My rebuild gone to s*it 2nd time
June 25th, 2013, 09:24 AM
#42
Registered User
Join Date: Aug 2008
Location: Iowa
Posts: 1,130
This whole "Scarcity of parts" thing is kinda over-stated, IMO. Intake, header, ignition, cam choices are plentiful. On the big blocks, there are quite a few choices for internal engine parts including stroker kits. Less so on the SBO, it would be nice to have an affordable replacement rod and better piston choices, but still using what is available and 400 SBC parts, it really isn't at all difficult to put a nice combo together.
It isn't the "cost" either in my opinion, at least to the point that it is that much more than a Chebby. A little bit, yes, maybe 15% more. The problem is, and this isn't just my opinion, Olds guys are notorious for being cheap bastards. Go over to Buick.com and look at those guys. Buicks are more expensive to build than Oldsmobiles, the difference is those guys spend the money. Ask any vendor, engine shop, or anyone else in the field and you will get a similar response.
Give Mark $7,000 and he will build you a complete, pan-to-carb, broken in dyno tested SBO stroker that will make 400 HP and be reliable for years. Very few of the guys on this board will do that. They cobble together a bunch of crap in a fragmented build then complain when it fails. Not saying the OP did that in this instance, but it is a common occurrence.
It isn't the "cost" either in my opinion, at least to the point that it is that much more than a Chebby. A little bit, yes, maybe 15% more. The problem is, and this isn't just my opinion, Olds guys are notorious for being cheap bastards. Go over to Buick.com and look at those guys. Buicks are more expensive to build than Oldsmobiles, the difference is those guys spend the money. Ask any vendor, engine shop, or anyone else in the field and you will get a similar response.
Give Mark $7,000 and he will build you a complete, pan-to-carb, broken in dyno tested SBO stroker that will make 400 HP and be reliable for years. Very few of the guys on this board will do that. They cobble together a bunch of crap in a fragmented build then complain when it fails. Not saying the OP did that in this instance, but it is a common occurrence.
June 25th, 2013, 09:40 AM
#43
JMO but I do not think Olds engines fail at a higher rate than any other brand. As avid followers of this site and probably sporadic followers of other sites maybe we see the Olds failures more often. As a fairly new member of the Olds community and and an old member of the Mopar community I can say that Mopars experience their share of failures as well. Lets be honest Olds was a premium brand back in the day and their engines had a reputation for being reliable. As has been stated repeatedly, the secret to a reliable engine is careful attention to detail and cleanliness when putting the engine together. But ask any reputable shop and they will tell you failures happen. Look at the number of cam lobe failures even when proper precautions are taken! I know the OP was frustrated when he made this thread. I am glad the problem was better than expected.
June 25th, 2013, 05:10 PM
#44
Beer Connoisseur
Thread Starter
Join Date: Aug 2008
Location: Daly City, California
Posts: 2,091
First of all I wanna say big THANK YOU to everybody on this site you guys made things a lot easier. Every question, whether it was a real problem or just a brain fart that got posted, was answered quickly and correctly.
My dad and I have been building - restoring cars since I could walk. I am not new to building engines and restoring cars but this is our first Olds.
That being said I want to clear things up, this was not a budget build nor were we trying to cut corners.
These are the things that were done since I pulled it out of the car.
Pistons are SpeedPro 6cc dish .010 in the block
Reconditioned rods, crank turned and chamfered.
Heads are #6, big valves Ferrea, 4 angle valve job, fully ported, crossover plugged, exhaust divider welder, milled .030, Lunati springs, Comp roller rockers.
Camshaft Lunati custom grind (thank you Mark - Cutlassefi it sounds great runs even better, just what I wanted)
225/231@.050, with .512/.517 lift. 108 LSA, advanced 3 degrees.
Performer RPM, milled and port matched, powder coated black .
Tuff Stuff 100W alternator, powder coated black
Hughes 2500 stall torque converter.
Hooker Ceramic Coated headers.
MSD Ready to Run Distributor
Street Avenger 670cfm carb
TCI High torque starter,
All wiring under the hood is new. 4 row radiator
Transmission completely rebuild with shift kit, B & M heavy duty internals, deep pan, TCI tranny cooler.
Rear end out of a 71 cutlass (thank you Jim-monzas for your help)
Fully rebuilt with 3.42 gears.
Driveshaft cut almost an inch to go with 71 rear end.
Every bolt, nut and washer on the drivetrain is new after about 20 runs to Lowe's, OSH, Home Depot.
ARP on heads and rods, Edelbrock on the Intake.
The only thing that hasn't been replaced - flexplate - failed.
I hate to admit but my dad told me to replace it and I just said: Naah,those hardly ever brake.
Doing the Interior now, buckets, center console with Hurst Dual gate (thank you Charlie).
My dad and I have been building - restoring cars since I could walk. I am not new to building engines and restoring cars but this is our first Olds.
That being said I want to clear things up, this was not a budget build nor were we trying to cut corners.
These are the things that were done since I pulled it out of the car.
Pistons are SpeedPro 6cc dish .010 in the block
Reconditioned rods, crank turned and chamfered.
Heads are #6, big valves Ferrea, 4 angle valve job, fully ported, crossover plugged, exhaust divider welder, milled .030, Lunati springs, Comp roller rockers.
Camshaft Lunati custom grind (thank you Mark - Cutlassefi it sounds great runs even better, just what I wanted)
225/231@.050, with .512/.517 lift. 108 LSA, advanced 3 degrees.
Performer RPM, milled and port matched, powder coated black .
Tuff Stuff 100W alternator, powder coated black
Hughes 2500 stall torque converter.
Hooker Ceramic Coated headers.
MSD Ready to Run Distributor
Street Avenger 670cfm carb
TCI High torque starter,
All wiring under the hood is new. 4 row radiator
Transmission completely rebuild with shift kit, B & M heavy duty internals, deep pan, TCI tranny cooler.
Rear end out of a 71 cutlass (thank you Jim-monzas for your help)
Fully rebuilt with 3.42 gears.
Driveshaft cut almost an inch to go with 71 rear end.
Every bolt, nut and washer on the drivetrain is new after about 20 runs to Lowe's, OSH, Home Depot.
ARP on heads and rods, Edelbrock on the Intake.
The only thing that hasn't been replaced - flexplate - failed.
I hate to admit but my dad told me to replace it and I just said: Naah,those hardly ever brake.
Doing the Interior now, buckets, center console with Hurst Dual gate (thank you Charlie).
Last edited by 70cutty; June 25th, 2013 at 05:14 PM.
June 25th, 2013, 06:09 PM
#46
Registered User
Join Date: Aug 2007
Posts: 2,250
First of all I wanna say big THANK YOU to everybody on this site you guys made things a lot easier. Every question, whether it was a real problem or just a brain fart that got posted, was answered quickly and correctly.
My dad and I have been building - restoring cars since I could walk. I am not new to building engines and restoring cars but this is our first Olds.
That being said I want to clear things up, this was not a budget build nor were we trying to cut corners.
These are the things that were done since I pulled it out of the car.
Pistons are SpeedPro 6cc dish .010 in the block
Reconditioned rods, crank turned and chamfered.
Heads are #6, big valves Ferrea, 4 angle valve job, fully ported, crossover plugged, exhaust divider welder, milled .030, Lunati springs, Comp roller rockers.
Camshaft Lunati custom grind (thank you Mark - Cutlassefi it sounds great runs even better, just what I wanted)
225/231@.050, with .512/.517 lift. 108 LSA, advanced 3 degrees.
Performer RPM, milled and port matched, powder coated black .
Tuff Stuff 100W alternator, powder coated black
Hughes 2500 stall torque converter.
Hooker Ceramic Coated headers.
MSD Ready to Run Distributor
Street Avenger 670cfm carb
TCI High torque starter,
All wiring under the hood is new. 4 row radiator
Transmission completely rebuild with shift kit, B & M heavy duty internals, deep pan, TCI tranny cooler.
Rear end out of a 71 cutlass (thank you Jim-monzas for your help)
Fully rebuilt with 3.42 gears.
Driveshaft cut almost an inch to go with 71 rear end.
Every bolt, nut and washer on the drivetrain is new after about 20 runs to Lowe's, OSH, Home Depot.
ARP on heads and rods, Edelbrock on the Intake.
The only thing that hasn't been replaced - flexplate - failed.
I hate to admit but my dad told me to replace it and I just said: Naah,those hardly ever brake.
Doing the Interior now, buckets, center console with Hurst Dual gate (thank you Charlie).
My dad and I have been building - restoring cars since I could walk. I am not new to building engines and restoring cars but this is our first Olds.
That being said I want to clear things up, this was not a budget build nor were we trying to cut corners.
These are the things that were done since I pulled it out of the car.
Pistons are SpeedPro 6cc dish .010 in the block
Reconditioned rods, crank turned and chamfered.
Heads are #6, big valves Ferrea, 4 angle valve job, fully ported, crossover plugged, exhaust divider welder, milled .030, Lunati springs, Comp roller rockers.
Camshaft Lunati custom grind (thank you Mark - Cutlassefi it sounds great runs even better, just what I wanted)
225/231@.050, with .512/.517 lift. 108 LSA, advanced 3 degrees.
Performer RPM, milled and port matched, powder coated black .
Tuff Stuff 100W alternator, powder coated black
Hughes 2500 stall torque converter.
Hooker Ceramic Coated headers.
MSD Ready to Run Distributor
Street Avenger 670cfm carb
TCI High torque starter,
All wiring under the hood is new. 4 row radiator
Transmission completely rebuild with shift kit, B & M heavy duty internals, deep pan, TCI tranny cooler.
Rear end out of a 71 cutlass (thank you Jim-monzas for your help)
Fully rebuilt with 3.42 gears.
Driveshaft cut almost an inch to go with 71 rear end.
Every bolt, nut and washer on the drivetrain is new after about 20 runs to Lowe's, OSH, Home Depot.
ARP on heads and rods, Edelbrock on the Intake.
The only thing that hasn't been replaced - flexplate - failed.
I hate to admit but my dad told me to replace it and I just said: Naah,those hardly ever brake.
Doing the Interior now, buckets, center console with Hurst Dual gate (thank you Charlie).
June 25th, 2013, 06:15 PM
#47
Beer Connoisseur
Thread Starter
Join Date: Aug 2008
Location: Daly City, California
Posts: 2,091
I hate that. Just when you thought you got everything covered something odd craps on you.
June 26th, 2013, 04:41 AM
#49
Registered User
Join Date: Nov 2008
Location: Central Fl
Posts: 7,971
Glad it worked out for you as well and happy to see the cam is what you wanted/expected.
Same here, I wasn't necessarily saying it was you at fault but to some degree we're all at the mercy of the machine shops who do the work. Short of buying all the tools necessary to do it ourselves, we have to trust them at some point.
Best of luck, gotta sound byte?
Same here, I wasn't necessarily saying it was you at fault but to some degree we're all at the mercy of the machine shops who do the work. Short of buying all the tools necessary to do it ourselves, we have to trust them at some point.
Best of luck, gotta sound byte?
June 26th, 2013, 11:12 AM
#50
Registered User
Join Date: Aug 2008
Location: Iowa
Posts: 1,130
I guess when I hear somebody ready to toss in the towel and scrap the Olds for a Chevy, I think of wussing out. Chevys in an Olds body don't impress me at all. A crate motor Chevy makes me think they just aren't capable of putting even a Chevy together right. I don't understand why the OP was giving up so easily. I always felt the quirks of the Olds as a challenge. I did consider a BBC at one time but quickly talked myself outa that one........whew. 30 plus years of working on my SBOs has been a good run and that is much more than I can say about the multi years with my Chevys. I guess it's your car but don't expect admiration on an Olds board.
Oh and by the way I'm still learning.
Oh and by the way I'm still learning.
June 26th, 2013, 04:53 PM
#51
Beer Connoisseur
Thread Starter
Join Date: Aug 2008
Location: Daly City, California
Posts: 2,091
I wasn't giving up, just frustrated that day.
As a matter of a fact my dad and haven't had this much fun putting a car together in a long time, we decided to look for a decent 67 cutlass.
Yesterday found a low mileage(98K)67 convertible that was converted to PROPANE back in late 70's, one owner (passed away wife don't want it). Went to check it out with pops (almost 3 hours away), It starts but doesn't sound too good, tranny is shot. Straight body no rust no dents, repainted once back in 87, decent interior. We pulled up in my 05 Deville and lady liked it so much that she asked me if I would be willing to trade straight up. Considering that I got it for $6500 2 years ago, I may just go for it. Going back there this Saturday with a truck and trailer, see what happens.
As a matter of a fact my dad and haven't had this much fun putting a car together in a long time, we decided to look for a decent 67 cutlass.
Yesterday found a low mileage(98K)67 convertible that was converted to PROPANE back in late 70's, one owner (passed away wife don't want it). Went to check it out with pops (almost 3 hours away), It starts but doesn't sound too good, tranny is shot. Straight body no rust no dents, repainted once back in 87, decent interior. We pulled up in my 05 Deville and lady liked it so much that she asked me if I would be willing to trade straight up. Considering that I got it for $6500 2 years ago, I may just go for it. Going back there this Saturday with a truck and trailer, see what happens.
Thread
Thread Starter
Forum
Replies
Last Post
tannerblackart
The Newbie Forum
3
August 11th, 2014 06:41 AM
Slater442
The Newbie Forum
14
November 23rd, 2012 11:29 PM
