F 85 Rocket Car part 2

With the F 85 at home the work began. It  had come with a 6 cylinder, 3 speed auto, no air and a bench seat. But it was original color red car though!
The plan was to take the drive train out and put everything that was taken out of the 70 442 rust bucket. Amazingly, I could not find a buyer for the chevy 6 cylinder, seems all it was good for was a boat anchor!
One of the 455cu engines I had gotten in the deal with my friend was mated up with a turbo 400 and slid into place , along with a 3:23 posi rear.  With all connections made, we fired it up. It ran pretty good, but a knock developed soon. This engine had sat for a long time since the rebuild. Realizing this wasn't going to work, out came the motor and trans.
My friend Jim was kind enough to walk us thru a rebuild of the motor, so off to Hickory we went. Once the tear down was complete, all parts to be machined went to the shop. The boys and I drove back to VA where we took the tranny to Rodgers Automotive in Chantily,Va.
In a couple weeks after the machine work was done, the boys and I went back to Hickory for the big build. Jim has been working on Oldsmobiles forever! He even bought a brand new 1971 Cutlass and drag raced it back in the day. He has since restored the car, but it only has like 20000 miles on it, 1/4 mile at a time!
I wanted the engine to look stock on the outside, but inside was a different story! It was bored 30 over, heads shaved, which brought the stock compression of 10 1/2 to more like 11 to 1. The cam we put in had big lift and long duration.
After the motor was together and painted, ( it looked great! ) we took it back to the machine shop to run on the dyno. Well, the numbers weren't bad considering we had a weird intake manifold that didn't flow very good, bad carb and a old piont distributor with non-matching wires. With the breck in complete, we loaded the 455cu  in my truck for the 5 1/2 hr trip back to Va. 

Chris's Oldsmobile F-85 - Part One

It all started from a phone call from my friend David, he asked if I wanted to bye all his Olds stuff. He was getting into Jeep's and had to make some room. At the time I had a 71 Olds 442 convertible and loved Oldsmobiles, so I thought it would be a good opportunity. We talked some numbers and I hooked up my trailer and my son and I headed for Columbus, Ohio. Once we got home, I had a 70 442 body, 3 455 engs, 2 trans, ram air hood and multiply boxes of parts.
As it turned out, the body had much rust than originally thought. So much in fact that it was decided to scrap the body, that's a lot of rust! Well, the hunt was on to find a better body. My friend Jim, who owns Classic Olds ( In Hickory at the time, but since has moved to Clemons,NC ) had a 70 F85 post car. This car was a 6 cylinder bench seat car, but very little rust. The usual spots behind the front tires, but that was it. The car had virtually no trim, so know where for water to hide. A deal was made and the F 85 had a new home. Jim had bought the car from the original owner who purchased the car from the Olds dealer in Hickory.

Once the car was back in Va, the work began. I had thought from the start this will be a good father-son project, and it was! 

Upcoming at V1 SpeedShop!

Upcoming stories here at the speedshop, will talk about cars and there owners. Muscle cars, classic cars and trucks, anything with wheels.
Our first story will be a Oldsmobile F85, coming soon!