476″ 1960 Oldsmobile engine

Posted: March 1, 2009 
Filed under: 1972
Tagged: Oldsmobile
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Description

This is the basic engine that powered the roadster from late 61 through late 65.  It was a 394” bored and stroked 5/8” to 476 cubic inches.  Dave Stoll originally built the engine for a boat and he put all the right stuff in it. He owned the engine and the B&M hydro with which we won the 62 Winternationals “Little Eliminator” and A/SR at the 62 Indy Nationals. In the fall of 62 the car was really running poorly and we got beat by a little Chevy powered roadster in Fresno at a “nothing” race. Dave got frustrated with the poor performance and sold his interest to me planning to build another Olds to put in the car.  Since I was then the sole owner of the entire project I took a couple of weeks alone and started from scratch with my dial indicators and went back to basic engine building 101 and found an error that once corrected the car gained 10 mph and dropped ½ of a second of elapsed time. It was the first Street Roadster in the 9’s.

Before Dave got a chance to build another engine we won the 63 Winternationals A/SR class and “Middle Eliminator”. Then we had a disagreement over something really petty and it split us up.  That was too bad as he was a great guy and fun to go racing with. I’m sure I would have done better if we would have worked it out and remained together. Too soon I get old and too late I get smart. No hard feelings and I have nothing but good to say about Dave Stoll.

In this photo the Olds is sitting on the engine stand in my work shop.  Note: my wife’s end table lamps hanging on the wall and my J-head Bridgeport mill right behind the engine. Not long after this photo was taken a guy from L.A. with an altered purchased the engine and got it out of my way. I did keep the Hilborn injector scoop and the Vertex magneto which are both part of the Chrysler in the roadster today.  The Olds had about 8 ½  to 1 compression ratio and the guy with the altered put a HUGE load of nitro in the tank (against my advise) and blew the thing into a thousand pieces on the first or second run. She was a sweetie, R.I.P. old trusty Oldsmobile.