 The original owner wanted a 442, but the pricetag on a 442 was a little out of reach, so this 1971 Oldsmobile Cutlass S was ordrered new with every 442 option except for the 455 Olds engine. It's got the bucket seats, 4-speed, Outside Air Induction fiberglass hood, sway bars, disc brakes... and a 350 4-barrel. It's an interesting car, and here's where the journey back to greatness begins.
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 Sometimes the simple solution eludes you. In this case, we've been gearing up for the turbocharger install on the S71 Olds project. We've got our diesel block and new parts set aside, and we're using the original 350 engine to mock up how we want the turbo to fit in the car. We were expecting a ton of fambrication, as turbo manifolds or headers are not readily available for 1971 Olds 350 engines, and we were expecting to have to make our own. However, after studying the stock manifolds, a potential solution became apparant. From a performance standpoint, turbo cars don't seem to care if you're running headers or manifolds, the power levels are similar. And cast iron is as strong as anything when it comes to exhaust parts. We notices that the Olds manifolds had a provision for the single exhaust version cars that merges the left and right exhaust pipes together... can we use this factory style setup to build our turbo exhaust? Let's find out!
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 In this phase of the S71 Dash construction, we're integrating the Auto Meter volt meter, boost gauge, and stereo mounting face into the lower parts of the dash. Once the pieces were cut and fit, they were sandblasted and powdercoated, then the plastic dash was trimmed to accomodate the gauge itself. Here you can also see the 3M adhesive we used to mount the face to the original bezel in the top part of the dash. We are still seeking out the "right" indicators for the signals and high beams, but they can be added anytime before final assembly. The last part will be to have the dash pad restored by Just Dashes, then it gets assembled and wired!
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 The next phase in our S71 Dash Re-Do was to powdercoat the new face with Eastwood's Wrinkle Black powder coat, and the look matches the factory plastic dash pattern perfectly. Then we mapped out where to place our two remaining gauges, which meant we had to move the stock radio location over a little. We made another steel faceplate for that area designed to hold the volt meter and a newer style "DIN" sized head unit.
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 The stock dash face in our 1971 Olds "S71" project wasn't going to work for us. First off, the dash didn't have adequate instrumentation... it only had "idiot" lights for crucial items like oil pressure and temperature. Second, the dash just didn't look right with the 3-hole configuration and wood grain. So we decided to make a new dash face and load it with Auto Meter Ultra Lite gauges we obtained from the YearOne Speed Shop. We like large gauges, which made fitting them a trick, but we like the asymmetric look. We installed the silver faced 2 1/16" fuel gauge in the left lower corner, then added a 2 5/8" Water Temp gauge next, then a 3 3/8" Speedo and Tach, and finally a 2 5/8" oil pressure gauge. We're still adding a boost gauge and a volt meter to the hole left by the original ashtray, but that comes later. After measuring the size of the face, we plasma cut some 18 gage steel for the panel, and used Blair Holcutters and the HTP Plasma Cutter to make our holes. Tap Magic cutting fluid keeps the cutters sharp on the drill press. The last items to add will be the turn signal and high-beam indicators, and then we'll powdercoat the whole face with Eastwood's Wrinkle Black so the gauges "pop".
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 Here are some shots of the S71 Olds project's body being mounted back on the frame. We used a YearOne body mount hardware and bushing kit to make the body sit properly on the frame and to replace all the old, crusty bushings. Click Read More for the pictures.
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