Hello All, I am new here, and my little brother just purchased a 68 Cutlass that needed to be put back together. So now big brother gets to help little bro put his car together. At any rate, I cleaned the motor today and am looking for a little bit of help. I have searched the forums/internet, and have all the ID numbers off the motor, but I need some HP figures. The block is a 395558 block, we have #5 heads, but the block ID number under the head says 30M404790, which indicates a 1970 block correct? The motor is painted blue, with blue heads and intake, but gold valve covers and a red air cleaner......Can someone help us out here with some HP/Torque numbers for this motor, assuming it is stock? Thanking you in advance.

adpostel

Oh, and BTW, the oil filler tube has 8106554 stamped on it.......

 

The block is a 70 as you suspected. The heads are correct for the 68. As far as HP numbers it's a shot in the dark at this point. If the pistons are still originals they could be one of three varieties. A low comp (9.0:1), a hi comp (10.25:1) and ultra high W31 (10.5:1). These can verified with the notches on the pistons a V, U on the dished pistons or the flat tops being 10.5:1.

 

Good to have you here!
Heads are 69-69 units, they should be gold also.
2 bbl cars had 9.0:1 compression, 250 hp gross rating.
4 bbl cars had 10.25 compression, 310 hp I think.
W-31's got the 10.5 pistons, big valves, 325 horse.
If the air cleaner is a 4 bbl, does it have all of the heat riser to it?
Don't lose it if a 4bbl unit, or talk the kid brother into a Honda if he wants chrome unit.
Good luck,
Jim

 

here are some pics:

1. Motor
2. Side view
3. Sanded and Primed fender and trunk lid
4. Sanded and Primed hood
5. If you can see the top of the roof, the entire car looked like this when we bought it. There was a bad dent in the rear driver quarter, we beat it out best we could and applied some filler and came out with this. Still needs work, but in a pinch?

 

We took a break from the project from a while, but the next order of business is upgrade alternator to 10si unit, points to HEI swap, new plugs, wires, headers, and install the new fuel tank.

I have some before and after interior pics as well, got to find them. But we basically took out all seats and carpet, vacuumed, cleaned, scrubbed, and then wire wheeled the entire interior floors, then went back and painted them with a rustoleum black, it looks 100 times better. next step is to weld in some panels where the floor has rusted out a little. We don't expect to show the car, just cruise it on the weekends, so we may just weld the panels right over what is there now. I know it isn't the best way to do it, but this Cutlass isn't anything special, not a W-30 or Supreme, so were just building it to be a reliable driver.

 

Even though you're not creating a show car, I'd still cut out the section and weld the new pieces in. Otherwise, you're just creating an new crevice for new rust to form. That is, unless you completely seal everything thing up with some form of sealer. At that point, you're just better off taking a bit of time and cutting out the bad sections. At least that's my experience.

Nice to see you're saving another '68, however. I'm about to get mine on the road soon myself.