Custom Cruiser in Phoenix

Although not a wagon, I did drive a bubble 305 chev sedan...... I did find seating comfy although dash leg room was a bit weird but the car had IMO more than ample power. Having owned a 80 Carravelle I will agree that the bucket seats witch I had were super comfy and ample leg room..... but when it comes to over all power of the ultra mega smog stock 318's of that area........ I'd take my chances with my old 0-60 in ten minutes 65 GMC truck when it comes to merging on the HYW


I think the term "carbon foot print" started with the late 70's early 80's Mopar V8's..... even brand new, you floored it and the carbon cloud out of the exhaust...... migrating geese dropped dead out of the sky.....You didn't need a gun for hunting, just take the brand new Mopar out in the country and floor it!...

 

That's my "Baby Girl" Misty. She loves my wagons as long as I take her with me. If I don't she stands at the gate and barks at me until I'm out of sight. Here I think she's smelling cat because the hood had cat prints all over it.

 

What Mopars have YOU been driving??? None that I'm aware of, and I've owned them since 1972!

The term "carbon footprint" is an Algore-ism.

 

Nice save! Glad to see another Olds find a good home, and the '92 is by far the most rare.

I'm on my 2nd "whale wagon" but also had a '78 Safari, '86 Electra Estate, and '89 Custom Cruiser boxies. Out of all of them the '86 Electra was the most comfy, followed by the '96 Roady wagon, and then my current daily-driver '92 Custom Cruiser. I'd say the '78 Safari and '89 OCC were about equal in comfort, but the Pontiac had much wilder interior style-wise.

The legroom is a bit less on the whale-wagons, which is odd considering they use basically the same frame as the 77-90 boxies, but OH THE SHOULDER ROOM in a whale! They feel much wider than the boxies do. Haha. I do think the dash design does have something to do with the feeling of limited legroom, especially on the passenger side. My wife noted in both the Roadmaster and '92 OCC how close her knees are to the glove boxes.

In my opinion, I love the whales, wider is better, and I've never NOT been comfortable in any GM wagon. They ride smooth, are quiet, and tend to be reliable as the sun.

As for the 5.0 305 Chevy engine, it's still WORLDS better in power than the Olds 307 my 86 and 89 boxies had. I've had 305's in an '85 Grand Prix and '86 Caprice sedan, and both were great engines.

That said, the '78 Grand Safari had a factory Pontiac 400 with posi rear tow package, that I'd love to put up next to my old '96 LT1 Roady wagon. Both of those were outstanding road cars with tons of power!

My '92 OCC has the 5.7 350 in it. It's got a lot more go than the old 307's, and may have more power than the 305, but it feels a lot like the 305 I had in my '86 Caprice. It does NOT come close to the LT1 in my '96 Roady. I WILL HAVE an LT1 wagon again. No doubt.

Nice score on your '92. Olds are by far the most rare whales. Good luck with it!

-Mike

 

The heat ports in the middle of the intake that run under the 2 barrel will get clogged with carbon and choke up the engine, and you get that soot from the exhaust. this was a very common problem with the very late 70's/early 80's 318/360 engines

 

That is exactly what my point is. The leg room n them is less than I feel comfortable with. Certainly less than my 84 Delta 88 or my 78 Electra, and less than my 89 Grand Marquis or the 78/79 Thunderbirds. For me, and only my opinion, I do not care for the driving position because of that.

 

I think that you can attribute the interior width of the whale wagons vs. the box wagons to the overall cross-section of the body structure itself. Where the box wagons were more straignt up and down on the sides (to a degree), the whale wagons had a pronounced curvature to them - just compare the side appearance between them. This probably shows in the actual interior width measurement. My guess is you've got another 5" or so of width in the whales across the middle. Not so much additional width down at floor level, though.

 

Both generations have nearly identical interior dimensions, except for shoulder width.
The 91-96 cars have 2.5" more shoulder room than the earlier generation. (63.4" vs 60.9")

The last B bodies (91-96) also had a longer dash that intruded into the front seat passenger space. I think that makes the front seat feel less spacious than the previous generation.

 

The dash intrudes into the engine compartment on the cars a lot too. The engines even have a big hole in the manifold for the matching big based distributor because it has to be tilted in and out of the engine because the back of the engine sits back in a recess in the firewall.
It's a real pain too.
If you haven't replaced the original intake manifold gaskets on a LO3 or LO5 engine it's only a matter of time.