It was posted in one of the threads about "Showing us your Cool Engines" threads... p.s.... many Hotrods that I've seen and built have Late 60's and early 70's vintage motors in them because the performance level was best utilized in a lighter weight car than a Pony car!
I will hold my wifes POS Chevy Venture up as an example of shitty engineering. Noisy, all doors leak air and dust. Had several hubs (5) replaced because the ABS sensor is BUILT IN and not a separate part. Rear traction control has gone out duer to a bad valve. Now the codes say that both o2 sensors and the cat are bad..................this adds up to well over 5K in repairs, about what the thing is worth. And for the record I grew up in a GM household. My dad even had a factory ride from Dr Olds. These days? GM can kiss my ass.
He he, LMAO. Reminds me of a come-back I once heard from this guy with a hard-on for all things brit-cars, in response to somebody busting his balls about something to do with his "carriage"...: "Well, hell, let´s see YOU try and build a better one out on an island!!!..." LOL. (Not to highjack the thread or anything. Back to discussing OLDS engines...)
This comment rules. Oldsmobile division had musclecars galore, but no ponycar, perhaps due partly to GM internal politics. Luckily, there's nothing stopping us from putting these torquey mothers in cars with less than 10 lbs. per horsepower! I wish that DOHC had made production
The four-valve Olds motor was designated the W-43. There was a lengthy article with many photos in the May 1971 issue of Hot Rod (sadly I am old enough that I was a subscriber even then). The DOHC version was designated the OW-43. The pushrod version had problems with bent pushrods due to the forked rockers working two valves each. The technical solution was to raise the cam inside the block for a shorter pushrod at a better angle. This was done with a bolt-in cam carrier above the stock cam location (which retained a dummy shaft to run the distributor and oil pump). The DOHC version was intended for all-out racing (top fuel, unlimited hydros, and CanAm. The overhead cams were operated by a complex gear drive system, not chains or belts.
That engine was built by Gene Crowe for the McKee "Mark 10" Can Am car of 1969. McKee pioneered turbocharging (with Olds engines) in road racing 4 years before Porsche got all the credit... The car also featured 4 wheel drive and active aerodynamics...and it was a gorgeous design. Apparently the small team bit off more than they could chew as, it only saw the light of day once. That "Hemi" and the DOHC were probably designed more for drag racing, as they would have been a tough fit in the back of a Can-Am car. Bob McKee's son is a HAMBer; maybe he'll weigh in with a little more of the twin turbo story...
Wow - some really great history here. It's sad that Oldsmobile is gone, even though there was no resemblance of what it once was.
-------------------------------- That's why it's gone. When it stopped being 'what it once was', it was no longer relevant. It started happwning when the beancounters and self-styled 'marketing gurus' at GM trumped the engineers and decided we wouldn't know the difference anyway and that it would be cheaper to simply 'badge engineer the everything from a few basic "generic" cars i- instead of letting the the individual divisions actually design and build cars! That's why the whole company is in the mess it's in now Mart3406 ======================
I saw the Terrifying Tornado run at Onondaga Dragway in 66 or 7. It was awesome! Fire burnouts and all. Zoom!
My mistake. "McKee" is not Bob McKees son. I'm going to check into that as I'm almost positive the younger McKee is a member.
I did see a DOHC 455 in the Lansing classified adds for sale. Big money. To have it now. Yikes. It sure would make any roadster go. Vintageride
The prevailing rumor at the time as to why Olds got the axe on this development was because GM and Chevrolet Division didn't want anything to compete with the development for Corvette powerplants. This would surely have shot down any Corvette on the road at that time.
The Jalopy Journal
