[rememberfireball#22]

I have had my matching numbers 68 H/O 4-speed for about 20 years. Everthing I read is about the Ram Airs, very little about the H/O's. I know the Ram Airs are a very special engine and I would love to own one, but I would also like to know the difference between the Ram A's and my H/O. I have owned a 396/375hp Camaro and a 440 Dodge Coronet R/T, and my GTO feels just as strong , even more so than these. My sister bought a 69 Mustang Mach 1 with 428 Ram Air auto with 3:90 rear and it will pulled me about 2 car lengths in quarter years ago. We did this at Atlanta Dragway. I still have my Goat, but her Mustang is lone gone. Thanks, Mike

[Verdoro 68]

I'd venture to say that the Ram Air I is an identical performer to the HO. The RA I was D-port and used the 744 or 068 cam. They had unique head castings (31), but I don't believe there's any substantial differences in flow between those and a set of 16s. Not sure what the differences were on the bottom end, if any. Did HOs get 4 bolt mains?

Ram Air II is different in that it had round port heads. Still a cast iron intake in '68. I think it used the 041 cam, but I could be wrong.

[Greg Reid]

Here's a good article explaining it all.
https://www.hagerty.com/media/mainte...m-air-engines/

[Baron Von Zeppelin]

The RA cars had a different calibrated carb than your HO
The distributors were set up a little different on advance curve.
They had 4 bolt mains
They all had 4.33 gears

I don't know if the induction was a real factor or not.
But yours could be tuned as well as a Ram1 car - basically.
You have the same exhaust manifolds as well.

Your sisters Mustang was a Hauler !
2 car lengths in the quarter - she smoked your butt
3.90 or 4.33 gears could have helped but she probably still would have got you

[242177P]

Seem to recall the 744 was used in all the early
RamAir cars. Wasn't until well into the 1969 model
year that some bigwig grumbled about drivability.

Originally Posted by Greg Reid

Here's a good article explaining it all.
https://www.hagerty.com/media/mainte...m-air-engines/

Not a terrible article, but he's definitely mistaken
when he says: The term “Ram Air” first showed up
in Pontiac sales brochures in 1968

1967 Pontiac Performance Brochure mentioned it
many times. This is just a small excerpt.

[Greg Reid]

Yeah, I thought he was off on that too.

[J GLASGO]

All 68 RA cars had the 4 bolt main block, diff cam, heads, and 4.33 gears, or 3.90 in Birds

[Kenth]

1968 L74 MT uses the 068 cam, #111149 distributor, #7028267 carb and 3.55:1 std gears.
1968 L74 AT uses the 067 cam, #1111270 distributor, #702268 carb and 3.55:1 std gears.

1968 L67 (RA) MT uses the 744 cam, #111149 distributor, #7028275 carb (early), #7028273 (late) and 4.33:1 std gears.
1968 L67 (RA) AT uses the 068 cam, #1111270 distributor, #7028274 carb (early), #7028270 (late) and 4.33:1 std gears.

1968 L67 (RAII) MT uses the 041 cam, #1111941 distributor, #7028273 carb and 4.33:1 std gears.
1968 L67 (RAII) AT uses the 068 cam, #1111941 distributor, #7028270 carb and 4.33:1 std gears.

[muscle_collector]

i used to know all of this off the top of my head now that i am old i cant remember whats the difference between the 744 and 041 cam?

[Baron Von Zeppelin]

744 wasn't much more intake lift than 068 ( around 408 or 410)
But had more .... whatever - duration , lobe separation , overlap , ICL , ,,,

041 was a bump stick
A lot more lift and yadda yadda
Around .450 range intake lift with 1.5 rockers , around .500 range intake lift with 1.65 rockers

Another oldie just shooting from the hip

[johnta1]

Pontiac Cam Codes

[muscle_collector]

thats right wasnt the 744 the cam they used in the 4 speed ra3 cars in 69

[rememberfireball#22]

Greg, Looks like our Goats are pretty darn close in appearance. Mike

[rememberfireball#22]

Baron, When I bought my Goat tears ago, I bought a new Qjet and sent it to Cliff Ruggles to be worked over, I also bought a electronic dist and sent it to a guy named Suntuned and he recurved the dist and blueprinted it. I also installed Hooker headers. The difference after installing these parts was remarkable.

Let me tell a funny story here. Right before I sent the carb to Cliff, I was hit with some more heart issues and had to spend a week or ten days in hospital. So I asked my know nothing about cars brother-in-law if he would get a heavy duty box and send carb it to Cliff. He really is a great guy and has helped me a lot on my cars. Well, he got a good box, but the carb would not fit in box, so he found a couple screwdrivers and took the carb apart and sent it on to Cliff. Cliff sent me a email. Cliff was very upset and I thought for a while he wasn't going to work on it, but he did. I did not tell Cliff that the box the carb came in was right under the work bench.

[Kenth]

The first usage of the #744 cam was in the 1966 GTO Tri-Power 389 XS engine.
Engine Production Log 7-26-66 shows that 190 XS engines was built for 1966.

Last Ram Air engine to recieve the #744 cam was the 1969 RAIII 400 WS #709185.

[unruhjonny]

With this and another post, I am going to chime in;

Originally Posted by Kenth

1968 L74 MT uses the 068 cam, #111149 distributor, #7028267 carb and 3.55:1 std gears.
1968 L74 AT uses the 067 cam, #1111270 distributor, #702268 carb and 3.55:1 std gears.

1968 L67 (RA) MT uses the 744 cam, #111149 distributor, #7028275 carb (early), #7028273 (late) and 4.33:1 std gears.
1968 L67 (RA) AT uses the 068 cam, #1111270 distributor, #7028274 carb (early), #7028270 (late) and 4.33:1 std gears.

1968 L67 (RAII) MT uses the 041 cam, #1111941 distributor, #7028273 carb and 4.33:1 std gears.
1968 L67 (RAII) AT uses the 068 cam, #1111941 distributor, #7028270 carb and 4.33:1 std gears.

Now Pontiac did some things around this time that really only served to confuse matters - especially for the general buying public.
Unitl recently I too was confused with how an HO differed from a Ram Air car...

At the time the 'HO' was intended as a nominal increase in power from the std 4bbl engine (which I believe normally carried RPO L78), and acted as a stop gap between the L78 & RA engine;
Prior to 1969 L67 was "the" Ram Air RPO code;

I'm going to try to keep things simple by first looking at the offerings at the beginning of the 1968 model year:
(cams, smaller to larger; 066-067-068-744-041)
L78(mt) = 2-bolt main block, D-port #16 heads, standard exh manifolds, 067 cam, std air cleaner
L74(mt) = 2-bolt main block, D-port #16 heads, standard exh manifolds, 068 cam, std air cleaner
L67(mt) = 4-bolt main block, D-port #31 heads, RA exh manifolds, 744 cam, ram air induction
**Automatic version of the above engines received a one-step-down camshaft**

I need to take pause here, because I want to punctuate the differential gearing which Kenth posted;
The RA cars always came with 4.33:1 on the GTO (and 3.90:1 in the Firebird) - while the HO had more street friendly gearing.
I would think that for day to day driving, this was the biggest differentiator.

So, compared against your car an early 1968 Ram Air GTO would have had:
4-bolt block, a bigger cam, cold air induction, RA exhaust manifolds, and lower gearing.

Not to be contradicting, but I'd wager a guess that if lined up together, there would be a substantial difference in E/T's between your car and a RA car (assuming both cars had the same prep).

Late in the 1968 model year the Ram Air option quietly changed to what we know as the RAII;
In essence it changed the heads, and upped the cam from a 744 to a 041.

It has been written that the RAII was essentially a stop-gap to the forthcoming RAIV;
Starting in 1969 the RPO L67 was for the round port RAIV.

This was around the time that Pontiac muddied the waters;
The "HO" (RPO 'L74') became the Ram Air III, and essentially was a 1968 400-HO with RA exhaust manifolds, and cold air induction.
The 1969-L74 maintained the conventional 'D'-port heads with the smallest combustion chamber size;
Early 1969 RAIII/mt cars came with the (previously RA spec) 744 cam, but later in the model year, the 744 was no longer used, and the 'HO' (068) cam was the standard cam (at this point in time the automatic cars stopped receiving smaller cams).
The 1969 'L74' did not require the low gearing of prior RA cars.

I could be mistaken, but believe some early 1969 literature still referred to the L74 as an "HO".

(Hopefully this post didn't have too many errors in it.)

[unruhjonny]

Kenth about this part of this post:

Originally Posted by Kenth

...
1968 L67 (RA) MT uses the 744 cam, #111149 distributor, #7028275 carb (early), #7028273 (late) and 4.33:1 std gears.
1968 L67 (RA) AT uses the 068 cam, #1111270 distributor, #7028274 carb (early), #7028270 (late) and 4.33:1 std gears.
...

I had previously understood that the 270/273 were introduced with the RAII, then carried forward into early production of the 1969 RAIII/RAIV;
If I have a correct understanding then no 1968 RAI should have ever been assembled with either a 270 or 273 application quadrajet.

[Baron Von Zeppelin]

Early and Late is the differential between Dport and Roundport. As best I know of.
Better verbage would have been Early .... and Very Late.

68 HO (WS) had same standard axle ratio as Base (WT) 3.55
And the same air cleaner.
But either of those engines could have been ordered with 3.90 or 4.33 at small charge (after upcharge for posi)

68 RA cars were shipped with standard air cleaners and closed scoops.
Selling dealers were to make the mods and install RA for their customers, with supplied material from PMD in the trunk.

7029273 came with Ram IV release , and eventually co-joined with Ram3 production.

[Kenth]

Never knew that 1969 Tempest 350 H.O. also used the 744 camshaft?

From 1969 Tempest AMA specs:

[unruhjonny]

that has to be in error!?