smallest v8 engine?
My cousin use to have a 1964 Ford Fairlane with a
260 ci v8 engine. He rebuilt it himself and had
many years of reliable service from this car.
Was the 260 the smallest v8 engine to be available
in a production car?
260 ci v8 engine. He rebuilt it himself and had
many years of reliable service from this car.
Was the 260 the smallest v8 engine to be available
in a production car?
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Yes, Cadillac made the 4-6-8, and it was a disaster.
You're right about that Caddy experiment. Some thought it felt like a 2-4-6-8. Imagine that hog being pulled by 4 cylinders!
The 2bbl version produced 155 HP, and the Skylarks had a 4bbl with a different cam that put out 185 HP. My parents bought one new and later gave it to me. It would smoke a 283 Chevy. Those Buicks came with the WORST automatic transmission ever built!
Trivia question...What was that transmission called?
Later, Buick sold the alumimum 215 V-8 to the British who used it in a number of applications including Land Rovers even still today, I think!
Morgan uses that engine, too, in its new and improved form.
Not an engine of production cars but interesting.
Did GM also have different transmissions for their various divisions? I recall that the Hydra-matic was in the Olds and Pontiac lines.
It was a TOTAL piece of junk and I doubt if you could even get one overhauled today.
Also, that engine wasen't really a bad one. They had a tendency to suffer from overheating because back then, in moderate climates, people would sometimes use straight water in the radiators.
Those engines were the first V-8 to use an aluminum block which was unheard of at the time.
The two door Skylark coupes and rare convertables were very attractive. They could be had with a four speed stick even.
Speaking of transmissions, does anybody remember the Turboglide that Chevy used from 1957-1961 in some of their cars? Pure junk! Most transmission shops would refuse to rebuild them and would do a conversion instead where they would install a Powerglide.
You might "slip and slide with Powerglide" but they did hold up better.
They had one rough idle!
Back in the sixties, Cadillac, Pontiac and Oldsmobile used different versions of the Hydramatic. Some of these were not very good. It wasn't until 1965 (1964 for Cadillac) that the Turbo 400 came out. they were a very strong transmission! I think after that, all of the full sized GM cars used the 400.
From about 1961-1964, the Hydramatic was the Roto-Hydramatic, also called a "slim jim". They were not very good.
Chevy only had the two speed Powerglide until 1965 when the 400 came with the 396 and 427 engines, I think.
The pre 1962 Powerglides were actually stronger then the later aluminum Powerglides. The newer ones would burn out the clutches after 60,000 miles or so which would cause them to slip between first and second gear.
I'll quit! I've bored you enough!
Big block Chevys, Mopar hemis, Pontiac's 230 cid OHC in-line 6, Cruise-o-matic, etc. Tie them in with the "hot rod" songs by the Beach Boys and their contemporaries. In addition to my electric guitar collection, I'd like to get a few '60s cars to adorn my driveway before I cash in my chips.
Oh, the use of aluminum engine blocks is as old as the hills, both in the U.S. and abroad, but most American companies in the 50s/60s did not have the experience necessary to do a good job of it. And yes, running the right coolant would have helped a lot. Somehow I think the engine just wasn't right back then, though...it needed more engineering, which the Brits finally gave it.
About the 60's Hydramatic. 61-64 Oldsmobiles and Pontiac Catalina and Venturas used the Roto-Hydramatic. But the Pontiac Starchiefs and Bonnevilles used the older, [and better] 4-speed Hydramatics, as did Cadillac, until 65 when they all switched to the Turbo 400. In the summer of '62, I did my driver training in a Buick Special V6. Shared the dual control car with 2 non-driver females and the instructor, who had to overide their braking and throttle constantly. That Buick had the stiffest throttle spring I've seen. It was "accelerator-brake, accelerator-brake," up and down the Long Beach Freeway in So Cal. Let me out at Pierpoint Landing for a mile-long hot-dog!
If memory serves me, they used a design identical with the infamous Vega I4 engine-there were no steel cylinder sleeves-the block was cast out of a silicon-aluminum alloy, and after the cylinders were bored out, they were acid etched to expose the silicon grains. This is what the piston rings rode on. I always wondered how this worked out for Porsche-seeing as it was a complete disaster , in the case of the Vega.
Unlike the Vega engine (a hand grenade waiting to go off), the Porsche 928 V-8 was pretty darn sturdy. The car is problematic for other reasons and not a good car to own. Possibly the only problem I can think of related (indirectly) to the aluminum block was that you need to use a very good, anti-corrosive coolant and change it frquently, otherwise the head to block surfaces corrode, breaking the seal.
Those people also had a menagerie of unique vehicles. The one that comes to mind was a three wheeler (2 in front, 1 in back) called the Messerschmidt (sp). My buddy nicknamed it the "Mess-of-xxit" LOL.
Reckon fezo can drag up a picture of that bird??