Hey All,

I am new to Oldsmobile, but I love the cars a ton. I am a fan of the Cutlass, but am probably buying an 84 Omega here later this week. I couldn't turn down the deal. It has the 2.8 V6 in it, but I was thinking of beefing it up a bit to suit my hot-rodish needs. I am not sure if I should drop a new motor in it, or what motors would even be compatible for the year. I am ideally trying to get her up around 300-350 hp when I am done, but I have to start somewhere. She only has about 100 hp now, and I have a long way to go. I am not going to molest the exterior or interior, as it is beautiful, but I just want to give it some pep. Any ideas, opinions, or experiences with this are welcome!! Thanks!!

 

Welcome to the site. I'm not that familiar with that model year but aren't they FWD?

 

Thanks for the welcome!! Yes, they are all universally FWD. Not totally sure how that would hamper any part swapping.

 

Welcome. The 84 Omega is a FWD X-car platform. There are not a lot of performance parts nor desire to modify these cars. Sorry, but you won't find a lot of support, I suspect. The basic X-car platform is not really designed for performance and there weren't may upgrade parts available even when these cars were new 30 years ago. There is pretty much nothing available today. You MIGHT be able to swap in a different engine, like a supercharged Buick V6 or a Northstar, but that will require a lot of fabrication on your part. Not knowing your skills or equipment, it's difficult to know if you understand and are capable of that amount of work. Good luck.

 

Joe,

Thanks for the info. If that is the case, I will just clean it up and make it a cruiser. Nothing wrong with that. I figured it would be tough, and I know I can do some things to give it a little more pep (cold air intake, exhaust work, etc.) I figured it was going to be a hard rebuild, so I wasn't going to get my hopes up. It is still a beautiful car, and the price couldn't be beat. Not totally committed to it yet, but I will find out this week.

 

Welcome to the group... If you have some skill and put your mind to it anything is possible... As Joe mentioned the 3.8 SC engine may be an option or even the 3.3 which IMO is just a smaller version of the early 3.8...

 

Since the 3.3 and 3.8 are externally identical and thus the same amount of work to swap, why start with the smaller, lower HP version?

 

Just putting the options out there for search/availability...

 

The Buick 90 degree V6 came in 3.0, 3.3, 3.8, and 4.1 liter versions (not counting the 198 and 225 cu in versions from the 1960s). By the way, the Series II/III blocks used the same bellhousing as the 2.8 V6 that's in the car right now. The earlier versions used the BOP bellhousing.

The Chevy 60 degree V6 came in 2.8, 3.1, 3.4, and 3.4 DOHC versions. The latter will be the easiest performance swap into the X-car.