Blown 308 help

[Badoingle]

I have an '88 Cutlass Supreme Classic with a blown 308. Back story (this all happened 2ish years ago, but I'm finally at a place where I can afford to work on it):
I picked up a Cutlass Supreme Classic with about 35k miles on it, had the battery, oil, transmission fluid, fuel, and suspension all replaced after picking it up because it sat for 15 years. However, the mechanic I took it to, I don't think he dropped the oil pan and cleaned out all the sludge. When I first got it, a carb/oil warning light would occasionally show up, but then turn off. Looking at the carb, a vacuum line was loose, no big deal, reconnect it and ready to go. That seemed to have fixed the problem, until one day I'm running down the interstate, that warning light comes on and I've got a sudden loss of power and white smoke coming from the motor. Pull over, get it towed to my brother's house who's a diesel mechanic. I was a college student at the time and didn't have the time, money or place to wrench on it. He farted around and tried to get it to start, but it wouldn't. Get it towed back to my parents house. There, my old man and I try to manually crank over the engine, but it won't budge. Its been sitting for a year now and I'm ready to finally start working on it but don't know where to begin.

So I'm fairly inexperienced with cars, I can/have replace(d) a water pump, alternator, S-belt, pulleys on the s-belt line, a drive shaft in an older chevy truck, plugs, wires, distributor cap, etc. I'm just wondering where I should start for resources, such as a chilton manual? Since I can't hand crank it, is the motor probably hosed and I should start hunting for an SBC or depending on how the cylinder walls look, could I potentially punch them out a bit and keep it a numbers matching G body?

Erm title is wrong, blown 307. 😛

 

[ssn696]

Is an 88 307 fuel injected? If so, i'd stay with that motor. Yours may be salvageable with a rebuild, but I would not worry about numbers matching. Outside of a GNX, G-bodies are not really collectible. But eminently driveable! 😎

 

[pencero]

Rebuilding a 307 is a huge waste of money for someone who doesn't have experience to do it yourself. Try to scavenge a 350 olds from an older model Oldsmobile like a delta 88 / holiday coupe. If you switch to chevrolet you won't be able to use your accessories from the olds on it, but that won't matter if they are shot. You will need different motor mounts. You would have to also redo the driveshaft as you did on the truck you described, but this time it will be a different size yoke. Study up on this site, run searches. You can copy someone else's build since it is your 1st time doing it. It's easier than making a new thread every time something comes up on the build. A build thread is good to get help w/ everything.

 

[Bonnewagon]

Nice score, a low mileage Cutlass is a real find. But I agree that a 307 is not worth wasting time on. A 350 or 403 will drop right in and be tons of fun. Then you can take the 307 apart at your leisure and fix it or not. I understand the value of a numbers matching car but once you drive a strong V-8 you may not look back.

 

[MrSony]

I agree with Bonnewagon. I was orignally going to rebuild my lil v6 in my regal, but I stumbled onto a thread on here about a 231 v6 to 350 Buick swap. Never looked back. And as other have said, the 307 is 99% the same on the outside as the olds 350 and 403. And hey, if you can snag a cheap good olds 350, you can swap heads and intake from an olds 455 with very minimal (if any, memory kind of fuzzy on machine work needed) portmatching and machining. Im picking up an olds 350 later this month for a father-son type project, and I'm looking forward to it. (I'm the son). That's the end of my ramblings. Lol.

 

[Badoingle]

Man, sorry I never got back to you guys, I was doing some reading on this site and thinking of yanking out the 307, rebuilding at my convenience but also trying to find a 350 or 403 olds and transmission. I'm looking at rebuilding this car as a father/son project with my old man too! The numbers matching thing was just a way in the future thing, tbh. I love the look of this car and loved the way it drove, so I think getting it running with a new engine is the way to go for the time being. I'll look around for swap threads and hopefully start a build thread in the spring.