High Performance Pontiac tips.....

It was Pontiac that started the Musclecar craze. Smokey Yunick and Fireball Roberts had been the scourge of NASCAR winning 22 races in 1962. Mickey Thompson and Hayden Profitt were dominating stock class drag racing. The motto "Win on Sunday, sell on Monday" was certainly true. Because of it's high-performance image Pontiac had climbed from number six in us auto sales in 1955 to number 3 by 1962.  When GM issued their infamous ban on racing in 1963, Pontiac executives John DeLorean and Pete Estes were worried. Without a racing tie-in they might lose youthful buyers who wanted fast cars. Then they decided-let's not build a race car-let's build a high-performance STREET car. We all know the story of the GTO. It's funny-the things that limited the Pontiacs in racing-big heavy cranks and rods, relatively small port heads ( compared to a big-block Chevy, Ford or Mopar ) were what made them such a great street engine. They'd last 150,000 to 200,000 miles without a rebuild, and when you've got 500 lbs of torque at 2,700 rpm, you don't need to rev to 7,000. Anyhow- in the vein of the "Reader's Digest" engine builds, here's my advice on building a Pontiac. While the modern engines range anywhere from 326 to 455 cubic inches we are really only concerned with 2-The 400 produced from 1967-79 and the 455 that was produced from 1970-76. The reason for this is simple availability. The older ( 1966 amd earlier ) models are getting pretty scarce. And unless your restoring a '64-66 GTO or a '62-66 Catalina 2+2, or Gran Prix to the nth degree then you don't really need a 389 or 421. Don't get me wrong; if you have one of these engines in your garage or already in the car, then by all means use it. There's nothing wrong with them, and you car will be correct and numbers-matching, but if you have to go buy one on the open market they can get pretty pricey. The same goes for the 428 built from 1967-69-if you have one or can buy one cheap-by all means do so. They rev up like a 400 and make almost as much torque as a 455. That aside, most of you will be using the 400 or the 455. # 1. Bottom end. Two-bolt main blocks are fine. Pontiacs are "torquers" not high revvers anyway. Since your engine will probably never see the high side of 6,000 rpm you don't need a ton of beef.  I'd redline a 400 at 5,800 and a 455 at 5,500. The rod journals are the same size but 400's have 3 inch mains and 455's have 3.25 inch mains. The hot setup now is to cut down a 455 crank to 400 size, and put it in a .030 over 400 block-effectively giving you 455 cubes. Eagle, Crower, and other companies sell these stroker cranks if you want to do this. Regardless of what the factory did with the RAIV and SD455-you don't need an 80 psi oil pump. Even with a windage tray your using horsepower for no reason. A simple high-pressure-50-60 lb Melling or TRW oil pump will be fine. Cast pistons are fine, unless you want to run nitrous. If you want to play with nitrous then you definitely need forged pistons. # 2 Cylinder heads.  I'm not going to get into the various casting numbers that the experts recommend-you can buy books for that. In general 1970 and older heads have 72cc combustion chambers which give 10:1 compression on a 400 with flat-top pistons and nearly 11:1 on a 455. 1971 and later heads vary between 87cc and 111cc depending on whether they came off a 400 or 455. Most Pontiac "how to" books will have charts listing what compression you'll get with various heads. 10:1 is about the limit for pump gas, and in reality about 9.5:1 should be your guide with iron heads. Aluminum heads can tolerate more compression due to the fact that they dissipate heat better. Edelbrock and KRE offer aftermarket aluminum heads if you so desire. Iron Pontiac heads can be milled up to .060 inch to give a full one point boost in compression, but you'll have to mill the intake manifold side too,so the manifold will fit properly. # 3. Cams. Since Pontiac heads ( Except RAIV or aftermarkets ) don't flow much over about .480 lift, you don't have to go wild on cam timing. Stick with the cam manufacturer's recommendations. You have to realize most "Guidelines" are written for the default test mule-A small-block Chevy. A cam that would kill a 350 Chevy will idle glass-smooth in a 455 Pontiac. You have to remember that less is more with a Pontiac. You can make 350 hp and 450 lbs ft of torque with 8:1 compression on junk gas with stock iron intake and exhaust manifolds. More compression, headers, and more cam can get you 450 hp and 550 lbs of torque very easily. #4 Induction-If your restoring a '64-66 GTO or a pre '67 Full-size and want to run a tri-power setup go ahead-if you can find one at a reasonable price. They look and sound cool and run great. If your building a "Super Duty" tribute or just want dual quads Edelbrock makes an excellent dual-quad intake that's an exact copy of the 1962-63 SD 421 manifold and uses Edelbrock or AFB carbs. For 4-barrel applications the 67-74 stock Q-jet setup is awesome. A magazine tested several aftermarket manifolds for the Pontiac and only one outpowered the stocker. That was the Edelbrock Torker and it only showed a 20 hp gain above 4,500 rpm. If you have a 1975-79 engine the shoe is on the other foot. These have the EGR valve protruding into the secondary throttle opening which greatly limits power above 4,000 rpm. It's so bad that you can't even bolt up a Holley Spread-bore replacment carb-the throttle blades bind up. In this case you need to get the earlier 67-74 factory manifold or use an Edelbrock Performer. The Performer will clear a Trans-Am shaker hood, and makes power from idle to 6,000 rpm. It is almost impossible to out power this manifold. The Performer "RPM" is supposedly good for 25 hp and 30 lbs of torque over the regular Performer, however the gain is only above 4,500 rpm, and it's so tall that besides T/A shaker scoops, it might not fit under many earlier GTO or Firebird Ram Air systems. # 5. Exhaust. Just like with the Chevys headers can add as much as 50 hp, however-if you want the car to look stock or are in a show class or racing class that requires iron exhaust manifolds running a good 2 1/2 inch system and turbo mufflers will help quite a bit. Don't try to make a Pontiac into a high-winder; just accentuate what the factory did to start with-make big horsepower and torque at low rpm. The book "How to build Max Performance Pontiac V8s" by Jim Hand is a great guide and has invaluable information from a guy who's been building and racing Pontiacs since the '60s, and whose street-legal LeMans driver runs 11.30s at 117 mph. Mastermind