1970 Olds Rallye 350 Restomod

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CFM-Z440
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1970 Olds Rallye 350 Restomod

Post by CFM-Z440 »

My dad bought a 1970 Oldsmobile Rallye 350 brand new, off the lot, when he got out of the navy. I'm not quite sure how it's still in one piece at all, after hearing several stories about the car all my life, but it has survived pretty much unscathed. The car ripped around on the street when Dad was in his 20's. I've heard about it being in police chases, racing stoplights, sliding down off ramps, and pretty much what I picture from an episode of the Dukes of Hazzard, minus the jumps. :lol:

After a while, dad settled down a little, and started drag racing it. By the time it was retired, it was leaving the line with the front end in the air, and spinning 8000 rpm on it's way down the strip. At this point, Dad decided that he was becoming too hard on the car, and decided to build a racecar. The rallye was retired, while a 70 442 W-30 was built and raced.

I wasn't born until 1980, and when I grew up, the Rallye always sat in the far corner of our garage in non running condition, while Stock cars, were being built, tuned, or reconstructed in the other side of the garage. I remember sitting in it when I was too little to work on racecars, and pretending to drive, and dreaming of all sorts of things.

I didn't know it then, but this is where my affliction started. Now, I'm 39, Dad is 70, and the car is back from the dead, and more alive than ever. Now I get to drive it for real, and I have a hand, and a say in what we do to the car. I always hoped this day would come, but I never imagined just how great this could turn out, in our price range, in this era of affordable go fast parts. The project is cool, but I get to do this all with my Dad, who is 110% responsible for how I've turned out. :lol:



I'll start with pictures from the day we pulled it out of it's place in the garage. This was in 2011. We had moved in it's 30+ years of resting. It had been in this stall since the early 90's. It had a wheel locked up. We washed the car up, worked on getting some things back in working order, and officially started the process.
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After a bath
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CFM-Z440
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Re: 1970 Olds Rallye 350 Restomod

Post by CFM-Z440 »

It had a brake locked up when we drug it out of the garage. It spent the next year getting things like that back to operational. Then it went to the local body shop and got repainted, and externally restored to it's original glory. To pay for the body work, Dad decided to sell the 442.

This was a 70 442 W-30 that Dad bought in the early 80's, and built into a mid engine drag car. I have some more detailed pictures that I need to round up, because it was quite cool. It had a 455 under the windshield, with dual quads and a tunnel ram. The whole front end is fiberglass. The car looked like the one in the mural, on the trunk lid when he got it.
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CFM-Z440
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Re: 1970 Olds Rallye 350 Restomod

Post by CFM-Z440 »

The Rallye spent the next couple years in the body shop. We started rounding up parts to get the 350 back into running shape. We started with the 350 block that was last used in the car. It was bored .030" over. We had a good crank.

We had some #5 heads but decided to get some Aluminum heads from Olds Rocket Parts. These were intended for a big block, but the cool thing about Oldsmobile is that the main difference between big and small block, is deck height, so heads and cams are interchangeable. The big block olds heads have taller ports and larger chambers, so the intake ports of the new heads were way too big. I used some A-788 Epoxy to fill the extra space. We had a better valve seat profile cut, and had the decks cut down until the chambers were appropriate for a 355.
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Unfortunately, I didn't get any pictures of the heads when they were finished. I matched it to the cross sectional area of the intake, then tapered towards the bowl.

The cam also came from Olds Rocket Parts. It's just a flat tappet, hydraulic cam with nice street manners. 234/244 @ .050, .520/.544" lift, 107 ICL 112 LSA

We had the block prepped, and found some forged pistons and H-beam rods from Mondello.
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CFM-Z440
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Re: 1970 Olds Rallye 350 Restomod

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Once complete, we put the engine back in the car. At first, we put it together with a Holley 850 HP, and a modified HEI ignition.
We got the car running in time to put it in our local 4th of July car show, and we won!

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Re: 1970 Olds Rallye 350 Restomod

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For 2019, we decided to switch over to fuel injection. We decided to try out Fi-Tech. We also swapped out the HEI for a MSD that is controlled by the Fi-Tech. It wasn't the easiest thing to tune, but It is so cool, and it does run better than the carb.

We decided to try out a TH 200 4R transmission, which works surprisingly good with the Hurst dual gate. Neutral is overdrive, reverse is neutral, and Park has plenty of room to be reverse and park. Dad has gotten as much as 16 mpg between the EFI and overdrive.

The Rallye doesn't look right to me without the Oldsmobile rally wheels. It was looking pretty anemic in the rear with the stock 14's, even with the biggest tires we could find for them. We decided to get some 15's made. Diamond Racing Wheels was extremely helpful. I sent them stock centers, that we cut out of some spare wheels, and had them make us some 15x10's.
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CFM-Z440
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Re: 1970 Olds Rallye 350 Restomod

Post by CFM-Z440 »

Next up, we have plans of adding a Torq Storm supercharger. We are working out what to do for an intercooler. If anyone has any suggestions, I'd be happy to hear them.
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Re: 1970 Olds Rallye 350 Restomod

Post by Kenny M »

What a cool story , I love the Rallye 350 cars. Thanks for sharing.
CFM-Z440
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Re: 1970 Olds Rallye 350 Restomod

Post by CFM-Z440 »

Thanks Kenny, The Rallye is an attention getter, that's for sure. It should be more of one next year.

Just ordered this :D
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