305 vs 350

[Blue Ox]

Yep you're right. That gasoline crisis is for sure what motivated the diesel sales. GM did a hurry up and jumped the gun on that too with the 350 Olds diesel. Took a gas engine and made diesel heads for it, using the same block mold while increasing the main journals size is all they did. Not enough head bolts for the higher compression was the biggest failure and problem they had with that 5.7 Diesel was well as a few others with glow plug circuit boards and fuel pump issues.

As with your dad, back then it was the foreign cars that had it going on with the diesels. VW being one of the best, like the Rabbit with a real true diesel engine that ran flawlessly, very reliable and dependable, great mpg and maintained properly, getting 500,000 miles out of one wasn't unheard of and those were the days of when a car had 100,000 on it, it was pretty much ready for the scrap pile. I know a guy who had a VW Rabbit Truck. It was a Rabbit but had a bed on it behind the front seats. He did get over 500,000 out of his. He had that thing for years and years and drove the living hell out of it.

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What is really sad was that had they not rushed it to market they would have had an okay product. By the time they had the bugs worked out in the early '80s the reputation was already trashed. That plus the dropping price of gas was the nail in the coffin for them. But we had customers who loved them. The V-6s were solid too. Good drivers and the mileage was excellent.

It's really a shame that the European example didn't set the overall tone. We wouldn't have half the problems we do in the world if automotive diesel would have caught on here. It could have meant a 30% reduction in our oil consumption for private cars without gov't mandates and featherweighting cars with the compromises on safety.

 

[HotRodPC]

I forgot all about the V6 Diesels. Most aren't even aware of their existance but they sure did. Not near as common as the 5.7 though so yep, the reputation was put to **** pretty damn quick and consumers lost all confidence. I'd sure like to have one of those Olds 5.7 DX blocks now. They make a hell of a bottom end for a gas engine. A bit stronger head bolts, larger crank journals and you can put some good abuse to them. IIRC, Mondello's even makes a stroker crank for that block and you can get way up in the 400's for cubes out of an Olds 350 block.

 

[HotRodPC]

I just found it, yes Mondello's would has a stroker kit for the Olds 350D and DX blocks to make the 350 into a 440 cubes engine and easily with mild parts made 600hp.

 

[4WDKC]

I just found it, yes Mondello's would has a stroker kit for the Olds 350D and DX blocks to make the 350 into a 440 cubes engine and easily with mild parts made 600hp.

I had heard they could do 500 ci with those blocks but dont see that on their site.

Perodically I still pass one of those old MB diesels, been awhile since I saw the guy driving the diesel rabbit truck on my way home from work.

 

[Blue Ox]

V8-TV has a series on somebody building one. The whole car is a pretty nice project.

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I know there's a stroker crank for the 455. Don't know about getting 500 inches out of the diesel block though.

 

[4WDKC]

V8-TV has a series on somebody building one. The whole car is a pretty nice project.

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I know there's a stroker crank for the 455. Don't know about getting 500 inches out of the diesel block though.

Id like to see someone make it like 400ci and throw boost at it see how much one of those blocks can take.

 

[HotRodPC]

See, here's the beauty in Olds engines. You could even put big block cranks in small blocks and vice versa. You could even run small block heads on big blocks and vice versa, though BB heads on a SB, unless you had some big pop up pistons, it hurt compression badly. The difference in an Olds small block and big block is pretty much nothing more than big blocks are a tall deck small blocks. Intakes were about the only thing that didn't interchange. Even the exhaust manifolds would interchange.

 

[Blue Ox]

You do have to kind of think of them as a stroked small block. Maybe that's why their torque numbers tend to be so impressive.