So, Its not a w30, and I am starting to think its not even a 442, that rocket 350 was probabley the orginal motor in it. The 68 442's were a 400. I could have spray painted red fenders in mine and called them w30's.... The car looks like a cutlass with 442 emblems on it.

Im not trying to be a dick, 442's are probabley my favorite all time car. I just dont think its a w30 and am starting to wounder if its even a 442

I am almost positive its a Cutlass S , which came with a 350 from the factory

And this is off the 442 historian website:
1969 442- "disc brakes now had updated single-piston calipers" so if you had drums then its probably not a 442

 

FWIW, I took some flack for my 72 442 LS conversion.
But when I got my car, all I could confirm was a U 455 code. It had been changed from an auto to 4 speed, had a chevelle rear end, no motor, most of the body panels replaced, etc. So who knows...but I'm enjoying the car more than if it had the 455.

 

Well, the inner fenders are not painted on a true W-30 car...they are red through and through. Those inner fenders would be gold to a collector. It's more likely somebody changed the engine than the inner fenders. The hood is Hurst Olds only. In 1969, the hood was functional on the Hurst Olds and the air cleaner had a flapper valve in the lid...very similar to the !970 ram air cars.

I have never seen a W car that wasn't disc brakes. But I sure changed a lot to drum brakes on our race cars. Everyone did. So even that isn't a good indicator. The only way we will know is to decode the VIN. But if it isn't a W-30 car, man...save those inner fenders!! I'm almost positive now that the Hurst Olds did not come with red inner fenders. They all started live as a white, base 442. I'm very interested to find out the history of this car.

 

Th car came with a factory 400 before I got it. The guy who sold it to me would not let me have it. The fenders were spray painted black not painted red-learn to read.

I don't really care if you don't think it's a 442, I'm not trying to sell it to you-or anyone. This thread is covering my build, not discussing the history of the car.

 

You are the one who brought up the w30 option not me, might want to trash the rice spolier then if its not a w30. glwb

 

I'm sorry I brought up the inner fenders Jet. I don't know why this guy is hating on you like this. I think it's very likely you have an original W-30 car.

 

Yeah....I find it hard to believe ANYONE would put a wing on an Olds that didn't come with one
That makes about as much sense as putting an LSx in a car that didn't have one.

 

Really? You do know then that those inner fenders are molded red plastic then right?

To the OP, nice looking car, I have a buddy with a '69 convert that's almost the same color, but he's got a 427 chevy in it, I keep telling him......

 

just so ya know, there are a few ppl who will hate your car no matter what, can't please everyone. Hell I had the same problem, a lot of guys would rather have some slicks or radials, but in the summer time, i raise my baby (71 mc) and put on a set of 24's. They really hate that, winter time i take them off even though i don't drive it much if at all. Good luck with the build, i love this year cutlass and i'll be following for sure.

 

Got a nice 50 degree day last saturday in Chicago-middle of January. So I got it outside and started it up. I was able to bleed the cooling system and power steering, and check the brakes. Had a few leaks(fuel by the rear tire from a cheap secondary filter).

One thing I noticed was the revs don't fall normally, they seem delayed. I'll have to check all the sensors once I get my reader hooked up.

I was also able to get the C6 Z06 wheels mounted with the new adapters from USWheelAdapters. They are both wheel and hubcentric and come with 10.9 grade hardware all around. I plan on dropping the rear about 1-2 inches.

 

Looks Great!

 

Looks great! So who cares if it is original or not, I get the same comments. I built my car for my enjoyment, not some one else. As I see it our cars are an evolution of the way GM would have built the car today. At least I like to think so.

 

Looks great. Now get out and drive it. Looks like another day or 2 before the wrather changes.

 

I had it towed to the alignment shop this week. They were able to get .5* camber, and the 1/16 toe, but ran out of adjustment and could only get 2.7 of the 5.5* desired caster. Mark at SC&C said he had longer pieces that could help me get there...maybe after I get it running real good I can swap them out.


EDIT: Okay, so Mark sent me longer rear arms. I take it back to the same place like, two years later, same dude does my alignment. He tells me the exact same story about running out of adjustment. I'm surprised by this, so I press him for details. After about 5 minutes of questioning he tells me he doesn't know and "doesn't have time for this." Great.

Fast forward to 2017, I buy the Fastrax Camber/Caster Tool, have to put the original arms back on and 45 minutes later I have my alignment. done and done.

 

Such a nice car!

 

Havnt updated in a while. heres alist of issues I've run into and solved-ish.

I found the tie rods were hitting the oil pan. I just made some limiters and bolted them onto the lwoer control arms. Works for now and doesn't cut my turn circle too much. I wish there wsa a better solution for this...
[URL=http://s1163.photobucket.com/user/jetmech442/media/Mobile%20Uploads/2014-08/20140806_172221.jpg.html]

I also bought an LS3 intake system off a 2010 Camaro. It really quieted down all the racket in the engine bay. I relcoated the IAT sensor to the front of the Tb with an LS1 style sensor. I am also using the LS3 MAF. I started a thread that helped out a bit : https://ls1tech.com/forums/pcm-diagn...f-ls1b-os.html [URL=http://s1163.photobucket.com/user/jetmech442/media/Mobile%20Uploads/2014-08/20140806_172303.jpg.html]

In the end, I converted the MAf freq to g/sec for the new sensor and pasted the values into table {B5001}. I attached the file for anyone needing it. My preliminary Calc.Vet tuning showed the MAf to be right on target(but I only got data up to about 3100Hz).

I'm installed hypercoil 5.5'' dia 11'' tall rear springs with 175# rates. The ride is good, but the car sat a little low, so I installed the AFCO rubber spring spacers. These spacers are meant to be installed BETWEEN the coils, but I just razored off the top "guide" to make it flat and installed it above the spring. I'm also using edelbrock Instant Center Relocators(not sure if this is good for autocross but it was great for drag). Well, the trunk pan sat on the top of those at ride height so I had to cut a panel out in th trunk(to be welded later).

I wired up a clutch position sensorsince I was having a lot of issues with stalling when coming onand off the clutch. The CPP switch fixed all of that nonsense. My ECM didn't have the "grey" wire in pin 35, so I just stuck a wire in there and glued it the outside. By the way, the pin numbers are cast onto the metal connectors.

I was having massive surging issues below 10mph and I thought it was just the nature of the cam(228R) tall tires (28.5'' tall), and low gears(3.23). But after searching on Ls1tech I found that throttle follower and cracker adjustments tuned that behavior out and now it is real easy to cruise around.

I installed the Lc-2 wideband by Innovate. I will post a link to my thread about it, but the short of it is this: I HAD to use the serial conenction to talk to the V2. I had to buy a null modem adapter to connect it. I'm sure they make a single adpter but ratshack only had the two below for it to work right.I wired it up EXACTLY as innovate has in their instruction sheet and it has worked great. Following the setup, I started doing Calc.Vet, coutesy of Shawn Sankey. This is a great and very simple process. https://forum.efilive.com/showthread...light=calc.vet

I only got a couple sample points of data before I had to get back tothe house, but I plan to grab some more in the next couple of days.

 

I had a good couple months of driving/tuning the car. Tuning by the way is probably the most fun I've had in the whole project. I noticed that the steering feel is just not there however, so I'm doing a few things.

I already have the Grand Jeep Cherokee box-good 12.7:1 ratio, but the feel isn't there I guess due to it's valving for the jeep. I ordered the flow orifice from Turn one for my LQ9 pump-that definitely helped kill the "overboosted" 1 finger wonder , but it still has pretty vague feedback.

I ordered the 6'' adjuster sleeves for the front UCA so I can get the full caster (5.5*) that Mark suggested. I'm hoping that this will improve the feel. If it's not there even still, I'll probably be looking to swap the jeep box for the Turn one gearbox. EDIT 9/17-to get more Caster the original arms worked, turns out the alignment guy lied to me. 7 degress of Caster and .75 camber with 1/8th toe in really made a big difference in steering feel.

I also wanted to swap in 4:56 gears and an Eaton trueTrac but nobody makes them for the 8.2'' BOP rearend. So I've been talking to Speed Inc about getting the Strange S60. I've read good things about it-the only downsides being weight, but I think I can live with that tradeoff for getting the gears/posi I want and never having to worry about the rearend ever again.

Gotta hurry though, Chicago's gonna bust out of winter anyday now....

 

Great swap! I have a similar drivetrain in my 68 Camaro. I swapped out the factory 8.2 for an 8.5 rear end out of a Nova. I went 3.73 gears. I'm also running a 228R set up.

Broke it out yesterday. Had sunshine and 30 degrees. Got a LOT of looks. Love it!

 

A smaller-diameter steering wheel would help too. The school bus steerers these cars came with provide leverage for days and make an already slow car even slower.

 

Yeha, I guess when I tally it up, the 8.5 with new axles, gears, posi, ford ends...is only about 500$ less than the Strange S60. Then I started looking at the Fays2 Watts link, then I started wondering if I should switch to torque arm......sighs.