oldsmobile rocket 88 motor oldsmobile rocket 88 motor

R.M. The 403 Oldsmobile was generally painted "Corporate GM Blue" on every model line it was equipped in. From the 1950s through the late 1970s, each GM division had its own V8 engine family. I have read and accepted the Privacy Policy For anyone interested the 1950 Mexican road race where 12 Olds 88s entered and 10 finished, eight of the 10 were beaten by a flathead Nash. Unlike the 76, powered by a straight-six engine, the 88 came with a V8 under the. These cookies are necessary for the site's administrative users (who wouldn't even be able to log in without them), but if you are not an administrative user, these cookies aren't normally placed on your device at all unless you somehow access the login area, which is off-limits to non-administrators. For engines built during the first part of 1955, the 324 skirted pistons had a reputation for failing due to the cast aluminum skirt separating from its steel interior brace. Cadillac used a distantly related engine which appeared in three different sizes through to the 1962 model year; though the Oldsmobile and Cadillac motors were not physically related, many lessons learned by one division were incorporated into the other's design, and the result were two engines known for their excellent power-to-weight ratio, fuel economy, and smooth, strong, reliable running. Total Oldsmobile sales for the 1949 model year, including exports and Canadian production, were almost 294,000, a 64% improvement from the year before. Crane said Bouvy was Engine/Camshaft designer of the 1949 Cadillac V-8. This motor is blue which makes me think its been gone through. 1955 Oldsmobile Super 88, 324-V8, 4 bbl carburetor, engine free, I have owned this since 1973, good 4-speed hydramatic transmission, interior useable, nice dash. Even the flathead Ford held up well (courtesy of the Ardun hop-up parts mail order catalogue.) We'll start with Olds and return to Caddy in another article. More-or-less stock Rocket 88s continued winning their classes at the drag strip well into the 1950s. R. V. Hutchinson, who was an Oldsmobile engineer prior to transferring to Product Studies #5 when C. L. McCuen was appointed 1st Vice President in charge of engineering, designed and build a heavy in-line 6-cylinder (850 lbs.) (We have now DISCONTINUED our use of Google Analytics tracking on this website; see the "Online Tracking" section of the Privacy Policy for more information.) Being ahead of your time or having a short season is not the same as being overhyped, and since the muscle car category in general is as much about hype and point of view as substance, I think thats an important consideration. NASCAR held nine Grand National races in 1949, of which stock Rocket 88s won six. The big-block engines initially used a forged crankshaft with a stroke of 3.975" for the 1965-1967 425 and 400 CID versions; starting in 1968, both the 400cuin (6.6L) and the 455cuin (7.5L) big blocks used a stroke of 4.25in (108mm), with crankshaft material changed to cast iron except in a few rare cases. I have read several histories of the 1949 Oldsmobile and Cadillac V-8s, but never seen Bouvy mentioned. The cookieconsent_status cookie recorded whether or not you consented to analytics tracking and told the website to hide the notification banner; this cookie normally expires after about one year. Although Oldsmobiles official involvement in racing was limited, the Rocket 88 promptly proceeded to clean up in competition. Powered by the rocket 2bbl. Its a super 88 sedan 4 door. SAE gross power was 150hp. Making its debut in 1957 as standard equipment on all Olds models,[4] the 371 was produced through 1960. I am almost 79 now and remember that like it was yesterday. These photos were taken outside the Automobile Driving Museum in El Segundo, California (a few blocks south of LAX). Until well into the 1950s, most engines were undersquare, with a narrow cylinder bore and a long piston stroke. 26-33. The 303 was produced from 1949-1953. It was generally paired with the Turbo Hydramatic 350 3-speed automatic or the Turbo Hydramatic 400 3-speed ustomatic in rear wheel drive vehicles, in the case of front-wheel drive vehicles, the Turbo Hydramatic 425 FWD 3-speed automatic. The standard 1965-1967 425cuin (7.0L) was called the Super Rocket, and was the most powerful engine option for the Oldsmobile 88 and 98 of 1965-1967. Since the valves of a flathead are also in the block, the camshaft can actuate the valves directly. The typeface used for the labels in the author-created diagrams is Liberation Sans, one of the Liberation Fonts (version 2.00.1 or later), which are copyright 2012 Red Hat, Inc., used under the SIL Open Font License, Version 1.1. Two-barrel carburetion was standard; all high performance 324s came with four-barrel carburetors. The 307 "Y" produced 148hp (110kW) and 250lbft (340Nm) in 1980-1984 models and 140hp (100kW) and 250lbft (340Nm) in 1985-1990s. One by one, every other American manufacturer brought out its own OHV V8 engine: Chrysler and Studebaker in 1951; Lincoln in 1952; Buick and Dodge in 1953; Ford and Mercury in 1954; Chevrolet, Pontiac, Plymouth, and Packard in 1955; and AMC in 1956. The Oldsmobile V8, also referred to as the Rocket, is series of engines that was produced by Oldsmobile from 1949 until 1990. It didnt have an actual Park position until the advent of the controlled-coupling Hydra-Matic in MY1956. The turbocharger fitted to the V8 engine was a small-diameter Garrett T5 model with integral wastegate, manufactured by Garrett AiResearch, and produced a maximum of 5psi (34kPa) boost at 2200rpm. CC-1634303. in. (4,213 cc) L-head six. What these activities have most in common was that there was an awful lot of engine-swapping going on. Just didnt have any power. Both the Cadillac and Oldsmobile design teams were strongly influenced by the work of GM research chief Boss Charles Kettering, who had been working on high-compression engines since the end of World War I. You shared that mileage ranged from 12 MPG 18 MPG depending on the year. $200.00. [citation needed] The 1977-1980 350s have lighter castings, including a thinner block with large "windows" in the main bearing bulkheads,[citation needed] and have crack-prone cylinder head castings[citation needed] manufactured by Pontiac Motor Division (castings are marked "PMD"; these heads were also used on the 260),[citation needed] and a lightened crankshaft. [19] The 403 was never featured with a manual transmission and the crank was never manufactured for a pilot bearing. Performance modifications included a "hot" camshaft (in reality, just a camshaft used in various applications during the '70s with .440"/.440" lift and 196/208 duration at .050"), stiffer valve springs, a larger vibration damper (same as all '73-'79 350s, 403s, and 455s), a Y-pipe dual-outlet exhaust system, and richer secondary metering rods in the carburetor. Find many great new & used options and get the best deals for Vintage 1949 Oldsmobile 88 Futuramic Rocket Engine Magazine Print Ad W31 at the best online prices at eBay! (Illustration: Pushrod2 2007 IJB TA at the English Wikipedia; resized and changed file format (from PNG to JPEG) 2008 by Aaron Severson and used under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported license). 78-79; and Josiah Work, 1949 Rocket 88: This Is Not Your Grandpas Oldsmobile, Special Interest Autos #139 (January-February 1994), reprinted in The Hemmings Book of Oldsmobiles, pp. Your email address will not be published. Collectible Motor Car of Atlanta. Those were the good old days. Our sources for this article included the Auto Editors of Consumer Guide, Encyclopedia of American Cars: Over 65 Years of Automotive History (Lincolnwood, IL: Publications International, 1996); John R. Bond, Car of the Year: The 1949 Cadillac, Motor Trend November 1949, reprinted in Cadillac Automobiles 1949-1959, ed. A popular modification made to the 403 to increase power was to swap on early Oldsmobile 350 heads to boost compression. For the Rocket 88, Oldsmobile came up with a 303 cubic inch V8 capable of a maximum 135 hp and 283 lb-ft of torque. Known variously as the Rockette, Cutlass, and Turbo-Rocket by Oldsmobile (and as Fireball and Skylark by Buick),[10] it was a compact, lightweight engine measuring 28in (71cm) long, 26in (66cm) wide, and 27in (69cm) high (same as the small-block Chevy),[11] with a dry weight of only 320lb (150kg). Naturally, GM was extremely interested in the potential of high-compression engines for passenger cars, but there were two hold-ups. Bore was 3.75in (95mm) and stroke was 3.4375in (87.31mm). 4-barrel models used 9.25:1 compression in 1957 and 10:1 in 1958 for 277hp (207kW) and 400lbft (540Nm) and 305hp (227kW) and 410lbft (560Nm) respectively. Not a lot of people collect or preserve those cars anymore, and many succumbed to rust or the crusher a long time ago. The Rocket would only get bigger, not smaller. Get the best deals on Complete Engines for Oldsmobile 88 when you shop the largest online selection at eBay.com. A new Cadillac was dramatically more expensive and also heavier, and Buicks with the big straight eight engine probably had Dynaflow. Flory. Have a 47 98 custom cruiser. Set an alert to be notified of new listings. 76. Nice Article thank you for preserving our history. Learn more. Yes, the Hydra-Matic had a parking pawl, which was engaged by selecting reverse with the engine off. 15 results per page. Call 800.979.0122, 7am-10pm, everyday. The payment button in the "Support Ate Up With Motor" box (and similar payment or donation buttons that may appear on portions of the administrative dashboard, which is not normally accessible except to logged-in administrative users) contains embedded content served by PayPal services. For additional technical information about the cookies used by the analytics service, see their "Google Analytics Cookie Usage on Websites" page; for your reference when reviewing that page, we did not use Google Analytics 4. Burrell examined a wide range of configurations, but the one to which he continually returned was a 90-degree V8, which he judged as offering the best compromise between power potential and physical size. It was used in most Oldsmobile models, as well as those from Buick, Cadillac, Chevrolet, and Pontiac. Ford, Chevy, Dodge and Mercury were the top sellers and I believe Oldsmobile would come in 5th or 6th place. 1962 OLDSMOBILE 88 CORE SHORT BLOCK ENGING 8-394 860673. I will let you know soon. $410.00 shipping. After logging in, the wp-settings-UID cookies store the logged-in user's configuration settings, while the wp-settings-time-UID cookies record the time those configuration settings were last set; again, there may be multiple iterations of each of these cookies, which normally expire after about one year. 324 rocket v8. Submitting a comment signifies your acceptance of our. Bore was increased to 3.875in (98.4mm) (same as the later 283 Chevy) and stroke remained the same at 3.4375in (87.31mm). Theyll also be able to suggest sources for parts, which can be a big issue. Rockets, Vikings and Your Old Man. 18-23; Jim Richardson, Rocket Power: Oldsmobiles 1950 convertibles: The rocking 88 versus the jazzier 98, Special Interest Autos #188 (March-April 2002), pp. Vintage lovers are ready to spend any amount of money to get hold of a Rocket 88 of 1949. Required fields are marked *. If anyone at GM had had doubts about offering the big engine in the smaller body, the sales alone would have been enough to convince them. Well, are you presuming that the 88s actual career in stock car racing or road races like the Carrera Panamericana somehow dont count? The LG8 was a modern 307cuin (5.0L) High-Output derivative of the LV2 produced from 1983 to 1987. ), Diagram of a typical pushrod/rocker-arm layout of an overhead-valve engine. Cant wait to get my Wool Fedora and get it back on the road. On that level, the Oldsmobile Rocket engine didnt make it, but thats with the benefit of hindsight. 1949 Oldsmobiles proclaimed that they had Futuramic styling (theres even a Futuramic badge on the front fenders), but it was updating a basic body introduced in 1941. Accessing certain posts or pages on this website may require you to enter a specific password. We are known for our high quality,attention to detail and meeting our customers goals. Raises and Lowers - 4 Leg Suspension - New Paint Job 2 Tone Black & Copper - New Starter - New A/C - Cloth Bench Seating - New Battery - New Flowmaster Exhaust - MSD Ignition - Headers - $5000 of Mechanical Work Just Done Motor Trend (July 1950) mentioned getting 18.8 mpg at a steady 50 mph and a 1950 Olds entered in the Mobilgas Economy Run bettered 20 mpg. All the chrome is perfect interior all original all the glass is good.all the gauges work. A few years later, the Chevrolet engine started taking over the flathead Fords role as the cheap-and-easy hot-rodder choice. The Nash finished third behind two 88s. The Olds Rocket 88 engine went through modifications during the 1950's For the 1955 model year Oldsmobile increased the compression ratio which helped put out 185 horsepower for the Olds 88 model. This very open and flat chamber was fuel efficient and had lower than average emissions output. Classic Car Deals (844) 676-0714. Did G M make a 1949-50 olds 88 or 98 4 door fastback ? The company later introduced a new vehicle, the Oldsmobile Aurora, with a new generation V8. Some auction action surrounding 1956 Oldsmobiles tells a similar story: Particularly enjoyed your succinct descriptions of the engineering factors behind certain design choices. I can see it now. The factory painted "small-blocks" gold or blue (flat black on the late model 307cuin (5.0L)),[1] while "big-blocks" could be red, green, blue, or bronze.[1]. mill or the Chrysler Firepower hemi of the same displacement. And just where is this crazy car heaven where Rocket 88 Oldsmobiles and Avantis are parallel parked on the street side by side? Biggest mistake I still think about that automobile. Internal combustion engines are essentially air pumps, so their power depends greatly on how much air-fuel mixture can flow into the cylinders to burn. The super-fuels the engineers wanted would probably have added even more. It has been noted to go up to $100,000 at some auctions. From 1950 through 1974, the 88 was by far the most lucrative line throughout the division, largely due to the entry-level versions like the 88 and the Dynamic 88. Its output of 0.45 hp per cubic inch was 7% better than the 0.42 hp per cubic inch of the popular and widely produced 100hp (75kW) 1949 Ford Flathead V8. Ketterings team demonstrated that the higher compression ratio boosted power and gas mileage by nearly 30%. Incidentally, the Rocket engine was not Oldsmobiles first V8. (Those pages do not currently discuss the storage of data in your browser (or other user agent) using technologies other than cookies, e.g., in web storage.) In Brazil, OHV V8 engines are commonly known as motores roquete (rocket motors), no matter which producer. Many customers did not keep the reservoir filled, or had mechanical problems with the turbocharger system which resulted in many of the turbo-charger installations being removed and a conventional 4 barrel carburetor and manifold installed in its place. The Nash was driven by Roy Graham a wrestling referee at Dallas Sportatorium who also had the Nash dealership in Corsicana TX. Power was 81 hp at 3000 rpm. in. Made of diecast with some plastic parts. For all the administrative and login cookies described here, "xx" will be a cryptographic hash while "UID" will be the administrative user's user ID number in this website's WordPress database. All Oldsmobile V8s use a 90 bank angle, and most share a common stroke dimension: 3.4375in (87.31mm) for early Rockets, 3.6875in (93.66mm) for later Generation 1 engines, and 3.385in (86.0mm) for Generation 2 starting in 1964. Even in markets where fuel is substantially more expensive than in the U.S., fuel efficiency is widely regarded in purely economic terms. Your email address will not be published. (For more information about our discontinuation of Google Analytics tracking on this website, see the "Online Tracking" section of the Privacy Policy. Big-block and Diesel versions also increased the 2.5in (64mm) main bearing journal to 3.0in (76mm) for increased strength. Still, the same quandary exists that faced Gordon Burrell and Jack Gordon in the late forties: New technologies in this case, direct injection, turbocharging, and even hybrid powertrains can benefit both performance or fuel economy and emissions, but one still almost always wins out over the other. The second issue was that the practical limit for L-head engines was a compression ratio of about 7.0:1; above that threshold, it became difficult to control combustion roughness. The Generation II V8 ended production in 1990. ), If one was trying to tally how many Rocket engines were built in Olds cars in 1949-50, do you have those numbers? 5 vehicles matched Now showing page 1 of 1. in. However not practical to drive around pittsburgh, pa. To many hills for that single chamber master cylinder. The desire to raise compression ratios had prompted Kettering and his staff to develop tetraethyl lead as an octane-boosting gasoline additive in the early twenties (as discussed in greater detail in our article on the 1970-1981 Chevrolet Camaro), but the research staff had been working to raise compression ratios even higher. ), These cookies were previously used by the Google Analytics service to collect information about visitors and their use of the Ate Up With Motor website. The high-compression four-barrel 394 cu. Any interest in better fuel economy was quickly forgotten; gasoline was cheap and speed sold more cars than parsimony. Such cookies and/or stored data items may be set by various domains (such as, though not necessarily limited to, youtube.com; youtube-nocookie.com; googlevideo.com; ytimg.com; google.com; accounts.google.com; www.googleadservices.com; and/or doubleclick.net, which is part of the DoubleClick advertising service, also owned by Google LLC). Most 394s used 2-barrel carburetors, but special high-compression 4-barrel versions were available starting in 1961. at 1,800 RPM Transmission: Three-speed manual standard, Hydra-Matic optional Wheelbase: 119.5 inches It was rated at 350 horsepower (261kW) and 440lbft (597Nm) of torque with a Rochester 4-barrel, and 360hp (268kW) with the L69 tri 2-barrel option in 1966. For 1957, the basic 88 was officially named Golden Rocket 88, taken from Olds' 1956 Motorama two-passenger show car. Hemmings Motor News has been serving the classic car hobby since 1954. The practice of keeping model names alive even though applied to a vehicle with little in common with the original seems to annoy no one but me, [example Impala], why not keep division names alive and apply them to selected models. 50,000 cars were imported in 1952, US brands comprising some 90% of that total. Note the quadrant for the Hydra-Matic atop the steering column. (5,880 cc) engine was a massive straight eight with nine main bearings may have played a role in that!) "Affordable Aluminum V8's [sic]", in, Turbo Hydramatic 425 FWD 3-speed automatic, "1975-79 Cadillac Electronic Fuel Injection", "Oldsmobile 403 Engine - Car Craft Magazine", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Oldsmobile_V8_engine&oldid=1138357918, 1968 and 1969 400s shared the Olds big-block standard 4.25in (108mm) stroke with the 455 but used a, 19681970 Oldsmobile Toronado GT (W34), 400hp (300kW), This page was last edited on 9 February 2023, at 06:46. The _gat cookie, which may appear as _gat_gtag_UA_6113964_2, was sometimes set along with the _ga and _gid cookies to control how frequently requests were sent to the Google Analytics servers; this cookie typically persisted for only a few minutes at a time. The overhead valve engine concept offered both power and efficiency, with an improvement in fuel economy (estimated at about 10 percent better than prior engine designs). in. The Rocket, along with the 1949 Cadillac V8, were the first post-war OHV crossflow cylinder head V8 engines produced by General Motors. ), These first-party cookies are used to manage user logins and certain other administrative functions of the WordPress content management system, e.g., post editing. Following the Automobile Manufacturer Association ban on factory supported racing, power ratings went down for the 1959 and 1960 88 models: 270hp (200kW) and 390lbft (530Nm) for 1959 and 240hp (180kW) and 375lbft (508Nm) for 1960. Instead, influenced by the Space Race between the United States and the USSR, the legendary Rocket was born, available in Oldsmobile's 88, Super 88, and 98 models. Because the high-octane fuels necessary to take advantage of really high compression ratios were not yet available, Burrell ordered the displacement of the production engine (known internally as 8-90) increased to 303.7 cu. The same year, an Olds 88 won the grueling 2000-mile-plus Carrera Panamericana road race in Mexico. A nominal 360 hp was claimed in 1967 when equipped with a W30 camshaft, 4-barrel, and outside air induction, 502 of which were factory produced. Bore was up to 4.0in (100mm) and stroke was increased to 3.6875in (93.66mm) for 371cuin (6.1L). 9 (September 1964), reprinted in Oldsmobile Muscle Portfolio 1964-1971, ed. U.S. Pat. The B-body Oldsmobiles rode a 6-inch (152mm) shorter wheelbase and were 11 inches (279 mm) shorter and 3.6 inches (91mm) narrower than the C-body 98 and weighed 250 pounds (227 kg) less. (Author diagram). The 324 was shared with GMC trucks. This problem did not appear until the engine had over 50,000 miles (80,000km) on it. In a flathead engine, the air-fuel mixture has to go around several corners to make its way into the combustion chamber and burned exhaust gases have a similarly circuitous route out of the cylinders. Thank you so much for further refining my understanding of my 52 Super 88 Holiday Coupe.I love this car for its rich history, and the fact that I inherited it from a dear, tragically taken friend. A flathead engine, therefore, also has poor thermal efficiency. A very significant and, at this point, often misunderstood transmission that had a big influence on the character of the cars that used it. As mentioned earlier, the Rocket V8 was initially offered only in Oldsmobiles flagship 98, a big luxury car that gave away little to Cadillac in size or appointments. Some consider Rocket 88, recorded by Jackie Brenston in 1951, to be the first rock and roll song. The development testing, however, had been done using the smaller B-body Olds 76 as a test mule. Sending my 53 olds to Dallas for overhaul. The 303 was available from 1949 until 1953. It was the only GM engine to meet US emission standards using a carburetor all the way up to 1990. If not, it may be a little more difficult, short of pulling the heads. If we have enabled multi-factor authentication (which requires an authentication code as well as a password to log into the administrative dashboard), the iThemes Security plugin may also set the itsec_interstitial_browser cookie during the login process. Although I often wondered why GM needed three mid-level brands, since you already have them, why not preserve them, especially since it is embarrassing and demoralizing to lose one, now two. Shop 303 Oldsmobile V8 parts and get Free Shipping on orders over $149 at Speedway Motors, the Racing and Rodding Specialists. These cookies expire in about 15 days if the user clicks "Remember Me" when logging in; if not, the cookies normally expire when the user closes their browser (or other user agent), or, failing that, within about two days. wider bore provides a greater surface area on which the forces of combustion can act, improving power The overhead valve engine concept offered both power and efficiency, with an improvement in fuel economy (estimated at about 10 percent better than prior engine designs). Free shipping on many items | Browse your favorite brands | affordable prices. Each of those engines had its own peculiarities, but they were all in the mold of the Oldsmobile Rocket engine.