301 4V how did it compare ?

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Doug213xrj

Royal Smart Person
Dec 30, 2011
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Hey, how did the Pontiac 301 4V compare in performance to the Oldsmobile 307 4V and most importantly the Chevy 305 4V. Thanks

Doug
 

Pontiacdaver

Greasemonkey
Apr 15, 2009
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I have one, it will light the tires up at will . . . . . . as long as the pavement is wet or, or even better, icy.

OK, seriously, the worst thing about it is there is little that can be done to upgrade performance because it was designed as a lightweight, economy-minded engine. There are tweaks, but the 305 especially, being a small block Chevy, has much more potential. The up side for the 301 is, being a Pontiac family engine, albeit smaller in physical size, can be replaced with almost anything from a Pontiac 350 to 455 without a lot of modifications. The Turbo 301 blocks are the ones to have, they were built stronger. This is an interesting site, if you haven't seen it, catering only to the 301: http://301garage.com/.
 

marcar1993

G-Body Guru
Aug 31, 2007
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New Jersey
All low hp. I'd say they are all comparable in stock form.
 
Oct 14, 2008
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Pontiac eeked out 190 HP out it, only the 170 HP version actually made it into production. Olds and Pontiac did well compared to the sbc considering 8 to 1 compression and awful heads. There are now some small run of intakes to fit normal Pontiac heads on the 301 block. The Turbo blocks are actually very beefy in the bottom end, 4" bore and a cut down a real Pontiac crank for more cubes and strength and you have a strong and light, unique platform.
 

L67ss

Royal Smart Person
Dec 8, 2016
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Real world talk? In smokey and the bandit 2 they had to hit the turbo 301 with nitrous to get it to even come close to the smogged out 77 in the first movie
 

tdvick

Master Mechanic
Jun 25, 2010
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Elk River, Mn.
Stock to stock, the 301 4v and 305 4v are about even. I raced my '79 T/A 301 4v 4 speed against a 305 4v 4 speed Camaro a number of times and they were pretty much dead even. From a stop, or a roll, it didn't matter. As others have said, tough to find performance parts for a 301 though. If you're looking for performance gains, Better to swap in a bigger inch Pontiac motor. 400 or 455 will drop in nicely.
 

L67ss

Royal Smart Person
Dec 8, 2016
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Stock to stock, the 301 4v and 305 4v are about even. I raced my '79 T/A 301 4v 4 speed against a 305 4v 4 speed Camaro a number of times and they were pretty much dead even. From a stop, or a roll, it didn't matter. As others have said, tough to find performance parts for a 301 though. If you're looking for performance gains, Better to swap in a bigger inch Pontiac motor. 400 or 455 will drop in nicely.
same year camaro?
 

tdvick

Master Mechanic
Jun 25, 2010
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Elk River, Mn.
Don't know the exact year of the Camaro, but 79-81. Pretty fair comparison I think.
 
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L67ss

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Dec 8, 2016
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Any camaro with a 305 that range would have crappy gearing....meanwhile the ta would likely have had 3.73s
 
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