87LTcamaro

hey i found a 79 trans am 403 olds motor. how much horsepower did it come w/ stock? ive heard 140 hp is that right? i mean a 403........should have way more than that. but i have no idea thats why im leavin it to u guys. so how much hp is it? thanks in advance.

Air_Adam

I've heard 240, but dont take me seriously, i dont know for sure.

RB83L69

They're pretty lame, in stock form... I had a bunch of late 70s Z28s, same body, except with Chevy 350s; also very lame, 180 HP IIRC; the T/A 6.6 wasn't any faster. Had a bit better leave, but less top end than the 350, which I didn't think possible, since the L48 was just about completely gonad-challenged. And of course that's the short-deck Olds block, so none of the accessories will fit the good motors (400 & 455). Altogether forgettable.

1tinindian

185 H.P. stock. But don't sell this motor short, it can be modded just as easy as the small block chevy, if you know what your doing, and it can make for a very potent street engine.

I do agree though, that they are nothing to shout about in stock form, that's why mine is no longer stock!

87LTcamaro

what a piece of crap! ok well, so how hard is it to mod this to say 375-400hp. i mean im lookin for a beast here. should i just say screw this car and build a 350? i just cant believe a trans am 403 big block motor is almost as weak as my 305.

87LTcamaro

hey 1tinindian
how much hp are you gettin out of your 403? and how much money did you spend to get there?

1tinindian

First, I have to tell you that the 403 is a Small block, based on the 350 Olds. From the factory, it had a bore bigger than the Pontiac 455, but has the stroke of the 350.( 4.351 x 3.385 )
I agree, the HP rating sucks, but when you look at how they were, you'd understand why. ie. y-pipe to single pellet style converter, 8.0:1 comp., peanut cam, 2.56-2.73 rear gearing.
But consider this, it made 320 ft lbs torgue @ 2200 rpm.
I'm not trying to sell you on this, as I have nothing to gain from it, I'm just saying that I have had very good luck with mine and have had my share of fun outrunning L-98 Corvettes. ( I'm not Chevy bashing, just stating the truth)
As far as giving you some numbers, that is hard to say, no dyno nor e.t. on my part, just the experience of taking it from bone stock, and over the course of 21 years, trying different parts and keeping what worked the best, like: 3.73 gears, Performer intake, recurve dist., open shaker scoop, rejet carb, 350 heads, Comp Cams 268, headers, h-pipe w/dual exhaust, 200-4R overdrive trans.
I'm sure it's nowhere near your 400 hp, but it's no dog by any means

87LTcamaro

man, i was really excited when i found this trans am..but now im really dissappointed. i though these cars were really fast....i guess smokey and the bandit is overrated? ha oh well, thx for the info you guys.

chefdan1

i use to have a 403 trans am 1980. they are very nice cars. throw some exhaust on it and let i breath for starters. what it lacks in power it makes up in style and looks. very nice cars. i would buy another one if i had the chance.

87LTcamaro

yes they are very nice looking cars...but im looking for something to race and that looks good.

RB83L69

Well you could do what all the rest of us used to do.... yank out that smogger sedan land-barge turd, and slap a nice big block Chevy in it; that's about the cheapest, easiest, most effective way to energize one of those cars.

Unless you're one of those guys that has had the Pontiac or aolds motors for a long time, and has a good stash of the hard-to-find head cores and thing like that, it's extremely difficult and expensive to make one of those things competitive. They can be made into great motors, but if you're starting from scratch, it's economically unappealing to say the least.

Personally I will never own another 2nd gen F car again, at least not for a daily driver.... I use to get so tired of a seat that made my right leg go numb, a trunk that wouldn't hold even one single suitcase if there was a spare tire in it, a rear suspension that just sort of kept the rear end somewhere near the car if I was careful, etc. etc. etc. I even got tired of the way they looked; they were just killer and state-of-the-art in 70, but by 74, they looked pretty dated, and by the time they finally retired that body style, they looked positively Stone Age (to go along with their Stone Age undercarriage). IMO the late 70s Firebirds were the worst; huge plastic panels draped all over the hull, giant spoilers that just looked ridiculous if you have any idea what a spoiler is for, and so on... they looked to me like those pictures you see of ancient kings being carried down the streets in those boxes on sticks that people picked up and carried, and that had curtains draped all over the outside. Gawdy, showy, and certainly not fast.

Yes, "Smokey and the Bandit" was just a movie. The real cars weren't even remotely like that, any more than a real 84 Firebird was like "Kitt" {gag, puke}. Using that movie as the "gold standard" for imagining what they were like would be about like watching "Lawrence of Arabia" and thinking that last week, Iraq would have been just like that.

ME Leigh

Build the 403 and drop in a machined down 455 crank, boom tuff acting +500 cu.

wm_sorg

The Olds 403 that came in the 79 trans am was rated at 220hp. The Pontiac 400 had a slightly higher power rating. I had a 1981 that had a chevy 305. It actually was qiuck. It had a four speed with perf axl ratio.

CamaroFreak406

Ya that is pretty crazy, if it's bored .030 over that is an amazing 508 cubic inches. That is one hell of a lot of cubes.

Later, Garrett

87LTcamaro

ok so ive heard 140hp, 185 and now 220? what is it...who has owned one and dynoed it or has the build sheet or a website? im not calling any of you guys liars, but i may be able to buy a 79 trans am with really low miles on it.....so i need to now if this is a good race motor or not. so how much hp and torque does it have? i imagine its a torque monster with that many cubes. thanks in advance.

RB83L69

It was pitiful. It had good leave, no nads whatsoever past 3000 RPM or so. I don't have numbers, I just know it sucked. It's garbage in stock form, and would require lots and lots of expensive and hard to find parts to make it better. Good heads don't fit, I've never seen pistons for that 500 inch combo, etc.

It is absolutely not, under any circumstances, no way, no how, a race motor. It is a 70s smogger land-barge sedan motor (enough cubic inches so that it wouldn't stall when Grandma was parking it at church, and cut the steering all the way to one side with the air on) just stuck off into a lighter car with big screaming bird decals plastered all over it to make suckers think it was fast. It is a giant pig. I don't know how to put it any more plainly and still have this be a G-rated site.

If you're looking for a fast car, look elsewhere. That was the runt of a pretty poor litter. If you like that car but want to make it fast, buy it cheap, and jerk that boat anchor out of there and drop in a 454.

Duke901

I have one, its 185hp@3600 and 320TQ@2200

1tinindian

Duke901: I agree, those are the correct numbers for a stock 403!

RB83L69: I see you have a lot of hate for this subject, and you have stated your case, so let it go!
If someone else has had positive experiences, and enjoyed owning such cars, then that should matter as much as your dislike for them.
The only thing I will agree with you on, is that if 87LTcamaro is looking for that level of HP, there are cheaper ways of getting there.


wm_sorg: I think you are referring to the W-72 high perf. upgrade to the Pontiac 400(L-78), that had the 220 hp. The standard L-78 was rated at 180 hp, and the L-80 (403) had 185 hp.

f-crazy

iTrader: (-1)

RB83L69 feels so strongly because hes drivin these cars...they were pigs...ive whooped the 403 t/a's with my stock g92 t-5 car..

those motors never caught on because there were better cores to start with....350's 400's....the 403 just couldnt compete...

theres a reason why the 350-400 aftermarket is so strong..

87LTcamaro

ok so 185 hp is what it had..and its probably too pricy for me to race. i like the look of the car..but ive got the need for speed really bad. so thanks for all the info...i think ill pass this one up.

RB83L69

I wouldn't say "hate", I think "disappointment" would be closer to the mark... having lived through the days of those old real muscle cars, then the Arab oil shocks of the early 70s and the total neutering of the fast cars, and all of the various factory "poser" crap all through the 70s (GM wasn't the only one.... remember the Mustang II "Cobra"? or the mid-70s Plymouth "Duster" and "RoadRunner" that came with a slant-6?), I was entirely burnt out on the "image" thing that took over the car industry and replaced reality by the time the 80s rolled around. I'm sorry, but to me a 4000 lb leaf-spring car with a 185 HP 400 CID sedan motor and 300 lbs of huge non-functional plastic blobs draped all over it didn't excite me in the least as a "performance" car. That pretty much summed up all the "improvement" of the kind that seemed to happen all through the 70s... the graphics got bigger and gaudier, the cars got heavier and slower, and they kept costing more without any of the things that were wrong with the original designs getting fixed, they just kept cranking out the same junk. The 2nd gens were the perfect example of what was wrong with the car industry: year after year, the same suspension, same brakes, same steering, same exhaust system that always fell off while driving down the road, more weight, less power, higher price, no design improvement whatsoever over the course of their 11-year (!) production run. I thought that these cars (3rd gen F cars) were sent fom heaven when they came out; much sleeker, no chunks of useless flab hanging over their belt line; and then when the HO motor came out... all of a sudden you could get a car with nearly the same HP/weight ratio as a moderate muscle car from days gone by!!! The fun was back.

Then GM did the same thing to the 3rd gen cars over their production run; which effectively sealed their fate. By the time they finally woke up and smelled the coffee, the competition (read: Mustang) had so far outclassed these cars in terms of fun, specifically power-to-weight ratio, that no amount of nose re-design or "ground effects" packages (added useless weight) could get buyers interested in them any more. The general public isn't fooled by 4' wide screaming-bird decals on the hood of a 22 lb/HP car any more.

I don't miss the 70s. I don't want to go back.

wm_sorg

I stand corrected. Thanks 1tinindian.

My old man custom ordered one new in 1979. It was dark midnight blue with no bird on the hood. IT had 4 wheel discs and a bunch of HD stuff. It probably had W-72 high perf packege.

It was adversized at 220hp. I remember the car was quick for that era.

Black363IROCZ

hey, I got a buddy with an '86 442, powered by a rebuilt and modded 403. he's running low 14s with it now, twin 4-bbls, tunnel ram, and mild cam are the only mods. gonna get a 3000 stall, ported heads, and 3.73 and a 125 shot of crack, should be a really bad *** car, hell a 14 sec '80s era oldsmobile is pretty badass.

Duke901

In 1979 there where 3 engines you could get, one was a 4 barrel 301 rated at 150hp@4000 and 240tq@2400, with that you got 4.9 on the shaker hood.

then you could get the 403 rated at 185hp@3600 and 320Tq@2200 with that it says 6.6 litre on the shaker, the 403 only came with a automatic

then the big motor was the pontiac 400, it had 220hp@4000
and 320TQ@2800, this motor only came with a 4 speed in 79 and it said TA 6.6 on the hood.

the pontiac 400 would do the quater in about 15.3@96mph

so i say the the 403 would be mid 16

I have seen people take the 403 and put older olds 350 heads on it and a bigger cam, a performer intake, with 3:73 gears and get the car down to 13sec.

Thats what i plan to do to mine.

Black363IROCZ

I've heard of 400 ponchos going mid 14s bone stock and I've seen a '77 beater with stock exhaust run a 14.2@100 MPH. that's as good a stock TPI or 5.0, I don't get what the big deal is? If you think a mustang outclassed the camaro then get a mustang the fact that the 3rd gen camaro was the most stolen car in the 80s, followed by the cutlass, and no one would even bother with a 5.0 has to say something about what the people truely wanted. I don't care much for the looks of a mustang or what a stock car can do. plenty of incredibly fast 5.0s and 3rd gens out there to keep the competition going forever.

Air_Adam

Question:

Why did they use an Olds motor for the auto cars and a Poncho for the 4 speed cars?

Black363IROCZ

why didn't they give 350s a manual and proper sized runners from the factory

wm_sorg

I believe they did a limited production run of the Pontiac 400s.

87LTcamaro

so i went and drove that 79 trans am.......that thing sucked. it was really really slow....i couldnt even get it to peel out. this is probably cuz of the really high gears in it.....but still a trans am that wont peel out......thats just sick. so in my opinion the 403s are not very good engines. thanks for all the info guys.

Duke901

That 403 must be really tired, my 79 with 2:41 gears will burn the tires. It also gets to 100mph pretty nice. So if you still want to get it, the 403 will either have to be rebuilt or replaced with something else.

Guest

I have to agree about 70's motors in general (can you say EPA?) and the 403 was no exception. Flat out dog. The 400 was a little better, but it still had to work pretty hard to get a 2nd gen moving, much more so than it should have. Thank the pathetic compression and converter full of beads... yeech. Either of them you could get them to perform with a little work, but you are starting with something that has been choked to death by the feds.

Pontiac didnt produce any 400's after 1978. The ones sold in 79 TA's were leftover blocks from earlier production, IIRC there were about 10,000 (I could be off a little, maybe it was 7,500) that made their way into TA's in 1979. Every one of them was mated to a 4-speed in 79.

And as for why no 400's with auto, and 403's all auto, and all that BS... every combination had to be EPA certified, so a different engine and/or trans combo needed certification. Blame the bean counters.

Black363IROCZ

don't forget second gens were extremely heavy! but yeah, doesn't take much to get them up to par. 455 can have 200 HP liberated from the choked out block to make an earthshaking amount of power with bolt ons.

txturbo

The 403s were good torque motors.My buddy had a 79 Anniversary T/A with the 403.It was pretty quick in its day.It had the 2:41 disc brake posi if I remember right.A little after that I bought a new 83 Hurst/Olds 15th Anniversary Cutlass with the Olds 307.It was only 180hp but was slightly quicker than the "new" 3rd gen Z-28.There was a guy in town with a rich daddy that I beat several times.After the 3rd time his dad bought him a 350 crate motor and had it swapped in.I heard about it before he was finished and bought a 125hp nitrous kit and installed it in the Hurst.The first night he had it running again he found me, we raced again, he started pulling me at about 50mph,until I hit the nitrous.Then I just barely beat him.He was really pissed.Several years later, I bought an Olds 403 to replace the 307.Direct bolt in swap.More power,better mileage, more torque.Then I started replacing rear ends.The point is,in their day they weren't that bad for a stock motor.It just depends on what you're comparing them to.

Black363IROCZ

I'd love to see an 307 Olds run against an '83 L69 5-speed Z, the murder would be horrendous.

gmgod

I've never driven a slower v-8 car than my old 86 cutlass 307.

Cronic3rd

I did. Try an 80' cutless supreme with a 265 V8. It was like driving a coutch and about as fast as one too.

87WS6

iTrader: (1)

The engine bay in that car is huge. GM has a 575 C.I.D. Crate engine. Throw that bad boy in there and wake that car up. Since you wouldn't have to worry about emissions.

82 TRANS AM

The Olds 260 was the dog of the litter.

Oldsmobiles are awesome engines in general. Better design than Chevy IMO.

Edelbrock has heads for 400 and 455 Oldsmobiles. I plan on getting a set for my 455. If you took that T/A, picked up a 455, (cheap and plentiful), Edelbrock heads, intake, and the right cam, you'd be at about 500 hp. And probably close to that in torque!
$3-4k. Pretty cheap power i'd say.

What's so hard about finding Oldsmobile engine parts? Expensive too? What? Buicks and Caddy maybe, but Oldsmobiles are easy and cheap. Oldsmobiles were good selling cars. They were the last of the corporate V-8's to be in production, up until 90 i believe, in Caprices. These were'nt the power house v-8's of the late 60's early 70's, just smooth running last forever so so power 307's.

I'm glad you passed on it. Looking at a 4000 pound car to race and worrying about what engine it has does'nt make much sense.

Black363IROCZ

had to have been a 267, the 265 is an old 50s motor, they put em in C1 vettes, they were peppy blocks.

wm_sorg

I had an olds 350 thathad the top half rebuilt when it had 170k on it. It had close to 250k when I sold it it it still ran like new. Suprisingly it still made great power at that age. I love the distintive throaty sounds that olds engines made.

Someday I would love to get my hands on a early 70s hurst olds w30 with a 455. Hell the olds 455 will be right at home in a 2nd gen as well.

82 TRANS AM

The 70's-80's Olds baby block was a 260. I had one in a 79 Cutlass. Soup can eights. I think Pontiac had the 265, and Chevy had the 267. These were popular engines in the G-bodies from mid seveties to early eighties.

azvolfan

185 hp?
what a piece of crap!

Back in 1979 185hp stock hp was considered pretty good. Remember that was only 5 yrs after the oil embargo. All cars across all fleets and manufacturers reduce hp for gas mileage quite drastically bck then.

amarc621

It came with 185hp

five7kid

iTrader: (14)

Good to know, 12 years later...

SouthSide2

Fact is... it made far less. Yes they rounded up .001%. Not that it was a weak engine. B&S Had a more powerful iron sleeve engine cutting grass.

rusty vango

then build a full on drag car and be done