Why do Pontiac engines suck ??

Did not read all the replies, so might have missed it if anyone was smart enough to post the real reason for the Chev engines in the other GM brands like Pontiac, etc.

At some point, I don't know what year it happened GM made a move to streamline some of their different brands and stopped making brand specific engines and just used the basic SBC in different displacements.

It was as simple as that.

By the way all engines suck Air and fuel too

 

Pontiac engines are very good as well as strong engines but like ANY engine built you have to use the right parts. With that said many reasons for not using a Pontiac motor is cost. They just are not as cheap to build as a Chevy. Because more people build Chevys it falls under that "supply and demand" factor, the more parts you build the cheaper it gets. I wanted to put one of those "All Aluminum" carburated Butler Performance Pontiac motors into my Fiero and they wanted $18,000.00 for it. At the same time Al's Toy Box had a "Full Blowen" aluminum Big Block Chevy Donavan motor, blower scoop to pan, for $16,000.00. Yes the Butler motor was new and the Donavan motor was a fresh used one but which would you go with for the money?

 

Here is the reason in a nutshell ,More speed parts are available for chevy and priced reasonable ,The supply is there ,For racing you would need a 421 or 428 with a 455 crank and a descent set of heads,and intake manifold preferably a dual quad setup ,Probably would cost you double the price of a big block chevy ,I personally love pontiacs so Id think it would be worth it ,But parts arent a dime a dozen for pontiac parts........

 

Go to Pull-A-Part on Henrico/Moreland Ave...last time I went there looking for a Pontiac motor, I left with a '71 455...for less than $150. Plenty of 400s there.

 

This is one of my all time favorite hotrods. I see it once in awhile at local shows. Notice the 421 emblem on the side... and its a 4-spd! sweet.
The owner said the big rear tires are not for show, they're needed.

 

This is some Pontiac power! Eddie Hills twin engine rail made so much torque He ran twin slicks on it,saw a pic in an '59 Hot Rod mag where it dug 1/2" into the asphalt starting line for almost 300 feet at the '59 Nationals.

 

ive run chevy, ford, and pontiac. the fastest one on a street car was a 428 pontiac. that son of a gun hit from idle to 6 grand(then fell on its face). I know some of that was cam selection, and i built it to run idle to 6g. learn to drive it fast using that range and what a great street car!!! had a fun little 327 in a camaro, good for running around, but wouldnt come out of the hole for shit. 460 ford would pull a house around, but didnt feel all that fast...
I agree with some of these poists about racers needing to build cheap an dhave parts available , I think thats why the SBC is so popular too.

 

well here we go again i run a sbc in my 50 chevy because i like them they run good make hp and look cool i run a y-block in my ford because i like them i ran a 421 point. in a 55 chevy for the same thing i would never put a motor in a car just to piss people off but i always felt that a real grearhead puts a motor that he likes and a body that he likes (like a sbc in a ford or a sbf in a mopar ) just my 2 cents

 

I like when old threads are dredged up to debate something pointless...

 

Sorry man...... All I did was comment on someone's cool engine pics.......

 

My buddy Marks 79 T/A rusn 9.40's all motor Pontiac stroked 400!!

 

well said

 

Ignorance and false perceptions is te reason.
The thing that is interesting is the old tail of " cause it's cheaper " seems to fail often because the guys turn around and dump a load into the SBC to get 500hp while the big Pontiac and Olds can be doen with mild cam intake and headers , no fancy cranks, rods or heads .
When a dipshit builds a non chity like a chity it tends to fail or fall short of expectations,

 

Well actually they dont. They work quite well and respnd to tuning too. The problem is for some unknown reason every mother's son want to copy and run a SBC. I have no idea why. Sure it is a good engine but certainly by no means the best or exceptional and certainly not the only choice. Many guys run the sbc so they can be in the in crowd. They stand in line like the radio city music hall girls all dancing on cue following each others lead, never daring for a moment to think outside of their own tiny little world. I grew up in the day when these engine first appeared. They were not world beaters . They were just another V8. Certainly the 312 Ford and its cousins and the old 318 in its various forms were just as good an engine and often that was proven on the street and the track. Mickey Thompson loved Ponchos and did Farmer Arnie and even CRM over here in beautiful downtown TO. In fact they ran one in prostock. Successfuly too. In a Pontiac Astre after they finally got the boneheads at NHRA to realize "No buckwheat we didnt make this car up. Pontiac Canada has been selling them for years. " If you like Pontiacs and I think you do or you wouldnt have asked the question then go for it. Even with only factory parts in an old GTO and such I have seen folks run deep into the twelves. Me, I am a mopar guy but I have no trouble with you liking Ponchos and i have built a few for customers too. 3 I think in HP or hot street trim. There is a real neat old John Butera FED chassis car that runs sometimes at Shannonville with a Poncho motor. Really nice to see.
You have to decide. Do you want to live life as a Parrot or as an Eagle.
Don

 

I think a large part of it is that some people look to wrong combinations on Pontiacs. They, for the most part have pretty long strokes, giving them tremendous power at lower RPM's. So, camshaft and ring and pinion choices are sometimes mis-chosen, and then their combo just won't work. It's NOT a small block Chevy, so don't try to treat it like one. Less rear gear, tighter torque converters on automatic cars, and gitten er done by 6000 RPM's is usually the way for Pontiacs. My altered wheelbase 51 Ford had a mild 421 Pontiac in it. Pump gas, mildly ported 69 Grand Prix heads, .500 lift Comp Cam, a very old P4-b single quad intake, out of the box 800DP Holley, 3.50 R&P, and a super T-10 4-gear w/2.88 1st gear. I raced my buddy's 46(?) Chevy sedan delivery, and we swapped a 2-3 foot lead back and forth in every gear. NOW, his car has a 410" SBC with a huge cam, dual quads, huge set of Dart heads, 12.8-1 compression, 5.13 R&P, M-22. Get the picture?

 

Well said and that is a great comparison. You can obviously pull him at speed too as he runs out of motor with his 5.13s. Plus you can drive yours on the hiway if you want to.

On the other hand, Pontiacs are quite versitle and you can build one to rev too if you want to. I have 2 Pontiacs I buzz over 8 grand and one of them, based on the '60 389 blown and on nitro can buzz over 9 grand. they can be made to spin and really enjoy it but, you do not start with a 455 to do that. Point is, if youwant to build a Pontiac to rev to the moon you can. For the street and bracket crowd though, a med rpm 421, 428 or 455 will more than do the job for most and at reasonable cost too. Further, it is now much cheaper to build any type of Pontiac ( med or high rpm versions ) than ever. Today 400 blocks are among the most desireable for performance use because of their smaller 3" mains, them being relatively plentiful and reasonbly priced aftermarket cranks that will enlarge to around 460" depending on your bore.
In addition to factory iron head choices, there are now over 12 different aftermarket head choices- including but not limited to- high port, spread port, canted valve, HEMI, tunnel port, and other wedge designs. No Pontiac fan in their wildest dreams would have guessed the abundance of Pontiac speed parts available today back in the dark days of the 80s as an example. It is a wonderful time to be a Pontiac fan. No matter what your application.

Here is some Pontiac ear and eye candy. A complete Mickey Thompson HEMI Pontiac reving over 8 grand. This was about 2 weeks back at my last car show. I have had it in the water twice since. What an absolute blast to drive or ride in this thing. This was posted on Hamp before but, everyone here may not have seen it.
Pulling it home from the lake last week in my 66 GTO, I had to pinch myself everytime I looked in the mirror that I own this. Had a smile on my face for days... Life is good.



Next week I am taking out my '60 389 nitro burning digger to try to better my 6.77 200mph best. wish me luck.

 

I saw your dragster a few yrs ago at Famoso, (the same year I had my lime green Pontiac pwred AWB 51 there). I really enjoyed seeing all the welding done on your heads. Pretty radical stuff! Good luck on your goal.

 

No bigger turn off than someone popping the hood on a classic non Chevy ride, whether cool old Poncho, Deuce, 40 Ford, Stude, F100, etc, and seeing the 350 SBC/350 TH combo. Total lack of originality and creativity. Lame. Why not just slap some billet shit and Foose rims on it too?

 

Id love to see your Pontiac stuff in person someday….the fuel car for sure

 

Most good running street Pontiacs won't see the high side of 5500. Swap your 4:11-4:56 gears for 3:23-3:36. Loose the 10" converter and single plane intake. Take advantage of the low speed torque. In most cases your Pontiac will be faster, and won't work as hard.

 

WTF? Its the same as any engine.

 

I have been running Pontiacs for 30 years and have yet to blow one up. I run them all hard also. I have a 400 in a car that I drive all over and can sit in traffic with a cool temperature of 170 degrees even in the hottest traffic thats just sitting. I can drive it to the track and fog it all day and drive back home. It has non ported heads and the engine was built for $999 in 1991. The best thing is that it does 0-60 mph in 3.8 seconds and with the nitrous I put on it how about 3.2 seconds 0-60 mph.
In the 1/4 I do 12.5 seconds at 105 and 11.75 at 117. Again, this is with a pretty basic engine and no miracle tune.
Also those that say its hard to find Performance Pontiac parts are living in the past, there are at least 10 different Aluminum head manufacturers and lots of aftermarket performance rods and stroker kits available cheap.
Now you can buy a fully balanced reciprocating mass with H beam rods, forged racing pistons, new crank and bearings for about $1500-1800. These are all premium parts. Just a set of aluminum heads that are non ported and a hydraulic cam and 3:23 gears with a 2400 stall will net you 11.30s with a cheap built 455 in a 3900 lb car . You don't need gears or high RPMs or high stall convertors to make fast times with Pontiacs.
There are two different people out there. Those that know Pontiacs and know whats out there and those that know nothing about Pontiacs and rely on their machine shops to tell them to ditch the Pontiacs. Which basically goes back to the first type of person and the second person. Most machine shops know Chevy kits that are cheap and never work on pontiacs or build them like a Chevy and have poor results.
Also the deals are out there still. I just bought a 1971 455 with a TH350 for $50 . I pulled it apart and it had two spun rod bearings . I sold it for $250 which was still a killer deal as the block was never bored and was one of the cleanest 455s I ever found!!
Now you can stroke out a 400 for $1500- 1800 and reap the benefits of a stronger 455-468 out of the 400 block. Heres a video of my car that weighs in at 3810 lbs and has Mickey Thompson Drag radials and the 400 that was built back in 1991.

This is a movie that the car was in so when you see the link, its not a commercial, its the beginning of the movie. I can fry these tires at will at any speed under 30 mph. At the track I hook up barely and pull 1.6s to the 60ft mark.
This is why I love Pontiacs. Cheap power!!!!!!!! Got that guys?
C.H.E.A.P. P.O.W.E.R.!!!!!!!
http://www.youtube.com/sixt8bird#p/a/u/0/6dTfMAH9UL8

 

We ran Super Duty Pontiac's in our oval track car forever and had few failures. The key is to work within the limitations of the engine and EVERY engine has limitations.

Pontiac's have 4 bolts around each cylinder and unlike a SBC or most BBC's can make serious compression with a flat top piston. Thus we ran in the area of 13:5 to 1 compression and learned early on that 28 degrees to an absolute max of 32 degrees was all the timing we needed. Go past 32 and we would lift the gasket. The Chevy SB and BB typically need a dome to make compression so you have to put a lot of spark lead in so the mixture will ignite well. That is evident on big dome pistons when you have carbon built up on the spark plug side of the dome and the other side is clean...heck on some SBC's if you don't have 42 degrees the car is a slug.

Pontiacs usually have cast cranks with a lot bigger journals than the SBC's because the engineers wanted to have a lot of overlap between the rod and main journals to maintain the strength of the crank. as the stroke got bigger the main journals increased in diameter. When you have a 455 with a 3.250 main journal diameter it is best not to wing that sucker up because you have a heck of a high surface speed when compared to a 2.448 diameter.

The Pontiac from day one has had a much more favorable rod to stroke ratio than a SBC which decreases the rod angles a lot and allows a longer dwell time at the top and bottom of the strokes which add a lot to the torque.

You can run a long duration cam with a Poncho and still come out of the hole like jack the bear at low RPM where the SBC has to be well up in RPM's just to get the car launched.

So what I feel it all boils down to is the Pontiac is a great engine (yeah I'm prejudiced) when run within the RPM range it is designed for (5,500 or so), tuned properly for the FLAT TOP piston with gearing set up to take advantage of the power band. Try to operate it like a 350 you have a pile of crap but remember if you put the setup in a SBC that a Pontiac needs
you have a bigger pile of crap.

 

If ever there was a thread that needed a title edited


(((((((Why are Pontiac motors so F#$%ING cool??)))))))

 

3,000 stall, 3:73 gears, single plane manifold, 800 Holley DP and 6400 RPMs daily. Been doing this for 20 years with the same engine!!!!! Stock heads but with 1.65 Full fulcrum roller rockers and Forged pistons. The rest of the engine is all stock including the stock 43 year old valves. This is a Pontiac 400 that was built for $999 in 1991.
http://www.youtube.com/sixt8bird#p/a/u/0/6dTfMAH9UL8
See video above and listen to that Pontiac engine purrrrrrrrrrrrrr, this was with no nitrous.
Theres also another video that I posted that shows some details and how the car idles and rev's like any Small block Chevy.
http://www.youtube.com/sixt8bird#p/a/u/1/Xuq-3a0AHEU
Ken Keefer from Florida had a 1976 Trans Am with stock suspension and drag radials doing 8.9s in the quarter.

 

Yes, your Firebird runs nice, but my idea of Street car is something a little less conspicuous. Drive it anywhere. quite and docile. More of a Q ship. In the 90's I had great fun with a 455 powered F100. It surprised many kids with 5.0 Mustangs.

 

Its not about the car, its about the engine. You could quiet the exhaust with different mufflers and as far as docile, it is very much so. And it is driven everywhere. Conspicuous is just the car. The post was also to prove a point that Pontiacs run strong, can be built cheap and can have longevity.

 

I can't believe I sat here and read the whole nine pages.
Funny thing is that around this area there were a number of Tri-5 Chevys running 389 or 421 Pontiac engines in the early 60's on the street. Cheap bodys and strong engines at the time when you could buy a 55 Chevy two door post off a car lot for 350.00 with a six in it and drive it home and then pick up a low mile 389 Poniac engine at the wrecking yard for about the same or less. With less than1000 1962 dollars later you had yourself a car that would run with the hottest of the latest off the car lots.

Until the easy to get done up crate motors came along guys ran just about anything but when McGoo started putting the Chevy Crate motors (new instead of junk yard engines) in his roadsters the crate motor thing took off.

Face it a lot of guys (and a serious number on this board) have absolutely no engine building skills what so ever and have to take anything to "their mechanic". For those guys the sbc crate motor that is already dressed out with desireable goodies and guaranteed to make XX HP is probably the way to go then Squirrel or John Evens or one of the other of us can answer their how do I do this questions without having to stop to think and go back to what we were doing.
No doubt there are letters to the editors in the little books (magazines) from the early 50's slamming the Ford flatheads for being way too common and easy to build and why doesn't someone run a straight 8 Pontiac or Packard in his rod instead.

In 1960, 61,62 My dad and I made the rounds of just about every Pontiac Dealership from Puyallup to North Seattle every other weekend when I got to stay with him to check out what was new on the lot. I had it bad for Honduras maroon Catalina Venturas with 4 speeds about that time.

 

Wow, really? What mild cam, intake and headers should I run in my Pontiac 400 to achieve 500 hp? I can't wait for your response, I didn't know it was just that simple. Damn, must of been living under a rock.

 

So True!! My Henry J came with a '74 Pontiac 350 and '74 Ventura subframe and that is what will stay in it.