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My kids are in their early 20's and late teens so I don't have to worry about anchoring a rear facing infant seat.
That looks like some good engineering on your part to make the infant seat safe. Better than drilling a hole under the back seat for a front strap I guess.
What were the engineers thinking when they made these cars, most of us survived I suppose.
My kids are in their early 20's and late teens so I don't have to worry about anchoring a rear facing infant seat.
That looks like some good engineering on your part to make the infant seat safe. Better than drilling a hole under the back seat for a front strap I guess.
What were the engineers thinking when they made these cars, most of us survived I suppose.
Yeah, it seems like kids are a whole lot more breakable now than they used to be.
How to use "enough" money to iron heads begins.. Id almost bet they are ready before my short-block is machined..
Edit: Took few more pictures and thought to rather just edit this post. I did as much to heads, that i drove all high-spots down from combustion chamber and radiused oil-paths out of heads. Rest is up to head-guy.
And to note about high-compression and iron-heads that some of you were worried, were keeping DCR at tolerable numbers and using fully adjustable digital ignition WITH fully adjustable vacuum advance aswell, so to say, i got rid of HEI. I think we can play along with the high SCR.
Fully adjustable ignition aswell gives me a change, if tripping through country with crap gas, to play easily with ignition advance for those drive-throughs.
Plan is to visit Hungary next summer with this. 2550 mile round-trip.
Last edited by Inline; September 16th, 2018 at 05:04 AM.
Interesting. Programmable ignition is a good idea. With low-tech distributor, centrifugal weights and a vacuum can, you always have to compromise and there is only few diy builders who will take the trouble to adjust and grind the distributir to perfection. Thus leaving some ponies unused.
My problem with my 375 sbo stroker it's kicking back at hot starts. If I adjust the advance for good hot starts, the advance is too low for performance.
Engine finally waiting at machinery for pick-up. Hopefully in 2-3 weeks i get it, due to conflicting opening hours at machinery versus my job. The cost was 1569$, including everything you can do to block from line-honing to boreing with stress-plate, and everything between, plus thinning the big-ends of the connection rods. IMO price was fair, how does it sound to US price-level? Just out of interest.
Heads are halfways done, just visited to see them yesterday.
About my intake, he said hes seen worse, so thata positive, yeah?
About SI Valves, portflow series. Head-guy wasnt overly excited about them. Stem diameter varies on same valves, as much as it binds on new liner at some spots. Showed it with both micrometer and pushing it through guide. Needs some more work than thought= more money. Thats same as with my Hedman headers, collectors needed work to even fit on place. And ignition parts ( which im not gonna use anymore), etc etc. Im sick of half-finished crap products.
Meanwhile on other projects, i bought quality Kemppi MMA-welder. Perfect for everything else i need and might need to fabricate from metal at home, than car sheet-metal jobs, but those i leave to professional anyways. For other sheet-metal jobs i can use the MAG at our work. And why i bought it, is that i recently bought with a lottery towing hitch for those whale-bodied Caprice sedans. It fitted darn close out of box. But to get it fit perfect, i cutted it apart and will reweld it next to my car. Only thing needed to buy is one bar of 2*2" 0,7" wall square-tubing, since that got cutted in pieces when i hitted my hitch with grinder.
Christmas most wanted furnishing for dining room has finally arrived. Wife is pleasured
Now i have few more days of work, and then ill start to slowly assemble it. Also simultaneously visiting one shop to balance my rotating assembly. Good times.
Location: Edmonton, AB. And "I am Can 'eh' jun - eh"
Posts: 24,525
Hey Jouni - haven't seen or heard from you in a long time. Nice - only the rednecks usually get to use the dining room to assemble their engines. I'm sure you weren't serious that your wife likes it.... Coming back to the NGMT sometime??
You are going to need a big cam or seriously retard the timing with 10 to 1 on 87 octane. What gearing and trans? It is a heavy car, also doesn't help. No one builds the mid 70's Cutlass. My love of Oldsmobile's started with our 75 Cutlass 4 door with a 350 Rocket, nicknamed "The Beast".
You are going to need a big cam or seriously retard the timing with 10 to 1 on 87 octane. What gearing and trans? It is a heavy car, also doesn't help. No one builds the mid 70's Cutlass. My love of Oldsmobile's started with our 75 Cutlass 4 door with a 350 Rocket, nicknamed "The Beast".
I love this era GM A-bodys. Cutlass S and Pontiac LeMans are my favourites.
Anyways, actually writing to clarify one thing, about fuel.
Where i live, i drive continuosly with 94oct with your octane rating. Getting 87oct with your rating, will be really really occasional, and just might happen when driving through baltic countries on eastern europe. Has happened few times. Usually you can get 91oct at baltia, and with great luck even 94oct, again all with your octane rating. Since we here in europe use just RON-rating, not the RON+MON/2 you use.
And, ignition will be programmable. First, HEI wont fit with dual-quads, you need small-base distributor, so wandering a bit we end up with programmable ignition.
Last edited by Inline; December 2nd, 2018 at 10:42 AM.
I love this era GM A-bodys. Cutlass S and Pontiac LeMans are my favourites.
Anyways, actually writing to clarify one thing, about fuel.
Where i live, i drive continuosly with 94oct with your octane rating. Getting 87oct with your rating, will be really really occasional, and just might happen when driving through baltic countries on eastern europe. Has happened few times. Usually you can get 91oct at baltia, and with great luck even 94oct, again all with your octane rating. Since we here in europe use just RON-rating, not the RON+MON/2 you use.
And, ignition will be programmable. First, HEI wont fit with dual-quads, you need small-base distributor, so wandering a bit we end up with programmable ignition.
I'm sure 307 and 403 ment retarding the cam, not ignition. I also agree that If you are building a streetable touring engine, you will have to choose too aggressive cam for your goals, because of the high compression. I would lower the compression target from 10 to 9,5 max. Of course you do what you have figured, just an opinion.
Mocking up the engine to check clearances etc. Drivers side deck is .0059" under deck, and passenger side is .0059" over deck. Atleast theyre square front to rear. Now i know my calculations held pretty well for getting it to zero deck. Next to order head-gaskets with this info at hand.
Thrust is nice .006".
Oh, and crank goes back to machinery with rods. All connection rod big ends have been milled to wedge, and they lock each others if i put them both at 12 o'clock, and start to drag when they are closing. Needless to say, i have insufficient side-clearance, biggest one was .008". Connection rod wedge-shaped big-ends i verified with micrometer. I have Chevrolet rods, tho needing to narrow them down or open up the crank rod journal. Great ****.
Edited to be more understandable.
Last edited by Inline; December 9th, 2018 at 07:21 AM.
Actually, went to sauna and thinked about it.
Going to hit machinery once more with my block and correct the deck-height difference by shaving drivers-side down. I dont have any means to prove it, but it came to my mind, since its as much under than over between decks, that they might have actually line-honed it to other side. They cleaned only the decks, no lowering, and i think they would have taken same amount from both decks, going with the one needing deeper cut to clean the deck. It might have been off since assembly-line too. Either crank-line or deck heights. First i thought i just order two sets of gaskets with different thicknesses and mix them, but ive burned already enough money to not settle for that.
Doh. Thats why you guys pay some extra to engine-builders. Saves from many head-aches.
Last edited by Inline; December 9th, 2018 at 08:08 AM.
Mocking up the engine to check clearances etc. Drivers side deck is .0059" under deck, and passenger side is .0059" over deck. Atleast theyre square front to rear. Now i know my calculations held pretty well for getting it to zero deck. Next to order head-gaskets with this info at hand.
Thrust is nice .006".
Oh, and crank goes back to machinery with rods. All connection rod big ends have been milled to wedge, and they lock each others if i put them both at 12 o'clock, and start to drag when they are closing. Needless to say, i have insufficient side-clearance, biggest one was .008". Connection rod wedge-shaped big-ends i verified with micrometer. I have Chevrolet rods, tho needing to narrow them down or open up the crank rod journal. Great ****.
Edited to be more understandable.
That's too much difference between decks. 0,002" difference would be somewhat acceptable. I would get it fixed.
I bet the side clearances vary from journal to journal. It's a lot easier to shave the sides of rods than open the journals.I would aim to 0,01 - 0,015. Side clearance is not so critical, unless too tight. 0,008 is on the borderline. You have the HV oil pump. Open the side clearances some and you get better cooling for the crank journals (more oil volume passing).
Yes, as i said it goes back to machinery, both block and crank'n'rods. Apparently it wasnt too easy for them to shave connection rods narrower. Well, ive visited twice that machinery now, first and last.
Last edited by Inline; December 10th, 2018 at 09:06 AM.
Yes, as i said it goes back to machinery, both block and crank'n'rods. Apparently it wasnt too easy for them to shave connection rods narrowers. Well, ive visited twice that machinery now, first and last.
Mine was grinded by friend with a normal flat grinder, general metal machining shop, not by engine shop. Super simple procedure.
Mine was grinded by friend with a normal flat grinder, general metal machining shop, not by engine shop. Super simple procedure.
Your build went pretty smoothly from what i remember, atleast from machining-side. I want to open up my side clearance, when factory spec is, total for both rods, .006"-.027".
Btw, i have something belonging to you + im owing you some.. Were visiting near where you live somewhere around yearscs end, no specific date chosen, so ill contact you. Now its 3 days work, and at friday our boss flies us, all expenses paid, to Spain for 4 days, so im taking a short break from worrying about this.
Mine was grinded by friend with a normal flat grinder, general metal machining shop, not by engine shop. Super simple procedure.
It would probably be cheaper to have the automotive machine shop to lick or grind the rods IMO. I'm sure they would have fixture's set up for a complete set rather than setting up, indicating each one in a tooling/custom machine shop. Just my thoughts.
Your build went pretty smoothly from what i remember, atleast from machining-side. I want to open up my side clearance, when factory spec is, total for both rods, .006"-.027".
Btw, i have something belonging to you + im owing you some.. Were visiting near where you live somewhere around yearscs end, no specific date chosen, so ill contact you. Now its 3 days work, and at friday our boss flies us, all expenses paid, to Spain for 4 days, so im taking a short break from worrying about this.
Yes, the only small thing was that when my crank was stroked, the ginder opened the journal widths bit randomly. Due to this, my rod side clearances vary quite a bit from journal to journal (0,012"-0,02"). No ill effect from that though. I have heard engines build with rod side clearances as big as 0,1". Rods have to be guided from piston wrist pins then.
Ok, we'll meet again soon then. Have a nice holidays! Don't stress about engine build, it should be fun!
Last edited by slade69; December 11th, 2018 at 12:20 AM.
While waiting for machinery to open after christmas, i went to do something concrete instead of waiting.
Now i finally have a hitch. It even have curt's part-number on it, so it must be legit Actually by our law this is legit.
Now it only needs sanding and painting.
Up to something more interesting. Been waiting work-over for two years, but now when theres finally light at the end of the tunnel, its time to go over this.
Ps. Sorry for pics being glued together, i cant add space between them on my phone.
Last edited by Inline; January 4th, 2019 at 05:07 AM.
Block, crank and rods back in machinery. There were at most 0.5:1 difference between cylinders on compression, from decking it to angle. Great job.
Not speaking about rods interfering to each others from non-existant clearance.
Automatic transmission is half-way. Valvebody is done and waiting assembly, parts are cleaned and measured, oil pump-checked out really good, and all other parts too. Bushings on the other hand were pretty worn, especially stator supports. But here i must raise my hands up in the air and admit i need help.
I bought some "hack-tools" for installing bushings, i had my doubts, but was told they work for this job. Yes, they work, i can get bushings installed, but since they are bit off size-wise, ive micked few bushing and theyve collapsed some where the driver been resting, and when putting corresponding axle to place and rotating, you can feel them dragging due to that collapse. So, ill buy new bushings, and take all parts needing them, and visit transmission shop and let them install those.
Not much else happening.
Last edited by Inline; January 11th, 2019 at 12:18 AM.
Curious, what are the cam specs? Flat tappet? Hopefully everything works out with 10 to 1 compression. Having 94 octane helps, we only have 91 readily available. By the way, I am from Canada. I really like how the Scandinavian countries are ran, we get a ton of influence from the US, some good, some bad. Our Dollar is low right now, it means 25% more plus shipping and duty too for parts. I know you guys pay way more, shipping and duty must be a killer. A Mercedes would be similar to build here as you building an Olds, few parts around. You made a good choice, the Olds 350 was GM's most reliable 350. Good build.
Hi Inline. Im Jesse.I live in Collingwood Canada. I own a 1976 Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme now. I really like this thread. So many pictures. Lots to see and learn. I really like those Oldsmobile covers you bought. I want to learn so much about my 1976. Parts are really expensive I see lol. I will keep watching you posts. Im going to paint my 1976 when I can bring it home. I want to see your engine when you finish. I want some chrome engine parts one day.
Thank you for all the pictures to show what you did. That will help me if something needs to be replaced.
Forwarded my previous air-cleaner before i tore it, since i found something magnifient to comply my engine. You cant say "no", when 21 1/2" x 9 3/8" worth of air cleaner marches towards you, and i got this for a STEAL! Thats huge! Ford-origins, something along the lines what they nowadays sell as "COBRA air-cleaners", but looking from the finned top casting, id say atleast the top is nothing done on this decade.
Okay, i just really bought it for the top, since it dont yet have any holes, and Offenhauser dual-quad intake has really weird 8 3/15" carb-spacing. Try to find air-cleaner for that. If you dont want to use something along the lines of 2 x 6 3/8" air filters. Too hot-roddy for my taste. Now my air-cleaner is as long as the valve-covers, and also fit nicely together with those finned Nos M/T valve-covers. If distributor becomes problem, i raise this until problem dont exist anymore.
Olds 307 and 403 - Flat tappet. Didnt really see the need for roller with my goals. Cam aint nothing interesting spec-wise. I even tested what i was suggested by few cam companies, and they suggested along the same lines. Except one, who shall remain unnamed, which offered cam shooting my dynamic over the moon for pump-gas. Quess they werent interested.
You can get idea of how much the hobby here costs from next: i paid 100$ for that air cleaner. 66.66$ for Freight, and 25.82$ of taxes ( i dont know how Global Shipping Program does it, but somehow they manage to tax less than here, my quess is that they tax those items to some other European country with smaller taxes, and once its taxed somewhere in Europe, it wont be taxed again as long as it keeps inside the EU borders. But thats just my quess, since if that would be taxed on Finland, i would be paying taxes of around 33$). Anyways, the 100$ air cleaner project is all of a sudden 192.48$ air cleaner project.
Scandinavia aint the wonderland some might think, they tax us to death here. Healthcare wise its different story, just as crude example, when we got our boy, the whole time at hospital including all medicines, birth, everything imaginable, did cost without ANY insurances about 130$ for us, since health-care is strongly sustained from those same taxes. You can get even hearth-surgery for that money without any insurances. Every coin has its flip-side, as you see, they tax us to death, but on the other hand, healthcare is next to free due to those same taxes.
And yes, Building a vintage Mercedes would cost me far less here than building this. Plus M-B reproducts any part you ever would need, as long as you had the cash, from their original drawings, if it dont exist. Every now and then ive been toying with the idea of buying some nice SEL500 along with this.
Ps. Welcome to the forum youngoldsguy, and thank you.
Last edited by Inline; January 24th, 2019 at 02:23 PM.
Its huge. Its beautiful. And perfect for my application. Goes nicely with the valve-covers too. And needs space under bonnet. Sorry for crap pictures.
Carbs you see underneath are my paper-weights. They came with the intake i bought. They were supposed to be running when removed. Maybe they were removed 30 years ago and was under pile of tiles all that time. Bend shafts, broken bits, pile of gunk inside.. But yeah, fine for paper-weights and parts.
When this freaking snowing will end, i should go install my ignition. Already planned everything next to car, just needs mounting. With all the imaginary horsepower left to table ( by magasine articles), im happy to hit stock rated ~180hp
Last edited by Inline; February 7th, 2019 at 04:39 AM.
That was a joke Anyways its going to be just 180hp, so my register licence states
Ive noticed for long that magazines states so unbeliavable numbers for this and that, about whom is currently paying them most to tout something, that i believe im hundreds of horses short what i might have, going by magazines
Sure. I want to set ignition to its best when i now have programmable one, with programmable vacuum also. I, and others more knowing aint buying to that "all in at 3000rpm" crap, when searching best curve to one particular engine combo. Custom engine, custom problems
Only thing i know is that getting under 300hp requires total crapping of assembly from my part. How much over? Dont know yet. And it dont even matter for me, since if its over 300, its plenty for my goals.
Last edited by Inline; February 7th, 2019 at 08:50 AM.
Sure. I want to set ignition to its best when i now have programmable one, with programmable vacuum also. I, and others more knowing aint buying to that "all in at 3000rpm" crap, when searching best curve to one particular engine combo. Custom engine, custom problems
Only thing i know is that getting under 300hp requires total crapping of assembly from my part. How much over? Dont know yet. And it dont even matter for me, since if its over 300, its plenty for my goals.
Your engine compartment will look awesome with those valve covers and air cleaner combo. To complete it I would use AC delete box like that in the link. I remember you had plans to get rid of AC anyway.
Thanks for compliments.
And yes, getting rid of AC is on my list. Thanks for the link. Tho i quess its next-winters job, right now i quess i just take the compressor out and let everything else be.
Car hasnt been slumbering, ive been wiring it. Actually just came back home from wiring it. I counted that ive added pretty nearly 100 meters of new cable to my car. Ignition, fuel-pump, 13-pin trailer connections ( most of the wires need to be pulled from front on our light-system. Inspection just barely buys the US-light thing on old cars, but not on trailers. Its even more complicated, but as an example, i need yellow separate signal lights). Also added just-in-case new wires for rear-speakers, when my interior was in parts to pull wires on original cable-tunnel(s).
I have two very early pictures of my wiring, since they are actually really boring pictures. Wiring and electric-jobs otherwise are interesting. After these pictures, ive added about 60 meters more cable. My wiring is actually only waiting separate relay/fusebox to control all my added wiring. 6 relay/ 6 fuse box, 5 relays and 6 fuses are going to use out of it.
Top red wire at firewall is signal-cable, middle-one is for coil, and bottom-one goes to cabin. And next to MSD-box is map-sensor mounted nowadays.
Last edited by Inline; February 19th, 2019 at 07:50 AM.
Well well. Rotating mass has been left to balancing. External. Should show some imbalance with 2864gr reduced rotating mass. My connection-rods got straightened also. Side-to-side play ended up to be maximum allowable by factory when they were straightened, so its all fine now. The guy who did crap them at another shop got kicked. Wasnt his first negleted failure i heard.
Meanwhile, i completed ( well, almost) my electrics. Just needs connectors and painting my modified battery tray. Once again spend way too much time just for planning, and if i ever do new version, i know how to improve it further. Since i have so much added electric devices, i opted to just control them with car electrics, IGN1 and IGN3 from fusebox.
Principle is sound and easy. Modified battery box + separate plate where power grid ( positive and negative rails) and fuse/relay-box is installed. Plate is fastened with four wing-nuts, and the outgoing wires receive connectors. Then just a positive and negative cable from battery to power-grid, and everything is quick-disconnect.
To visualize, that plate faces towards engine.
Last edited by Inline; March 14th, 2019 at 03:31 AM.
Its been a while since last post. Some things have moved forward, some backwards, some just stands still.
Lets start from negatives. I cant imagine my luck. The head-guy, one of the best here. Appeared lately, was short of money, of course.. I had already invested to other projects since i thought i wouldnt be hearing about him until mid-summer. Heads are done, and in 2 weeks ill get them when i have next salary. But the thing is.... I have e-mail to prove it, i stated right from the start that ill be using Cometic MLS gaskets for few reasons. Last time i visited him not too long ago, he was surprised that i use those, and couldnt remember that we had even talked about them. Thing is, he resurfaced the cylinder heads, and now his wondering does his cutting machine make fine enough surface to hold with MLS gaskets. Suggested that if they dont hold, i should sand them down on long block with oiled sandpaper.. I thought ive had already my share of bad luck with machinists……
Gotta say, lost my interest to whole **** for a while due to this…………. To his defence, heads look great, flow great, but there seems to always be the dark side, atleast for me.
Good things, engine is balanced, rods turned out great at machinery #2, block deck-heights got equalised. Crank, rods and pistons have been assembled, and crank alone turned really nicely with caps torqued down. Have been assembled for a while actually, shame to say, but im currently, including travel to work and back, averaging 75 hours from mon. to fri. at work per week, and at weekends theres alot of other things to do as well. New road to our house being build currently, and new wastewater and clean water pipe builds starting. All in all, looks good so far, but i think im gonna miss ( once again) my mark to drive it at mid-summer fest.
Invested a bit to cooling system, waiting for time to do that ( too). Bought 2 big SPAL fans, biggest i found and could fit to my radiator.
2780cfm advertised per, so total of 5560cfm. Since im going to tow something with my car, both fans are controlled by engine coolant temperature, and one fan is installed so that automatic trans temperature sensor overrides the engine coolant temperature sensor when needed. I did remove my AC, and in place of AC condenser is huge trans-cooler.
Enough of talk, some pics to end this post.
Been on this state for a while, shame on me.
2780cfm each SPAL fans
Summary of balancing.
Last edited by Inline; May 11th, 2019 at 10:25 AM.
Well, since last update.. My heads had another turn at the story, appeared they really werent ready yet.. Its long story, and at the end i avoided him purposefully for 2 weeks, since from start i told im going to have my car driveable to midsummer fest. Turns out, they were really ready just the week midsummer fest is hold; and i was pissed enough that i wouldnt claim them before it was celebrated. So this week i claimed them. They look nice, and what looks even nicer is the intake.
Its like a different animal. Not gonna lie; it was horrible inside as cast, but now after being ported, i and he believes its boatloads better than before.
Now when i got my intake back, i could finally fabricate my air cleaner-setup from various bits and pieces. It needs RTV anymore to seal it and some tri-bar spinners on top to fasten it; it has "lotus-rings" and nuts under the lid to seal it from outside air. That bottle was just an visual reference point about height for friends; as it stands in pictures its a tad over 14" high.. Carbs and air-cleaner element at pics were just mock-ups, air-cleaner uses regular " Ford 2x4" air-cleaner element.
Next to install heads ( valves, springs etc etc etc), and such.
But now im officially taking a little break; were getting our second child at any day, so i have some other things going on for a while, and most likely next to zero time for my car.
Hope to drive it still this year. Atleast theres no more machineries screwing with my stuff. Block at first took 9 months and required re-machining; heads took 10 months…….. Just as a remainder. And i can tell im full of machineries…...
Sold my Hedmans out due to poor quality and no sense of the trouble they would give. Out again with the exhausts. Most interesting lead is, that due to shipping and VAT-costs, using just as an example; ARH headers would cost at the end me more than locally handmade, inside-out coated 180 degree headers.. That, for sure, is interesting deal………. Especially for mid-range where my motor would spend 95% of its time.. From what ive seen from dyno graphs and real dyno-pulls compared to 4-1 long-tubes. More of that later.. I just think.. Ive already sunken so much money, that why back off now. Those might end up to be my best single investment money- and power-wise.
Last edited by Inline; June 29th, 2019 at 08:56 AM.
Location: Edmonton, AB. And "I am Can 'eh' jun - eh"
Posts: 24,525
So now you need to figure out where to cut your hood to fit all that intake through. Are you doing it yourself or having it done by a body shop when it's time?
Not sure yet. Probably at body-shop. Im going to differ from regular power-bulges, scoops and such, ive long ago (since ive known long ago that my setup aint going to fit under hood) set my mind to ISO Grifo-style penthouse bulge. Compliments the straight lines of the car. That has been my favourite always.
Last edited by Inline; June 29th, 2019 at 09:06 AM.
Location: Edmonton, AB. And "I am Can 'eh' jun - eh"
Posts: 24,525
That does look very impressive, but I'd bet you'd be forking out some $$$$$$$ to have it professionally done. I like the look and agree with your assessment that it wold fit the overall lines of the car better than the typical bulges or scoops.
BTW, congratulations to you and your missus on the arrival of your second child! If it's a boy, call him Torque or Posi or Fastlane.... If it's a girl, let your missus decide... life will be much easier that way.
August 27th, 2018, 05:57 PM
Coming back to the NGMT sometime??
