How many times have we heard someone say, “Drop an SBC in it!”, or “Drop a Hayabusa in it!” – many times, that’s how many. I don’t mention that as if it’s a bad thing, it’s just a fact of life with reality shows changing out a drivetrain in a half-hour. It’s that easy, isn’t it? Well, this 1984 Oldsmobile Delta 88 Royale Brougham has a 6.0-liter LS in it! They have it posted here on craigslist in Narragansett, Rhode Island and they’re asking $14,500. Here is the original listing, and thanks to PRA4SNW for the tip!
Nobody would ever guess that there’s anything but a 140hp engine in this mid-80s luxury sedan. I love that they kept everything else stock but the engine and transmission, there are no 20″ chrome wheels, no lime green wrap, no debadging, no nothing. Just Oldsmobile luxury with a modern drivetrain, I don’t know how it could be any better than that.
The first thing I always look for – it’s a curse – is to see if any body panels are different shades or colors. It looks like the right rear door is a shade darker and we don’t know why. Maybe door dings or a parking lot incident. It isn’t super noticeable to most people but I’m cursed in always looking for that. The seller says that there’s “NO rot”, so that’s great. Oldsmobile said that their products were “designed to slip through the wind for energy saving ease”, but compared to today’s vehicles, I don’t see too much that’s aerodynamic about this car. Although with almost 400 horsepower on tap, I don’t know if slipping through the wind will be much trouble.
The eighth-generation Olds 88 was made for the 1977 through 1985 model years and they were the last generation to have rear-wheel-drive. The interior looks fantastic and the seller says that everything works other than the cruise control. The back seat looks like new and this velour fabric is what most of us expect a 1980s luxury vehicle to have. It wasn’t quite the era yet when everyone expected leather seating surfaces as they do today.
Here’s the big deal with this car, GM’s LS, a 6.0-liter monster with somewhere between 300 and 340 horsepower. They say that this one is backed by a GM 4L80-E four-speed automatic transmission. The seller says that this car is mechanic-owned and has 66,000 miles (113,000 on the engine) and it sure would be fun to own. Have any of you done a drivetrain swap with an older vehicle?
“ Have any of you done a drivetrain swap with an older vehicle?” My dad and I did with the ‘56 VW we brought home from Spain-the old 36hp needed rebuilding so we found a (GASP!) FORTY HP motor and using a lawn mower carcass pulled it out and swapped it right there in the garage that day!
Ok, NOT a big deal but you asked..😆
This Olds is going to make someone’s daily drive a whole lot of fun for no other reason than it’s completely out of character with that engine.
Lawn mower carcass all you need is a floor jack,all jokes aside the Harbor freight cheap motorcycle Jack is great for Vee-Dub engine R&R.
Sometimes you look at a vehicle like this and you just have to ask, “WHY”?🤣 I don’t understand the reasoning behind putting an LS2 in a family sedan. Be a good clean vehicle to buy if you had a small block older camaro or something that you could swap engines in and then sell the sedan to recoup some of your investment.
Why? Mechanic owned. A free or cheap car here and a free or cheap engine there and a chance to make a profit on both and there you have it. Mechanics are mostly interested in making a buck.
Absolutely true, and also for the reason in this video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UNOEMEX-2ow&t=100s
The Wizard!
I thought it was a Tyler Hoover car – it’s a Roadmaster and he just sold one – but then the mechanic said he owns it, but that he bought it from Hoover.
Sleeper
Think of it this way: the Pontiac G8 sedan came with a similarly sized and powerful engine, and weighed the same, if not more than this.
Ummm well kinda. While the G8 came with an L76 (an intermediate step between LS2 and LS3) it does not way nearly as much as this luxury barge.
The perfect car. If they made this today, I’d be first in line to buy one. The only thing better would be a 90 or 91 Cadillac Brougham with this engine and trans.
’09 G8 V8 = 4050 lbs, ’84 Delta 88 w 305 V8 = 3721 lbs.
Thanks Todd. I thought I remembered these B-Bodies were pretty light, especially by today’s standards!
This isn’t a “hot rod” engine. It is a modern truck engine, designed to produce abundant torque for a heavy vehicle. This Oldsmobile is a perfect match for it.
Ummm nope! The LS2 is not a truck engine and was not designed for truck use. In your ignorance you may be thinking of the LS4 a 5.3 litre truck engine that was adapted for use in cars.
Sure looks like an LQ4 truck engine to me.
It’s not an LS2
While this one definitely does have a truck intake installed, it’s possible that it was the intake of choice to reduce height in order to make it easier to get this engine under the Oldsmobile’s hood. That said, this engine may still be an LS2, as LS-style intakes are interchangeable so long as the ports match those in the heads that they’re bolted to — and can even be installed backwards, if so desired.
“Why?”
“Fun af, dude… ’nuff said.”
Because the original engine was a wheezy welterweight. This kind of HP is what these full size cars were made for.
Makes sense as what was probably under the hood was basically a boat anchor. Nice old sedan that just needed a fresh power train. Now it will cruise at the 70 mph all day and use less fuel and a lot easier to drive. Not scared on the on ramps. These drivetrains are quite abundant anymore and 100 K on an LS is nothing!
Not a spectacular hot-rod mind you, but this 88 will fool alot of your friends. Imagine pimple-faced 20 year old Norbert in his Fox bodied `Stang pulling up next to this at a light. He doesn’t even look at the Olds, but when the light changes, poor Norbert is left choking in tire smoke as the 88 leaves him in a hurry!! LOL
Love it…of course I have an 84 Impala with a LQ9 with twin 78 millimeter turbos hooked to a 4L80e. Classic sleeper wrapper combined with modern, reliable LS power.
That’ll get their attention when the light turns green lol.
Put a 03 ls 5.3 in a 75 Camaro. Turned out amazing. 4.10 rear end and a turbo 400 trans. Ran into health issues and had to part with her cheap($4,500). Miss her more than anything I’ve ever owned. Someday hope to build another one although I’d settle for this one. Pretty cool car.
I love it.I don’t care what you LS haters say.They are stout powerful just about bullet proof v8’s and the 4l80e built correctly is the same.My buddy bought a 66 Caprice roller out of utah and is doing a rotisserie restoration on it with a 6.0 ls out of a wrecked 06 gto and a 6 speed with a 9c1 95 Caprice chassis glwts.
First car was a 1981 Delta 88. The interior is identical, of course very similar outside. Guys if I could swing the cash I’d be driving it this weekend. Love it!
Nice find, PRA4SNW and another on-point write-up Scotty. Sometimes these creations come about by chance. Someone with some LS swap chops stumbles on a nearly-perfect Olds with a blown motor, etc. They don’t always have to become a magazine-worthy super-sleeper. If Olds made this car today, it would definitely have an LS, and nobody would expect it to clean up at an autocross. A family could daily drive this rig for 100,000 miles and probably use less gas than a full-sized SUV. Not bad for under $15k. I like it! Bravo to the builder for creating an interesting, updated sedan.
I like this. A proper car with a hot rod powerplant. I love the whitewalls and spoked wheel covers. It even has the correct number of doors.
The good Dr..Doctor Olds approves🙌🏁
“DROP A LF 9 Old 350 DIESEL IN IT!”…said no-one ever.
Nice car for sure, but the engine is silly. Better used in a hotrod. Not needed in a 4 door, and will never sell for anywhere near that price. I’ve seen it on craigslist in my area for a while now.
Naturally, a post like this will stir up a few comments, purist v. modern. Since only a moron would get rid of the 350, this may have had a diesel, and as mentioned, probably had this motor lying around, it hardly looks new and the diesel became their boat anchor. I think it’s great they left the car itself alone, the best rwd cars and I miss them dearly.
No ’84 Oldsmobile had a 350 to get rid of. This car would have had an Olds 307, in all probability (Cali-bound 88s may have had Chevy 305s), a malaise-era fuel economy engine that was adequate at best, but barely so. This car would be far more satisfactory now with whatever LS-type engine is under the hood and the 4L80 than it was originally with the 307 and a 200-4R.
Phil, you’re right. 350 gas engines were gone by 84. Very unlikely that this was a diesel engine because it has the vacuum brake booster and master cylinder that an 84 would have for a gas engine. A diesel would have had a hydraboost.
Scotty, this is not an LS2 engine. The ad states only that it’s a 6.0 liter LS Engine. My 2001 Silverado has the exact same motor, an LQ4. It has 300 H/P and similar torque. They command a slightly higher cost than a 5.3, but they aren’t anything special. You can find good used examples for less than $1000. You can see it has the truck intake manifold with the “Vortec” cover on it. None of that detracts from the coolness of the build, but it’s really not that wild.
My apologies, Dave, CCF, and all, you’re right!
I agree – they nailed it. I’ve driven the wagon version, and the builder of this Delta threw away the parts that needed to be and kept what didn’t. They just made it better, regardless of it makes a profit or not.
Now they have a comfortable, usable, cherry 88 that, as someone else mentioned, isn’t scary to drive anymore.
The ad only refers to the engine as an LS 6.0. There is no reference to it being an LS2. It appears to be a 6.0 out of a Chevy or GMC truck, which is still much stronger than the stock 307, but not quite as muscular as an LS2 out of a Corvette, GTO, or CTS-V.
I purchased a 1981 Cadillac with the diesel engine in 1982. I was a traveling salesman and this car was terrific. I lived in Houston and could drive all the way to Amarillo and still have 1/4 tank of fuel left. This car was very quiet when going 40 or miles per hour. Then the company put me in the Houston office and now I was in bumper to bumper traffic and the engine shaking when at idle. This caused the belts to loosen and the engine to slowly overheat. So at 1560,000 miles I had a 350 V8 installed, ( gas) and added another 120,000 to this Cadillac. Does anybody remember the Firestone 721 tires? They were to be bad ties and blowing out. I got 99000 miles out of a set on this Cadillac
when I was 18 working at a firestone dealer back in 84 we had a early 70’s vette that had the fender blown off it as well as door damage and a 74 buick le sabre some old lady had where the firestone 500 spare blew up in the trunk on a hot day. 721’S were not much better. Customer would get a new set and I remember replacing a tire once every month or so for tread seperation on the same car until all 4 were new again in under a year..Bridgestone bought them out in 87 right when I left. Bridgestones are good tires. I’d saw them rolling at 90 k worn out but not seperated as factory tires for the GM dealer I worked at long ago.Used to have 7.21 oil changes and every cheap arse would come to the firestone mastercare I worked at with cars ready to fall apart and unsafe to drive and they would say….all I want is my 7.21 oil change Firestone.Mastercares ” the mind of Mastercare” were company owned as a bit of trivia. Allen tune up equiptment as well as nox and hc analyzers on a trolley to be able to slide across the shop from car to car.
I had 721’s on my Camaro. Never had an issue, but with tires, you only need a small percentage of them to have a fault and their reputation is ruined.
If the swap was executed well everything about this makes sense. This new drivetrain will do EVERYTHING (cold start, idle like a watch, horsepower, MPG, reliability, almost no maintenance ever…..) better than the Previous drivetrain. I’ve had a couple of these full-size 80s 88-98s , they are low mileage grandma fresh they are wonderful cars. Quiet, smooth ride, comfy plush interiors and great HVAC – just zero power. Problem solved on this car.
I remember purchasing from Kelsey Hayes a 1970 Olds 88 that was a salesman’s car. At Kelsey we allowed the salesmen to order their own cars and the company would pay. So we had these cars with every option possible. This one had the 455 engine with a high ratio positraction rear end. I remember I only got about 7 miles per gallon in it.
i love sleepers!!! i would proudly drive it!!!
Was An olds dealer tech in that era. If you remember those 307 olds motors with 14 miles of vacumn hose were oil guzzlers!! Replaced and repaired many of those slobs!! They were gutless with a200 4r trans that would stall when hot because tcc solenoid stuck!! They were junk!! Rah rah ls!!
That describes my experience to a T. I could never figure out why mine used so much oil though. When it was warm, it had the normal amount of power and the exhaust smelled fine. When it warmed up though, it was painfully slow and you could smell the oil burning. Always wondered why…
Right on Thomas. Give me a 350 Olds Rocket 🚀 with a 350 Turbo Hydramatic Automatic
I’ve done one engine swap.i had a 1970 ford maverick in the late 90s.it came with a 170 inline 6 when i bought it.i put in a 302 i rebuilt with a c4 trans.headers,cam and electronic ignition.mavericks didnt come with the 302 option til 71.mine weighed only 2600 lbs.i was making more than 1hp for every 10lbs.it was one of the fastest street cars i ever had
I obtained a beautiful 1984 Olds Delta, (exctly like the picture) for $500.00. The car was for sale in San Francisco and the “buyer” took it for a test drive. He drove down to the border in Calexico and left the car there. The police never notified the owner, (a dealer). I called the dealer and he said I could have it for $500.00. I was friends with the tow company and got it out for free and did not even have to buy a battery. Was a great car and drove it for a couple of years. Beautiful interior like a Fleetwood Brougham
Scotty, I am truly honored that you picked up one of my submissions. I love your unique insight on the cars you feature.
I submitted this one based on all of the comments regarding throwing a V8 into a low powered car. I should have known that it would draw out the folks that feel exactly the opposite.
I really really miss nice clean, good looking family vehicles like this. Super nice car, and in this case, since the looks were left stock, I’m ok with the engine swap.
Has anyone forgotten about when you do and keep up preventive maintenance your ride will last you a life time, you take care of your car and your car will take care of you by keeping up with the preventive maintenance. No I guess not. One thing I would have did was have an Oldsmobile Big Block 350 – 400 4BBL V8 option for a Power Plant installed under the hood of that 84 Delta 88 Brougham Custom Royale.
For the top of the line 84 Oldsmobile 98 Regency Brougham to have for a Power Plant under the Hood definitely a Big Block 455 4BBL V8 most definitely if I am going to keep my Ride Original i’m going to keep it Original. What was their expression and phrase “Keep Your GM Ride All GM” well that’s exactly what they meant back in their hey day.
Oh yeah the other expression and Phrase stamped on the Keys on both sides below the letters GM the logo of they’ve shouldn’t have changed and left alone was MOE “Mark Of Excellence”. If only they would bring back that logo. That logo meant a lot to me. Just like MOPAR & Family Of Fine Cars.
I can agree with part of what you say. But, the 455 or 350 were not original to the car. The car is still all GM with the LS but now has better fuel economy, more torque, and lower emissions. What is wrong with that?
at Kelsey Hayes we allowed our field salespeople to go down and order their new company cars and bring in the tab for the company to pay. There were a few restrictions: Lincoln men could order a Mercury or Ford and Cadillac men could older up to an Oldsmobile 88. The cars had to look dignified, 4 door sedans, not 4 door hardtops. I often would by the old cars for myself. I got an Olds 88 Brougham that was fully loaded sedan with the 455 engine and positaction. This car only gave 8 MPG. Sure was comfortable though. My cost for this two year old car was $700.00. But I hardly ever drove it.