Most every "Oldsmobile" person almost loses it when an Olds owner puts a SBC, BBC or God-forbid, an LS engine in their Oldsmobile.
What is the general consensus on putting an Olds engine in a Chevrolet-bodied car?
This question must have been raised before. I just don't recall it or the response.

 

It is pretty well supported here. Payback is hell for the Chevy guys.

 

Why do it ?? The main reason guys swap a chevy into an Olds is it is cheaper and easier to build and get more HP for your dollar

 

Outside of maybe you contemplating this, its not a very popular swap.

 

This has been done many times, it is known as a CHEVOLDS

 

Chevy guys lose their mind

 

My first question is WHY put an Olds engine in a chebby ? Second question is WHAT Olds engine are you thinking of ? Third question is what level of PERFORMANCE are you expecting ?

While not a popular swap, it has been done in a variety of car bodies. Olds have been swapped into Street rods for many years. Olds engines have also been put in Studebakers, ******, and Chebbies.

 

That would be a waste of a Rocket

 

It seems to get done more often in G-bodies, perhaps as payback for the fact that many of the Oldsmobiles came with Chevy 305s.

Regardless ... meh.

 

I put a 403 in my el Camino( current one is my second olds powered el Camino), swap was easy but I only did it because it’s a hand me down car I can’t get rid of but had to have an olds engine atleast. My grampa liked chevys but put olds in them, I remember a few 70’s caprice/impalas with 455’s and he had a square body for the longest time with a 455

 

Thanks folks. I like the comments.
FYI, this isn't something I was planning on doing. Was just curious as to why one direction would be more acceptable than another. Drivetrain swaps have been going on with various makes for decades as already pointed out in the thread.
young olds has done exactly what I would have expected when having one brand of car and another brand of engine. Why not use them together.

 

I have a 51 Chevy race car with an Olds engine and a 55 Chevy street car with an Olds engine.

 

As said, the chebby guys say GM is GM till you them you put Olds power under the hood of their precious chebbies. I found the Olds 350, even the Olds 307 better for trucks than the sbc. It also blows away the LS, idle to 4000 rpm. I personally hate them as truck engines, dead below 3500 rpm. My 307 headed 204/214 cam Olds 350 with 8.5 to 1 compression embarrassed 5.3 powered powered trucks with the same 4L60E and 3.73 gears. With the 454 TBI added, it was better than the worn out 6L I drove.

 

I say put whatever you have into whatever you want. It’s just nuts and bolts. If Olds had the LS platform back in the day, they would have put it in everything they had and probably set records at the racetrack.

 

My son’s El Camino will be 455 Olds powered. It’s a basically stock 68 Toronado engine. It went 12:70s in my car, I’m hoping for performance comparable in the el Camino.

Only little boys wear bow ties!! While everyone likes to brag that chebby engines are cheaper to build, my argument for that is all the crap you have to buy and change to cross breed the car usually more than offsets the parts cost.

 

I had a 1986 Caprice wagon that came from the factory with an Olds 307. And replacing the Olds diesel with a 455 in the late 70s Chevy squarebody trucks has been done a lot. Of course there's the 403 (and the lesser-known Olds 350) used in second-gen Firebirds.

 

Chevrolet guys think everything is inferior to their favorite product. And because their favorite brand is the most popular, they rag on all other brands with impunity. So putting a Chevy engine into a born in Olds engines place. Adds the icing on their cake. And says that our favorite engine is some kind of sub par product.

Personally, whatever a cars born in engine manufacturer is should always be matched as far as I'm concerned. The engine is the key to what a car is. Which leads to the next point. This site is 80% original favoring enthusiasts, whether purist, stock, or slightly modded, just by going with known ownership and setup. https://classicoldsmobile.com/forums...ou-own-141364/ Even if that stat is not completely representative. Its participants consist of active members whose opinions and knowledge continually get dispersed. So this swap is not going to get a lot of positive attention here.


Yes but that wasn't always the cats meow...

In 1977 Delta 88 owners were incensed that some of their cars had Chevrolet powerplants. And it eventually became certified as a class action suit on October 13, 1977. You could say it was a cash grab if you want to. But Olds conveniently omitted manufacturer credentials on the 88s engines... Looks like they wanted their "image leader" to be perceived as all Olds... Because that matters to many of us.

Olds was still referring to its engines as "Rockets" for 1977. But true to malaise era form, this whole debacle laid the groundwork to further blurring of the lines. You see promoting "Rocket V8" could no longer have the same cache, because they wanted all engine acceptance. I could argue that these factory engine swaps helped to destroy Oldsmobile's image. After all, why bother to get an Olds if its Chevy or Buick powered... Might as well just cut to the chase and buy an all Chevy or all Buick version. Oldsmobile was not big enough to survive the engine swaps unscathed. While Cadillac for instance was too big of a name to be hindered by the fact that some of their models were Olds powered.

"The "Rocket" name disappeared from the air cleaner decal in 1975" Wiki. Things were already being set in motion prior... And I'm well aware the rocket moniker meant little. But at the very least it meant Oldsmobile engine.

https://www.curbsideclassic.com/auto...48.2%20million.

 

Most of those owners were only "incensed" when those ambulance-chasing lawyers started to formulate that class action lawsuit. The owners get a coupon, the lawyers get millions.

 

It's your car, do what you want. An Oldsmobile engine is always a good addition to a classic vehicle.

 

I personally would not do it. I like Olds to keep an Olds. Ford to keep it Ford, etc. 'Crossbreeding' a brand X into another make is not my cup of tea.

 

I have a '69 455 Olds/400 turbo set up in my '55-'59 truck frame. (Haven't decided which front sheet metal to go with) Has a '80 Camaro subframe. I've been a Chevy man my entire life, just decided to build a Rocket Truck. I had the eng/trans laying around. I actually had it in and drove it when it still had the straight axle.
I appreciate all brands. I'm not insecure, but seriously nostalgic.

 

 

I remember being at a friend's Goodyear store in 1977-78(?) and there was a newer 1977 full size Olds in the shop. Instead of it having what likely would have been the 403 Olds engine, it had a Pontiac 400 in it with the factory tune-up decal on the top radiator plate. At the time, I was shocked and wondered if the owner even knew about the switch.

 

That swap was common in the 50’s

the Olds was swapped into everything. there were kits available to do it. it was the most popular swap.

they also went into homemade street rods.

 

I detest rabid fanboyism of any one make over another. It's ridiculous to think that one corporation's advertising caused so much strife between customers of their different divisions. Having worked in automotive for my entire career and worked on automotive for one of my hobbies for years, I can attest that every make has things they do well, and things they do poorly. It's not a crime against humanity to move an assembled system of one brand into an assembled system of another. My engineering concerns are that all interfaces between those systems are correctly integrated and not simply rigged and that, more importantly, that the new powertrain can be handled by the existing car.

Far too many people buy some old car, refuse to learn carburetors, get some LS from a car in a yard, throw it and its computers into the old car along with a thousand bucks of stuff from Summit, tear off down the road yelling "BUILT NOT BOUGHT" and wrap themselves around a tree because they upgraded the power, but not the suspension, steering, brakes, or tires. LS swaps of today are the hotrod SBC swaps of the 60s into 30s and 40s cars. Cheap, dangerous power.

 

[QUOTE=Koda;1595442]I detest rabid fanboyism of any one make over another. It's ridiculous to think that one corporation's advertising caused so much strife between customers of their different divisions. /QUOTE]
Like Larry the Cable Guy said, arguing Dodge vs. Chevy vs. Ford trucks would cause gun play! Keeping that in mind, putting a good used engine into a good used car to get it on the road seems like a logical thing to do if you have the ability.

 

In most cases, it's even more logical if you keep engine and car in the same family.