With the right motor this is very quick. It's smaller than a Camaro of the same year but still has a V-8. It should have been more noticed than it was.





https://www.motortrend.com/features/...982-1831-79-1/

 

Back in the early 80's my buddy's dad had one with a four speed. it was QUICK!

 

I assure you it was noticed and quite a few got engine transplants.

 

I had a '76 Cutlass Sedan with the cascading waterfall grill and this one has that kind of look. It looks very nice.

 

Not very much Oldsmobile about the Firenza, though. IIRC the top engine option was a 305 SBC generating about 145 hp -- same as you'd get in a Monza Spyder.

 

A 350 and 200r4 would put it where it should have been from the factory. The tires and wheels should be changed as well. Maybe 245-40-16 with aluminum wheels.

 

I had a '77 Starfire, same body, with a factory 305 SBC in the mid '80s. I surprised many IROC drivers around Bakersfield with it. Looked very much like the photo below.

 

That's a nice car.

 

The H-body Starfire is a Vega, not an F-body.

 

POS IMO. We laughed when these were new. They were not good cars. A sad excuse for performance. It was a Vega. Weak sauce gearbox, weezy azzed motor, a lame performance substitute. In a short amount of time, they ruined everything. These days? Um, yes things are Awesome.

 

Thinking Olds did not want to show up the legendary 442 name. Even if it had been emasculated and physically destroyed in appearance by 1978. It still had to be quickest ... So in true dead zone (1973-1983) lore. They brought back their flagship car the Starfire but now as an entry level Olds and half assed it.

So accurate ! One day I may open a thread regarding malaise era, (yes i've tossed that idea out there before...). Holding back for a while now because I don't want to offend fellow members that fall outside of 1964-1972.

Would be great.

Comparison below, all Chevy engines.

1978 Star 17.8 @ 79 MPH auto 3 2.29 rear, 3150 curb 145HP 305
1978 442 17.4 @ 83 MPH auto 3 2.56 rear, 3440 curb 160HP 305
1977 Z28 16.3 @ 83 MPH man 4 3.73 rear, 3828 curb 185HP 350

Z28 powertrain swapped into 1978 Starfire.
Performance = 15.3 @ 88 MPH (Wallace Racing Calculator)

Thus achieving what Hot Rod was hoping for in the 1978 article you posted. " right into orbit, or at least into the 15-second zone. " ( But now you are running with 6.6 T/As and L82 Corvettes and that is an even bigger no no... )

P.S. 1978 442 specs from Car & Driver February 1978, 1977 Z28 specs from Car & Driver April 1977.

 

I did not realize the Monza/Starfire was built on a Vega chassis. It seemed larger. Oh well, I enjoyed mine.

 

Could you get a 5.7l Oldsmobile diesel in this car? Even with 45 more c.i. I bet the diesel was a dog compared to the 305.

 

Don't think so. I've never heard of one, anyway.

 

You couldn't get any Olds V8 in the H-body cars. The Vega four cylinder, Buick V6, and Chevy 305 were the only available engine options. Most came with the V6.

 

My memory may be a little hazy on this, but wasn't there also a SBC 262 at one point?

 

Yeah, I forgot about that one. Not sure that it was ever offered in the Olds version.

 

I just verified. 1975-76 Starfire was V6 only. 1977 was I4 or V6, but the four was the Iron Duke, not the Vega motor. 1978-79 offered I4, V6, and 305 Chevy. 1980 went back to I4 or V6.

 

Entirely understandable.

 

even though it was called an H body, it was 10” longer than the first Vegas and heavier, obviously.

The H body designation doesn’t mean much as GM used that term for many years..right into the front wheel drive stuff. so it was rear drive to start, short and long version in Vega and starfire, then went into front drive..still called H

 

Entirely forgettable. That's what these cars are and were.

 

during those years, most cars were forgettable.

I can tell you one thing for sure though..at the drag strip, the Monza and other GM cars in that body style were one of the most popular cars there.

Bill Jenkins was running a Monza in pro stock..Warren Johnson was running the Starfire later on

 

The Vista Cruiser had a wheelbase 9" longer than the Cutlass 2dr and was heavier enough that it got different rear brakes and wheel bearings, but both were still the A-body platform. And GM used the A-body designation for decades from the mid-30s Series F and Series 60 cars to the Cutlass Ciera, switching from RWD to FWD, so I guess by your logic the A-body designation doesn't mean anything either?

 

true..unless you specify what year, it don’t crap.

like if you bought a Vega for a parts car for your starfire, Monza or Pontiac. very little actually crosses over,, both technically H bodies though. at least with 68 to 72 A bodies , roofs, windows, frames and more were the same between BOP and chev.

 

That's not correct. For the 1968-72 cars, the only glass that is common is the windshield and door glass. Roof, rear window, and quarter glass are different. The common parts are the cowl, windshield frame, and body hard points.

 

When you mentioned this I had a flashback to my youth and the dragstrip. You are entirely correct. I did see many of these cars campaigned. They ran well. Funny as I consider running well as being consistent and not breaking all the dang time. I went by my old haunt of U.S. 30 the other day. It is now a sketchy paved weed lot. Next time I go I'm going to get out and walk around on it. It is located near my now house.

 

Some roof skins do match, as well as floor pans, inner and outer wheel well, some trunk floor pans, and the stuff you said…not just 68 to 72..earlier A bodies have many cross over chassis and sheet metal pieces

Unlike any Vega and Starfire

 

A friend / coworker of mine (mechanical engineer) had one of these cars back in the day, he said that it would not hold front end alignment worth a damn until he fabricated and welded a beam across the front subframe between the bumper mounting ears. Apparently the front subframes were pretty weak sauce. I can't imagine they were a good platform for building a lot of power without serious subframe modifications. IIRC, the V8 versions were also a PITA for spark plug changes, had to lift the motor to get to the rear plugs. I did drive another friends Starfire w/ a V6 and a stick a few times and it was entertaining at least, but not fast by any means.

 

This. It's amazing how non-engineers trust stuff that is taken out of its design envelope. Engineering works reasonably well, for its intended design, in budget, and should fail, when it fails, safely. People are like, yeah, I jammed a twice as heavy engine with twice as much power into this car and it drives like ****. Well, yes it does, and it's on purpose.

A neat thing about Joe's pictures above is it shows how the Chevelle could be a convertible and the S could not.

 

Vendor fitment claims are routinely incorrect. Just look at the differences in the back window width and shape between the Cutlass and Chevelle. And a Starfire roof fits a Sunbird just fine. Meanwhile a Monte roof won't fit a 442. Yes, earlier A-body cars had much more in common across divisions.

 

I guess you’ve never seen where the leaded seam is on a roof from those years? the top skins are ALL the same .

GM had one part number for the roof skins. you don’t have a clue. I’ve replaced a roof skin myself from a wrecking yard chevelle onto a cutlass of a different year .

I never said the roof from a starfire won’t fit the Pontiac version, they are basically the same with some grill and rear panel changes..I said pretty much nothing from the Vega fits them.

when I searched roof skins for those links I posted..I came across this from many years ago..you said roofs are the same. did you forget roofs skins are still the same😂

 

engineers sometimes screw up more spectacularly than the back yard red neck mechanic..they just do it with a degree .😂

The Vega engine in this case was a clean slate engine touted as the future of small engines at GM.

disclaimer: no engineers were hurt during my research

 

Again, hazy memory may be failing me here, but didn’t the Sunbird feature a "formal" roofline as opposed to the Chevy-Olds-Buick fuselage-type fastback? Don't remember the other H's having this roofline ... again, just what my mind's eye can recall.

 

A lot of people without engineering degrees talk a lot of **** to engineers. You don't see engineers talking **** in the reverse direction. There's a reason for that.

 

never? 😂😂😂😂 now that’s funny.

was the Vega engine an engineering success,, or would you rather not say anything ?

 

they had the same roof line..just like first Gen H body , the Pontiac Astre had a fast back..more rare than the Vega. First two years of the Astre were available only in Canada

 

I think the single headlight years of the Starfire were the best looking of all the GM years of this body line.

stick a sb Olds in one and some decent sized tires..it would be tough to beat

 

I try to imagine how the early 70s original car owners felt a few months after they traded in for the "new and improved" late 70s models. 1/2 the car at twice the price. Mind boggling how sales were so good at the time.

Decent looking car for sure, far more attractive than a 78/79 442.



Would of been kick ***. Although the quality was already sacrificed the power train would make up for it in spades. Like the Fox Body Stang.

 

I would think they were pretty happy with the significant jump in fuel mileage. My father went from a 72 delta 88 with a 455 to a wheezing 83 delta with the 307. It was his first car to ever get better than 20 mpg and he was in awe. This would have been the mid to late 80s, both cars were his daily year round drivers. He did love that '72, and says that was his fastest car he ever owned.

 

I searched the music used for the video, the song is called Nocturne. I think that means nightfall, kind of appropriate to the video since it showed an old dragstrip with voice overdub of when it was in it's heyday, now being in a condition that kind of represents the twightlight of many local dragstrips. Wondering if in fifty years when everyone travels by transporters someone will run across one of those old dragstrips and wonder "what in the world was this for?".