23rd Apr 2016, 13:56

Totally agree about the 307. Prior to 1985 the 307 was not a bad performer, for its time anyway. Nothing with a carburetor manufactured after 1973 performed very good, and the 307 was comparable to the Chevy 305 and the Ford 302 with a carburetor in that regard.

If you race a 1984 Oldsmobile 98 with a 307 and a 1987 Oldsmobile Cutlass with a 307, assuming both cars are in decent running condition... although a good 700 pounds heavier, the 98 Regency will wipe the floor with the 1987 Cutlass. Both are comically slow by today's standards, but the Cutlass will be noticeably comically slower.

Oldsmobile (more than likely with GM and CAFE's gun pointed at their heads) retweeked the cylinder heads in 1985 with even smaller exhaust and intake ports. The result was an engine that could barely breath above 3000 RPM. Adding a faster rear axle was pointless, as that would just bring the engine to the point that it can't breath even quicker. Since most of the buyers of these cars were either elderly or well to do parents with kids, I'm guessing not a lot of people did any "spirited" driving on their test drives at the dealerships. With that said, outside of the Buick Grand National, virtually nothing built in the 1980s priced less than $50,000 was even close to being quick; the Mustang GT and even the Corvettes were a disgrace during this time.

Oldsmobile's cylinder head and combustion chamber design was quite efficient and dare I say "unintentionally" mother earth friendly for its day, meaning it was the last GM V8 allowed to use a carburetor, all the way to the bitter end in 1990.

Rather than spend the money on a decent fuel injection system, GM used this to their advantage to screw its customers over; they even had the nerve to dump this boat anchor into the even larger full size Cadillac Brougham and a lot of the full size station wagons until 1990.

It's quite a shame too; with a short stroke and decent sized bore, the 307 and even its wimpier 260 cube little brother could have really been something back in the day, if only they had fuel injection and decent cylinder heads.

GM screwed up another golden opportunity a decade earlier, rushing the Oldsmobile 350 diesel to production without doing nearly enough research and development... well I guess the unlucky 1978 to 1980 customers ended up being the R&D team, because by the early 1980s after GM finally worked most of the kinks out, dealer lots could hardly give them away, let alone sell them.

The 307 was probably the only engine to LOSE power in the 1980s, when everyone else was busy rebuilding, innovating or replacing the wheezy engines that were brought on by the 1970s fuel crisis. If you compare a 1987 Cutlass to a 1987 Ford Thunderbird with a fuel-injected 302, the Olds is a laughing stock as far as acceleration. Most of the domestic and foreign V6s on the road by the late 1980s now had electronic or multiport electronic fuel injection, and could easily humiliate an Olds 307 no matter how heavy of a car they were pulling.

It's no secret American car makers and GM in particular had a "too big to fail" attitude until recently, and the 1980s GM was a prime example. They didn't take Honda, Toyota, and Nissan seriously, and it really bit them where it hurts, in the wallet. I look back at things like vinyl tops with opera lights, fixed rear windows in the Cutlass sedans from 1980 to 1987 (and its Regal, Malibu, LeMans small Bonneville cousins), barren instrument panels with only a 85 MPH speedometer and fuel gauge, 90% of the cars with column shifters... and I have to wonder what they were thinking? The 70 and 80 year olds weren't going to stay that age forever.