Technical Pontiac Trophy 4

Do you know who that is?

 

I talked to those guys about their motor. Julian Dotty I think. Jimmy six on here is really old, He would know,

 

There is a guy these days at Bonneville running a Tempest 4, blown, In an aluminum pseudo stretched rear engine Jeep, Obviously a guy who is unaware of the existence of "The Box"

 

I seen a slant 4 with a V8 intake installed on it. They simply used a flat plate bolted to the unused side.

 

Geeeezz! Now you're making my brain hurt. Am I looking for things like offset piston pins and/or a crankshaft center-line that's not dead-center with the bores?

I gotta go have a lie-down after thinking about stuff like this.

 

a 540 lb. 4 cylinder, that pretty heavy. i hope the weight is wrong.

 

Back about 1964 I replaced the 324 Olds in my 32 with a Pontiac 4 cyl, 4 bbl, taxi clutch, 39 trans. Ran almost as good as the Olds.
Paul in CT

 

It's common for pins to be offset in the piston. Or the crank offset to the cylinder bores. About .060 I am told. This is to favor the thrust side and reduce piston slap. Again as I am told.

 

Wasn't the starter mounted to the bell housing or something like that? Would make it difficult to use a newer style transmission.

 

^^^^ Now THAT'S cool! Good runnin' little car. Sounds mean too.
The starter actually bolts to the block and through the bellhousing.
OP, too bad you didn't get that engine even if you had to bag it up and leave it outside until you had a use for it. I've got one kicking around my shop, don't know what I'll do with it but it always gets comments. We've gotta save this unusual stuff while we can.

 

I would build a 26-27 Model T with a Tempest drivetrain, in a hot minute.

 

This car you speak of belongs to a good friend. He runs it at the drags strip to the tune of mid to low 9s at 150mph. He decided on a whim to go run on the salt flats. Trying to run 200mph, so far he has run 194mph.

 

Note that this is true of a piston in an engine of any architecture (V4, V8, flat 6, etc.), but is much more pronounced, the shorter the connecting rod length relative to the crank stroke. The resulting "vibration" is typically minimized with crank counterweights, which have weights that can eliminate vertical forces when the piston is at the top, or at the bottom, but not both, so it's a compromise. This unbalance is particular noticeable with inline fours.