307 5.0????

[thisolechevy]

hey guys I was offered a free motor if I would go and pick it up (well actually it was the whole car, 1983 buick lesabre estate wagon) anyways they said the motor was blown so I go look at it. I get there and it cranks up and runs great for about 1 minute then gets weak and white smoke comes out the exhaust with a slight tiking noise (definetly not my version of blown!!!) I hual the car home and find out that the motor is a 5.0 307 and a buddy tells me its a farely nice motor, better than the 302 5.0 I am looking into buiding the motor up for pro street and placing it in my little truck. All this to say is this motor worth it???? or should I just get it running good and sell the car and save up for something better?? Thanks
Brad

[jhow66]

That is I believe a 307 Olds motor.

[Sweet72]

Fix 'er up and sell it. I had a olds 307 in a 81 Buick and it was a dog.

[Longhorn Man]

a 307 better than a 302???

[70 shorty]

Yeah, I've got one of those sitting in the bed of my pickup, a 307 Olds motor, my uncle got for free when it was his truck. He was thinking of putting it in the truck because he could never get the 6 cyl running right. I think the 250 would run cirlces around that 307.

[thisolechevy]

wow obviously you guys don't like the 307!!! is there anybody out there that has had a good strong 307??? like a stroked one?
brad

[HeavyD]

My friend had a good 307 in a 1983 Big boat Olds 98 that ran great for years, but it was gutless. If you are going to use an Olds motor, might as well be a 455, they seem to be all over the place still.

[Longhorn Man]

Originally Posted by thisolechevy

wow obviously you guys don't like the 307!!! is there anybody out there that has had a good strong 307??? like a stroked one?
brad

A few smart @ss comments come to mind on this, like;

Would a stroked 307 be a 307?
Why would one spent time and money strokin a 307?
A POS painted gold, is still a POS
You can't polish a turd


All said in good humor, but in all reality...WHY?

[doc_rock]

Originally Posted by Longhorn Man

A few smart @ss comments come to mind on this, like;

Would a stroked 307 be a 307?
Why would one spent time and money strokin a 307?
A POS painted gold, is still a POS
You can't polish a turd


All said in good humor, but in all reality...WHY?

Hehehe this is all the truth. I know what ya mean about a cheap motor, I got a 305 with my truck that had a handful of burned valves in it. Debated rebuilding it, but what's the point? You can go to a junkyard and get a junked 350 for what, $100.00? Do all the work to that and you'll have easily twice the engine you'd have in the 307.

[special-K]

Sounds like it needs a head gasket or cracked head at worse.Do that,sell car.Chevy V8s are to common and cheap to go any other root.Some times cheaper than free alternatives.Don`t know about these engines.Alot of negative cmments on Chevy 307s,too.These comments are traitorism.I rebuilt the one in my`71 I had at 120,000miles due to timing chain jump.No ridges,no machining needed.Just polished the crank,lightly honed cyls.,put`er back to gether.It got an RV cam,dbl roller,Hi-Vol Melling pump,1.94 heads,HEI,& a Holley Economaster 450cfm on a stock 4bbl manifold.Nobody believed it wasn`t a 350.

[Tx Firefighter]

This is out of character for me to say this, but anyone who told you the 307 Olds engine is a better engine than a 5 liter Ford is ignorant. Apparently, he has never been a mechanic.

307 Olds is a gutless smog engine that powered big granny cruisers.

The 302 Ford powered everything you can think of with a blue oval on the grille. 5 liter Mustangs regurarly got beaten without mercy by abusive drivers and they usually lived better than 150k miles. Many of them had forged pistons from the factory.

[67chevemall]

Easy TX I don't think anybody mentioned a F$%d?

Sell the whole car for some pocket change.

[454_72_4X4]

I'm gonna have to agree with TX, (Bad as I hate too take the F#$d side).

Easy TX I don't think anybody mentioned a F$%d?

Even if they were comparing to a Chevy 302 they were ignorant. The Chevy 302 was easily 10 times the motor an Olds 307 is/was.

Fix it, sell it, use the $ for something worthwhile.
BTW, Like somebody above mentioned, it probably has cracked head/heads or if you're lucky a blown head gasket. But the head gaskets will probably cost as much as a rering kit for a 350 Chevy! (Just a guess.)
I'd give ya $150 for it after it's fixed...if ya deliver it and put it in my Regal so I can sell the damn thing.LOL!

[neonlarry]

If you want to keep the car, put a olds 403 or 455 in it. lol The only good thing about the 307 is that a bigger olds engine should bolt right into a car that had one. lol

[pissonNOS]

maybe there something wrong with my 307 inmy 69 then i can run circles around my friend and his 03 5.7 chevy and its also beaten a 93 350 with ported heads headers K&n and a stage 2 shift kit, all Ive done to mine is .30 over aluminum intake and a 4bbl

[Hoods69BadBowTie]

I would say fix it and get rid of it because as stated above it probably has a blown head gasket or it could have cracked a head, and who knows what else. I would just go with the 350 or the 383 Stroker for more power. Just my opinion,
-Peace

[shortymac83]

alright, here we go...

first, go to www.realoldspower.com and start asking around there. People will rip on you, but you can do anything to a 307 that you can with a 403, and there are people in the 9's with 403's. you're not going to hit 9's with a 307, but you'll get going pretty good. Couple of our guys there used to run them deep into the 11's.

Starting in 1977, oldsmobile motors (260, 307, 350 and 403) had windowed main webs, which means that unless you go with a full girdle for the bottom of your motor, you're going to end up picking parts up off the track. None of them came with EFI, they all had computer controlled 800 CFM quadrajets. your motor is rated at 150 hp/245 lb-ft from the factory. You really can't stroke a small block olds (sbo) unless you're talking about the diesel (DX or D blocks) or NASCAR blocks, and in those cases, you can get up to over 420 CI with them. for a 307, they're kinda thin, so .045 is about as far out as I'd go with an overbore, but make sure that the whole thing is sonic checked and check it for core shift. compression is another problem, but before I start talking about that, I have to ask first if you're going to keep the computer setup. The only reason to do so is to keep the kickass fuel mileage (I get 26 mpg on the highway with my 83 delta 88 with overdrive and 2.73's)

If you are, you're kinda limited compression and camshaft-wise. I'm not very keen on camshafts, but anything over 9.5:1 is getting a bit much with the computer.


if it was me, and if you wanted to keep fuel mileage, here are the things I'd do:

1: add gear. 3.73's are good for big cars with 307's
2: intake - edelbrock performer or performer RPM
3: modify the secondaries to open completely, and make sure that the computer system is in top working order
4: get a high-performance chip for the computer. I can't remember the company offhand, but a few people on ROP will know
5: 160* thermostat. stock, they're 195*, and 307's like to run cooler than that.


there are other bolt-on tips, but those will get you started. if you don't give a sh!t about mileage and want performance, go out and find a 403 or 455. they're easy to find, and with the 455, you can get 450-500 hp out of one of those very easily. just remember, www.realoldspower.com is your friend, use it very often. AND DON"T PUT IN A CHEVY MOTOR!!! it's more work than you need to do. everything needs to be changed to do that. to swap a BBO in for your 307, pull out the 307, and drop in the 455, everything else bolts up.

[shortymac83]

BTW, this is what you can do with a B body wagon and a 455:

[Hoods69BadBowTie]

When I was talking about that 350 Chevy SB or the 383* I meant put them in your little pickup not in the Buick. Because as stated above it would be a pain in the A$$ to change a Chevy motor in, it can be done though.
-Peace

[shortymac83]

I was just stating a fact, it wasn't directed toward anyone. Chevy motors are great, but when you can accomplish the same thing with a motor that directly drops in, I don't see a point, which is why I told him that.

[1FaastC10]

actually, i have owned 2 Olds 307s, and they were excellent engines for what i used them for. the first i had was in an 87 Pontiac Safari station wagon, i clipped and plugged all the emissions crap, hacked the pipes off of it, and tuned the carb up a little and ran it in a demolition derby. it was pretty worn out, 180,000 mi on it when i got it, and didnt appear to be touched. VERY grungy engine. it sounded as if it were running on 6 1/2 cylinders, but never once did it fail me in the pit. when i sold the car, i pulled the engine and trans because it did so well. i did a more permanent and thorough job of deleting the emissions stuff, cleaned it up a bit, and threw a set of plugs and wires at it, and changed the oil. i later put it into an 84 Monte Carlo and did some survival/enduro racing with it. let me tell you, i have never felt a smog motor that ran like this one did. not a whole lot out of the hole due to 3.08 gears in the rear axle, but once you got her rolling, it was AWN! damnedest thing, the hotter it would get, the better it would run. the first time i ran it hot, it got to about 270*, and i thought about throwing in the towel to save the engine, but ran it anyways. hell, i only had $35 in the car, whats blowing it up after 2 months of racing going to hurt me? it never even hiccuped when it was that hot, so i started heating it up to about 240* before i would even think about taking it out on the track. the final night i ran it, i was up against a early 90s Cavalier Z24 5 speed, and a Volkswagen Rabbit GTI. both cars were known to be very fast. i didnt think i had much of a chance running with them, so i decided to do a little damage to the Cavvy. i spun him around and put him into the wall, and took off after the Rabbit. as i passed through the crossover on the first lap, i hit a bumper that someone had dropped in a previous round. i saw it coming, but there wasnt anything i could do to avoid it. i made it from the crossover into turn 4 (we were running figure 8) and the car suddenly picked up power, enough power that in 1/2 a lap i was able to pick up the slack between me and the rabbit. he made some awful good blocking attempts to keep me from passing, they all were successful. i ended up crossing the finish line (after 2 laps, the entire length of the race) right on his back bumper. did a couple donuts in 1 and 2, idled it through the pits, loaded it on the trailer, and it died. turns out that when i hit the bumper i knocked the oil filter completely from the engine, and cracked the trans case at the belhousing, leaving about a 7-8" diameter hole in it. lost all of my oil and tranny fluid, and both the engine and the trans were siezed. the other one i owned was in an 82 Buick Riviera... same deal snip and strip, the hotter the better. it was also used in a demolition derby. ended up scrapping hte car when i was done with it. it fared the same way in the pit, the hotter it was, the more power it had.

[shortymac83]

my 307 has 165,000 miles on it, and it's still a new motor. oil pressure never drops below 25 psi, and when above 900 rpm, it stays just around 40 psi regardless of temperatures, with a high being 60 psi at WOT or when cold. on ROP, the user 81delta88 bought his delta when it had 530,000 documented miles on the original 307. according to him, it still ran perfectly, but leaked oil out of every gasket. as for mine, I love it. get it on the highway, and it will do 90 mph all day long with no problems, while sipping back 26 mpg. remember though, when they were made and what they were used for - cruising motors in big cars that were meant to get great gas mileage.

[thisolechevy]

wow thank you so much for the help all of you!! I think I am going to keep it!

[shortymac83]

remember though, with the camshaft that it has, the torque peak is 1600 RPM, and the hp peak is about 2500 rpm, so you're dealing with a tractor motor in stock form. and don't spin it over 5500 RPM. First, with the long stroke, it's not necessary for olds motors to spin much faster than that, and second, without modifying the oil system (for maximum drainback) you'll pump all the oil out of the pan and into the top of the motor, starving your main bearings. That usually happens over 6000 rpm.

Keep in mind, this motor, in stock form, is a turd until you get it on the highway in 3rd gear at about 1700 RPM. in that situation, I've smoked V6 powered S10's and rangers and have given many a ricer a run for their money. once I hit 65 mph in 3rd gear, ricers can't seem to keep up. Top speed in my car is 3000 rpm or about 130 mph (2.73 gears and 3,000 RPM is 133 mph).

[Hooter]

307 olds or 307 chevy both are dogs for motors, I made the mistake of trying to beef up the original 307 in my chevy, no matter what I did to it, it just didnt have the power. I used to have an 81 Olds Ninety Eight with a 307 Olds too, engine took a good beating and kept on going, the tranny went before the motor.