[Steve C.]

I think this material has been posted before, I don't remember, so here it is again....

The Pioneers of the Pontiac V-8: Design and Development
Part 1

https://www.motortrend.com/features/...nt-pontiac-v8/


The Pioneers of the Pontiac V-8: Race Engine Development
Part 2

https://www.motortrend.com/features/...he-pontiac-v8/



.

[Half-Inch Stud]

Part 1 missed entirely on Edmund Windeler, the Chief engine designer, the architect of the PMD Stratostreak V8. Edmund performed the design and led the design for production leading to the V8 introduction into production vehicles.

Heard plenty of these development stories from the husband of Edmund's daughter.

There is a 1954 SAE Paper "Introduction of the Pontiac V8" which describes many of the neat (and new) features of the Stratostreak engine design and production efficiencies. Meanwhile the SAE 1954 Chevy pales in comparison.

Rest of the fellas mentioned in Part 1 sound right. Valentine's metallurgy was key, and he also had to prove it out on Crankshaft durability lifetests, Harmonic evals for the damper, bearing fidelity, and machinability costs vs forgings for tool wear advantages.. Have that SAE Paper too.

Leach's Ball/Rocker was new, also key.

I have a Video on CD showing the 24 hour endurance lifetest of a "off the showroom floor" 1954 Pontiac outfitted with gauges for engineering evals done in some well known U.S. flat desert. Dunno how to convert for upload.

We all know "the HP is in the Heads", so it would be informative for such articles to reveal the CYL Head designers, some of the tradeoff notes, and perhaps when the V-heads were 1st designed. The early 60s SD heads were likely designed and cast and tested many months (year, years?) before the winning races.

Thanks for posting Part 1 & 2

[Baron Von Zeppelin]

NASCAR racer David Pearson—driving a '71 GTO with this specific 366 installed—broke the qualifying track record at Talladega International Speedway in May 1971

THAT is HEAVY ! @ Talladega
Never heard about that before.
Guessing the previous record was held by a 426 Hemi ?

Russ stayed with Pontiac until 1979, and then transferred to Chevrolet's high-performance team. While at Chevy, with authority over Pontiac regarding powertrain, Russ issued the corporate order to turbocharge the Trans Ams and Firebird for '80 and '81.

We are your OverLords - you can have this tinker-toy engine and apply 4psi of fart wind to it.
You're welcome.

I'm sure it was probably meant to be more noble than it turned out.

[Shiny]

Thanks for posting. I haven't read it all yet but am enjoying the details.

This one caught my attention:

"...Pontiac would have been forced to raise the durability of its V-8's reciprocating assembly, which was only rated to 4,500 rpm for 100 hours non-stop at wide-open throttle. (Published redlines are higher because they are designed to allow the engine higher-rpm for short bursts of time—not 100 hours!)"

All the threads on this forum about lifter, crankshaft, and rod limits have me thinking about reliability engineering and how it really works. This is the first insight into the design goal for Pontiac "stock" reliability that I've seen.

A test to "prove" the engine would survive 100 hrs @ 4500 rpm would have a limited sample size (how many engines would they test? maybe 10?) and would have to run longer than 100 hrs. The math and assumptions usually say you need about 3X life (~300 hrs) to "prove" the odds of failure are less than 1 or 2% if you have zero fails in the test population.

It's always better to test to failure (like rod fatigue being the weakest link) but that costs money and time that the design engineers and business managers don't want. All they want is "How soon can you prove it's good enough?" 300 hrs doesn't sound like much but it's a long time to wait if the answer ends up being "not good enough" and you've already printed the sales brochures and scheduled the delivery trucks.

There is an underlying assumption about the distribution of hrs @ rpm that is key to "selling" the reliability to management. For the engine design, this "use model" was probably a grocery getter. Must have been a good dance to assure the company that GTO warranty costs wouldn't destroy the business.

[Half-Inch Stud]

The SAE papers on the Pontiac V8 showed thatPMD addressed crankshaft longetvity from stress data (brittle coating crazing/ cracking inspections??) by increasing Main and Rod journal diameter for increased stiffness.

That was before 1954, so go figure the parametrics leading to the 3" Main and 2.3" Rod BEARING SHELLS are in our favor for Reliable HP (really the low-mid RPM TQ). That, and the stories i heard tell me the 421 parametric was forethought.

Geez, was the 455 parametric forethought too? Thus younz all know why i am a proponent of the 3.25" Main regardless of HP loss claims, even by Smokey Yunick. Did he get the 421s with reduced Mains? Did PMD provide larger dampers?

So, i would notice the Ram Air II, IV and SD-455 damper appear to me as the same mass& diameter, maybe more precise in machinework.

It's the 1969 OHC-6 Sprint 4-speed damper design which i am impressed with, that PMD certainly addressed to achieve 7500 rpm upshifts with production cask crankshaft, cast pistons, and forged Rods.

[Keith Seymore]

I liked this photo, in which you can see a young Malcom McKellar on the far right.

My reason for posting, though, was the inclusion of Hulki Aldikacti on the lower left.

My dad worked directly for Hulki which he was the head of Advanced Manufacturing Engineering and over the "P2" project (what would have been the second generation Fiero).

K

[Keith Seymore]

I've mentioned this before, but I did the math:

Pontiac started in 1926; Mac started at Pontiac in 1941, so the division was only 15 years old when Mac started there....

...at the time of his retirement he had been there 45 of Pontiac's 60 years, or fully three quarters of the division's entire existence.

K

[Shiny]

1954 SAE papers must be fascinating.

I remember the lacquer... dinosaur tech.. pre-FEA!

And back when they could justify the expense of "overdesign". Those cranks were probably near bulletproof in the stock applications.

[Half-Inch Stud]

Originally Posted by Shiny

1954 SAE papers must be fascinating. I remember the lacquer... dinosaur tech.. pre-FEA!

And back when they could justify the expense of "overdesign". Those cranks were probably near bulletproof in the stock applications.

Oh heck, you reminded me of a story that got relayed out from PMD to this fella. Somewhere in the mid-late 1980s the flowdown command was given to stop designing forever engines, and cars, and shoot for 10 years longetivity. The adage of saving money was not the reason, the reason was to make profits from maintenance and future repeat sales. Somehow that didn't play out well for the Sellers nor the Buyers.

The 1954 PMD SAE paper intro paragraph stated the engine design was also driven by the desire for simplifed maintenance preformed by the customer. Well that sure changed.

[Shiny]

Originally Posted by Half-Inch Stud

Oh heck, you reminded me of a story that got relayed out from PMD to this fella. Somewhere in the mid-late 1980s the flowdown command was given to stop designing forever engines, and cars, and shoot for 10 years longetivity. The adage of saving money was not the reason, the reason was to make profits from maintenance and future repeat sales. Somehow that didn't play out well for the Sellers nor the Buyers.

The 1954 PMD SAE paper intro paragraph stated the engine design was also driven by the desire for simplifed maintenance preformed by the customer. Well that sure changed.

Interesting. 10 years was always beyond a standard warranty period but seemed a "standard" expectation for longevity on an expensive vehicle.

In my final resting jobs, there were two "formal" reliability design goals (allowable failure rates) set for new products: a short one driven by warranty costs and the longer one driven by brand loyalty and reputation.

I can see an auto manufacturer concluding they were spending too much on the product if it lasted more than 10 years...but would a customer line up to buy another that died in 7 years? Two sides to this one!

Is too

Is not

Is too

Is not

[unruhjonny]

This discussion made me dig up the magazines the other night;
I prefer to read articles on print media over on a computer/device screen.

I am always surprised when I read of people inside big companies being resistant to change, and the proposed 366 street engine part of the story stuck with me.

A lingering question for me is this:

If the 366 made that much power, has anyone in this community ever recreated one?

I mean, if the 366 made 575 horsepower with RAIV heads, I would think that similar hp numbers should be realistically achieved with similar compression D-port heads;
So if the hurdle of crank and rods can be overcome, there may be no need for getting highly desirable RAIV castings.

[Keith Seymore]

Originally Posted by unruhjonny

I am always surprised when I read of people inside big companies being resistant to change

Most of the people inside GM are not car guys. They are professional managers and career politicians interested in advancing through the ranks and expanding their sphere of influence. The fact that we are (were) designing and building cars was secondary to the fact that they were working in a major corporation and making big bucks.

That's why when you find a Mac McKellar or a John Delorean they stand out so much.

When I went to GMI (General Motors Institute - GM's own college for engineers and managers) in a school of about 2000 kids I recall there were about 15 of us in the official car club.

K

[Keith Seymore]

Originally Posted by unruhjonny

I am always surprised when I read of people inside big companies being resistant to change

Additionally - building multiple millions of anything is pretty easy. You just keep doing the same thing over and over.

But building the first few is incredibly difficult. So the organization (both the structure and the people) fight against change with everything that is within them.

It is nearly impossible to introduce a design change and shepherd it through the system. Each interface between the various "silos" is an opportunity for information to get lost or communication to break down and requires aggressive tracking and reminding by the change owner. In fact, sometimes the change documentation gets introduced and the physical change itself never gets implemented, either due to lack of interest or because the change itself has "timed out" and become moot.

K

[Tom Vaught]

Similar Keith in the Research Building at Ford.
1000 people in that building doing "Research" work.
The vast majority were in Management roles from Supervisors to Directors in the company. Very rare to see a hardware ("The Go To Guy") in the building.

Being a "Hardware Guy" and a "Boost Guy" I worked on every Boost Program in Ford
from the 1979 Mustang Turbocharged program to the 2016 Le Mans Race (50 year later)
program after Ford won that race the first time in 1966 with the Cross-Bolt 427 Block
with Ken Miles, McLaren, etc with a 3 place finish.

There are about 2 million ECOBOOST vehicles out there today. $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

Happy to call you my Friend after all of these years working for our corporations Keith.

Tom V.

[tom s]

I find it interesting reading about the 366 shortdeck engines.I have been pretty involved with the tunnel port engines for about 20 years now and have NEVER seen a 366 short deck.I have owned and seen other 366 NASCAR engine but mine and everyone I have seen are standard deck using a 7in rod.I have owned a couple short deck 303 SCCA engines.Although I built my 366 as a tunnel port engine I know they were designed and built with IV heads.I would figure in 20 years and all the contacts I have made I would have run into at least one 366 shortdeck.To be clear the short deck engine used 2 1/2 mains as apposed to all the standard decks being 3in.Both of my short deck engines were 303 strokers,one being 366 and the other 389.The only short deck RA IV intakes I have ever seen and owned were 2-4 X ram intakes.FWIW,Tom

[The Champ]

"NASCAR racer David Pearson—driving a '71 GTO with this specific 366 installed—broke the qualifying track record at Talladega International Speedway in May 1971"

At the May 1971 Talladega race, David Pearson's Pontiac qualified in 8th position. It was Donnie Allison who won the poll in a Mercury.

As I understand it, David drove the '71 GTO in only 5 races at the tail end of the 1971 season.



In all 5 of those races, Pearson was forced to retire from the race early because of a variety of engine issues.

https://www.nascarhall.com/blog/davi...ngine%20issues.

[Baron Von Zeppelin]

Originally Posted by The Champ

NASCAR racer David Pearson—driving a '71 GTO with this specific 366 installed—broke the qualifying track record at Talladega International Speedway in May 1971"

At the May 1971 Talladega race, David Pearson's Pontiac qualified in 8th position. It was Donnie Allison who won the poll in a Mercury.

The way that reads , everyone who qualified 8th or better that day , also broke the track record.
Maybe even more , but at least from 8th up.
Great accomplishment by David Pearson and his ragtag team.

If everyone was limited to 366cid in May 71 , that would mean they were qualifying faster than a 1970 Superbird with 426 Hemi. That is impressive all the way around.

[tom s]

no question they ran 366 NASCAR engines,I owned one and there are many of the blocks out there.I question the short deck.Tom

[sdbob]

Thanks guys for the info on corporate hierarchy. It seems amazing that the SuperDuty race cars and street,also late SDs even exist plus the 64 GTO. That 71 GTO' looks'impressive let alone the speed. There seems to be a 426 next to it.

[The Champ]

Originally Posted by Baron Von Zeppelin

The way that reads , everyone who qualified 8th or better that day , also broke the track record.
Maybe even more , but at least from 8th up.
Great accomplishment by David Pearson and his ragtag team.

If everyone was limited to 366cid in May 71 , that would mean they were qualifying faster than a 1970 Superbird with 426 Hemi. That is impressive all the way around.

You are assuming that David went out to qualify before the 7 cars that qualified faster than he was. Otherwise, he never broke the track record, but broke the old record after other driver's set a new one.

In 1970, Buddy Baker driving a Dodge Charger Daytona was the first driver to break 200 MPH at Talladega. In 1971, NASCAR banned the Charger Daytona and the Plymouth Superbird. Chances of anyone breaking the qualifying records set with either the much more aerodynamic Daytona or Superbird in 1969 or 1970 is somewhere between slim and none.

I've been a NASCAR fan for decades and it's rare to even have 3 or 4 drivers break the track record in qualifying. I have trouble believing that 8 drivers broke it in 1971.

Bottom line, the 366 powered Pontiac GTO never finished a race and only made it 19 of the 188 laps at Talladega.

Regardless, fast only counts if you can finish the race.