Old Car Trivia..Wanna Play?

spokane

Yes, speedshift, Buick stopped producing the 225 V6 in '67 and reintroduced it at 231 CID (3.8 L) in '75. In the meantime the tooling for this engine had been sold to AMC. AMC built the 225 V6's for use in some of the CJ Jeeps for a few years and then moth-balled the engine tooling in favor an AMC 304 V8 for the Jeep line. As I understand it, GM bought this old tooling back from AMC to produce the "new" '75 Buick engine. In '75, or shortly thereafter, they began using the split crankpin to provide even 120-degree firing intervals. Indeed, GM's current 3.8 L workhorse has an interesting history.

andre1969

Weren't there two versions of the 3.8? I heard that one was called the "even firing" 3.8, and the normal, rougher version that required more external balancing.

I'd heard that whatever they did to make it fire more evenly would also make it self destruct quicker. I don't know if there's any truth to that, although my '82 Cutlass Supreme passed enough engine parts through the oil to tear up the oil pump gears and lose all pressure at 73K miles (an age that is just getting broken in, for most of my cars!)

-Andre

chaparral

The largest: Cadillac 500CID.
The smallest: Honda 180CID. I am not making this up; I have seen a couple. It was a rather expensive option on the 1986 Civic. I'm not sure why it was built; maybe to qualify it as a "stock block" of some sort for racing. It was absolutely ludicrous- essentially 2 Civic 1500 cc engines sharing a common shaft and block.

spokane

The original engine had three standard crankpins so the firing intervals, in degrees of crankshaft rotation, were 90-150-90-150-90-150 etc. Both versions had 90 degree angle between the cylinder banks. In '75 (or possibly '76) GM introduced the "even-firing" feature which is still used. That feature has each crankpin "split" so that the two rods are separated by 30 degrees of crank angle - resulting in a uniform 120 degrees of crank rotation for each firing interval.

I don't know details of how the crankshaft counterweights may have been changed from year to year but the auxiliary balance shaft wasn't introduced until 1988. This shaft is located in the "V" of the engine, just above the camshaft. I suppose that's the "external balancing' that you mention. Thus, I feel certain the "even-firing" and "balance-shaft" features were incorporated into this engine rather than their being two different types.

Mr_Shiftright

What was the first GM production car to use electronic fuel injection and an ohc engine with 4 valves per cylinder?

(those of you who talked to me about this in another topic are DISQUALIFIED! so there....)

speedshift

Wasn't that the Quad 4, came out in 1989 or so? I drove a new '91 Pontiac Grand Am coupe with the HO engine and 5 speed and it was impressively quick, although I think some of that impression came from all that induction noise and engine vibration, and a front-drive chassis that couldn't handle the power. But it was fun.

Should have bought it but went with a '90 Cutlass International Series (there's a trivia question) with the same combo but much heavier. The result was that always popular combination of no torque and no top end--sounds like my Corvair turbo--rough as a cob and row it around with a rubbery shifter. That's when I found out if a car's been sitting on the lot for a year there's a good reason. But a handsome car and my first new one.

Mr_Shiftright

Good guess......but wrong! You are too late.....this car was earlier by some years.

Hint: It is a model no longer manufactured...that is, like "Citation" or "Bronco".

speedshift

Okay I know now, like you said you were just talking about the car in another thread--thought you meant over in Coupes, but now it clicks. Pretty amazing that they got so little out of so much hardware, but like I've said before, trust that car maker to build an underachiever.

chaparral

What was the first moderately priced American Automobile to break 100 MPH. By moderately priced, I mean no Cadillacs, Lincolns, La Salles, Packards, Pierces, or Dusenbergs.

chaparral

The name hints at its potential...it's still in use.

badgerpaul

Would it be the 1936 Buick Century?

Mr_Shiftright

Okay, the first GM dohc fuel injected engine was the Cogsworth Vega, 1976.