Ate Up With Motor, its logo, and other associated icons and graphics are trademarks and/or service marks of Aaron Severson dba Ate Up With Motor. Many modern engines deal with this problem by placing the camshaft in the cylinder head along with the valves (an overhead cam (OHC) engine), but there still has to be some way for the crank to drive the camshaft. 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%. Flory, J. Red Hat is a trademark of Red Hat, Inc., registered in the United States and other countries. The early Rocket V8 weighs a bit over 700 pounds (318 kg) and had an SAE gross rating of 135 hp (101 kW). A long piston stroke gives more torque, which means better engine response at low speeds. The LG8 was a modern 307cuin (5.0L) High-Output derivative of the LV2 produced from 1983 to 1987. 9 (September 1964), reprinted in Oldsmobile Muscle Portfolio 1964-1971, ed. The following are turn key engines available . Now 70 years old and giving a lot of thought to building me a 1950 Olds casket. Output was 185hp (138kW) and 320lbft (430Nm). The Rocket 88 would vacuum the chrome off V8 Fords (unless the Fords owner had made a substantial investment in aftermarket parts) and it took a semi-exotic like the new Jaguar XK-120 to soundly beat the Olds. Home / Cars for Sale / Oldsmobile / . The original Oldsmobile Rocket V8 soldiered on until 1964, eventually reaching 394 cu. The shape of a flatheads combustion chambers also limits its maximum compression ratio (the amount the fuel mixture is compressed before burning). 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. ), If one was trying to tally how many Rocket engines were built in Olds cars in 1949-50, do you have those numbers? This motor is blue which makes me think its been gone through. 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. Although Oldsmobile (as well as Buick and Pontiac) had used eight-cylinder engines for more than a decade, Cadillac was not happy about the idea of Oldsmobile offering an OHV V8 and convinced corporate management to deny Oldsmobiles request for development funds. Your email address will not be published. 10-17, 56; Richard M. Langworth, 1954 Packard Pacific: Last of the Great Straight Eights, Special Interest Autos #51 (May-June 1979), reprinted in The Hemmings Book of Postwar American Independents: driveReports from Special Interest Autos Magazine, ed. . [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. The Generation II V8 ended production in 1990. The grilles under the headlights of this 1950 Oldsmobile Rocket 88 are for the ventilation system, replacing the traditional pop-up cowl vent. Nonetheless, both Oldsmobile and Cadillac deemed it a good compromise. 1985), pp. As an aside, the Oldsmobile was bought by doctors, lawyers, bank managers, shop owners, construction entrepreneurs and the like. Completely restored it, all original. iThemes is one of the Liquid Web family of brands; iThemes and Liquid Web are trademarks of Liquid Web, LLC.). Put the petal to the metal and go man go! All other trademarks and/or service marks are the property of their respective owners. (These cookies are not usually set for administrative users, since comments they submit while logged in are associated with their user ID number and user profile information rather than a manually entered name and email address.). 442 . Displacement swelled from 303 Ci or 5 liters all the way to the gargantuan 455 Ci 7.5 liter V8 in the early 70s. Richard A. Lentinello (Bennington, VT: Hemmings Motor News, 2002), pp. For sale 1967 Oldsmobile Delta 88 custom, 2 door hardtop. Note the quadrant for the Hydra-Matic atop the steering column. 1962 OLDSMOBILE 88 CORE SHORT BLOCK ENGING 8-394 860673. (For more information about our discontinuation of Google Analytics tracking on this website, see the "Online Tracking" section of the Privacy Policy. Many believe it was deliberately underrated to avoid offending Cadillac, which was concerned about its sister division outmatching the new Cadillac V8. But I can block the blow by coming off the back of the block and it runs great. Fabulous article. The main qualities that make an engine attractive to hot-rodders are how much it costs, how easily it can be hopped up, and how much power you can get out of it without blowing it up. 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. (Thats a lesson that many Jaguar and Porsche owners have learned the hard way.). 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. It has gained popularity among young muscle car lovers. This is a session cookie that verifies that the user has entered valid user credentials pending receipt of the correct authentication code; the cookie normally expires when the user closes their browser (or other user agent). 1949 Oldsmobile Rocket 88 The Oldsmobile 88 was introduced in 1949 as a replacement for the 70 series. However, the cookie may remain on your device for as long as the settings of your browser (or other user agent) permit. The engine was designed by Charles L. McCuen, who later had a hand in approving the Rocket engine for production. (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). The Oldsmobile Rocket 88 has a current value close to $96,250 at some auctions. Would you be willing to share which source cites fuel mileage figures? In the event we receive any compensation and/or other valuable consideration for any other content presented on this website, the nature of that compensation or consideration will be disclosed as part of the applicable content and/or otherwise adjacent to it. Im currently writing a book on Yankee iron of the 1955-1973 period (the true golden age of the American Car in the modern era.) Clarke (Cobham, England: Brooklands Books Ltd., ca. You make a good point about the L-head lifter. 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. 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. 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. 8-9; Arch Brown, Similar But Different: 1949 Cadillac vs. 1949 Oldsmobile 98, Special Interest Autos #149 (September-October 1995), reprinted in The Hemmings Book of Oldsmobiles: driveReports from Special Interest Autos magazine, eds. Until 1951, Oldsmobile offered a choice of fastback and notchback body styles, as well as the convertible. Prior to the advent of the 1949 Cadillac and Olds engines, many (though by no means all) U.S. engines were L-head, or side-valve, design. (Google, DoubleClick, YouTube, and other related marks and logos are trademarks of Google LLC. The bore was so wide that the cylinder walls were siamesed, as in the Chevrolet 400 V8, with no space for coolant to flow between the cylinders. If you correctly enter the password, the site saves this cookie on your device to allow you access to the password-protected post or page. The same year, an Olds 88 won the grueling 2000-mile-plus Carrera Panamericana road race in Mexico. Concord, NC 5 years at carsforsale.com 3 27,900 1955 Oldsmobile Eighty-Eight - Concord, NC sedan automatic 4 speed hydromantic transmission. Base price for the Deluxe Club Sedan was $1,982 in 1950, and 16,388 were sold. The Nash was driven by Roy Graham a wrestling referee at Dallas Sportatorium who also had the Nash dealership in Corsicana TX. A few years later, the Chevrolet engine started taking over the flathead Fords role as the cheap-and-easy hot-rodder choice. Logging in sets the wordpress_logged_in_xx, wordpress_sec_xx, and/or wordpress_xx cookies, which store the user's login credentials to allow access to the administrative dashboard and other administrative functions; there may be multiple iterations of each cookie. This car has the pushbutton radio, which cost about $96. in. Email or call Mark at 217/390-8500 with questions, or to inspect or test drive. 303 Oldsmobile V8 parts in-stock with same-day shipping. 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. Anyway, thanks for making my visit here an enjoyable one. When it comes to Oldsmobiles from 1957, the hardtop was the second-most-popular body style, with 49,187 units produced. 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. Get the best deals on Complete Engines for Oldsmobile 88 when you shop the largest online selection at eBay.com. He saw the potential in an engine design offering increased compression. (author diagram). "Kelly", Jr. Baechtel, John. The other Nash driver was Robert Owen, the Dad of my best friend, also from Corsicana and my neighbor on S. 16th ST. Been an Olds man a long time. ), These third-party cookies may be set in connection with embedded video players for content hosted on the Vimeo video platform, for purposes such as (without limitation) managing video settings, storing video preferences, providing certain functionality (e.g., allowing you to pause a video at a particular point), associating your video viewing and other activity with your Vimeo account (if you have one), showing you advertising, ensuring proper functioning of the service, preventing abuse, and/or compiling user analytics data. 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