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Login to post Forums » Grassroots Motorsports » Another Cutlass followed me home

June 5, 2011 11:36 p.m. rebelgtp SuperDork

Well another Cutlass followed me home today. My fiances stepfather had seen the car and told us about it so I went to go check it out. Turns out to be another 1980 Cutlass Diesel though in much better shape than the last and this time with the original 350 Diesel still under the hood. This is the engine that Olds gurus love to build into monster gas motors for drag racing and the like. Basically a set of gas heads will bolt right to the block

Anyway this is the car that is going to be the basis of the 80 Cutlass build thread since the paper work for the other one has turned up missing (I'm sure I will find it eventually) and that car will become the parts car for this one. It is also a much better starting point and much more solid of a car. The car has another aluminum hood and hydroboost brakes. I will post up more once I start digging into it.

Hey look a speedo that is round and not a freakin bar!
June 5, 2011 11:59 p.m. Rad_Capz Reader

I dig the round gauges. Got aluminum core support?
June 6, 2011 1:24 a.m. Trans_Maro Dork

They should've made the PRNDL round to fit the hole

The hydroboost is overkill but works very well.

Looks like you're tooling up for some redneck racin'!
June 6, 2011 1:35 a.m. dogbreath Reader

That engine is one of the weird ones for sure. Cool find!
June 6, 2011 5:11 a.m. Pat Reader

That guage cluster is on a fair number of gas Cutlasses, but with a tach in the blank. Many of the cars with consoles and all of the 442's had it.
June 6, 2011 7:43 a.m. pinchvalve SuperDork

I love the blank tach, but gauges for oil, temp and volts. That's the days before drivers were idiots apparently.
June 6, 2011 8:06 a.m. mad_machine SuperDork

wonder if you can retrofit a tach? I also have to wonder what those Diesels redlined at
June 6, 2011 9:31 a.m. AngryCorvair SuperDork

i'd quit killing all those diesel G-bodies and get one running on veggie ASAP!
June 6, 2011 10:31 a.m. Vigo Dork

^Seriously.

I missed out on a really cool diesel pontiac wagon about a year ago. I wish i had been able to jump on that one. And i damn sure would have kept it diesel. Its a terrible waste of a diesel motor to turn it into ANOTHER gas 350.
June 6, 2011 10:38 a.m. rebelgtp SuperDork

Oh I doubt I will convert the motor to being a gas burner though I have thought about adding turbos to the mix . This car will get the 403 that is being prepped and then this motor will get cleaned up and prepped to go in another car, possibly my othe 80 which was also a factory diesel.

Oh and the gas motor these build are not just a regular run of the mill SBC. They are an Olds 350 that can be stroked to well over 400 ci. There are racers that build 1000+ hp motors out of this block.
June 6, 2011 11:29 a.m. integraguy Dork

I always figured, I don't know why, that the diesel engines somehow all wound up in sedans and wagons. What a neat car. A co-worker of mine had a gas engined Cutlass of this vintage back when they were almost new. They were nice cars to drive back then...don't know if they have been eclipsed badly by newer cars or not.

I found a gas-engined Malibu 4 door of the vintage for sale this week on CL. I keep thinking I want to go check it out. I do like the lines of these cars. Squared off, but not so squared off as to look un-imaginiative. Unfortunately, a "plain" Malibu doesn't have the nicer Monte Carlo instrument panel that these Cutlasses have.
June 6, 2011 11:34 a.m. rebelgtp SuperDork

In reply to integraguy:

This car is an oddball the gauge cluster is not common for the Cutlass and I was excited about it. I actually found someone selling a factory tach to fill the blank in the cluster. I would say get the Bu and fix it up. You can always change the dash and the like of the car. Also check it some of the 4 door Bu's had aluminum bumpers.
June 6, 2011 4:39 p.m. rebelgtp SuperDork

Looks like it has a TH350 variant transmission under there it might be a C considering the car is an 80? Anyway there is also aluminum bumper supports.

My current issue though is the hood is freaking well stuck so I can't get in to check the core support or anything else for that matter. I pull the release and nothing happens. Funny thing is I checked it several times before buying the car and it worked fine but now it is just no joy.
June 6, 2011 11:14 p.m. Vigo Dork

Oh and the gas motor these build are not just a regular run of the mill SBC. They are an Olds 350 that can be stroked to well over 400 ci. There are racers that build 1000+ hp motors out of this block.

And for every one of those there are 200 well-meaning idiots who think they're going to have enough power to need that block and end up building a 250hp POS and taking another rare motor out of circulation to build something utterly commonplace.
June 6, 2011 11:18 p.m. rebelgtp SuperDork

That is very true. I am seriously thinking about rebuilding the diesel for some application though I have never touched a diesel engine before. I would love to figure a turbo setup for it though I understand the head gaskets are a weak point in this engine and its running something like 22:1 compression or something like that.
June 6, 2011 11:54 p.m. sanman Reader

As a member of the horribly cheap brigade, I have always wanted to build up a diesel motor to serious performance levels and run it on waste veggie oil. Beats the hell out of a Prius!
June 7, 2011 12:44 a.m. rebelgtp SuperDork

Yeah I kinda like the idea of building the diesel up with turbos and still putting in the Hurst shifter and shift kit on the trans and posi rear along with all the other suspension goodies I was planning...even if I was just sitting at 250-300 hp I would still think it would still be a blast even though for the same money I could get a whole lot more from a gas motor I am sure.
June 7, 2011 1:20 a.m. Travis_K SuperDork

No one even bothers with those motors anymore, the last one I saw in pick and pull was in a pristine pontiac wagon, im guessing it was donated. I only know a little bit about them, but from what I understand the later ones work ok stock, but aren't really durable enough to get more power out of. The sticker in the air cleaner is interesting, I dont know if it is true, but I heard that back when those engines were new one blew apart and killed a mechanic at the dealer after someone used starting fluid. If you want a turbo diesel what about putting an Isuzu NPR engine in it? They fit easily into cars that had GM V8s, and have alot more performance potential.

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