I have a 455 pulled from a 68 toro.All the books and websites say these were painted a blue color. The one I have is the red color. I have examined every inch of the engine carefully. I am certain this is the factory paint. I have also seen other toro engines painted red. This motor is supposedly the untouched original motor. So I believe many of the toro engines were in fact painted red. This is the info I have:
Block ID # 396021F at front . 68 F2 stamped on rear of block behind flexplate

Block vin # 38M609829
Head C 394 548

 

Could have been a warranty replacement block.

Does the VIN derivative match the VIN of the car?

- Eric

 

Unfortunately that toro along with two others got crushed.Thats how I got the engines. Two were red,and one was kinda Pontiac blue. ???

 

Did you actually see these engines come out of Toronados?

The key distinguishing characteristics of Toro 455s are
a "sunken" intake manifold, that allowed the carb to sit lower, to allow a lower hood profile, and
no starter attached to the engine, because it mounts on the transmission side, and
The Toro oil pan, with the relief for the axle.
All of these things can be changed after the fact.

Kinda Poncho Blue, only BETTER .

Yep, that's the right Toro color.

- Eric

 

The VIN derivative 38M is correct for a 1968 Toro as are the C heads, but that derivative is also on any 1968 Lansing-built car. At that time, Ninety Eights and Toronados were built only in Lansing.

If it originally came in a 66-69 Toronado the engine was Slate Blue Metallic, which is similar to but not exactly Pontiac Metallic Blue. 65-69 425-455 in 88 and Ninety Eight were Olds Red. I have never seen an original red Toronado engine.

In addition to the intake and oil pan Eric mentioned, look for a very different, extended and angled oil filter mount that is made to clear the starter. But keep in mind all this stuff could have been changed to replace a bad engine.

 

If the vin derivative number, heads, intake, and oil pan are checking out right. What about checking the pistons? They should be the high compression ones. I guess the other question would be, if the 88's and 98's came with the high compression pistons?

 

They came out of the toros ,for sure.I was picking the junkyards and had the yard pull these for me. They all have all the toro parts and the red engine was absolutely identical to the blue engine. One of them had a air cleaner with two forward facing air inlets. I pulled the heads from the blue engine and they were big valve. On another website it was said that some of the early 68 455's were still red irregardless of what they went in. Well any way I will be making a 68 HO repli motor out of it. None of them had steel cranks

 

Whoops, forgot that one.

 

I just pulled the heads off the engine in question. They are big valve. The pistons are flat,with a slight recession. .Didn't all the early toros have domed pistons ? The motor still had the steel shim head gaskets,and it appeared to me they had never been off. Only the toro would have gotten the big valves,correct? As far as I know only 442 and toro had big valve c heads ? I am now going to pull the cam,and see if I can decipher the grind #.

 

Nope, no domed pistons on Olds - you must be thinking of a Division that begins with a "C."

Toro 455 pistons should have a shallow, roughly 16cc dish.

There is likely to be no grind number, as such, on the cam - they ground the front faces of the cams in characteristic ways, which are illustrated in the Chassis Service Manual.

- Eric

 

I have been elbow deep into an Olds 455 all day,now why would I be thinking of a chevy? Anyway,after finding the big valves in the heads and the barely dished pistons,there is only one conclusion to me. This is a red toro engine. Thanks for all input guys.

 

The one I took out of a 68 Toro is blue

 

The VIN derivative 38M is correct for a 1968 Toro as are the C heads, but that derivative is also on any 1968 Lansing-built car. At that time, Ninety Eights and Toronados were built only in Lansing.
======================
yes, but.....
Toro VIN's started much, much higher, e.g.,
100001 for the other cars
500001 or 500100 or whatnot for Toro's

Therefore, unless Big Car production got into the 400k's, the VIN alone proves it's a Toro motor.

Please document [photograph] this red Toro engine with photos of the unit as found. Red paint, VIN stamp, etc. Piston and bores' size code stamps would be interesting.

So, 2-3 68 Toro motors and NOT ONE forged steel crank?? WTH?
Me too.
I did however see one, and it was indeed in a 68 Toro motor.

The dual snout air cleaner in blue is 66-67 Toro. A 67 engine will have the application code and Engine Unit Number in the front of the RH head. A 67 Toro engine will be slate blue. I could believe that the 68-9 Toro motors are red.... that stretches the limits of my Oldsmobile trivia knowledge.

 

It could be a reg'lar ol' 98 high-comp. motor, too with those internals - it's not unheard of.
Good, powerful motor either way.

- Eric

 

'ere's a nice RED ONE

http://www.realoldspower.com/phpBB2/...beaa5c60291957

 

I believe '68 Toronado ONLY started 38M600001, so 609829 would make this a Nov-Dec '67 built 1968 Toronado engine.

 

I could be mistaken, but I thought all 455s in '68 and '69 were red. I seem to recall that the 455 color changed to blue in '70.

Randy C.

 

this is very basic question but how do you tell if the engine is high compression or not? what is the give away?

I have a 455 engine from a 72 442 and very soon buying a toro with a 455... so very interested in figuring out which is if any is high compression.

the 72 442 engine has Ga heads, small valves and toro engine has C heads.

 

The size of the dish in the piston.


A Toro engine with C-heads will be high compression, because all Toro engines in those years were high compression (except special-order export...).

A Ga-head engine will be low compression.

- Eric

 

That sounds more like a 67 CCC aircleaner. All 68 Toro engines had a single snorkel aircleaner, even the W34 cars.

I'm still not buying it. Not saying it couldn't have happened, but it would be very unusual to find a Toronado with other than a Slate Blue Metallic engine. Toronados were built on a separate line with tighter QC, and I just cannot see a deviation on engine color getting past final inspection. The only time I can even imagine that happening would have been during the January 1968 strike.

You've got the correct engine to do it. The 68 H/O 455's were Toro engines with regular intake/ exhaust manifolds and oil filter mount. Those engines, destined for H/O's, would have been painted red.

 

can you tell me more about that special-order export? how can you identify such an engine/car?

bought my 1970 toro GT in vienna..car has metric system speedometer (km/h)

 

I do not know how to tell the difference on '68 and later cars, but earlier cars have a "E" for "Export" at the ends of their stamped engine numbers. Those cars have an 8.3:1 compression ratio instead of 10.25:1.

For later cars, I would say that the best bet is probably to look into the cylinders with a fiber optic scope and see if it is possible to judge the dish depth, or see the front-edge notches in a piston.

Of course, everything after 1970 is about 8.3:1, so at that point it no longer matters.

- Eric

 

All the ones I ever seen were blue , including mine

 

Just to clarify, both the '66 and '67 CSMs specify engine colors, and both specify Blue for Toronado and Red for all other big blocks.

The '68 and '69 CSMs do not specify engine colors, but the rules were the same as for '66 and '67.

In 1970, all big blocks were blue.

Therefore, it is highly unlikely that any Toronados ever left the factory with red blocks, regardless of what color blocks may have been found in them later.

- Eric

 

ahhhh , that is good to know.

 

That is EXACTLY how it looked in car,before it was pulled.

 

which dimension on the dish are you measuring? width or height? and what are the measurements between high and low compression pistons?

also, a guy once told me, funny way to phrase it, smaller valves on cylinder heads will have more torque, is he high or has a point?

thanks Doc

 

Here is an illustration of the 1968 piston crowns, from the 1968 CSM:



Approximate measurements of this sort of thing can be gotten from the "Tech" section of this site (not always perfectly accurate, though...), located here:



The specific piston dish data are here.

No, he's right.

While absolute power, at steady full-throttle (such as in a drag race) is determined by how large the valves and passages are, throttle response and drivability are determined by the velocity of the air/fuel mixture as it rushes into the combustion chamber - the faster that the new mixture pushes out the burned mixture, the better then engine will run, especially considering that an engine will run best with some valve timing overlap (we're not talking Karl Otto in 1889 here).
When the intake and the exhaust valves are open at the same time, pressure caused by the fresh mixture moving at a decent velocity (caused by the inertia of the mass of air/fuel moving through the passages) will push out the exhaust fumes and fill the cylinder with fresh mixture. The faster the mixture moves, the more energy it will have to properly fill the chamber (sort of the same principle as turbocharging).
Of course, the smaller the diameter of a passage, the faster a given amount of a fluid (a gas or a liquid) will have to move through it in a given period of time to get the other side.

Therefore, under practical conditions (not constantly full-throttle), the engine will run better, have better throttle response, and be more powerful if the intake and exhaust tracts are narrow enough to give the gasses a good velocity, rather than allowing them to meander through and into the cylinders.

Ideally, you would like to have passages that enlarge when you give it gas and shrink when you let up, and some fancy modern cars have computer-controlled flapper valves that do nearly this by making the tracts longer at lower engine speeds and shorter at higher speeds.

- Eric

 

hi Eric,

I tried looking up a diagram similar to what you posted, no luck. Do you happen to have a similar pic or diagram for 72? if they are all the same, why does my 72 big block has 2 notches on the piston?

thanks
Ed

 

Page 6B-23 of your Chassis Service Manual.

Sure, Ed.



They're not all the same.
In 1968 you could get 455s with either 10.25:1 or 9:1 compression
(I'm not sure whether there were any 10.5:1 Toronados, or whether that's just a myth),
and the piston dishes were about 15cc or 37cc, respectively.
In 1972, all engines were low compression 8.3:1, and the piston dish was about 40cc.

- Eric

ps: what's that a photo of?

 

LOL - thats a pic of one of the pistons that belongs to my 72 442 big block engine with Ga heads;