that good with the poor lighting inside the museum.

 

The 1968-70 cars used the 328 deg cam, thus less vacuum and no power brakes. The 308 deg cam used on the early cars was obviously less radical and had more manifold vacuum.

I do wonder, however, if the 67s with power brakes were factory-built W-30 cars or Track Pack cars.

 

Speaking of track packs, two questions:

1. So you could slide that cam into any 67 442, regardless of options? AC, power brakes, etc?

2. What about a convertible 442? The battery relocation is problematic on them, which may be why there are no W-30 67 convertibles.

 

You could slide ANY cam into any 67 442. It's sort of up to you to pick the right one for the application. I'll also point out that unless you check the lobes, you don't know what cam is in any given car, W-30, Track Pack, or otherwise. It was (and still is) encouraged to add the O.A.I. parts to any 67, for example.

That IS why there were no 66 or 67 W-30 converts. Several have been built, but they are one-of-none (OK, more like three-of-none) cars.

 

I don't know if he still owns it or not, but I will see him this weekend and ask him. I wonder if he scored one of those aluminum 455s or something that was floating around? It could be that, but the car was basic and stock otherwise.

 

Keep in mind that the 308 deg cam looks bigger to a 350 ci engine than it does to a 455 ci engine. The vacuum for a W-31 with 308 deg cam was probably very similar to that of a W-30 with 328 deg cam.

 

When you ordered option W30, it included manual disc brakes as part of the package; it didn't matter if the car was a manual or automatic trans. If you did check the automatic trans box, then you were allowed to order option JL2, power disc brakes. And, in an interesting twist, if you ordered an automatic trans and A/C, then you were required to also order JL2, power disc brakes.


Finally, for a very short window early in the model year (August and September 1969, you could order option JL7, disc brake delete, with your W30. This would give you drum brakes up front. However, since there's no proof that any W30s were built before October of 1969, it's unlikely that any were built with JL7 before it was cancelled.

 

"And, while were on W brake questions, was the '70 W30 with the automatic trans., ever available with the manual disc brakes? To my knowledge, only the manual trans. cars were equipped this way, with the auto cars getting power disc brakes."


Manual disc brakes were standard on the 70-72 W-30s. Power disc brakes were available with the automatic transmission and mandated if A/C was ordered. A/C was only available with the automatic transmission(no A/C in 72). All manual trans cars were manual disc.

Don W


You beat me to it Brian.

 

I thought only the automatic x-mission cars came with
the 308 degree cam and the standard shift cars used the 328 degree cams.

 

In the one magazine article, it was indicated that the magazine ordered the car with the W30 pkg., though it arrived with 2500 miles on it. http://www.oldsmobility.com/old/supercool.htm

 

all 66-7 W30s had the 308 deg. cam. All 68-9 W30s had the 328 deg. cam. 70 W30 manuals had the 328 deg, and 70 automatic W30s had the standard 442 cam, 400165, according to the parts book.

 

And then in 1971 things get really interesting, with three W-30 cams:
294/296 with 114 lobe sep for Manual Trans
286/287 with 113 lone sep for Auto Trans without A/C
285/287 with 115 lobe sep for Auto Trans with A/C (the same old 400165 cam).

 

Disk brakes could be ordered on ANY 67 cutlass supreme, including W30 stick or auto.

 

Now, which one was faster, the 67 or the 68?

 

When I was talking about cams with my buddy this past weekend, he commented that when went to get a new cam for the '70 442 auto that he owned from about 1978-1982, from the local Olds dealership, they told him that they had four cams for the 442, which one did he want?

 

Dan's red W30 had an aluminum 455 in it at Dearborn OCA in 2009, talked to him briefly about it while drooling... when it was at PSMCDR last year I'm pretty sure it had an iron engine back in it... never had a chance to ask him about it. Curious to see what he says if you find out.

 

They should've had only three cam listings for a '70 442, but they may have been offering one from a different year (or for a non-442 455). His auto-equipped 442 came with part number 400165.

 

three cams for 1970 442s are in parts book:
TH, 400165
ST exc. OAI, 406768
ST OAI, 402569


note that TH W30s used the standard cam for turbohydro 442s, not the 308 or 328 deg. cam.

 

Well, that was 35 years ago, and he said he got the 442 auto cam.

 

I had a 1969 W-30 with 400TH back in the early '70's.
I'm sure it had more than the standard 4-4-2 400 TH cam.
It had the familiar W-30 lope.

 

That's because all '69 W30's used the 328° cam, the '70 auto W30 did not.