Quote:
Originally Posted by Tom Vaught
Rocky, my understanding is that there were many dynometer issues with the 73/74 SD engines due to aggressive dyno pulls by some employees.
Tom V.
|
That's my understanding too! I spoke with Ron Genaw who ran Pontiac's dyno lab then and it sounds like he was a performance enthusiast who really enjoyed running the developmental SD-455 engines.
Herb, Tom, and Skip probably told you as they did me that the race version of the SD-455 (12:1 compression, radical camshaft, and open headers) was pushing 600 hp when development officially ended. That's damn impressive when considering early-1970s technology at the time.
If you hadn't yet seen my '70-81 Firebird book, you'd appreciate the pictures I found of the production SD-455 on the dyno. Herb is even in some of them. I also have a handful of dyno graphs of the development and production SD-455 and internal memos as it was being readied for production.