[NHRASuperStock455SD]

Rudy and everyone else of the time were doing raised port exhausts. Foder lived right down the street from Pontiac Racing's dyno facility. He got the benefit of all the work that GM was doing with the RA-V. We ended up with one of the sets of heads that CJ Batten did. Has anyone wondered why the raised port exhaust fell by the wayside? There are reasons you know. .

I think Rudy was working with Straus in those days. Everyone should know by now that the 455 stroke is way too much piston speed. The only thing it really accomplishes for a race motor is to reduce the operating range of the HP curve. At least until we do a monsterous bore block. LOL


Old One, we went 146.77 with a 3450 car with this motor. What does that give you? The rumor was that Foder went up to Canada with this motor and dyoned against those Canadian boys and made almost 100HP more than them. I know Foder was packing 440 cubic inches, and the Pro Stock engines werent that much.

Lynn

[Steve Barcak]

elaborate on your comment about "rainsed exhaust ports going by the way side". How can you say that? That is nonsense.
It was a great idea then and it is a great idea now. Of course now, many aftermarket castings are built with raised exhaust ports. The Super Chief as an example, B-1, many BBC, etc, etc./ all have a raised exh port.
Only performance street heads like the Edelbrock have stock ex port locations to make installation easier.
I built a set for my fueler and they work fine. They would work equally well on the n/a carb application as well.
Steve Barcak www.pontiacheaven.org

[NHRASuperStock455SD]

Steve,

Our engines arent limited by the exhausts believe it or not. So I guess we have to agree to disagree. Even my Super Stock OEM 455SD head's exhausts flowed over 300 cfm, so we had to cut them back to 262 by decreasing the valve seat angle. Of course in NHRA raising the exhaust ports are illegal.

We did a set of Wenzlers for a comp eliminator engine before NHRA sprung the part number rules on us. We had the intakes flowing 428 with a 2.3 valve and had no problem visualizing 460 to 470 cfm with a 2.4 valve. We had just redesigned the combustion chamber and the valve sizes to get that 2.4 in there, and the exhaust still wasnt the limiting factor.

Over scavaging with too much exhaust can get you into trouble. Of course if you are running a blower, then the story might be different. We dont do that kind of stuff.

Lynn

[theoldone]

Originally Posted by Steve Barcak

elaborate on your comment about "rainsed exhaust ports going by the way side". How can you say that? That is nonsense.
It was a great idea then and it is a great idea now. Of course now, many aftermarket castings are built with raised exhaust ports. The Super Chief as an example, B-1, many BBC, etc, etc./ all have a raised exh port.
Only performance street heads like the Edelbrock have stock ex port locations to make installation easier.
I built a set for my fueler and they work fine. They would work equally well on the n/a carb application as well.
Steve Barcak www.pontiacheaven.org

I believe what he means is, porting technology has advanced quite a bit since then. And you are also correct, the new castings have straighter ports to begin with for many engines- so the high port was not needed.

On the Rudy comments- Rudy ran a Pontiac for decades, and a Chevy for what, a few years ? You get the picture. He went 8.30's with a RA V with no power adders, using an antiquated block design- making over 850 HP on gas- by comparison, how fast have you run ?

Rudy ran a Pontiac a lot longer than most- he maxed the engine design out- and when he could not go any faster with the Pontiac equipment available, he switched.

so what ? So did Arnie Beswick.

Anyone who sticks around racing long enough quickly learns that the dated Pontiac engine design is no match for a Chevy, Ford, or Mopar in all-out no holds barred racing. Pontiac bore spacing is too tight and main/rod journals too large. So a Pontiac becomes flow limited and rpm limited in comparison. What Pontiacs do get to run in the upper ranks get knocked out quickly in eliminations- and are running with hopes that the Chevy-Ford-Mopar crowd breaks, cuts a bad light, or loses traction. That is called a "wing and a prayer".

then there's the inherent original block weakness of the open lifter valley- Steve, you tried a home made block girdle on your blower nitro motor, and what happened- the block broke anyway, right ? You can't blame someone if they switch to a stronger block because their Pontiac stuff keeps splitting in half. They smartened up.

but we do what we can and have fun and try to improve-

One more thing about Rudy- he called my house first long distance and I wasn't home at the time- I was at my mom's house visiting- he got my mom's phone number from my wife, and called my mom's to talk to me- so he made (2) long distance phone calls on his own coin, to talk Pontiacs and RA V's.

Most guys would not even call back at all- let alone twice to 2 numbers. That said a lot to me of his Pontiac allegiance.

As far as "brand x" motors go, I myself would like to build a Ford FE 427/428, Buick nailhead 425, early Hemi 392, and Hemi 426 in my lifetime. Hot rodding doesn't mean you put blinders on and only build one motor your whole life. Even Mickey Thompson later ran SOHC 427 Ford cammers, etc. after he got done toying with Pontiacs. Smokey Yunick went to Chevy (427 BBC) and Ford (tunnel port 427) after he ran 421 Pontiacs in NASCAR. So Rudy wasn't the first one to try other brands.

[theoldone]

Steve,

here ya go- Mickey Thompson campaigned a SOHC 427 Ford funny car and had a tremendous record with it. If you are going to knock Rudy for running a Chevy, then you may as well take those M/T Pontiac Hemi heads you are always talking about and heave them as well. Because the guy that made those heads, eventually defected to Ford.

And look at the record he ran up with the SOHC Ford 427 cammer- 58 wins, 2 losses- and Mickey didn't only run one car, he ran THREE Mustang funny cars at one time.



http://www.dragracingonline.com/special/v8-ford3-2.html

quote from the site:

"Ford hung in there during the late 1960s and 1970. Danny Ongais (below) at the wheel of the Mickey Thompson "Mach-1" Mustang totalled up a 58-2 win-loss record during the first six months of 1969, and won the NHRA Springnationals and NHRA Nationals that season.
Way before there was a lot of anxiety and anguish over John Force’s three cars team of Ford Mustang Fuel Flops Mickey Thompson had already done that. Here are just a few of the nitro burning Mustangs that a variety of drivers drove for the legendary Thompson. Included here is of course Danny Ongias “Mighty Mike” Van Sant, Larry Fullerton and the legendary Johnny Wright."

[Wareagle]

Theoldone--it seems you don't want Pontiacs to advance--we do have the new IA II block- it can handle 3000 HP -even the Chevy guys say this is one Stout piece AND YES BASED ON THE ORIGINAL DESIGN --plus with the new TIGER HEADS etc. Pontiacs are getting Quicker and thats good for us True PONTIAC FANS .

[NHRASuperStock455SD]

Originally Posted by theoldone

I believe what he means is, porting technology has advanced quite a bit since then. And you are also correct, the new castings have straighter ports to begin with for many engines- so the high port was not needed.

Thanks Old One,

I thought the answer was obvious, so i didnt respond. Also, the raise port technology back then was to straighten up the port, and decrease the size of the ports. We dont do that anymore. If you will look at the picture above the exhausts were very small.

I would love to do a set of OEM RA-V's again, but the cost and availability of them makes it all unrealistic, not to mention they are still considered illegal for NHRA racing. I could probably get that changed, but you never know.

Lynn

[Wareagle]

Lynn--it is a game of Politics--look when Pontiac was kicking butt in NASCAR in the early 60's with Their SD389-421 CATALINAS -Chevy could'nt stand losing --so what did we get--the 63 GM racing ban--Chevy got back into Nascar but Pontiac never did--I wonder why .

[theoldone]

Originally Posted by Wareagle

Lynn--it is a game of Politics--look when Pontiac was kicking butt in NASCAR in the early 60's with Their SD389-421 CATALINAS -Chevy could'nt stand losing --so what did we get--the 63 GM racing ban--Chevy got back into Nascar but Pontiac never did--I wonder why .

there's a lot more to it than that...the "racing ban" was actually a well propagated cover story because GM and specifically Pontiac had no competitive engine for the 1963 season.

The Ford 427 FE walked all over the Pontiac 421's at Daytona in 1963. And the Pontiacs were using the brand new "980" SD421 heads, which were just released in late Oct-Nov 1962 for the 1963 season.

If you read Pete Mc's book on the SD421 cars, quite a few were made during 1963, but they simply were not as dominant or competitive as previous years.

When Mopar released the 426 Hemi in 1964, the show was over- racing in the big leagues with a Pontiac in 1964 was like bringing a boy scout pocket knife to a gunfight. The Fords and Mopars of the time were making 150-200 HP more than the SD421- regardless if you watch the old NASCAR archive race films from 1963-70, you'll see a few Pontiacs in the race on the inside getting lapped terribly by Mopars and Fords. I watched a few.

Chevy snuck back in through the back door with the 427, which Smokey Yunick tweaked to lead the Daytona 500 in 1967, but it chucked a rod and that was it- the race was won by a tunnel port 427 Ford with a young Mario Andretti driving.

Pontiac DID race in 1963, if you look at the record book you'll see they won quite a few short track and dirt track races (NASCAR still raced on some dirt tracks then). After 1963, there were no more Pontiac wins.

There was also a guy running a Pontiac 428 w/RA V heads that ran in the 1969-70 time period in NASCAR, that amounted to nothing- then another effort with the Pontiac 366 engine with RA IV heads in 1972 in NASCAR. So Pontiac did indeed race long after 1963 with their engine- it simply was not competitive anymore.

Could GM have competed if they wanted to ? Yes, certainly. At the time Chevrolet alone was bigger in corporate size than Chrysler, Ford, AMC, and all other GM divisions put together ! Bottom line was, GM didn't need race wins to sell cars, Ford and Mopar did. GM still outsold Ford/Chrysler even though they did not "officially" compete in NASCAR. So GM figured, why bother ?

I believe had Pontiac been able to make a solid lifter valley 400-type block, and use the RA V or other hi-flowing head, and had factory money and big corp. sponsor support, they could have been competitive. Obviously the RA V head was up to the task. And in 1971 NASCAR rules allowed multiple carbs on 366 engines, but only one carb on a 427. So in effect a NASCAR racer could run a 366 w/2-4's and RA IV or RA V heads.