However not practical to drive around pittsburgh, pa. To many hills for that single chamber master cylinder. 1948 & 1949 Cadillac Fastbacks, Special Interest Autos #11 (June-July 1972), pp. Comments may be moderated. Particularly by 50s standards, the flathead Ford wasnt an outstanding engine, which I think even a lot of loyalists would have readily admitted, but you could get them by the cartload and there was a huge, well-entrenched aftermarket for them. Crane said Bouvy was Engine/Camshaft designer of the 1949 Cadillac V-8. in. Change Background Color (Note: This option sets cookies on your device to manage your color settings; see the Cookie Notice for details. 2027; John Katz, Racing the 88, Special Interest Autos #145 (January-February 1995), reprinted in The Hemmings Book of Oldsmobiles, p. 88; Jamie Kitman, The Secret History of Lead, The Nation March 2000; Allen Hunt, Horsepower from Detroit, Part IV: Cadillac, Oldsmobile and the horsepower race, Car Life Vol. Big block Oldsmobile Rocket 442 crate engines are also available. 6 (July 1962), pp. The cylinder head is little more than a cover for the top of the cylinder, which is why L-head engines are commonly called flatheads. Total Oldsmobile sales for the 1949 model year, including exports and Canadian production, were almost 294,000, a 64% improvement from the year before. A smaller 260cuin (4.3L) V8 was created for the new Oldsmobile Omega in 1975 by decreasing the bore to 3.5in (89mm). Its a super 88 sedan 4 door. 324 rocket v8. Im not sure where you stop4 more new engines in 1958 (Chevy W, Mopar B, FoMoCo FE, Lincoln M.E.L. (Valve spring, spring seat / retainer placement too? SAE gross power was 150hp. 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. You shared that mileage ranged from 12 MPG 18 MPG depending on the year. Output was 185hp (138kW) and 320lbft (430Nm). These a11y cookies normally expire after about seven days, but are removed immediately if you restore the applicable settings to their default values. The 260cuin (4.3L), 307cuin (5.0L), 330cuin (5.4L), 350cuin (5.7L) and 403cuin (6.6L) engines are commonly called small-blocks. In development, the high compression ratio combined with the charged load created problems with spark knock on hard throttle applications, which led Olds to develop and utilize a novel water-injection system that sprayed metered amounts of distilled water and methyl alcohol (dubbed "Turbo-Rocket Fluid") into the intake manifold air-stream to cool the intake charge. Set an alert to be notified of new listings. The 10:1 compression 1961 model produced 325hp (242kW) and 435lbft (590Nm), while the 10.25:1 1962-1964 version upped power to 330hp (250kW) and 440lbft (600Nm). Anyway, thanks for making my visit here an enjoyable one. The PYPF cookie normally expires in approximately four weeks, the 01A1 cookie in approximately one year. 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. The Generation II V8 ended production in 1990. It was the only GM engine to meet US emission standards using a carburetor all the way up to 1990. Where is the plate located? Terry Ehrich and Richard Lentinello (Bennington, VT: Hemmings Motor News, 2001), pp. Sorry! Red Hat is a trademark of Red Hat, Inc., registered in the United States and other countries. From 1916 through 1922, the only Oldsmobile V8 was a 246.7 cid L-head of Model 47 with a 233.7 cid V8 that made 60 hp. Note the quadrant for the Hydra-Matic atop the steering column. For more information about how Akamai may collect, process, and/or use personal data, visit the Akamai "Privacy and Policies" page and Privacy Trust Center. Classic Oldsmobile Rocket 88 for Sale. They normally expire after about one year. It was the first mass-produced OHV V8, in 1949. There were 64 1st Gen sold in the last 5 years. The Cadillac and Oldsmobile V8s represented the start of several major trends in American engine design. The Turbo-Rocket V8 was offered exclusively on the Oldsmobile Jetfire, a special version of the Cutlass compact hardtop coupe, which is noteworthy as it is one of the world's first (in fact the second) turbocharged passenger car ever offered for public sale. 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. Fabulous article. Collectible Motor Car of Atlanta. Thanks for the great write up on the history of one of the most influential engines in the automobile industry! The L34 used a 4-barrel carburetor and produced 160170hp (120130kW) and 275ftlbf (373Nm). [citation needed] Production of the 260 V8 ended in 1982 when the 307 became the only gasoline V8 in Oldsmobile's line. in. Im not sure about the early Hydramatics but later ones, 54-56 you put in reverse to park. [19] The 403 was never featured with a manual transmission and the crank was never manufactured for a pilot bearing. The first was that Ketterings engine required fuel with a considerably higher octane rating than any contemporary pump gasoline; better fuel economy was hardly useful if you could only fill up at airports. Liberation is a trademark of Red Hat, Inc. registered in U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and certain other jurisdictions. "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. 50,000 cars were imported in 1952, US brands comprising some 90% of that total. OHV engines can also support much higher compression ratios. 1951 Oldsmobile Rocket 88. Compression ratios never approached the 12.5:1 level that Kettering had proposed, peaking at about 10.5:1. Unlike a Mustang or a later Chevy, where theres a thriving business in replacement pieces, finding parts for an Olds of that vintage isnt necessarily easy these days. When the center carburetor was opened to 60 or more engine vacuum drawn from the windshield wiper pump would simultaneously open the front and rear carburetors. Any interest in better fuel economy was quickly forgotten; gasoline was cheap and speed sold more cars than parsimony. (The basic Eighty-Eight was rarer, accounting for only about 35,000.) The 4 barrel versions had a larger diameter harmonic damper, the 2 barrel only a balancer hub without the rubberized outer ring. Have a 47 98 custom cruiser. Contact. The same year, an Olds 88 won the grueling 2000-mile-plus Carrera Panamericana road race in Mexico. Thank you! Presumably this says something about the cars place in the culture. If the engine is thrashed and you just plan to swap in a later crate motor and a modern transmission, it may not matter, but if you want to restore, thats another matter. Im wondering how many weeks of informative evening reading I can enjoy from your articles. I just wanted to know if I have a rocket engine and how can I check if its a 394. Kettering had retired in 1947, but since he was still alive (and active as a GM consultant), naming the engine after him was against GMs corporate policy, so Sherrod Skinner suggested the Rocket name instead. There are 36 Oldsmobile 88 for sale across all model years (1949 to 1999) and variants, 8 are 1st Gen and 1 is model year 1951 . These taller-deck models are commonly called "big-blocks", and are 1in (2.5cm) taller and 1.5in (3.8cm) wider than their "small-block" counterparts.[1]. The 324 was shared with GMC trucks. Your email address will not be published. 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. Ike Turner, later to be half of Ike and Tina Turner, played piano on the track and was miffed that Brenstons name, not his, was on the record. Output for 1983-1985 was 180hp (130kW) and 245lbft (332Nm). Some Oldsmobile employees detested that name, but it remained strongly associated with Oldsmobile well into the 1960s. Submitting a comment signifies your acceptance of our Comment Policy please read it first! 34-41; Arch Brown, Richard Langworth, and the Auto Editors of Consumer Guide, Great Cars of the 20th Century (Lincolnwood, IL: Publications International, Ltd., 1998); F. Gibson Butler, History of the Rocket Engine, originally written 15 November 1977 and excerpted in Desert Rocket Report: Newsletter of the Oldsmobile Club of Arizona October 2004, pp. Call 800.979.0122, 7am-10pm, everyday. (Vimeo and the Vimeo logos are trademarks of Vimeo.com, Inc., registered in the U.S. and other countries. It was rated at 215hp (160kW) at 4600rpm and 300lbft (410Nm) at 3200rpm. (Ten of the 13 88s that entered that race managed to finish, itself an impressive feat.) 26-31; Roger Huntington, 1965 Engines, Motor Trend Vol. Will drop by again. I have a 62 olds super 88. Even the flathead Ford held up well (courtesy of the Ardun hop-up parts mail order catalogue.) The Olds engine performed well and was very smooth running but didnt have as much scat as the modified flat head. Simplified diagram of the cylinder of a wedge-head OHV engine. Happy to see someone that not only mentions, but appreciates the early Olds. Your email address will not be published. 12 (December 1964): 36-47; William Kovarik, Ph.D., Charles F. Kettering and the 1921 Discovery of Tetraethyl Lead In the Context of Technological Alternatives, originally presented to the Society of American Engineers Fuels & Lubricants Conference, Baltimore, MD, 1994, revised 1999, www.radford. Around the end of that year, the project nearly ground to a halt due to objections from Cadillac. All LV2s feature a 4-barrel carburetor. The oil industry wasnt interested, nor was the auto industry, nor it must be said was the contemporary American public. 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. [13] It could also be fitted with high-compression cylinder heads from the Morgan +8. Google, AdSense, Google AdSense, Google Analytics, and other related marks and logos are trademarks of Google LLC. You must be at least 18 to comment. He saw the potential in an engine design offering increased compression. Flathead engines are easy and cheap to manufacture, but they leave a lot to be desired when it comes to performance. For 1957, the basic 88 was officially named Golden Rocket 88, taken from Olds' 1956 Motorama two-passenger show car. They were criticized at the time as being unsafe in city traffic because they picked up their air too close to the tail pipes of cars ahead. Oldsmobile 1949 Oldsmobile Eighty-Eight History Gallery Valuation Rocket 88 (1949 - 1953) 1949 1950 1951 1952 1953 These are standard specifications - not necessarily specifications for the vehicle (s) in the photo (s). From the 1950s through the late 1970s, each GM division had its own V8 engine family. (4,977 cc). The difference is that many of the things earlier generations feared (such as heavy dependence on foreign oil and its associated political ramifications) are now familiar reality rather than speculation. (PayPal.com, PayPal, and all logos related to the PayPal services are either trademarks or registered trademarks of PayPal, Inc. or its licensors. 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.) The FirePower, Buick Nailhead, and Chevrolet V-8s didnt exist yet. A pushrod layout is more expensive than a flatheads valve gear and the extra mass of pushrods and rocker arms hurts mechanical efficiency. This was much flatter than the 23 of the small-block Chevrolet and 20 of the Ford small-block wedge heads. The 1954 88 and Super 88 V8s used an 8.25:1 compression ratio for 170 and 185hp (127 and 138kW) and 295 and 300lbft (400 and 407Nm), respectively. Regarding production tallies, in MY1949, Oldsmobile built 288,310 cars, of which 95,556 were the 76, meaning the remaining 192,754 (66.9% of production) were 88s and 98s with the new Rocket engine. Now heres the rub vis-a-vis this article: granted that the Rocket 88 gained a reputation as something of a factory hot rod in its day (helped, no doubt, by Ike Turner aka Jackie Brenston and the Delta Cats little ditty of the same name), nonetheless in my research I have been hard-pressed to find anyone who used it as a performance powerplant. The 403 is fundamentally the exact same block as an Oldsmobile 350 V8, however it features a larger bore. in. I have an interest in the history of Camshaft design tildentechnologies.com. 1988), pp. I have a pretty good handle on Ford Design evolution, but not so much on GM, especially OHV. You can hide the "Support Ate Up With Motor" box and prevent the loading of its embedded content by going to the "Consent Management" tab and switching the "Allow PayPal Button" toggle to "OFF." To learn more about how Google may use information collected by the Google Analytics service, see their "How Google uses information from sites or apps that use our services" page, the "Information for Visitors of Sites and Apps Using Google Analytics" section of the Google Analytics "Safeguarding your data" help page, and the Google Privacy Policy. It was used by every domestic GM automobile marque except for GMC and Saturn. Millionaires would drive the few Cadillacs. The Nash finished third behind two 88s. Road tests were conducted later that year and the new V8 went into production a few days before Christmas 1948. 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. Each of those engines had its own peculiarities, but they were all in the mold of the Oldsmobile Rocket engine. Accessing certain posts or pages on this website may require you to enter a specific password. In the spirit of trying to improve a fantastic article. ), 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. 15 results per page. This engine was only available in the Oldsmobile Starfire and a performance economy model called the Jetstar I. 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. This very open and flat chamber was fuel efficient and had lower than average emissions output. Oldsmobiles companion make, the Viking had a horizontal-valve V8 with two-plane crankshaft in the early thirties. The Olds 88 was also one of the fastest automobiles in America at the dawn of the 1950s, and it was the car to beat in NASCAR racing, winning 10 out of 19 races in the 1950 season. When the engine is running, transmission oil pressure disengages the pawl. A slightly larger 307cuin (5.0L) version was introduced in 1980. The cookies are not set at all unless you select that option when submitting a comment. in. The 425cuin (7.0L) big-block was the first tall-deck "big block," produced from 1965 through 1967. The early Rocket V8 weighs a bit over 700 pounds (318 kg) and had an SAE gross rating of 135 hp (101 kW). In 1949, your main alternative new car choices were the bug-ridden 49 Ford and Mercury, whose engines would need a lot of hopping up to get anywhere near the level of the 88. Get a Oldsmobile crate engine for cars like the cutlass, 88, 98, or the 442.GTO. Some of the photos in our Avanti article, and those of our story on the Packard One-Twenty, were taken at the same time. Oldsmobiles first postwar engine was born during the UAW strike that shut down GM production from November 1945 through March 1946. An 88 also won the first grueling Carrera Panamericana, the 2,176-mile (3,500-km) Mexican Road Race. Even a heavier 55 Super 88 with the later 324 (like the one tested by both Motor Trend and Motor Life it looks to be the same car) could manage up to 19 mpg at a steady 60 mph, dropping to 1213 mpg in mixed use. R.M. I have read and accepted the Privacy Policy The 1967 and later versions of the Repco engine had proprietary engine blocks. In any case, the early postwar period saw the emergence of the California customizing/hot rod scene; the advent of the fiberglass kit car body manufacturers such as Bill Tritts Glaspar (Tritt was retained briefly by GM as a consultant in 1951 when they were considering building a lightweight fiberglass-bodied sports car); and the birth of modern motorsport in the US with the founding of the SCCA and the advent of road racing as the most popular form of competition. It was used in most Oldsmobile models, as well as those from Buick, Cadillac, Chevrolet, and Pontiac. To mitigate these problems, both Oldsmobile and Cadillac adopted an overhead-valve (OHV) layout. The combination of good low-RPM torque, the Quadrajet four-barrel carburetor, and the THM-200-4R three speed plus overdrive automatic transmission having a lockup torque converter allowed for fairly good performance, and fuel economy considered reasonable for the era, even in the larger and heavier model cars. The effective dates of the current versions are: Paid advertisements and/or sponsored links on Ate Up With Motor will be identified with words such as "Sponsor," "Sponsors," "Sponsored Link(s)," "Sponsored Content," "Ad," "Advertisement," "Advertisement(s)," or "Paid Promotion" (and/or by images or icons containing such words). (I quess that would be total Olds minus Olds 76 model.). You see, this 1957 Golden Rocket 88 Holiday two-door hardtop, with the J-2 setup and only a few more than 30,000 actual miles, is owned by his daughter and son-in-law, Jan and Tom Hummer. 1959 and 1960 371s used green painted valve covers. . 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. Concern about diminishing oil reserves is nothing new in the twenties, some engineers feared the U.S. would be out of oil within 30 years but it was not until the seventies that those fears entered the public consciousness. The company later introduced a new vehicle, the Oldsmobile Aurora, with a new generation V8. The iThemes Security plugin may also set the itsec-hb-login-xx cookie, which helps to protect the site against "brute force" hacking attempts; that cookie normally expires in about one hour. Displacement swelled from 303 Ci or 5 liters all the way to the gargantuan 455 Ci 7.5 liter V8 in the early 70s. The 76 lingered for one more model year and then was dropped entirely; the division wouldnt offer a six again until 1964. The 1955 model upped the compression to 8.5:1 for 185hp (138kW) and 320lbft (430Nm) in the 88 and 202hp (151kW) and 332lbft (450Nm) in the Super 88 and 98. During that period, Oldsmobile Motor Group draftsman Gilbert Burrell began working privately on concepts for new cars and new engines. It also used the .921in lifter bore size of the Toronado Rocket. More Oldsmobile Classics 44. The Oldsmobile 350s made from 1968-1976 have heavy castings, beefier crankshafts, and better flowing heads. Most components and accessories are interchangeable. Email: [email protected] Address: 7400 E Monte Cristo Ave . Even in markets where fuel is substantially more expensive than in the U.S., fuel efficiency is widely regarded in purely economic terms. Some things, like the Hydra-Matic, arent so bad, but trim pieces can be a major pain, and even the early Rocket engines can be challenging at this point. (Thats a lesson that many Jaguar and Porsche owners have learned the hard way.)[/quote]. Embedded video players for content hosted on the YouTube video platform (which is owned by Google LLC) may set these third-party cookies and/or use similar technologies to store data in your browser (or other user agent) for purposes such as (without limitation) managing video settings (e.g., tailoring the playback to your connection speed), storing video preferences, providing certain functionality (e.g., allowing you to pause a video at a particular point), showing you advertisements, associating your video viewing and other activity with your Google account (if any), ensuring proper functioning of the service, preventing abuse, and/or compiling user analytics data. This cars turn signals may be an aftermarket addition turn signals were originally a $15 option on this car. Google, Google Analytics, and other related marks and logos are trademarks of Google LLC.). 442 . From your research, do you have any information on Bouvy? Until well into the 1950s, most engines were undersquare, with a narrow cylinder bore and a long piston stroke. [2] [3] In 1929, Oldsmobile installed a 90 degree monobloc flathead V8 engine in the Viking companion brand before the monobloc was used in LaSalle and Cadillac vehicles from 1929-1931. Coincidentally, Cadillac had been working since 1936 on a very similar OHV engine to replace its familiar monoblock flathead V8. Im not a mechanic, so Im afraid I cannot provide any kind of repair advice. Shortly after the war, Ketterings engineers built an experimental 181 cu. Using the 5 liter Rover block and crankshaft, a maximum displacement of 317.8cuin (5,208cc) is theoretically possible.[14]. The wild rocket hood ornament was technically a $5 option. A very significant and, at this point, often misunderstood transmission that had a big influence on the character of the cars that used it.
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