"Dr. Olds" prescriptions for speed.......

In the late '60's GM had a guy that looked like "Weird" Al Yankovic in a white lab coat that they advertised as "Dr. Olds" and he was always in ads promoting the 442, the Hurst / Olds, the W31 F85, etc.  Anyhow, here's the speed tips for Olds enthusiasts in our "Reader's Digest" engine build series. The modern Olds V8 came in various sizes from 330-455 cubes. We are really only concerned with 3. The 350, the 403, and the 455.  Here's why. Unless your restoring a '64 442 to the nth degree-forget about a  330 V8. The 350 that was built from 1968-1980 is way more plentiful and easier to find, and because of the extra cubes will make more power anyway. The "small-block" Olds engines-i.e.-330, 350, 403-share quite a bit of components. The 403 was only produced from 1977-1980-but because of smog laws and GM playing musical engines- it was GM's "Corporate" big engine at the time-( 400 Pontiacs were not California or high-altitude certified ) there were hundreds of thousands built in Olds 88s and 98s,Buick Rivieras, the big Olds and Buick wagons and a lot of Pontiac Bonnevilles, Firebirds and Trans-Ams that weren't "49 state" cars. A 403 is a good "sleeper" swap for a 350 Cutlass. Everything interchanges, but with 53 more cubes you get substantially more power and torque with the same equipment. For only having 8:1 compression and being saddled with 2.56:1 gears, they actually had 5 lbs ft MORE torque than the vaunted Pontiacs, and moved the 3,800 lb disco era California / High Altitude emissioned / automatic T/A's with enough alarcity that 99% of the general public didn't know there wasn't a 400 Pontiac under that scoop labeled "6.6 Litre". ( The Pontiacs were labelled "T/A 6.6 " ).  As for the big blocks-they came in 3 incarnations-the 400 from 1965-69, the 425 from 1965-67, and the 455 from 1968-76. Unless your restoring a '65-69 442 to the nth degree I wouldn't spend a lot of time chasing a 400. Unless your restoring a '66-67 Toronado to Concours specs, that goes ditto for the 425. There's nothing wrong with these engines; if you have one already in the car or can buy one at a reasonable price then by all means use it. But their pretty scarce and are usually overpriced. This leaves the 455, which luckily was put into just about every Olds model built from 1968-76 ( except Omegas ). There are literally millions of them around.  # 1. Bottom end. Small-block or big-block, the Olds bottom end is tough. So tough that they were actually very popular in boat racing for years. The 427 and 454 Chevys made more power, but blew up all the time. The 425 and 455 Olds motors would stay together under the sustsained load of marine racing. You had to finish to win. Anyhow, the stock oil pumps are fine, as are stock rods. Again-for pistons I would use cast pistons- their cheap and they run quiet. Again-if you want to play with nitrous I would use forged pistons. # 2. Cylinder heads. If you have a '73 and later 350 or a 403 you can gain a full one point boost in compression from 8:1 to 9:1 by switching to 1968-72 350 heads. ( These have 70cc chambers, '73 and later have 83cc chambers.) You'll have to re-tap the bolt holes to fit the early heads on '75 and later blocks but this is no big deal. Mondello Performance and other companies sell kits to do this. You can bolt 455 heads on a 350 / 403, but you'd have to get custom pistons to have any compression at all, and use a custom-ported Edelbrock Performer RPM manifold.  And I have to ask-if you want to go that fast- wouldn't it be easier to just build a 455?  As for 455s-I'm not going to go into the various recommended castings-there's books for that. Unless your restoring a W30 car-the heads that came on your engine should be fine. Edelbrock also makes aluminum heads for the big ( 400-425-455 ) Olds motors if you want maximum power and don't care about not looking stock. # 3. Cams. With the small-blocks it's better to err on the side of caution when it comes to cam timing. Yes the vaunted "W31" 350 Cutlasses had a cam with 308 duration and .474 lift; they were also only available with a 4-speed and 3.90:1 or 4.33:1 gears for a reason!  The reason is with that big cam-you were giving up quite a bit of low-end and mid-range torque for top-end rush. The Edelbrock Performer cam is an excellent one to use in a 350 or a 403 especially with an automatic transmission. You want to accent what the factory did to start with-like the Pontiacs-they make big torque at low rpm. As for the 455s, Lunati makes an excellent one with 224 / 234 duration ( @.050 ) and .496 / .520 lift. I had this cam in my Hurst / Olds. It had a badass lope but stable idle, pulled hard to 6,000 rpm, and still worked nicely with a stock torque converter and 3.08 gears. The big 455 has SO much low-end torque, that this cam actually helped the car launch better by LOSING some low-end-I could come out of the hole with a lot less wheelspin. Stick with the cam manufacturers guidelines for axle ratio, converter stall speed, carb size, etc-and you won't go wrong.  # 4. Induction.  The stock iron Quadrajet 4bbl intakes on the 350 and 455s are pretty good. If you don't care about looking stock the Edelbrock Performer is a nice upgrade and adds a noticeable improvement in power and torque. For the 455 if you want more than the stocker or the Performer can deliver they still make the original Torker-you lose some bottom end-but about 2,700 rpm it hits like "gangbusters" and pulls hard past 6,000. I had this manifold on the H/O with the above mentioned cam and it was a great combo. For carbs I would either use a Jet Performance Quadrajet or an Edelbrock 750. # 5. Exhaust-If you want headers they really "wake up" an Olds engine. Part of this is the head design and the restricted exhaust port. This is why most cams offered for the Olds have more duration and lift on the exhaust side-to compensate for this. The additional scavenging effect of the headers helps mid-range torque immensely. A buddy's 403 powered "Macho T/A" ( DKM's "Macho" treatment added Hooker headers and real dual exhaust, and re-curved the distributor, re-jetted the carb and opened the scoop ) showing it's tallights to mine caused me to invest in Herb Adams "Fire-Am" treatment-besides the headers, and dyno-tune, this also included a Holley "Street Dominator" intake and a TransGo shift kit. ( We had a re-match, I won, and all was right with the world again.) But seriously-headers help any engine but they seem to wake up the Olds motors more than others. If you don't want headers or are restricted by show or racing class rules to stock manifolds, you can still gain some power by using 2 /12 pipe and low-restriction mufflers. For detailed advice on building an Olds engine I'd contact Mondello Performance and get their parts catalog, and guide to engine building.  Mastermind