Oldsmobile LF9 Diesel?
 

never heard of it before.
I was tootleing around Summitracing, and noticed it was a choice in the 350 SBC area.

I'm guessing it was a diesel 350, but I can't recall any vehicles that had...

what's the deal with it?

I used to drive one (not new) around Florida around 1985? It was a 98 Olds loaded. Nice car but pretty loud and smokey.:D

Late 70's-early 80's GM had the infinite wisdom to rush to market a passenger car diesel. Said diesel was a quick conversion from the GM small block gas engine, which is why they were enormously popular and why you see so many of them still on the road today.

Nailed it.:rofl:

RONG!!!.....

when you use the term SB, small block, you almost always are referring to the SBC, the Olds block was in fact very similar to the Pontiac blocks of the 60-70's and Olds took the 350 version of that engine, and made a diesel out of it, lotsa troubles with the things, bottom ends let go, and something about pumps....many in junkyards with rods through the skirts.....

and NO you don't see many/any around, they all died a way premature fugly death....

:cheers:

:iagree: Yep, after the first big oil crisis in '73, GM jumped in with diesel engines for for big cars like Olds. Prob was that the 350 engine wasn't beefy enough and they were a consant maintenance headache besides being noisy and stinky. Many were replace with gas engines, most were junked as they had little or no resale value. :train:

RITE!

Which is why I said "GM small block" refering to the generic Buick-Pontiac-Olds all-in-one motors used in that era.

"GM" small block? You do realize that other than distributor tuneup components and perhaps a bolt here or there, nothing interchanges between the Buick, Olds and Pontiac V8's- right? They are each of their own design - not generic.

As for the diesel, as others have said, the design was based on a small block Olds engine - with many components from their gas engine being interchangeable. Which gave the (more sturdy) diesel block the ability to accept gas heads, etc. making them a good choice for a base for a performance Olds small block.

[QUOTE=88Z51;298329]"GM" small block? You do realize that other than distributor tuneup components and perhaps a bolt here or there, nothing interchanges between the Buick, Olds and Pontiac V8's- right? They are each of their own design - not generic.QUOTE]


Good point, as a matter of fact there was a great hue and cry from Olds lovers and others in the late '70's when GM started to use Chevy engines their beloved behemoths . It was considered sacrilege. :beat:

In the early 80's GM eliminated redundancy in the corporate line up by replacing the Olds 260 and 307, the Pontiac 301 and the Buick 350 with a generic GM small block, a version of the Chevy 305. Lawsuits were file when the consumers discovered this. GM stopped associating engines with particular divisions, and today all GM engines are produced by "GM powertrain" (GMPT) and are called GM "Corporate" engines.

Rong again, there was only ONE block casting size for the Pontiac/Olds no matter what size the displacement was.....the head bolt pattern was the same, for all those engines....but not head/induction/appearance items.... this was true from 326 to 455 in the Poncho lineup.....in fact the only way to tell the CI was to look for raised cast numbers on the block....or the year/ci code like my last Goat had a B body '70 455 in it....YH code....

I think the Buick engine, especially their version of the 455 was a considerably lighter casting, which is why the Wildcats of the era were a surprise in performance compared to others.....but I know the head bolt pattern was different and so would be the block casting...:cheers:

The last of the old Poncho engines left the line in '78, appearing in the '79 F bird for the last time, as most of them had the Olds 400 in there.....the Pontiac 301 was a vastly cut down 350, and even appeared with a turbo? some sort of packer on it.....but the cut down was done cheep, they simply cut the block deck off, and used some silly gaskets to make up for the top web/deck they blew gaskets faster than my ex wife.....:lol:

I could see the obvious end of the divisions in GM back in the 80's when a chebby engine was across the board, and Olds 350's got into Sevilles, even back in the 70's :cheers:

Yes, I understand the divisions ceased to produce their own engines and were replaced by small block Chevys, my point was to point out to you that prior to that, Buick, Olds and Pontiac all made their own engines - engines that were unique to themselves. The diesel engine in this conversation was based on an Oldsmobile small block - NOT a "corporate" GM engine (SBC).

This might help to understand ALL the differences, and SIMILARITIES

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buick_V8_engine
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pontiac_V8_engine

Gotta tell ya, you're rong regarding Olds V8s. There are two distinct block sizes. Small block (260, 307, 330, 350 and 403) and big blocks (400, 425 and 455). While most external components are interchangeable between the small and big blocks (oil pans, timing covers, water pumps, distributors, valve covers, etc.), the big block is approx. 2 inches wider and an inch or so taller. Granted, both may look the same to the untrained eye, but there are two different variations of the 64 - up Olds V8.

I will add to this post is that the "Diesel" engines GM produced in the 70's and 80's are the reason that the US consumer fears diesel engines.

They were shit. Known for injector problems, fuel pump problems, loud, smokey and generally just shit for engines.

GM and their cost cutting cheap ass "rush it to market" thinking is the reason why we can't get some of the GOOD diesels from Europe right now.

The MFG's always say the same thing " We don't think that there is a market for them in the US".

GM ( and the other MFG's) is and was full of Fuking idiots.

Ford seems to be the only one with a clue on the powerful small displacement engines.

100% fact.

I assumed Ron was being sarcastic.

The Olds block was chosen as the basis for the conversion and the compression issues were bad in '78 and '79, but were mostly cured in '80 and '81. Injector pump issues were never solved, mostly due to a lack of filtration and separation.
They were junk, plain and simple.

You could convert 'em back to gas pretty easily as the injector pump hot wire plugged right into the gas engine's distributor. You also had to change the gears in the rear end, otherwise you got crap gas mileage.

Most all of 'em have long been junked.

:iagree: My son and I wanted to put an Olds 455 engine in '79 Trans Am with a 403 and found out it wouldn't work without major mods to the heater box area because of the 455's higher deck height and added width. End up with a Poncho 455 which worked fine. :yesnod:

I understand, all divisions had their own motors, point I was making was that they were all replaced with a common motor. I think we are making the same point! :cheers:

My parents had an Olds 98 with the diesel and it was a great car for them, it never gave them a bit of trouble and they drove it nearly 250Kmiles. I bought a Buick Park Avenue with the Diesel and it was a Royal POS. I worked on it constantly, got to know the guys at the local diesel injection pump place well.
It was so frigging hard to start that I rigged up a separate little tank under the hood to hold a mixture of methanol and gasoline in. I used an aftermarket windshield wiper fluid pump to squirt a little of the mixture into the air cleaner housing. It evaporated too fast so I started using WD40 in the tank. Worked like a charm. I eventually traded it in and took it in the shorts on value. Some people pulled the diesels and put in small block gasoline V8, there was a local shop that did the job for aroud $2500.00 turnkey or $1200.00 if you supplied them with a V8 that would fit. :leaving: