The Pontiac 194 - 4 BANGER - a history lesson

Is it still to be ignored, even by self proclaimed "gear heads" ?

how... hypocritical.

 

Never saw one. Don't know they exist. When did they make them?

 

Wow, there are so many Poncho people on the Hamb these days.

Dirt tracker, nice job on the article & photo's !

M/T is one of me personal hero's. never met the man but have family and friends that knew him. I own one of the Blown Pontiacs out of his Challenger and it is currently going in my 32 project.

 

They were the standard engine in the Pontiac Tempest from '61 -'63 only. These were known as the 'transaxle Tempests'.

In 1964 the compact Tempest line was built with a full frame as well as with a conventional drivetrain layout. The 194.5 CID Tempest slant-4 was replaced by a 215-inch straight six (Chevy-derived, same family as the 194/230/250) as the standard engine.

 

My neighbor had a wagon with the 4 cylinder in it, sounded like a thrashing machine at idle. OK, here's a dum question. Couldn't you use a regular 389/421 cam in the four? The extra lobes wouldn't hurt anything would they?? I remember a black T bucket at York SRN several years ago with the four and transaxle in it. Cool idea.

 

The V8 cam lobes are in the wrong location to be compatible with the 4-banger firing order.

 

Didn't someone put in a v-8 crank and put some dummy rod ends for side clearance so they could use an off the shelf v-8 cam?

 

oops, didn't think of that. I was thinking they just took every other cylider out, not knowing Pontiac firing order.

 

I saw enough Tempest motors. My first new car had one. What I have not seen is the "Little 4 banger Hemi that BigBlock 351W? says came in Jeeps and everyone hated. That is what I have not seen. When I was in the Army Jeeps had Jeep motors in them "F" head fours.

 

I missed this post the first time round.

I have sought out and purchased a 61 coupe that I'm currently working on. It is a truly bizarre little car. The one aspect that didn't get much mention in this thread was the use of the independent rear that was also sourced from the Corvair.

Because the car was sprung so softly the thing gets really wacky in spirited driving situations.

I particularly find the road racing history of these cars appealing. I'm just about ready to dive into the engine rebuild, and as mentioned the cam is the sticky point on these things - if anyone has advice on where to look for a cam please let me know.

The black car below is mine... the other photos were recently posted on the performanceyears forum.

 

Rear suspension on the 63s was revised slightly and supposedly wasn't so prone to "jack up in the middle and spin like a top".
Easiest way to tame the swing axle rear end is probably with a Z bar (stabilizer bar with the ends running in opposite directions resulting in the Z shape as opposed to a "normal" bar where they form a H shape).
Decambering it by spacing the transaxle and inner A frame mounts down off the subframe on 3/4 inch blocks made from scrap aluminum, as per the article on pages 72-81 in the Pontiac Performance Handbook (circa 1962) published by Hot Rod Magazine, (in addition to the Z bar) is probably the ultimate solution short of replacing the swing axle rear with the later fully independent setup from a 65 or later Corvair (based on the StingRay Corvette). A solution most likely requiring substitution of the subframe mounting the rear suspension with a custom one.

 

V8: 90° crank throws
4: 180° crank throws

 

For you guys wondering about the IHC Scout engines, I've had a few over the years, here's the stuff.

They share -nothing- with any Chrysler product, thankfully.

There are two IHC slant fours, a 152 which is half of the 304 V8 and a 196 which is half of the 392 V8.

The 152 was available turbocharged as well.

They share rods, pistons, exhaust manifolds and water pump with thier V8 cousins.

The idea that they're half a polysphere engine comes from the valvecovers, they look like chrysler poly covers but they're on conventional wedge chamber heads.

IHC engines are rock solid, the V8s and slant 4s have high nickle blocks, forged crank and rods, gear driven timing.

The I6 motors were the most advanced OHV I6 engines in production domestic vehicles when they made their debut. Full pressure oiling, even to the con-rod small ends.

As for the Tempest there is an article in this months edition of High Performance Pontiac (IIRC) that covers one of Arnie Bestwicks drag cars, a Tempest wagon with a V8 (421 I think) and the original rope drivetrain. The automatic had been beefed up to take the added torque from the 421.

Shawn

 

Yeah, I guess Chrysler made some real junk engines, HEMI, slant 6, B series V8, small block Mopar V8 - NOT! Chrysler engines of old are strong MF's and will easily out perform any of International's engines.

Be careful of what you say about Chrysler.

Kinda weird how International has a 392 V8 and their valve covers look like Poly's? Guess they hired some of Chrysler's engineers.

 

Easy there scooter, I was just messing with you a bit.

Valvecovers are valvecovers, not a big design problem there, IHC just put the plugs on top of the manifolds and needed access to them.

Chevy and Ford both have a 302, guess their engineers worked together too huh? Maybe AMC and IHC, they both had 304s. Buick, Pontiac, Olds and Chevy all had 350's OH NO!!! A conspiracy!

Shawn

P.S. If it makes you feel better, my '79 IHC Scout II had a 727 torqueflite behind the 345 and it worked great.

 

It's all in a HAMBER'S day. I appreciate the clearing up of the IHC engines. I particularly like Chryslers since they have a very strong bottom end, using drop forged cranks.

AMC sixes are strong too.

Torqueflite trannies are right there with Turbo 4's for 3 speed autos. My preference is the old single coupling dual range hydro. Best damn auto ever built!

 

To get this post on Pontiacs back on track here are some pictures from the 1963 Pontiac Performance Handbook of Mickey Thompsons 2 cylinder:

 

Just looked at the magazine.

It's not HPP it's this months Hemmings Muscle Machines, it's not Arnie The Farmers car but he did run a Tempest wagon.

The article says they stuffed a 421 into a factory lightweight tempest, retained the wire rope drive but beefed it up and added a clutch and beefed up shafts to the automatic transaxle.

The article also mentions that the 4-banger outsold the 215 V8 for the first year.

Shawn

 

Well, you're a Pontiac guy and so am I.

My specialty is the much maligned and often hated 301Turbo. No-one seems to realize the potential in this little motor (half of it became the Iron Duke), The fastest car in stock eliminator this year is a 301 Turbo Trans-Am 12.37 in the quarter.

Anyway, what I'm getting at is how 'bout running the Tempest block with a 301 head, half the intake manifold and turbo system.

Should make that little 4-popper scream!

Shawn

 

Half of a 301 is not an Iron Duke. Half of a Pontiac 389 became the 194 that started this thread.
The Iron Duke was based on the old ChevyII 4 cyl which was based on the 6 cyl series that started in 1962. The first Iron Duke engines still had the Chevy belhousing pattern until the FWD ones came along.
The old 153 ChevyII engine was 3 7/8 bore with 3.25 stroke same as a 307 Chevy.
Half of 307 gave 153+ cubes .
The Iron Duke was 4" bore and 3" stroke like a 302. Half of 302 gave 151+ cubes.

 

Yeah, back on track, and recapping a bit;

Like the V8, Tempest four popper will take any Pontiac head and valve gear, 389 pistons and rods (cylinder head bolt pattern, block deck height, rod length and bearing size stayed the same through production 1955-77, 287-455 CID). As this engine is literally half a 389, boring .030 would make it half a 400, allowing the use of stock bore 400 pistons, and the use of the better power producing 67 and later heads with their revised valve angles, without flycutting the valve reliefs. You could even use a rare Ram V head and pistons with a custom cam (to accommodate the valve arrangement).
It's been a while since I've had one of these motors, but I believe the stock V8 distributor fits also (using every other hole, of course) which opens the door tho using a HEI.

Poring over my old Pontiac Performance Handbook (having dug it out), I find it states that if you're fortunate enough to have, or found one of these critters with the Z87 option, you should find (in addition to the four barrel carburetor setup) a four bolt main block. Not a bad idea if you planned on souping it up (most of us here for sure). It also shows a stroker crankshaft kit Crankshaft Company had available, and an Isky made roller cam and kit.

Now it's time for someone to build one up and get it into a track T.

 

+.030 in a 389 gives you about 395 CI, you need to go +.055 to go to the stock 400 bore size. Which is just enough that you might want to have the block checked out first to make sure that doesn't take it too thin.

301 is a thin cast shorter deck emissions motor; they're junk, I blew one up without even trying to. It just started hammering a rod bearing one morning.

 

Hey, thanks for keeping me honest, I was thinking of the bore on my 421 and should know not to trust to memory, still and all, these motors were made before the advent of "thin wall casting" and it wasn't uncommon to bore a motor .060 then.

389 = 4.06 bore
421 = 4.09 bore
400 and 428 = 4.120 bore.

 

I think I'm kind of in the middle of this. One thing that I can't find any information on, is shortening the rope-drive to get it to fit my wheelbase. Any ideas on how, or where to find this info?

Sorry to hijack, but I didn't want to start a whole new thread.

 

I know where there's one sitting in a Tempest, I think it's a 61 or 62

There was a guy named Andy Battista who ran one in a Jeep mud bogger with a tunnel port Ram Air V head on it.

 

And even then he and the rest of the boys Hayden Proffit,M/T,etc broke trans/axle stuff on a regular basis.

 

stone stock

 

Here are 2 pictures off of my web site showing race Tempest 4s.
2nd is an injected Tempest slingshot, 1971. The 1st is out of 'tach' magazine, that was the AHRA publication. It covered the '67 Winternationals. The caption states that this car set both end of the record in comp eliminator and then 'mowed down a crack field to take the win'. this 4 cyl Tempest was blown with a HEMI head. Very cool. I have a few Tempest engines with plans for them when other, bigger projects are finished.
Very cool motor.

Steve Barcak

 

yep, half a 302...well, not quite


i know basicly nothing about the slant 4's so this is VERY interesting to me...

 

use a vega or chevette distributor for guts and cap.