Well I came out of the garage for a breath of fresh H.A.M.B. My chop is about done. Ok back to topic. I have been thinking of doing something of the wall with my 48 and more traditional. Just wanted to get some input from you guys. Taking a 350 olds v8 diesel with eather a 671 or maybe even a turbo? I have read mixed feelings on this motor. It's not crazy horse power I'm after but the aplication. The install if you know what I mean. My wife bought a diesel car and we have been reading about bio-diesel. 60 cents a gallon and a lot of french frys. Just seems like it would be cool. Any thoughts? I don't know if my 350 turbo trans would bolt up? Am I wasting my time?
the head gaskets in a 350 diesel can't hold up without the added pressure of a turbo....and the blower is a two-stroke diesel thing. You could run the stock diesel engine, it would be different, and probably get decent mileage. And you might be able to find some of the engines cheap, if any are left, I think they all got melted down and turned into hondacars last decade.
I found a site that talked about upgrades like o-ringing the head and arp studs. It claimed that 3 lbs of boost is ok. To be honest a lot of boost is not inportant to me. Just think what that thing would sound like doing a burnout. Ofcourse running a 16 in the 1/4 mile is not cool.
A buddy of mine had lots of problems with one when they were new. There was an article in Popular Hot Rodding on how to convert them to gas burners, had some strenthening over those for gas use.
Don't use one of these in your rod unless you're a masochist. The best use they got was when Olds drag racers used the block and crankshaft as a basis for a gasoline engine in their drag cars. My boss at the parts store I worked at in '81 bought a new, loaded 5.7 diesel powered Chevy pickup. It was awesome from 0-5mph; after that, a kid on a ten speed bike could beat it. Also, if someone walked by it with an ice cube in their drink, it wouldn't start. Eventually, the diesel died for good and it was replaced with an Olds 455; then, it was a nice truck!
It was true that the head bolts were the weak link of the Olds diesel. The fix is to replace the ten stock head bolts with 5/8 studs and it becomes a depenable engine but even with the oversize studs a blower would be too much for the gaskets.
Friend of my dads owned a used car lot and every single one of the cars he got in with that motor got converted to 350 rocket engines. When I got older and started working in the dealership I had an oppurtunity to buy one and asked some of the guys in the shop about it and the resounding opinion of no no no run for your life could be heard from miles away. I really dont think a diesel would sound to great roasting the tires either. Just my opinion though once again not an expert!
1981 and older had a ****py glow plug starting system. In 82 they used a different glow plug setup and the cars started fine. I had two and neither lived in a garage and they would both start when the temperature outside was zero to 5 above without being plugged in. But like everyone said, the headgaskets were a problem, oh, and hope you never have to buy a starter for one $$$$$$$$$ big bucks.
They are not any good. GM put a lifetime warranty for the original owners and even put a gas engine to satisfy some of there customers. My brother had one and had nothing but trouble with it and was glad to get rid of it. Just my $.02.
not to mention that diesel smoke stains and smells up the whole interior. Dad had a delta 88 with one for a while, the motor did ok and racked up about 350,000 miles on it when it started to have problems. It was replaced with a worned out 305, that made about double the power...
Good point on the lack of power, it seems that most of them were slow but a buddy had a diesel Bonnie that actually could sqweel the tires. I used to turn off the air conditioning if I wanted to p*** a car, it actually made a difference, my buddies always got a kick out of that
oh lack of education...luckily i'm a late model olds guy. don't have all the info you need, but there's a guy i know on www.realoldspower.com with a hopped up 350 diesel that makes some great power and gets really good mileage. do a search and check it out...you'll see what i mean. don't believe everything you hear guys.
I worked in an Olds Service Dept when they came out. Worst pain in the *** ever. I think the biggest problem was the injectors (design?) were too easy to foul and there wasn't an adequate fuel filtering system so they would miss fireat best and hydraulic and bend rods at worst. (is worst a word?.. just doesn't look right.) They were so bad I think they were the start of the downfall of Oldsmobile. If you gotta go fry oil burner, go Mercedes.
As a diesel the olds was a disaster. The block on the other hand was good if you want big cubic inches. All the components from a gasoline motor would interchange alowing for easy conversion. The big differance was the cylinder walls were cast extra thick alowing for huge over bores. If i remember correctly you could almost go to 500 inches sefely without a stroker crank. Try that with a 350 rocket block.
Gm chose to disregard sound engineering information and produced a half ***ed engine. All they had to do was study Mercedes tried and true designs. Instead the engineering decisions were made by accountants. Most folks I know running biodiesel are modifying mid 1980s Mercedes sedans. That's the hot setup here in the Goloden State!
Actually, you could only get an extra .030 but it had 3" mains so would take a cut down 425 crank. A friend bought two diesel PU and both died within 30K miles. Forget it.
At the peak of the problem, it was hard to find enough gas motors around here to replace the diesels. Lots of the cars were just about given away. My boss at the time had one and he went from writing letters to GM about "where's the new Olds I ordered?" to "what are you going to do about this awful motor?" A well designed motor would have moved this country way down the diesel road.
Olds tried doing something they didn't understand giving diesels a bad name they don't deserve anymore. If 300 horses and 500 Newton meters of torque ain't enough to fry your tires then nothing will. Modern German V6 and V8 diesels are killer motors and reliable too. Finding one in the States may not be easy but you could always import one from a wreckers in England. Try http://www.247spares.co.uk/ Really good diesels are the 3.0 liter BMW 6 cylinder and 4.4 liter V8 diesels. Mercedes do the 350 turbodiesel 6 cylinder or the 400 V8 turbodiesel. Go for something from this century and you'll be fine. Get the transmission to go with it. Audi make good diesels too but they're front drive or four wheel drive so would only be interesting for a mid-engined project.
I have a buddy who stacked miles on in his business. He drove Olds diesels and loved them. One day, he decided to build a chop-top shubox and used a Olds diesel in it. I actually drove it a few times and it was loud [straight pipes] but gutless. The worse part was the starting. The glow-plug wasn't much help either. Needed a huge battery to get the engine started before the battery went down. He finally got tired of the hard starting, the smoke and stink. He swapped in a nice 350 olds gas motor and lived happily ever after...the end.
I am just starting a diesel to gas conversion it is pretty simple so, far heads,cam, intake manifold and carb and from what i was told by Mondello oldsmobile you end up w/ 440ci 9:1 gas motor.somthing to look in to http://mondello
Anyone want to buy one pretty cheap? My dad has a Goodwrench engine - the one with the upgraded head bolts and roller cam. The injection pump was rebuilt also. PM me if interested.
Do yourself a favor if you own a bot or have a buddy that does give the olds diesel to him as aboat anchor. Thats all it's good for a real waste of metal. All "real" diesel engines have liners in them the olds doesn't. It was nothing more then a converted gas engine. From what I remember they has a load of problems such as the head bolts that were mentioned the punps drive off the cam gear back in where the dirtributor used to go and all they did was make lots od noise and no power. If your talking about using Bio-Diesel in a late model truck, SUV etc. now your talking some seriously cool stuff. They run cleaner, produce more power, and run smoother. All around a great system even comes out to be a lot cheaper per gallon then the **** we are forced to buy at the pump. The only problem I have with it is unless your brother in law owns a McDonalds or any other fast food joint that has an endless supply of used cooking oil your kinda limited to your supply of oil. We we're just talking the other day about putting a late model ***min diesel out of a wrecked Dodge in to something cool. I have the rtuck inmind but I'm trying to get Burger to swap me a pair of corvette fulie heads for it but he aint budging... Yet.
http://www.theautobahn.com/forum/showthread.php?t=17228 Take a look at the Audi in this link. A diesel will win this year at Le-Mans if Audi have their way. Ed
The Jalopy Journal
