1986 Cultass Supreme Brougham

[Jax86Cutlass]

Starting a build thread for my Cutlass I picked up a few months ago. Progress will be slow, but I'm looking forward to any help I may receive from anyone on this site. I'll try to post pics often of my progress, and keep motivated on this project. Not sure where I'm going with it yet. Leaning toward stock looking with a little extra horse power.

 

[Jax86Cutlass]

More pictures

 

[Gozer442]

Nice project! The engine bay looks clean then most when first "found". Good luck with it!

 

[Jax86Cutlass]

More eye candy

 

[O. D. Showtime]

Looks like a pretty nice candidate to start with....will be watching the progress.

 

[Jax86Cutlass]

Thanks. In pretty decent shape for being a Michigan car all its life. Looking to do a spare tire delete panel, due to the old one having some rust in the bottom. Patch the drivers side floor. I have a set of black bucket seats from an earlier g body cutlass that are going in. Planning on doing a gauge cluster swap, floor shifter conversion, dye the interior black with the wood grain trim. Then repaint the original gun metal gray color after some body work is done. Keeping the rally wheels with white letter tires. Then clean up the engine bay, repaint motor, run a nice dual exhaust. Stock manifolds right now. Don't know if I should swap to headers, or keep the manifolds yet. Any suggestions?

 

[O. D. Showtime]

Sounds like you're doing what I'd do if it were mine....I'm more of the original appearance with a little performance upgrades kind of person. I'm an older guy... not that that matters...my big power highly modified days are behind me...the last Gbody I had (79 El Camino Royal Knight) was running stock manifolds with true duals and unknown turbo style mufflers. It had a stock 350 with th350 and 2:73 rear end and was a nice driver with decent power. It had enough exhaust note for me. I guess it depends on what you are looking for in the car.

 

[Jax86Cutlass]

The car has a stock 350 with the th350 trans, and .373 open rear end. To say the least, the car is fun right now. I think its got plenty of power. I think I'd like to keep the manifolds just because I know they fit well in the engine bay. But from what I understand, if I was going to run dual exhaust, I would need a different cross member, correct?

 

[O. D. Showtime]

For duals you could change the cross member or at the least modify the cross member on the LH side to allow the exhaust pipe clearance. We modified the cross member on my son's Malibu to allow clearance...he had long tubes and Hooker Aero Chamber muffers...sounded good but a little loud for me. My El Camino was done when I bought it...they (whoever) ran the LH side pipe over to the RH side and under the crossmember and then it went to each side then out the back.

 

[Jax86Cutlass]

The main idea I am struggling with now is my heater/ac box under the hood. My last g body, a 1984 Monte Carlo had the same problem. With the engine install, the previous owned ripped apart the a/c system. You can see this is my picture of my engine bay. I don't know whether to rebuild the a/c system, or convert it to a a/c delete, heat only system. I don't think I want to totally get rid of the heater too. Any ideas?