[grandam1979]

Was the engine run on a dyno just wondering what it made? It’s a 400?

[turbo69bird]

Well they had a 413 (according to a 1971 article in rod set and super stock) inch originally, but it’s numbers on the block are those of a 428 pro stock engine which are noted in an article I have and Tom S confirmed . But I personally haven’t had it opened up . It’s got a stroker crank in it now and I have the orginal crank still.
As far as I know Nunzi had an intake Arnie beswick had an intake and steohens Pontiac had an intake. This is Stephens.
BOP has Arnie’s. And nunzi has his still

I have pictures of Arnie’s engine as well somewhere but he ran bigger carbs on it. Though as far as I know BoP has the original style 660 center squatters back on it.

It was only dyno d to 6500 and I believe the dyno sheet is earlier in this thread . I’ll hav ego look back and see made 600+ Hp


Intake is a developmental part number dual quad from Pontiac engineering that is shown in Mc carthys book

[tom s]

BOP does not have Arnies as far as I know?I know it came from a RA V racer in Nor Cal as he bought it about a hour before I called the guy.Nunzi HAS a intake along with at least one of the dual plane 2-4 RA V intakes.There is also a PY member that has intake.Arnies intake was made into a blower intake.Tom

[turbo69bird]

Thanks for the clarification Tom I knew you’d know where they were.

[turbo69bird]

Originally Posted by turbo69bird

Well they had a 413 (according to a 1971 article in rod set and super stock) inch originally, but it’s numbers on the block are those of a 428 pro stock engine which are noted in an article I have and Tom S confirmed . But I personally haven’t had it opened up . It’s got a stroker crank in it now and I have the orginal crank still.
As far as I know Nunzi had an intake Arnie beswick had an intake and steohens Pontiac had an intake. This is Stephens.
BOP has Arnie’s. And nunzi has his still

I have pictures of Arnie’s engine as well somewhere but he ran bigger carbs on it. Though as far as I know BoP has the original style 660 center squatters back on it.

It was only dyno d to 6000 and I believe the dyno sheet is earlier in this thread . It made 617+ Hp @6k and was gaining


Intake is a developmental part number dual quad from Pontiac engineering that is shown in Mc carthys book

It’s an awesome engine having had quite a few race engines that were N/A Pontiac’s and a couple turbo engines

It definitely sounds and runs different than any of those . It revs a lot quicker more like my friends big block chevys or even some small blocks.

[turbo69bird]

Btw that post above should have said acid dipped, Stephens took a subframe, a arms etc for the RAV car and sent them out to someone in California and had them acid dipped bill said they were very thin and that’s why he didn’t think they’d have sold it to the public after. He doesn’t know where it went but many say it went to JW greens in Plainville and was scrapped after the engine was sold


I’ve since found a photo that has confirmed the 69 raced in the 70 season. A friend who has passed, took the photo, and I hadn't realized what he said when he sent it , but he wasn’t back from viet nam until well into 70 so he couldn’t have taken the pic earlier. Sadly he passed away so can’t ask him more about it. He also owned this RAV engine at one time and was the person who bought it from Stephens Pontiac

Also for those who don’t know , frank who started this thread has sadly passed away as well. Guess he passed A couple days before I texted him to show him the RAV running in the car. He Never got to see it running or go for a ride w me .

[johnta1]

Thanks for the additional info.
Sorry to hear of Frank's passing.

[sdbob]

I happened apon a 63 Catalina at Keystone Raceway about 1976. It was a Swiss Cheese car with a dual quad RA V in it. Owner said it was 440 ci. with automatic.Car was the original Royal car(at the time I didnt recognize it because of paint). I new Phil Heck, he acquired it.

[turbo69bird]

Originally Posted by sdbob

I happened apon a 63 Catalina at Keystone Raceway about 1976. It was a Swiss Cheese car with a dual quad RA V in it. Owner said it was 440 ci. with automatic.Car was the original Royal car(at the time I didnt recognize it because of paint). I new Phil Heck, he acquired it.

Happen to have pics?
I have some pics of arnies 68 firebird w the dual quads and the engine out of the car.
Crane Roller rockers on it and larger carbs than the 660 center squirters .

[LKLusza]

Originally Posted by mgarblik

That engine made 555 ft. lbs. torque or more over a 1500 RPM range, nice and flat. Very nice.

That's the first thing I noticed too. My Goodness, what a monster! That thing must feel like a full-tilt space shuttle launch when the go pedal's mashed

[sdbob]

No. However the Hecks took the car to the POCI Convention I think Downington,Pa.The one magazine had pictures of it in one issue. I cant think of mags name, oh shoot, I dont think it was HPP but its predecessor. Not color but described color. The car was sold and brought back to Royal Pontiac condition. I saw the car at Norwalk years later.

[turbo69bird]

https://youtu.be/hy2fGqLna6U

This video had a few shots of the Stephen pro stock car sitting in the staging lanes.

[Baron Von Zeppelin]

Approx 25 to 31 second mark I saw a White TA with a larger shaker scoop twice.
And a yellow 70 Bird on the sideline as a rail dragster was making a U-turn .

At 53 seconds a 66 GTO is pushing a rail dragster.

I might have missed some other things.

[turbo69bird]

These are shots of the pro stock car from the video.

[turbo69bird]

Little clip of it here also

https://youtu.be/RXVyW3WqPrI

During the pro stock parade that was so popular then.

Sadly he was up against Don Carlton which was the fastest pro stocker in the country at the time and went out in round 1 - if you had this video you’d see the round one pass where he trees Don and hangs w him to top of second gear then the big hemi power walked away.

[wase]

Hello, I found this video the other day. Mark does a lot of shows and makes some interesting content. There is a walk around of the yellow Stephan's '69 Firebird at 46.03. You may also see it it some other shots in the back ground. Great to see it out at a car meet.

[wase]

That video is available at ; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KIH2mXfG4lw

[turbo69bird]

Originally Posted by wase

That video is available at ; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KIH2mXfG4lw

That’s so cool I’m just seeing this now. If I had a better gear in the car and knew he was there I’d have showed him how I got all that rubber on the 1/4 panels! Taken him for the ride of his life! Maybe next time.
I did fire up the car a few times for people that day too bad he wasn’t there for that the RAV has distinct sound a bit like the start of the hot for teacher video

[Skippy597]

Such a cool thread! Love all the history

[turbo69bird]

Originally Posted by Skippy597

Such a cool thread! Love all the history

A lot of the information on this car evolves as I learn it. Sometimes you get a story and it’s got to be checked between the two drivers of the car. They haven’t talked to eachother since 1971 so usually I can cross check w them and if the story is the same then I know for sure it’s legit
Of course it’s also been almost 60 years and sometimes they can’t remember things right away. Like Tom remembers the car only ever having one paint scheme and bill only remembers it having the other . Why? Idk ��

They both say they tested the RAV in the car and tuned it but they don’t know if it ever raced w that engine or not they had a 1/2 mile area behind the dealership long and straight so they could test the cars there.

They also did some TV commercials with the cars back there ripping the cars down the back of the dealership, but I don’t know how to find copies of them.
I have alot of info on these cars but I don’t want to post it all until (someday) I restore the car I can debut it all with it . Many of my pictures given to me by the original drivers , I posted on a website I had done years ago about the cars. Those pictures got taken and posted elsewhere with other people putting their names on them.
That kind of turned me off on posting my original pictures. And I also took the website down because of that.
Never minded people reposting them
But adding your name like you owned them is annoying

Some things like , when the car was delivered to Stephens (69 car) it was unloaded and “driven” straight to Lebanon valley dragway (2.5 hr ride ) it was run for baseline numbers. Then the car was brought back. Engine pulled and the 68 GTO engine RAII from the season before was put into my car complete and “driven “ back up to Lebanon and raced. Now idk if that means it was trailered or actually driven. Bills hard to get info out of he doesn’t elaborate very well. Some pictures I see of the car it was on the trailer. But it was all back roads back then and they could have driven it. ( today you’d take the highway
At least part of the way but the highway didn’t wxsist there at that time.

The RAII engine had been balanced and blueprinted by Jack Merkel in Long Island . Because they needed it fast they paid a fortune for this engine. So Stephen SR said no way am I paying that again. Take it out of the 68 car ! .so the 2506 RAII short block stayed in my car. How long IDK if it was sold to the public that way ? Idk I do know they had the IV motor and a SR IV motor as backups for the car .

I own the IV SR motor now. I had to buy the car it was in to get it. But I got it.

I also have the RAII block.

What I unfortunately don’t have is the WH that came out of it no idea where it ever went.
There’s variations on whether the Iv top end was swapped onto the RAII block - when I got it the RA early heads were with it. Just gad RA on the heads and tgats what bill says they had.
But that doesn’t make sense to me because the RAIV intake wouldn’t have worked on the II heads unless they had the intakes opened up ( which is possible ) the heads went to BOSS on here and he resold them so I couldn’t check the heads to know.
I just know everything about this car evolves as I get little bits of info in. I’ll see someone at a car show and they will remember the car and give me a tid bit. And then I’ll ask bill Eckstrom about it .

In a couple weeks I’ll give a good story about the car. Need to figure something out first but there’s a good one coming. Maybe I’ll start a Stephen Pontiac thread at some point and post a bunch of info about the cars. Idk