The Pontiac 194 - 4 BANGER - a history lesson

well, geez, you forgot mopar/ford/amc 360's....

 

K,,I have to replace the water pump on mine is it 194 specific or will a 389 one work??

 

The four cylinder water pump had a different part number than the 389 water pump, although I don't know what the difference is.

 

great,,this should be a fun part to track down,,lol

 

I have a 61 tempest four cyl. I also have a 55 GMC with a factory 287 pontiac. The water pumps are identical right down to the casting number. OldWolf

 

Great Post. Glad to see Pontiac Guys out there. Really would like to have a 195. saw one at Byron Dragway in IL. It was in a Tempest. He had a Torker intake with a plate blocking off the Driver side ports. Ran good. Wild little engine.

 

I had a flat fender jeep with one of those Pontiac 4s in it and it worked great, parked it outside a club on drink night and when I handed the keys to the dez-driver he came back in and told me "it's missing" I told him It's a four it runs that way. " no it's gone" he says. Walked home and never saw it again.

 

I have a complete car with title i will sell for $450.oo OldWolf

 

wonder if any of these are still around to get hands on? Anyone knows PM me! Yes I am about the unusual. Ask anyone that knows me!

 

had 2. my 1st car was mom's old 61 wagon 1bl powerglide-type trans,dash board shifter, baby blue with wide whites,chrome tailpipe extension and cal custom air filter. drove it for seven years. kept it repaired and driving for 7 years before selling to buy a 69 goat.
the second was actually my grandmother's car. a teal 2 door sports coupe with white interior,buckets,and same drivetrain.after she passed we kept it mint and showed it on rare occassion. we sold it in 96 after my dad passed to a nice gentleman opening a pontiac museum somewhere near chicago. i think it had about 2000 miles on it at that time,had never seen rain or snow and only mod was radial tires.
they were great cars.

 

wow great info you guys are posting on here. I will be beefing up my 4 cyl on my 62 throughout 09. Ive located some flanges to have my friend fab me a nice header or if Im feeling nutty may even throw on a small turbo since thats where most of my background is in.

 

I have always found this engine interesting. A cam could be ground using V8 Profiles on the lobes?.
It wasn't the only half a v8 engine from GM in those days.
In the UK Vuaxhall sold thousands of OHC fours which origiannly meant to be a OHC V8. They are an outstanding engine with crank pins designed for a V8. Lotus made a twin cam head for use in the Jenson Healey back in the 70's.

 

in my treasure trove of weird old parts I have a kool setup from Cannon Induction Systems for the Pontiac 4 cyl with Super Duty Head. Setup uses twin WEBER DCOE carbs, and complete with instructions!!! Must have really woke that motor up. Don't know what year they're from, Cannon Induction was out of Santa Barbara, CA

 

I used the Lotus/Vuaxhall Jensen-Healy motor in my roadster for a while. Went 141 on 2000cc. G/GR record for a few years. Neat motor.

 

I just bought a Pontiac slant four and plan on putting it in a track t, speedway motors body. Has anyone tried a blower off a v-6 ford? If I go with a turbo can I use one off of a ford 4? Will a v-8 cam work on these engines?

 

May I add that Pontiac's 1st 326 is actually a 336 and GM got caught so made it into the 326 a year later.

One other thing is that Jeep made a SOHC 6-banger mail-jeep engine that only had a cam with six lobes, go figure, the thread should be here someplace.

I don't know if Jeep made a SOHC 4-banger with the same designed head or not?

pdq67

 

The firing order of the slant four won't match up to the lobes on a V8 cam, so it won't work.

 

Yeah, that's funny, isn't it? I used to wonder why the TRW catalog listed a different part number for 1963 326 pistons.

 

Nope, the Go Devil 4-banger was an L-head, the Hurricane was a F-head.

There was a Continental L head six called the Super Hurricane as well.

The OHC six was the Tornado. The one lobe-per-two-valves is an old trick. VW aircooled engines do the same thing. It wasn't just in mail Jeeps, they used it in Wagoneers, Cherokees, Gladiators and the M715 as well.

Shawn

 

Just got here to butt in, re: swing-axles. My experience is with a 1965, 947cc Renault R8 (a fun little 1675-pound, 4D go-kart of a car). It had enclosed swing-axle shafts off its 3-spd electro-mechanical automatic transaxle. Excessive droop was adequately controlled with retainer straps bolted to the chassis. Don't know if they make straps that would work with a heavier vehicle, but it worked fine on that one. Best regards, all.

 

4 cyl water pump prop set deep in the timing cover housing with short fins due to the need to send H20 to only a right cyl bank engine. Use a V8 pump on a banger, but face overheating issues the other way around.

 

A lot of us turned our nose up to the 194, it was the glory days of the muscle car era, and we wanted those big V8's . Later I thought a tough 200 inch american pushrod 4banger would be great for a model A 'sleeper'

 

Nunzi's 11 second pass with his 4 cyl Tempest

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zYkb542laiM

 

One of the wildest engines I've ever seen at B-ville

 

I own a 1938 prefect gasser with the tempest 4 in it highly modified full race motor.Has the manifold for weber carbs, aluminum rods,roller cam ect.Car also has BM hydro.Looking for carbs got none with car.Was told buy a guy that raced against it that it was banned fromPIR cause the push bar was digging trenches in the track.

 

http://bangshift.com/bangshift1320/...inder-shredding-tires-the-dyno-and-our-minds/

 

My brother ran a 194 Pontiac in an X/FD at MoKan in the mid sixties, ran in the mid 10's and 130 mph. The Buick hearse in the background was the tow car. Later installed a Pontiac and sold the car, always wondered what happened to it. He also had a 1963 Tempest with a 194 and 4 speed at the time, would like to see one in a street rod, it would be different.

 

To bring this back to the top, is there any oil starvation problems with this engine? Been on the phone with a friend who has a Tempest that just had head work done and is now not getting oil to the lifters and top end. Is the pump driven off the distributor like a SBC?

 

No inherent problem getting oil to the top end, that is unless the oiling passage in the head is either blocked by using the the wrong head gasket or somehow ended up clogged with crud during the head rebuild.

These engines just like the Pontiac V8s of the same vintage oiled the rocker arm pivot balls through hollow rocker studs, that intersect a corresponding passage cast into the head.

If the lifters aren't getting oil perhaps the builder left out the oil gallery plug at the rear of the block, it's hidden inside just behind the distributor. There is a soft plug on the back of the block behind the flywheel that you remove to access this plug, and the internal gallery plug is often missed by the Pontiac novice builder.

Yes, they do drive the oil pump off of the distributor like a Chevy, except they drive the distributor and pump counter-clockwise unlike a Chevy.

 

I have a friend that has a I believe a '61 tempest with the four barrel engine he wants to get rid of. I can arrange for you to talk with him if any one is interested. We are in the Kansas City area.
Joe