Sgt Art

Sounds like the ECU was salvaged by the junkyard or some other party. It is worth pulling if it's still good like a radio or starter etc.

About the only thing I can think of, is the carburator, distributor and transmission. On the carb, there are two connectors one on the left side that's for the throttle position sensor and the other is on the right side for the fuel mixture. The distributor's advance on the ECU type won't have a vacuum advance, the ECU does that electronically. If your car has these items, then there's an ECU in it somewhere. Best thing to do is spend $15 and buy a Haynes or Chilton book for it at most auto parts supermarkets.

Rocket, would it be easier to drop in a later production Olds Engine/Trans combo instead? Like a 455 and TH350?

The Japs are tough to beat on top end due to their high revving engines. They are well made and balanced, especially the Lexus if you're serious about going after them. I've seen Jap engine blocks with over 150,000 on them with little or no cylinder wear. Off the line, and American big block is strong, but on the highways, you've got a lot going against you. The Lexus has great suspension (something which - hey I'm sorry guys - 60's thru 80's land yachts simply don't have), good gear ratios and sophisticated engines caple of maintaining high RPM. In short, they are well engineered (most of which they "borrowed" from M-B and BMW). I hate it, but the rice rockets are tough; look what Honda did to Formula 1 racing.

I found this on Olds FAQS, it's good site with a ton of info. Here's the conversion info http://www.442.com/oldsfaq/ofign.htm#IGN%20PointsHEIIgnitionConversion BTW, are you getting a full 12 volts to the distributor? Don't use the resistance wire for points type distributor. Tuning -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Advance Curve / Recurving Introduction: You have an "initial" timing setting for idle and as the RPM's go up, the weights inside the distributor overcome the force of the springs preventing the weights from moving, due to centrifugal force. As these weights extent outward the timing advances, until they hit their stops. This is called mechanical advance. Between your initial and total mechanical settings, you have the advance curve or specific amount of timing at a certain RPM. If you plotted this on a graph it would look like a curve that starts adding just a little advance at first and more towards the total end. Vacuum advance can add a bit more timing advance over this curve. You need an adjustable timing light to really play with it, or a degreed balancer so you can watch the curve happen as you raise the rpm. By swapping in lighter or heavier wieghts and stronger and weaker springs, you can manipulate this curve in several different ways, but it is sort of a black art, and takes a bit of talent to get the most out of it. The recurve is easy enough to do yourself, but a lot of trial and error is involved. You need a graduated timing light as mentioned (or timing Tape). I used the Moroso kit which is cheap and has lighter weights and two weights of spring. With your stock springs that makes three different weights of spring. You can calculate all the combinations and permatations. After a lot of messing around with varying combos, I ended up using both stock weights and a light spring on one side and the stock one on the other side. I also used a bushing that came with the kit to limit the amount of vacuum advance. Ended up with 34° total timing, all in by 2500 RPM. this is on a 69 350/350 with Edelbrock Total Power pkg. (heads excepted). I was originally after 36 deg at 2500 RPM and the car ran like a raped ape at mid to high RPM, but I couldn't get rid of a real rough idle and it would baff out starting off at light throttle. set it back to 34 deg. and it runs a lot smoother but I think I lost some performance. It takes a lot of patience (or luck), to get the curve where your car wants it. If you plot the amount of centrifugal advance vs. rpm, you get a "curve" that is usually linear up to a maximum amount of advance. Different springs will adjust how soon that curve begins from the initial advance, as well as how long it takes to get to maximum advance. You can also include the vacuum advance in that curve, but because that advance is proportionate to engine vacuum, it's extremely variable, and usually not counted in what's referred to as the distributor "curve". Recurving or setting the advance curve involves springs, and in extreme situations, new weights (either heavier or lighter) and limits or extensions to the slots or pins that regulate maximum advance. Springs and weights are included in a recurve kit. You can do it by machine, where you match the amount of advance at certain rpms to some ideal curve. Or, you can do it yourself in about an hour's worth of testing, and create a custom curve that's ideal for your particular engine. There are many advance kits out there; I was happy with the Crane adjustable vacuum advance kit, which cost me $22. The existing distributor curve may be ideal for your engine, or it may not. Usually, you want to have as much advance as you can, before detonation (spark knock) sets in. You want to find out how much total advance you can run, and try to get that much advance in there as soon as possible. The exact numbers are not all that important, which is why curving a distributor on a machine may or may not improve your car's performance, since the ideal curve that the distributor is set to on that may not be the ideal curve for your car. It's not just the cam that affects the ideal curve, but also gearing, transmission, engine condition and other modifications, jetting, fuel quality, driving style, atmospheric conditions, etc. I'd recommend something like the Crane kit; follow its instructions, and you'll likely be happier with how the engine runs afterwards. The various combinations of springs and wieghts available will determine the speed and rate of change of the mechanical advance. This is not a linear change (ie, a straight line if you graph it rpm by advance) but has a more rapid rate of change at either the lower or upper part of the RPM band. This is your curve. What is important is not to set the curve to exact specs but to what the engine wants. Because of this, you will eventually have to play with it on the car to get it exact. Variations in your combination (carb, cam, CR, ignition, etc) will make the optimal curve different for just about every engine. One curve may work from one engine to the next but still not be optimal. The adjustable vacuum advance comes after the distributor curve for fuel economy and drivability reasons. All you really need to curve a distributor is a fundamental understanding of how the advance operates, an adjustible timing light, an accurate tach, a curve kit with various springs and wieghts, and lots of patience. Most of the good curve kits come with instructions which will set you in the right direction. As long as you don't enter the detonation range just getting the curve close should be enough, since driving around town you really won't notice a difference of a few degrees here or there. If you were seriously drag racing however, you might find a few tenths. Hope this helps and wasn't too confusing. A friend has a Sun distributor machine he picked up at an auction. Dates from the 1950s but everything works and it has all the documentation. It is quite a thing to see. It has a vacuum pump for the vac advance it drives the distributor with an electric motor. It has all sorts of dials to measure different parameters as it spins the distributor. I can tell you from watching it that you wouldn't want one of those advance weights to ever come loose at speed... it would be quite a violent collision with whatever it hit. A distributor really spins a lot! He did mine last year. With a service manual for the specs you want it actually is pretty straightforward to check. With the machine you can see how the different weights will affect how much advance kicks in at a given RPM. Similarly with the vac advance. Also you can see how any variance or wobble in the bushings affects advance or dwell. Neat. I wonder how many of these machines are still in shops? Race engines don't need vacuum advance, because they're never at part-throttle anyway. Any street engine spends more time at part-throttle than WOT, and can always benefit from having vacuum advance. Magazines like Hot Rod test engines at WOT (Wide Open Throttle) on a dyno, where vacuum advance plays no role, so they leave it off the engines. Then they tell you that you need 36 deg, or 32 deg, or whatever, of mechanical advance. They totally fail to inform you that your engine will run better on the street with additional vacuum advance over and beyond that 36° or whatever. [ Thanks to Mick Gillespie, Robert Barry, Mike Bloomer, Greg Beaulieu, others below for this information. ] Factory Setup and Information: Delco produces a specification book called the "1.2" manual. The good news is that all distributor advance curves are listed. The bad news is that they are listed by distributor part number. You cannot just look up the curve for a "70 Toro". Fortunately the number is stamped into the distributor housing. The centrifugal mechanism is subject to wear, which alters the curve. This is common on all distributors. The weights will cut into the pivot pins, sometimes shearing them off! The proper fix is to buy a new distributor mainshaft from GM. The last one I got was $60, had a "performance" curve built in, and fit a Che*y. Incidentally, that mainshaft "fixed" a number of "carburation" problems! There are repair kits to salvage the worn pins in the original mainshaft, they are a pain in the tuckus if you don't have a torch to heat the weights cherry red before trying to drill the pivot holes oversize. HEI's are especially bad for having worn centrifugal mechanisms because there was no need to remove the cap and rotor to replace points. No mechanic on commission is going to rip off the cap and rotor to lube the advance mechanism out of the goodness of his heart. Point style distributors needed the cap pulled off to replace the ponts, and so sometimes the advance was lubed at the same time. The distributor bushings especially on points style distributors also wear, altering the timing in erratic ways. Virtually all distributors from GM have WAYYYYYY too much end play, and should be shimmed so that end play is around .008-.015. This prevents dynamic timing changes due to the distributor gear jumping up and down on the cam gear. Since they are helical gears, vertical movement of the distributor gear causes the shaft to rotate, changing the timing.

Here's a good link for that sort of thing. I too, had only heard Fully driven, seated, not stripped but somewhere had a list of that little detail. It's kind of silly as I've never seen anyone using a torque wrench for small stuff like that. On transmissions, I've seen the little pounds-inch wrenches used but I only have a 1/2 drive torque wrench that would be ridiculous trying to torque a bolt to 7 lbs. http://www.442.com/tech/torque.html

Very little as in 7 lb ft. I use a 1/4" drive "T" type socket drive and snug until tight. These little bolts should not be over tightened as it will warp the sealing surfaces of the rocker arm cover.

There's nothing like breaking off a bleeder valve screw on one of your calipers to make your day. If those things haven't been opened in a long time - I'm betting they haven't - and your a bit ham fisted, you can wring them off. Then it's a trip to the machine shop. Spray them first with PB Blaster or other good penetrating fluid and let it set a couple days. Then gently see if you can turn one using a line or box wrench. Go easy. If you round it out some while opening it, take it all the way out and get new ones. They're pretty cheap.

Seems like we answered this one. You need to go to Auto Zone or Advance or which ever major car parts store is nearby and get a Chilton's or Haynes book for your car. It should be easy to find and it's well worth the $15 or so it costs. There is no way I would attempt to explain bleeding brakes on this site. Pictures really help here. It's also best to have someone help who knows how. It's really a two man job if you're doing it in the driveway.

A tip. My son's 87 Trans Am was losing coolant at too high a rate. I did the standard checks for leaks by couldn't find anything. I checked and checked. Then I noticed a slight dribble where the radiator core attached to side tank (Plastic). Everytime you revved the engine a bit, the pressure would push the tank just a little bit away from the core and a trickle of coolant would appear and run down the side of the tank. Do this a couple days and you've lost a quart or two. It was very subtle and I almost missed it. Pulled the radiator and took it to a shop they fixed it and it's been ok. Okay, this can happen with brass and copper too, I guess, but that plastic has always bothered me. I too am surprised that the guy got warranty to cover a 1998 model car. I think the base warranty on those cars is 36/36. Perhaps GM has a campaign on this problem. If you ask the service manager for assistance or maybe go to the zone manager for help they will fix the problem. They were willing to split repainting on of my cars that was 6 years old when the clear coat started peeling off. Another fine piece of work.

Yes, there is a bearing that supports the axel near the wheel as well as the other end of the axel where is goes into the differential. Both are roller types. There are basically two types of bearings, good ones and bad ones. I recently replaced all of the bearings in the rear axel and diff in my 85 LeSabre. Two of the bearings were really pitted and were putting up quite a howl. Once these repairs were made, the car road much quieter and with considerably less vibration. While the guy is in there, have him check all the bearings, if suspect, replace them and be done with it. It will cost a bit more now, but better than having to open it up again. If one of those axel bearings gives up the ghost, you may need a new axel too. Good luck.

Average offers?

Sounds like the choke pull off is kaput. It's a small vacuum diaphram that's mounted on the front upper right side of the carb. Check it by applying vacuum (suck on the sucker) and see if it moves the linkage any. If not, replace it. It's a cheap part easy to get at any parts store. You'll see a short rubber vacuum line from it to the front of the carb (about an inch long) that's the vacuum source. I think it's held on with two screws. The pull off allows you to have the choke closed while the engine is cold and will crack the choke open when you start to accellerate and not bog the engine down. It's a common problem. Before I rebuilt a 305 Chevy, I'd scour the junk yards for a running 350 Chevy. Then build it up depending on what you want to do. If you want a balls out (that's not a vulgar term it refers to the brass weights used on old time governors for steam engines that worked with centrifugal force) then do as I said earlier. Find a receipe in Hot Rod, or Car Craft or whatever and follow it to the letter. Assemble your parts (it ain't cheap basic small block Chev rebuild kit is going to be over $500) have your block machined (if you need to have it bored, the machinist needs your new pistons .030 to .040 is standard) have the big end of the rods reconned etc. All this can lead upwards of $1,000 PDQ. More on an Olds, Chevy will be the cheapest. Another option is to buy a crate long block from a Chev dealer. Depending on which one you want, it's going to be anywhere from $1,200 to $3,000. No free ride I'm afraid. I just spent over $600 for a set of Olds big block heads (cost plus machining). The cheapest way is to buy a running engine from a reputable (as in refund or replace is the engine is junk) salvage yard. I've seen them going for about $600. THe risk here is, you don't know for sure what your getting. The 455 Olds I bought was represented as running. I guess it was if you consider it could run on 7 cylinders. It had a broken push rod due to a failed lifter on no. 8 cylinder. So, if you go that route, buy a gasket kit and tear down and inspect. It would be advisable while doing that, replace the cam, lifters, timing chain and sprockets,rod&main bearings and oil pump. That won't cost too much - it's a poor man's rebuild. Remember, cleaniness is next Penske-ness. Clean the crud out of it. What I'm saying is there is no cheap easy way to get HP

Is this a 305 Chevy engine in your car? For some reason I was thinking you had a 307 Olds which is a totally different animal. As I'm sure your aware, GM made engines in each division with the same Cubic Inches but are all different. Example a 350 Chevy and a 350 Olds are not at all alike. If you're dealing with a Chevy, yes, there are more performance parts available than with small Olds. The biggest problem with 305 Chevies are the heads. They're pretty restrictive. Cylinder heads are where the HP is made and the best thing to do here would be replacing the ones you've got. That's a big job, but you'll see some differences for sure. I've read many articles about that in Hot Rod and other magazines, just can't think of any casting numbers. Dual exhausts are a good idea, but will only really work in conjunction with better flowing heads and a cam that will compliment them. See where we're going here? Basically, with that engine, you're looking at a rebuild to see any real HP gains. A small block Chevy is the mouse that roared and has great potential with almost unlimited parts availability. Get some hot rod type mags to read up and find one that would work for you. Follow the "receipe" as they lay it out. The biggest mistake guys make when hot rodding, is they just start throwing a bunch of performance parts together without knowing how they will work. Wrong cam, or carb combo gives rotten performance.

Dizzy? I'm guessing you mean distributor, I've just never heard it called that. It's the standard GM HEI distributor and if in proper working order, will provide adequate ignition for your 305 engine. Gapping the plugs out further than what than mfgr specs will probably cause pinging and will not give any gain in power. The Quadrajet is a good carb if it is in proper working condition. However, if it's worn out, it's probably time for a rebuild. You could try this yourself, but if you've never taken one apart and done this, I don't recommend it unless you have a replacement. Is your carb computer controlled? Are there two wired connectors attaching to it? One connector is the throttle position sensor and the other controls the mixture rod also known as the dancing stick. When you turn the key to the "on" position, you should hear a constant ticking, that's the stick dancing. Back to the distributor. Does it use a vacuum type advance, or is there a four wire connector going to it? If the carb and dist both have wire connectors, then your fuel mix and advance are both computer controlled, I'm betting they are. The chips....ah I've tried them and never felt all that HP I was supposed to get. In the end, I decided to go back to a vacuum advance distributor with a regular four barrel carb. I live in a state that so far does not inspect emissions. If they decide to, I'm screwed. There's not a lot you can do with that 305. You'll find in the long run, it's cheaper to swap out to a 350 or 403 Olds engine if you want more power.

Read the back of the coolant jug and mix according to where you live. Generally, 50/50 will get the job done in most of the U.S.. That raises the boiling point to 270 deg F and freezing to 10 below zero (I think).

I don't really know for sure as the Torker is a single plane manifold designed for high performance. Depending on what cam your using, you probably get a fairly lumpy idle. This is fine if you want to drag race or if it doesn't bother you. I have an 85 LeSabre 2 door that looks pretty much like a grocery getter which is what I wanted. I didn't want a "whuump-whuump" idle which attracts every cop in the neighborhood. My son put Flow Masters on the Trans Am and my buddy, Chief of Police in our little town noticed it. Yeah, I warned him. Anyway, I was interested in decent performance but a stock appearance sound-wise. Also, as I'm sure you know, the cast iron manifold on that 455 weighs more than the Titanic's anchor. The aluminum manifold knocks about half the weight off. All things in life a compromises and high performance and streetability usually are at odds with one another. All things being equal, I'm going to say the Torker will probably give you better off the line accelleration than the Performer. Just my opinion, I could be wrong.

Yep. I work as an accountant specializing in car dealerships and have been doing it for over 15 years, prior to that I worked for Hertz (see a pattern there?). I like hanging out in the service department and talking with the techs. I've picked up a lot of knowledge from those guys. One thing I have seen is there is almost as much (maybe even more) bravo sierra in the field of cars as there is in firearms and both can get you "kilt-off" in a hurry. I think it's referred to as the bogusity factor. Thanks for the info.

I have Edlebrock performer manifold and carb on my 455. I really like the way it works. The carb is a square bore which means all four bbls are the same diameter. It's based on the old Carter AFB's I think. If you use the Edlebrock Performer Manifold and the square bore carb, you will need Edlebrock's adapter plate (I can't think of the part number but it only costs about $5) because the manifold is designed for the spread bore which has small primaries and monster secondaries, which by the way are seldom used in daily driving. If you don't get the adapter, you'll have a vacuum leak, rotten idle etc. I used two gaskets (which were pretty thin) one between the manifold and adapter plate and the other between the plate and the bottom of the carb. I have a really smooth idle with nice accelleration and good top end. I can do one wheel burn outs (no posi) until I turn the drive shaft into something that looks like a dish rag. Some people don't like the square bore carbs. I've fooled with Holley's, Quads and Edlebrocks Quad and nothing was as simple as the the set up I've just told you about. The carb is a 650 cfm which works just fine on the big old 455. That surprised me, I thought I would need at least a 750, but some research and a knowledgible friend said otherwise. They were right. This car is a daily ride doing 100 miles a day with no problems. My carb came with elect choke and it worked just fine. You may have to go to and aftermarket air cleaner for clearance. I had to shorten my throttle linkage a bit to make be able to get the throttle plates to open fully. I did this by cutting off the swedged connector and using (of all things) a steel wire connector that I swedged on the throttle cable. Works fine. BTW, You can get a replacement cable off a wreck for your car and have it done professionally at where ever that kind of thing is done rather than do what I did. The square bore has little in the way of emmissions hook ups. There's a PCV port, and two others one for ported vacuum and one for timed vacuum (this is for the distributor and one in the back for your power brake booster. It's a pretty easy swap.

I may be wrong, and if I am someone jump in here, but it's a pretty simple swap. Your 350 Olds engine uses the same size distributor as HEI used in the 307, 350, 403, 455 engines. It's a drop in swap. You don't even have to pull the intake manifold. Find a HEI distributor at the salvage yard for one of the above engines and drop it in. Ok, I've assumed you've pulled a distributor and put it back in and can re-establish timing. If not, you may want to read up on that, it's not too lengthy or hard to do or get someone to help you who knows what to do. It's a good way to learn about setting timing. On an HEI distributor, all you need is a full 12 volts that is ignition controlled, by that I mean is hot when the key is on, and no power when the key is off. This connects to the distributor where it is stamped "BATT". The other connector is for the tachometer and is labled "TACH" you don't need that unless you are running a tachometer (which tells you how tacky the engine is - just kidding) or want to set idle speed etc with an external tachometer. I would buy the connector from the junk yard too, then all you have to do is splice the 12 volt wire to it. You can use your other equipment you asked about. The replacement HEI (OEM) shouldn't interfere with your air cleaner. The coil sits on top of the distributor so you can remove the old points type coil. Get the vacuuum advance type of HEI, it's easier to work with otherwise you need a computer. Also, you may have to recurve the centrifugal advance in the new distributor to suit your engine. No biggy, might just need two new springs or some weights. That's something best left to a person who knows how, but not expensive or too hard to do. Also, you'll probably need to get spark plugs that are designed for a 350 engine with HEI. Just check the parts number for whatever brand you use now against what a 1975 or newer 350 calls for. You will also be gapping your plugs considerably more with the greater spark of HEI. I think mine are set at .065 if mememory serves.

Is the 7.60 = 7.6 inches which is roughly equal to 190mm?

I knew rear wheel drive are front/rear, trust me, I've worked on brakes many times. However, I didn't know about the diagonal on FWD. All my cars are RWD the newest being a 1993 Lincoln. Thanks for that info.

Yes, it tells you when there is air in the system. That would indicate there is air in your brake system probably in the rear wheel lines. Your car has a dual master cylinder which means the front brake plumbing and rear wheel brake plumbing are separate from one another. This allows a leak in one without effecting the other. Based on the spongey brake pedal feel,you probably got some air in the system when you changed the rear axel. Bleed the brake system to get all air bubbles out. Air is compressible, fluid is not. Probably should have all new fluid added in case any moisture got in there too.

I replaced a 307 Olds with a 200 Metric in my 1985 LeSabre with that combo. The engine is a drop in. All wiring and mounts were perfect. I don't recall any problems. I did upgrade my radiator to a 3 core Modine due to the engine being a 100 CI more. The trans just required the crossmember to be moved slightly even the drive shaft was a perfect fit. I had some problems with a TV cable, as I recall, but this was because I was piecing the car together. I think your combo would fit into a Cutlass without much trouble.

How hard would it be to replace it with a TH350 or someother more reliable tranny? I've heard the Slim Jims were really dogs. Even back when I was a teenager we heard they were bad news.