HP TV doing a 400 cid Pontiac build-up
 

73-74 year engine basic rebuild but at least we got some air time.

Some of the engine rebuild things they did to the engine are things i would not do though.

1) Weld the oil pump pick-up on the pump with the ball and spring installed

2) Do the rope seal the way they did it.

3) Mark the caps the way they did them

Some other stuff but just me. Overall it made 310 hp
on the dyno as a 4 bbl engine (was a 2-bbl originally).
98 cc heads.

Tom V.

yeah i just saw that
not bad #'s considering

I know it was a budget build, but I thought it set Pontiacs back 20 years.

all for a little over $2000, yea right. i find that hard to believe........

310 HP and 411 TQ wasn't awful but what did they expect running a tiny "Baby" sized cam. I don't think the intent was to put down Pontiac, BUT with the offering to the masses it makes the Pontiac V8 as an under performer compared to the SBC and SBF offerings they normally dyno on the show. The bad deal, only the true Pontiac enthusiast knows how the combo should/could have been setup, the majority of the viewers will just accept the numbers given.

My observation, OK 310 HP isn't out of the norm but making only 411 TQ seems low for such a small cam. JD

im no engine builder but did i see them scrubing down the head gasket mating surface on the block with a steel wool pad after the motor was assembled???

its been my experience when using steel wool that the stuff falls off everywhere and would easily fall into the combustion chambers.

and to think a SBC or SBF guy will replicate that build it and try to rev it to 8k lol

Actually 310HP.. Not bad.. considering the 98CC heads.

Compression a little low, and they could have easily played with different cams and really awaken that motor up with more power too..

All for $2000.00 I No Believe..LOL ;)

What size was the cam to produce 310hp and 411 tq ?

The cam was 212/225 whitch I think is the 068. They didn't say what the lift was, but they said the put 1.6 stamped steel rockers on. I didn't know that anyone made rockers like that. I think they said they were pioneer rockers. Then on the next show they had the 69 Bird in there. Once the said that the new motor was an LS2 I shut the TV off shouting Blasphemy. :lalala:

The Cam was a "Howards Cam" 214/224, sounds like one of the "generic" grinds offered by many vendors. More of a concern was the O'Reillys rebuilt Quadrajet, who knows what calibration that had ? They did not mention any tuning so it's impossible to know if even the Distributor curve was optimized. As a KCTurbo mentioned they claimed a pioneer 1.6 ratio rocker arm, don't know if this is correct.

You mean the same '068/K2801' grind that one sees almost universally recommended here in this forum as the 'holy grail' of Pontiac camshafts, regardless of SCR??? Not surprising results at all.

Chevy guys do the exact same thing...They take the 327/300 horse cam, (which is also the 283/250 horse cam, the 350/295 horse cam and the 400/265 horse cam) originally designed for a higher SCR and put it in everything. They reckon that because it appeared in so many different engines, it just has to be great.

In reality, It is nothing more than the factory's attempt to use one cam in a bunch of applications (just like the 068) because it costs them less per unit to produce. It's a great cam, but there are literally hundreds of better grinds available today.

With those 98cc heads and low subsequent SCR, the wide LSA of the '068' and its relatively late IC event, was certainly not the best camshaft choice. I would have liked to see them shoot-out some different camshafts (on tighter LSA's) that would build DCR in a lower SCR application.

I agree with you guys 100%....they need to think outside the 068 camshaft box for a change...Robert

the only good Pontiac motor HP T.V. did was one of Butler's motors making 600hp. Someone need to show them how to build a stong 400 motor with 500 hp.

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My 1965 389 has a stock 068 GM cam and it runs pretty good for a street car.........

I would imagine that it runs great, Juliano....That's the intended application for that grind....Robert

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Robert,
Its not to bad, I have been on long trips up to 1200 miles round trip with no issues, its not a ten second killer car but I have fun with it.

Maybe Cliff could give them a call and offer to tune their Q-jet for them. Now that would be a must see Horsepower episode.

IT was a howards hyd cam 214-224 dur cam 112lsa, notice how they use a pontiac for the budget rebuild and put all the money in the chevy's! it did do ok though.

I don't recall them saying they decked the block. ???
I figure they were in the low to mid 8's on compression so 310 isn't that bad, and the torque number was pretty good. But they could have gotten a better head for sure and gotten around 9:1 to still run pump gas. You'd think Butler would have guided them a little more? Something around 375-400 to hit that 1hp per cube would have been a better budget build.
But a little over 2k is a pretty good number for a low comp DIY build, tight but doable.

You can't hate what has been a proven cam in many applications for years just because you prefer to use something different. Jim Hand has written enough on this subject to get anyone started in the right direction when it comes to correct cam selection for a street driven car.

Also, did you ever prove the "Max Performance Cam" you suggested in an old thread actually performs better than a 068 type cam in a street car? Not to dog you but, if you keep saying "think outside the box" and run a mid to high 14 with one of your "custom designed" cams, you're not proving anything.

Nice segment, but they should know they spent twice what the average cheap Pontiac guy would like to spend on a build! :pound:

Man I am alomost sure that he said 212/225 when I was watching the show. Oh well, they will show it again about 50 times anyway.

lmao!

i cringed when i saw that, chebby side inlet and all. at an old job i used to sell "rebuilt" q-jets, and i agree with cliff r, the box they come in has more value than what's inside.

i did not see the show and i am not sure what all went into the build BUT my "budget 400 build" with 96cc heads will cost me about 2500.00 if you dont include the cost of the motor to begin with. it should be a little better performer than that one with about 8.5CR and a little bigger cam.......

An excellent "Old School" SLEEPER cam in a SBC 350 or 400 CID is the factory 350HP/327 hydraulic cam with 1.60 rockers! Bumps it to .477/.477 @.050 .222/.222 pulls great vacuum, has a mild idle, and pulls very well. The last one I built in a .060 350 still pulled down 21 MPG on the highway in a 1978 Camaro LT. I consider this my "Entry-Level" combo for a young (16-17 yr) daily driver. All it needs to go from a 14 second car to a solid 12-13 second car is a little more gear and converter; depending on CID will run under 6000 rpm's for a long time. Sorry, I let my old habits show! LOL JD

The one thing i caught during the episode on HP was that the heads had press in studs and when they came out of the machine shop, BAM, screw in studs. No mention of choosing a head with screw in studs to save money at the machine shop. Pontiac made tons of them, and they aren't that hard to find. That's TV for ya.

The engine they grabbed out of the junk yard was a basic 400 2-bbl engine with 4x-8 heads I believe. They used the same components that came on the engine. No build-up from a swap meet deal. The swap to screw-in studs was probably recommended by the machine shop if they found some "tall studs".
The engine looks like a sludge bucket (oil never changed).

Tom V.

Juliano,

The point is that your engine is a high compression engine, which is what that cam was designed for. It doesn't work all that great in low compression engines, there are many better choices for engines with low compression ratios.

Too bad you can't watch their episodes on the net. :rolleyes:

they gave up on the 4x heads they had and got a set of 6x's from butler perf with screw in studs and all rebuilt. its sad they consider the pontiac 400 for their no budget project if they put just a few well chosen pieces into the mix it would have ran way better and there fore worth making a tv show about.IMO

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I have about 9.5 to 1, which I thought was low.....

Hopefully HP TV will do a follow-up segment and build a higher hp build up of a 400- a 400/462 stroker would be nice. And maybe next time they will do some homework and not look like a bunch of Chevy guys building a Pontiac motor:rolleyes: . It was still nice to see a Pontiac being featured though.

Geno

I think it's sort of refreshing to see a budget build (regardless of engine make) on these type of shows.

Most of them will show you a boatload of aftermarket goodies (that was donated by sponsers for the advertising) that cost a boatload of money. Nonchalantly; "Oh yeah, we dropped a 572 with a blower in there". Something the average Joe in his garage will probably never afford nor opt for a street car.

Personally I'd like to see an engine challenge that had a cap on what is spent. Something low, like $2K to $3K, tops.

Let's get Kenny, Ace, Butler, Nunzi and a few others to do a budget build challenge.
D port Iron heads, cast crank, cast rods, any personally known internal trick mods allowed, most dyno power wins the Big Chief Iron Head award.

Auction off the engines for charity? :Peace:

Get some sponsers like PY, and any other Pontiac suppliers.

that would be interesting, but i don't think they would do it. conflict of interest sort of say.

How did you arrive at that figure? I'm not real well-versed on the pre '67 engines, but it is my understanding that the only 389s to come from the factory with an 068 cam would have been high output 4-bbl or tripower engines, which all would have been rated at over 10:1 compression. This is the case for '67 and later engines; only the 400 or 428 HO and Ram Air engines with 10.25:1 or better got the 068 cam, until the low compression 455 HO of '71, but a 455 is a different animal than a 389/400 and can make use of much larger cam.

In any case, assuming your true compression ratio is at 9.5:1, that isn't what would be considered "low" compression. Not exactly "high" either, but about the maximum recommended for pump gas with a stock type cam.

The 400 being discussed in this thread originally, with 98cc heads, would be right about 8:1. Lower RPM power begins to fall off rather dramatically below 9:1 compression unless changes are made to the combination (smaller cam, earlier intake closing events) to compensate, which in turn hinders higher RPM power.

Since I don't know your entire combination I can't comment on what cam *might* work better for you, but it sounds like you are at the threshold where the 068 cam works as the factory engineers intended it.

There is a reason the 068 was not used in anything smaller than a 455 after 1970.

The cam used in this engine was not an 068 duplicate, and in fact would work better in a lower compression engine than the 068, but it is still not the best choice for an engine with an 8:1 CR. A cam like the Comp XE262, which is specifically designed to boost cylinder pressure in lower compression engines would have been a much better choice.

Why would anyone want to spend over $2500 building a motor with stock parts, knowing that it could grenade when you revved it over 5000 rpms? I love the reasoning coming from the tightwads who don't want to spend an extra $100-150 for forged rods, or new valves- these same guys are complaining to the shop (or to the world on a Pontiac forum) when they blew their motor up because they thought their stock rebuild should be able to run with any new performance car.

I don't think the well-known Pontiac builders would be interested in trying to get a stock-rod Pontiac motor to make power, because they already know most of the cast iron internals are reaching the end of their life and will fail when pushed to the limit. I also doubt they want that liability in their motors, when they what they sell is performance.

Geno

My 15 year old son and I watched that episode and surprizingly he said "Dad I could build a better engine than that", of course I couldn't stop laughing(confirming he has been actually paying attention while helping me in the shop).:)

I've run tons of stock rod (prep'd) and stock crank engines well past the 500hp mark, because for the longest time, there wasn't anything else available. They lived, and longer than I thought they would!

I saw that segment too, was totally disappointed actually. My daughter trashed the steel wool thing! I wasn't even watching at that moment! I don't really care that they didn't do justice to Pontiac power, and actually prefer more people sticking to 'other' brands. Leaves the parts for true Pontiac people!

Since we've heard a couple 'dream posts', wouldn't a show, or even segment, dedicated to Pontiacs be nice? If it weren't for these defective lottery tickets I've been getting lately, I do that show...

Most all the builders I mentioned sell prepped factory cast rods, why shouldn't they use them in their own build?
HP TV even had Butler prep theirs for that build.

I wouldn't worry about using stock rods in a 400 up to 6000rpm, or 500 or so HP. Then on the other hand if it was going to be a stroker, or 455, the forged rods would be a good idea. The longer stroke is what is hard on the stock rods.

I think you can download it from ITunes.

http://www.powerblocktv.com/sites/ho...11&ep_sea=0801

I can't seem to find the link to download them?

Bumper,

This addresses your previous concerns adequately. As for my preference to use tight LSA's in low compression 400's and 350's, yes....I gave away several of those cams and everyone has reported better throttle response, higher vacuum and higher cranking compression than the K2801 or the 068 that they replaced.

No one that has used the cam is willing to put their car on the rollers, because these are basically street cars, but seat-of-the-pants is an important factor for these basically stock daily drivers.

As far as the 068 is concerned, the only thing that has been 'proven' is the cam will physically fit into any Pontiac block and work, even when mismatched with lower SCR. However, the LSA and valve events will show the profile was designed for higher SCR applications, so it isn't surprising that a tighter LSA and earlier IC event would be a better performer overall in a lower SCR application.

If you refer to Jim Hand's book, he explains this fact in the camshaft section quite well...Robert