[xxdabroxx]

I've been wanting to get the old girl back on the road/ track for a while now and I've finally made some progress. I had planned on tearing into her on thanksgiving week but couldn't because of the darn WuFlu. The car is at my dads so I couldn't go over there while I had the sickness. Overall the WuFlu was pretty easy on me, headaches, congestion and some body aches along with the strangest symptom of losing my taste and smell (they came back though). I was cleared of my ailment by the county health dept. this weekend and promptly got to work on the Omega but I'll start with a bit of history on the car for everyone.

My dad and I started building the car around '99 to be my high school car. We bought it as a roller for $600 IIRC, sadly I don't have any pictures from back then other than a couple of it at the track after we got it running. After we brought the car home we stripped the interior, cleaned out all the mouse droppings and nests, repainted all the interior panels. We found some bucket seats in a ford car of some sort, they looked a lot like mustang buckets and got them reupholstered along with the rear seat. We cut the entire trunk floor out not because it was rusted but to mini-tub it and install subframe connectors and rear frame rails. My dad welded in a 6 pt roll bar and and bought a Currie narrowed 9" for the rear. We had a TH350 rebuilt and got a torque converter from a friend. We rebuilt a 4 bolt main SBC with flat top pistons, moderate flat tappet circle track cam, Edelbrock Victor Jr heads and super victor intake along with Holley 750. The carb didn't fit under the hood so we put a harwood scoop on it to make some room. After we got it on the ground my dad was unhappy with how wide the front wheels sat and bought a set of fat man fab narrow tube control arms. We were able to stuff a 13.50 tire in the back with skinny fronts on a Centerline Convo Pro wheels. We got the car running and ran the Summit series races for a couple seasons at our Local track (Famoso raceway). After I went off to college the car mostly sat around my dad driving it from time to time and we got it out for the March Meets at Famoso one more time while I was in college. After that it spent a lot more time in the garage until I took it for its final cruise that killed the poor little TH350, second gear died in some manner and it got parked in the back yard. That brings us to this weekend when we pulled the rotten car cover off of it.

This weekend we pulled the exhaust, driveshaft, passenger side header, radiator, and accessories off the front of the engine. Next weekend we'll pull the trans and maybe the engine (I'm splitting time spent between the car and remodeling my house). We're going to put it back together with a powerglide and a brake. The engine is slated to get rebuilt as a 383 with about 12.5:1, solid roller cam, and run on E85. I'm hoping the cylinders look good after sitting this long but they may need to be cleaned up at the machine shop, we'll have to see as we get it taken apart. Thanks for joining my build thread, I'll keep posting more pictures as we make more progress on the car.

 

[Novacaster]

Very cool car and story. Looking forward.

 

[Nova Thug]

Looks like it will be a fun ride..

 

[carcrazy615]

Will be watching for updates.

 

[xxdabroxx]

Thanks for joining me guys, got the powerglide ordered along with a turbo spline input shaft. I think we're going to wait to order a converter until we get the motor finalized.

 

[exotec]

I do like seeing a 2nd Olds Omega project here! even if its completely different direction than mine, I'll love it!

 

[xxdabroxx]

I do like seeing a 2nd Olds Omega project here! even if its completely different direction than mine, I'll love it!

You don't see a lot of omegas so it's always fun to see another one getting back on the road.

Do you know if any other turn signal housings fit in the bumpers? Mine are a little on the ugly side.

 

[xxdabroxx]

My dad and I made a little more progress on the car Saturday, trans is out and a few more accessories are off. He bought an engine hoist so we wont have to borrow one and worked on his old engine stand a little bit too. He ordered some new casters for it and we go the old ones cut off. Next weekend the motor will come out and get torn down some. Then we get to see what needs to be done before we pick out a rotating assembly.

 

[xMLMx]

Very cool car! It's interesting to see something different from a Nova from time to time. I love that you're unearthing it and breathing new life into it. What's your end-game plan for it once you get everything freshened up? Back to being a track duty car, or street drive it?

 

[xxdabroxx]

Very cool car! It's interesting to see something different from a Nova from time to time. I love that you're unearthing it and breathing new life into it. What's your end-game plan for it once you get everything freshened up? Back to being a track duty car, or street drive it?

Hopefully a little bit of both, it should be a little rowdy for street duty but should be "legal" minus some missing things like wipers. It will have mufflers and DOT tires, brake lights, turn signals, etc. It's always been a fun car to take people for rides in as it's usually the quickest car most people have ridden in (think grandparents, aunts and uncles rather than car people).

I'd like to lose a little weight out of it, likely going to pull the heater box, stereo, may put some race seats in the front. May or may not pull the rear bench, the seats look so good I hate to remove them but the fronts are heavy pigs and some kirkey buckets wouldn't look terrible. I'm hoping to make between 550 and 600 horsepower at the crank, I'm thinking it should be doable with our engine plan. I'd really like to dip into the 10's in the quarter but I'll be happy with low 11's. I think the old motor would have gotten us into the high 11's with a transbrake. It might get a manual rack and pinion put in over the winter too if funds allow for it. The poor thing needs a lot so it's a bit up in the air how much my dad and I can get done. I've also got to keep the wife happy by working on our house that we've been remodeling too.

 

[xxdabroxx]

I found some old photos of the car I still can't believe the interior is this clean after sitting for so long. These photo's are all about 10+ years old by my best guess, the one at the track are likely 14+

I found these online and thought they were cool, I figure I'll save them in here in case any of the other olds fans want them. I thought about making some wall art out of them but I'm not sure the files are big enough.

 

[xxdabroxx]

Made a little more progress this past Saturday, got the engine pulled, cleaned up a bid and took the heads off. The cylinders look really good with some light scoring in a couple places but overall not too bad at all. Once we finish tearing it apart we'll get it over to the machine shop to have them measure and give us some suggestions on moving forward. After we hear back from them I can get the rotating assembly and cam ordered.

 

[ramportin1]

Definitely watching this one, very cool car and I love that you have kept its style and not swapped it to nova parts

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[xxdabroxx]

Got the motor stripped down and ready to go to the machine shop over the weekend. Hope everyone had a great christmas! Found out I need to order main studs for it, too bad we only did the windage tray studs the first time we build it. Looks like I'm going to have to order a complete kit to get the few I need.

 

[ramportin1]

If there wasn't a unexpected bummer every time I did something, I would know that I'm asleep still

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[xxdabroxx]

Block is at the machine shop, had a nice conversation with the guys down there. They confirmed that E85 is a good way to go in our area being that the fuel tests well on a regular basis. Also confirmed that my second choice for carb work (Mark Sullens) was good to work with, I'd already got a quote from pro systems. They figure i could go even higher on compression so we'll likely bump it up to about 13:1. Sounds like we'll get away with decking the block and honing the cylinders as well as line honing the mains. I think we'll be waiting on parts as much as anything.

Still haven't gotten tracking on our transmission yet but I'm sure it's like everything else. Delayed to do covid.

 

[drm101]

Very cool car. You and your Dad seem to work well together. Great story and great car.

 

[xxdabroxx]

Ordered my custom camshaft from Jones Cam Designs today along with matching valve springs, probably about 3 weeks out. Per the cam grinders recommendation we're going with 1.6 ratio intake rockers and 1.5 exhaust.

Cam# SBC, R78440-80440-111
260/267 @.050"
.440"/.440" Lobe Lift
111 LSA

Going to stop by the machine shop after work and discuss rotating assembly I've found an eagle kit that's pretty readily available that's in my budget. Looks like this thing might end up pretty close to 13.5:1 compression with the 11cc dome pistons. We'll see what he has to say about it though.

Also ordered a couple patch panels from summit for the pass quarter and rear of the front fender. Trying to get parts coming in to keep making progress while the block is at the machine shop.

Trans likely won't ship until the end of the month.

 

[xxdabroxx]

Got the old girl out of the back yard today and into the garage. Also pulled the front clip in preparation for a rack and pinion. Should also make installing the engine a lot easier when we get to that point too.

 

[xxdabroxx]

Yesterday we got the steering removed in preparation for the smith rack and pinion. Hopefully it gets here on schedule Sunday so my dad and I can get it installed Monday.

I also started cutting the hips off of the firewall for a little more weight loss. We've been scaling everything we pull off so we should have a fairly accurate idea of how much weight we saved going from power steering to the manual rack.