Quote:
"pontiac in the 80s started designing parts to fit a cheby block. Because of this, pontiac lost its identity and many new car customers (myself included). Do you know how much the cheby boys chuckle about this? To the bow tie gang, pontiac changed to making cheby parts because the original (real) Pontiac engine was, in their mind, junk. Nothing is more degrading than seeing "pontiac" on a cheby engine such as prostock, etc."
I remember things a little differently. I kind of
remember FORD kicking Chebbys BUTT with their
IHRA motors and Chebby trying like mad to develop a high flow head for their "pig" blocks.
I remember a bunch of Pontiac guys going to a
little company in Texas called BRODEX (who made
very good heads for RMS for their Chebby engines)
and "seeing the light" said we will embarrass the
he** out of Chebby by offering a head that will
outperform their best engineers stuff. So they
bought the heads from BRODEX, slapped a pontiac
part number on the heads, and proceeded to open
up a can of "Whup A$$" in racing.
My point is Pontiac CHOSE to make the conversion
to the aftermarket BB Chebby and SB Chebby parts.
When they saw how good they worked they told
Chebby, "we will buy your block and put our stuff
on the engines"
Oldsmobile also "saw the light" and went to Batten
for cylinder heads.
It grew to cylinder blocks and intakes and other
race parts. For a while, you had Chebby, Pontiac,
and Olds all making race parts and competing with each other on who did the best engineering (buying
aftermarket race parts with engineering money for
"research" purposes).
Chebby eventually forced OLDS and PONTIAC out of
the game when they said WE will build the only V8,
Buick will build the only V6, and Pontiac will build the Iron Duke 4 cylinder.
Pontiac dirtied the waters when they urinated in
their own backyard in a pi$$ing contest with
Chebby and lost. No one to blame but pontiac.
Tom V.
