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. Monday - Saturday: 9-5. As the diagram below illustrates, an L-head engine has its valves in the side(s) of the block. They may persist for up to two years. The Ford/Mercury flathead V8 was of course a popular choice up until the early part of the decade (and had been since its introduction in 1932) but the introduction of the new overhead valve V8s Cadillac and Oldsmobile in 1949 and Chrysler and Studebaker in 1951 were a game-changer for the performance crowd. 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. Flathead engines are easy and cheap to manufacture, but they leave a lot to be desired when it comes to performance. Around the end of that year, the project nearly ground to a halt due to objections from Cadillac. The new V8 was designed with plenty of extra room in the block for future displacement increases, but Gilbert Burrell and his team actually hoped that Oldsmobile could return to the 287 cu. 49 rocket 88 was my first car back in 1964. An engines static compression ratio is the ratio of the swept volume of each cylinder to the volume of the combustion chamber; the higher the ratio, the more the engine compresses its fuel mixture before combustion. For 1957, the basic 88 was officially named Golden Rocket 88, taken from Olds' 1956 Motorama two-passenger show car. Required fields are marked *. [[[Chevrolet Corvair#First generation (19601964)#{{{section}}}|contradictory]]]. It has gained popularity among young muscle car lovers. 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. 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. The company later introduced a new vehicle, the Oldsmobile Aurora, with a new generation V8. Powered by the rocket 2bbl. Even "modest" restorations can quickly get out of control, cost-wise, so be careful that a $2,000 bargain doesnt become a money pit. Unfortunately, they were also thirsty and a pain to tune, which was not at all what wartime buyers wanted, and after the war there was a gradually increasing array of cheaper alternatives. Revisions to the engine for 1986 included roller lifters with a slightly smaller camshaft (.435"/.438" lift and 194/210 duration at .050"), new heads with smaller, swirl-port intake runners, floating piston pins, and larger piston dishes for lower compression (8.0:1 v. 8.4:1). 442 . The Buick version was rated at 200hp with an 11:1 compression ratio. 1957 also offered the "J2" option, with three 2-barrel carburetors atop the 371 cubic inch V8; making this a true luxury performance . Just didnt have any power. The 260 was designed for economy, and was the first engine option above the 4.1 ChevroletI-6, then later the 3.8L Buick V6, which was standard fitment in many Oldsmobile models by the late 1970s. For sale 1967 Oldsmobile Delta 88 custom, 2 door hardtop. The 1967 and later versions of the Repco engine had proprietary engine blocks. The Rocket 88 model name was dropped after 1957. The 455 big block Olds V8 was replaced in 1977 with the 403cuin (6.6L) small block, which used a 4.351in (110.5mm) bore, the largest ever used in a small-block V8, with the Olds small-block standard deck and 3.385in (86.0mm) stroke. Nonetheless, both Oldsmobile and Cadillac deemed it a good compromise. 15 results per page. Bore was 3.75in (95mm) and stroke was 3.4375in (87.31mm). "Kelly", Jr. Baechtel, John. Power for the base engine was up to 315hp (235kW), even though compression was down a quarter point, to 9.75:1.[9]. 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. All the chrome is perfect interior all original all the glass is good.all the gauges work. [22] The 260 V8 received VIN code "F" and had a sales code of LV8. I never had one apart to that extent, but my understanding from the theory of operation is that there is a pivoting pawl that will engage a toothed wheel when the engine is stopped with reverse selected. Many were shared among other divisions, but each design was unique: GM later standardized on the later generations of the Chevrolet design: Northway sourced Oldsmobile Flathead V8 (1916-1923). Maybe. Whether you are looking for a Rocket 455, a 350, or maybe an Oldsmobile 403 engine for sale, we have the ideal replacements ready . Most of these engines were very similar, using the same bore centers and a 9.33in (237mm) deck height, raised on "big-block" versions to 10.625in (269.9mm). 26-31; Roger Huntington, 1965 Engines, Motor Trend Vol. The Super Eighty-Eight wasnt particularly rare when it was new Olds sold about 150,000 of them in 1951. Clarke (Cobham, England: Brooklands Books Ltd., ca. 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. (For more information about our discontinuation of Google Analytics tracking on this website, see the "Online Tracking" section of the Privacy Policy. 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. [21] It produced 110hp (82kW) net and 205lbft (278Nm). (Im not entirely sure why H-M did not, actually.). Base price for the Deluxe Club Sedan was $1,982 in 1950, and 16,388 were sold. 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. Deciding Burrells ideas had promise, Wolfram and Skinner organized a new advance design group to develop a new overhead-valve (OHV) V8 engine and assigned Burrell to lead it. Early Hydra-Matics had no Park position (although there was a parking pawl if you engaged reverse), and unlike later versions, theres no way to keep the transmission in third gear, which can be inconvenient. The engine built in the 1955 Super 88 and 98 models delivered 295 horsepower. iThemes is one of the Liquid Web family of brands; iThemes and Liquid Web are trademarks of Liquid Web, LLC.). Accessing certain posts or pages on this website may require you to enter a specific password. I have a 62 olds super 88. What I would recommend that I actually suggest for anyone considering a collector car is that you join a club for that marque in your area, if you havent already. Email or call Mark at 217/390-8500 with questions, or to inspect or test drive. 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). The short stroke allowed the engine to rev more freely while the wider bore provides more room for larger valves, which further improves breathing. It was the first mass-produced OHV V8, in 1949. Earlier 50s and(I believe)all 49s had the split windshield. Even still, the same design philosophy carried with it throughout its production run. However, my research has of necessity stretched back somewhat further than that and not just to the late 40s but, in tracing company histories, at least as far back as 1903 and the curved dash Oldsmobile. Cookies whose names begin with "optimizely" are associated with the Optimizely digital experience platform (which is subject to the Optimizely Privacy Policy; the "Privacy" section of the Optimizely Trust Center provides additional information about Optimizely privacy practices, including a link to the Data Processing Agreement that applies to personal data the Optimizely services process on customers' behalf that may be subject to certain regional privacy and/or data protection laws, while their "Cookies and localStorage in the Optimizely snippet" help page provides additional technical information about the cookies and/or similar technologies used by that platform). 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. Now 70 years old and giving a lot of thought to building me a 1950 Olds casket. Apart from the Oldsmobile Aurora, the Aurora V8 was also used in the Shelby Series 1. Engineers today are wrestling with questions very similar to those faced by their counterparts of 70 or even 90 years ago. 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. Concord, NC 5 years at carsforsale.com 3 27,900 1955 Oldsmobile Eighty-Eight - Concord, NC sedan automatic The output of the 307cuin (5.0L) wasn't particularly high in terms of horsepower. So this sedan was delivering big torque with a healthy dose of Streetside Classics - Atlanta (877) 828-8754 Lithia Springs, GA 30122 (406 miles away) 6 If the payment button is visible, it may set the third-party cookies PYPF (via paypalobjects.com, which is owned by PayPal, Inc.), which appears to check whether or not you are a logged-in PayPal user, possibly to facilitate the PayPal user login process, and/or 01A1 (via abmr.net, which is owned by Akamai Technologies), which stores certain technical information about your device and browser (or other user agent), possibly to facilitate the login and shopping cart functions. The idea of keeping the brand names on a model-specific basis is not illogical (although again its contrary to current brand management philosophy), but it would present all manner of practical problems, not least that it would invite the ire of people who had previously paid money for a sales franchise for that brand. The 1949-50 Rocket 88 was good for 15-16 miles to the gallon (15 L/100 km) overall and up to 18 mpg (13 L/100 km) if driven carefully; a 1964 Oldsmobile Starfire struggled to reach 12 mpg (20 L/100 km), a decline of around 30%. 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. The Oldsmobile 88 (marketed from 1989 on as the Eighty Eight) is a full-size car that was sold and produced by Oldsmobile from 1949 until 1999. Sunday - Closed. See these additional Auto Museum Online articles on the links below *. The first generation of Oldsmobile V8s ranged from 1949-1964. It is arguably the best engine Olds made in the muscle car era, although it never made it into a "muscle car". This was the only engine offered in 1923, when the Model 47 continued alone. Making its debut in 1957 as standard equipment on all Olds models,[4] the 371 was produced through 1960. Sending my 53 olds to Dallas for overhaul. A popular modification made to the 403 to increase power was to swap on early Oldsmobile 350 heads to boost compression. 1962 OLDSMOBILE 88 CORE SHORT BLOCK ENGING 8-394 860673. 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. 303CI ROCKET V8, 4SPD AUTO, COOL, ICONIC 50S STYLING, 4-DOOR CONVENIENCE, CLASSY. The Oldsmobile 350s made from 1968-1976 have heavy castings, beefier crankshafts, and better flowing heads. The Rocket would only get bigger, not smaller. [5], This engine was used in GMC heavy trucks as the "370" of 232 gross HP at 4200 RPM and torque 355 gross lbs-ft at 2600 RPM from 1957 to 1959.It had hardened valve seats and other features for heavy duty usage. The cookies are not set at all unless you select that option when submitting a comment.