sorry it's not a traditional rod, although my dream is to one day have a 49-54 era 2-door Olds or Chevy coupe...just thought you guys would appreciate the sound of a McKellar #10 solid cam, in a freshened 455 Pontiac, with heads I ported myself, 2.19" intake valves, and a big Holley 850 carb from an L88 Chevy 427. this in my 70 GTO, purchased 40 years ago in 1982, when I was 19. I just turned 60 last month, finally getting around to working on it again. this is the 6th motor in car over the years, and it's been rebodied with NOS fenders, quarters I got from the dealer in 1980's. converted it from automatic, to 4 speed in the 1990s.. it's been sitting in my garage neglected for 25 years. dragged it out in December, and built a motor for it using hodge podge parts I had laying around. that solid cam sound is intoxicating. it's got 4.88 gears.
My '61 Bonneville (the one in my avatar) has the '425A Trophy' 389ci tripower engine. When I bought it, sometime in its past a previous owner had installed a #10 cam running on hydraulic lifters. It ran okay, but it seemed like an odd combination. The engine was tired and needed to be rebuilt, so a modern cam similar to the old reliable 068 cam was installed in its place.
I vote for giving you a p*** on the engine "holder" because it sounds like it could be in a Swiss Cheese Catalina or a 61 Ventura bubble top, but not up to me. Damn, sounds so "un-Pontiac" and I've had a few myself. Have one now, 65 GTO. Thanks...
that #10 cam transforms a Pontiac into something else...like a Frankenstein engine. hydraulic lifters on a solid cam ? I heard before that would work... Stuart, do you still have the old #10 cam laying around ?
No, it went to a friend. If you're looking for one, another friend currently has an NOS #10 cam for sale over on the Maxperformance Pontiac board: https://forums.maxperformanceinc.com/forums/showthread.php?t=849362
this 455 is a walk in the park compared to the Ram Air V headed tunnel port, with tunnel ram, Pontiac 470" in my old Firebird. That one I ran on the street for 20 years, before having to sell it in 2018. that one had 250int./270ex. @ .050" with .560" lift Howards solid flat cam, with a 9" converter I would not say it didn't have any bottom end. the custom converter made it all work. it would cruise part throttle 2000rpm, and flash to 4000rpm when punched. but that converter was a pricey piece for back then $650 yes, vacuum advance connected on both, with working centrifugal advance. the Firebird was a stock distributor converted to electronic with a Mallory Unilite kit this 455 is a bone stock HEI with light springs, heavy weights. The Firebird ran best with 34 degrees total, this one has 36 degrees total. and it had only a posi 8.5 10-bolt with 3.08 gear. a custom 9" converter can work miracles. it's like a switch pitch sensitive to torque input. East Coast Converters made it. He's still in business, his kid took it over, he was a Pontiac SuperStock racer who ran 8.40's with a 455 and RA IV heads in a tube ch***is car. this GTO has a Muncie M20 with 4.88 gears 12-bolt Chevy rear. idling after washing engine day I told it, loading on trailer, me driving
I'm surprised you could run solid lifters on the RA IV hydraulic cam, a solid cam needs clearance ramps for lash, no ? did it wipe the cam out ? otherwse the edge of the lifter may dig into the cam. I had heard before that you can run hydraulic lifters on a solid cam. built ton of Pontiac engines in past 40 years, using the 068, 041 cams, and various aftermarket hydraulics, solids, 3 rollers. motors are a lot of money and time and labor at this point, wanted to build something memorable for myself. that's why last 2 455's were what they were. wanted to go out with a bang but I may mellow it out in future years with an 068 or Comp 268 hydro cam swap, for my kid when he takes it over someday. or maybe a 744 RA III cam, that's one I never tried. neighbor has one in a 455 it sounds nice and runs good.
yepper....I'm an east coast guy too, used to call Nunzi on his free tech line 5-6PM back in 1980's- it was Nunzi, Warrior, and H-O Racing Specialties, used to get all my parts from those 3 places. he's the one who told me, how to put the factory 4 bolt main caps, in a 455 2 bolt main block, the dowel pins on the block were smaller diameter, he said pull them out, drill them out in a bridgeport so I did, that was the RA V 455 tunnel port block, out of a '71 station wagon, with '69 428 caps from Carlyle for $50 the casting 98 heads are on this block now, from that '71 motor. saw him run 9.70's with his RA V headed 446" at Maple Grove 20 years ago. 400 block bored to 4.21" with a cut down SD421 990 crank, 3" mains, with factory 2-4 intake manifold, and 2-Holleys I run 20 degrees initial in this GTO 455, with 36-38 total. it ran better 42 or more. I'm going to put it back in. it's only 9.3 compression. Pontiac engines with iron heads start marginal detonation at 9.6 CR, the RA V 455 in Firebird was only 9:1- had a custom 30cc dished piston milled from TRW flat tops. this tells me you know your **** ! lots of Pontiac rookie engines die the detonation death.... these 98 heads flow 250-260cfm the RA V heads flowed 317cfm @ .800" and 285cfm at the .560" lift I was running it takes lots of hours to port D-port heads. about 50-60 hours. a guy bought my 366 Pontiac NASCAR crank-rods-pistons in 2018, he said Nunzi bought a weekend farm retirement home in Pa. he's still kickin' but he's retired I heard...he beat cancer once... both of the H-O Racing founders have p***ed away, Ken Crocie took it over, had a clearance sale, I got a pair of RA V headers from him brand new for $250. they didn't fit. so I sold them. then they went out permanently. don't know what happened to the Hunt Bros. from Warrior. they closed too.
I ran a pair of casting 197 455HO heads, with the 2 piece aluminum intake manifold, w/removable exhaust crossover, and factory iron exhaust manifold, on this GTO, with a RA IV 041 cam, on 2 different engines. Bone stock, no porting, with new Sealed Power valves, thickwall guides, teflon seals, and stellite seats under exhaust valves, heads milled .065" Nunzi said you can mill heads .100" for track use only. I've milled a ton of big chamber heads .065" On the compression deal, I had a 1964 Pontiac owners manual, said right in it the 10.75CR engines must run 100 octane gas. We just don't have it anymore. You're 100% right, the smart build is 9:1-9.25:1 with todays **** gasoline. Try to tell that to some guys, they're building 10:1 iron wondering why the engine is beating itself to death.
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