Al's 1982 Olds page

I've only had one 1982 Oldsmobile.

It was a 1982 Cutlass Supreme with a V6 Olds diesel (well, at least it started out that way <g>).  I bought a diesel car because it was inexpensive to buy, and wouldn't have to pass gas emissions tests when I was done.  I ended up driving it for something like a year and a half with the diesel in it while I started making some of the changes to it.  I finally started to get the engine together and pulled the car off the road.  After dumping something like $7K into the engine, my wallet finally gave up.  I sold the engine to a drag racer from Iowa without having ever even turned it over.  The car sold locally to a body shop owner who was going to drop a Chevy in it and get it back on the road.  I never saw it again.

Click on the photos for the larger versions.

	The car was clean and straight, even though it had quite a few miles on it (I bought it in '85 with 60k highway miles).  You can see the 3 piece aluminum 16x8 Epsilons with P255-ZR16 Goodyear Gatorbacks mounted.  You can't see the Rancho springs with adjustable suspension, the Z-28 straight ratio steering box, or Bilstien gas shocks.  In this form it took time to get up to any speed, but it really handled the corners superbly.
	Rear quarter view.  I had also picked up a Hurst/Aero package for it, and a prototype '83 H/O hood scoop that I was going to have to make functional to get enough hood clearance due to the height of the intake manifold.  The interior had the front bench replaced with Recaro KRXT buckets with the rear seat and interior panels recovered to match (grey and black).  I added a factory gauge package from an '84 H/O and a console and Dual Gate from a '79 H/O.  It also had a great CD sound system (and this was 1986).
	Here's were the real fun was going to be.  This used to be a 350 diesel.  It was bored and stroked with a Mondello kit to take it to 454 cubes.  This used custom pistons, an offset ground forged 425 crank, and Chevy connecting rods.  On top of that came aluminum Batten racing heads, stainless steel Norris roller rockers with huge stainless steel valves, beautiful Batten valve covers, and the Edelbrock Victor NASCAR intake manifold.
	Here's a little rod/piston comparison.  That is a stock 455 on the left, the 454 Mondello Olds in the center, and the 350 diesel on the right.
	If you look real close at the base of the piston skirt, you will notice that there is almost no clearance between the piston and the crankshaft counter weight (the crank was packed full of Mallory to balance out the ground down rod journals).
	Side by side combustion chambers between the Batten heads and stock 350.  All of these head shots were done before I ported and polished the heads and before the pushrod holes were drilled.  The Battens were fitted with 2.25" intake valves.
	Ditto for the intake side of the heads.  To see how far up the ports have been moved, note that the water jacket opening is in the same location on both heads.  Notice the missing exhaust crossover.  There is only a drilled and tapped hole for the custom water log that was cast into the intake manifold.
	The exhaust ports are even more radically different than stock.  I picked up the only V8 Cutlass headers made at the time (Hookers) and they didn't even come close to fitting properly with the Batten heads.  Custom headers were going to be required.
	Here are the stainless Norris rockers and triple valve springs.

This page last updated on March 24, 2003.