This is my project car, which we affectionately named "Beater". It's a 1980 Oldsmobile Cutlass Calais. I bought it while looking for a decent body to replace my 1978 Cutlass Supreme, which was losing the battle with the Michigan winters faster than I could repair it. The 80 is solid and has no rust, since it spent the majority of it's life in Kentucky. It has a few small dents, but I'd rather deal with dings and dents than rust.

I sort of stumbled over this car in 1993. A friend of ours sets up at local swap meets and often shares a space with a guy who has a lot of 78-80 Olds pieces. While I was sifting through his stuff, he mentioned that he had this car and that he bought it for his wife but she didn't like it. It was just sitting in his yard, taking up space and he wanted to sell it. I ended up buying the car for $375.00 and hauled it home on a flatbed.

After getting it home, I started to notice some interesting options on the car. I didn't really know too much about the Calais model, but I bought some 1980 dealer literature and started looking into it. It had the factory 305 4bbl. Chevy motor, which ran after a little coaxing. The trans was blown though. I yanked the motor/trans and sold it for $175.00, with plans of dropping in a fresh 455 Olds motor I already had.

After decoding the VIN, I found out that the car was Canadian built, hence the 305 Chevy motor. As far as options goes, the car was nearly loaded. It had air, tilt, cruise, power windows, power locks, delay whipers, reclining bucket seats, automatic and console, ralley gauges, clock, power antenna, rear defogger, the stereo had been literally ripped from the dash so no clues there, a factory CB radio connection, heavy duty suspension including front and rear anti-sway bars (both are absolutely HUGE!), dual remote sport mirrors, front side marker cornering lamps and lastly the aluminum sport wheels. I only have three of them and desperately wish to obtain a fourth! And yes, I'm sure the wheels originally came on the car because there is a decal inside the trunk that warns about checking the lugnuts periodically as the car is equipped with aluminum wheels. The only thing it doesn't have seems to be either t-tops or a power sun roof and power seats.

I've been told this is a W-30 car, but I seriously doubt it. If anyone knows how to tell whether it is or not, please E-Mail me. I'm curious! At any rate, the car was in relatively good shape to begin with and a little body massage should put it back to square.

The 455 has already made its home in the engine bay. Nice easy swap! Just change the Chevy mounts to Olds mounts and in it goes. The 455 is a 1976 motor that I got CHEAP ($100). I did the complete rebuild on my own, which I am very proud of since it was the first engine I ever built completely by myself. I can't begin to tell you how many people suggested I build a 350 Chevy engine, but I wanted to stay all Olds, plus you just can't beat the torque of those monster 455s! The only person that understood my plan was a buddy of mine named Tim Thiel who runs a little business called Firepower Engineering. Tim has built literally dozens of big block engines, mainly Buick, Olds and Pontiac. He was a great source of information and also helped out with getting the motor into the car once I had it done. Thanks Tim!!

As far as machine work goes, I had the crank turned .010/.010 at a local shop and honed the cylinders myself. Everything was assembled using TRW parts, the stock cast pistons, a Dave Smith Engineering oil restrictor kit and a TRW high volume oil pump. I used an SSI cam with the same specs as an Edelbrock Performer cam. I took the heads to a local shop and found that they were in really rough shape. I called Tim and got a set of earlier heads that were in better shape and had them completely gone through then bolted them on.

The motor was being stored in a friend's garage since I didn't have one. I went over to work on the engine one night and when I pulled the cover off, here was this GOLD engine sitting there! My friend had apparently taken it upon himself to get some gold paint from the auto parts store he worked at, came home and painted it for me. What a guy. I was pissed! I'd planned to paint it corporate blue and pass it off as a small block Olds to those less educated! So just to spite him, I went out and bought some Pink Panther pink enamel paint and shot the engine with it! Actually, it looks better than it sounds and the pictures don't do it justice. Really! I used an Offenhauser 360 dual plane aluminum intake and topped it with a brand new Holley 780 dual feed, vaccum secondary carb. Interesting story with the intake. I bought it from a guy at a local auto parts store. He used to build 455s and use them in the power boats he and a buddy raced. He had this brand new Offy intake just sitting on his shelf and when he told me I could have it for $125 I jumped on it!

The ignition was fun! I used a stock point distributor after finding out that the runners on the Offy intake are too tall for an HEI. I gutted the stock distributor and used a Mallory Unilite ignition module conversion kit, an MSD Blaster 2 coil, an MSD 6-AL box with the built in rev limiter and Taylor Spiro-Pro silicone plug wires.

Noise is quieted somewhat by using Heddman headers, Dynomax Super Turbo aluminized mufflers and 2 1/2" exhaust all the way back, dumping out just behind the rear tires. This necessitated the use of a Trans-Dapt oil filter relocation kit and a special aluminum block from Dave Smith Engineering.

The transmission is a TH350 unit out of a 78 Pontiac. It was gutted and completely reworked by the guy I got the intake from using B&M and Trans-Pac pieces, a TCI 1800-2200 stall convertor and a trans cooler.

I removed the heater core and a/c box from the firewall and replaced it with a nice flat piece of sheet metal. Amazing how much all that stuff weighs! The battery had been relocated to one side of the trunk. The other side will hold the tank for the 125 h.p. nitrous oxide set up. I used a Summit Racing remote solenoid kit as well.

We have a lot of work left to do with the car. We need to do something with the factory 7.5" corporate rear end. We're thinking of replacing it with a rear end from either a Monte Carlo SS or a turbo Buick Regal. We plan to do the bodywork ourselves though we're still waffling on the color of the car. We're going to try our hand at doing the interior too, and it is being pulled out of the car piece by piece right now. Everything will be done in gray and black cloth. I've built an aluminum panel loaded with Auto Meter gagues that will replace the factory guages. There's much more in store, so stay tuned as I'll be adding information, updates and pictures as the project progresses!