80's g-body and motor's

[88ss408]

i was thinking the other day about how gm use to have different motors for there division's a chevy car had a chevy motor, olds car olds motor ,pontiac car pontiac motor ,buick car buick motor you know .
and i got to thinking that in the 80 that it was still posible to do that ! the monte carlo chevy 305,cutlass olds 307,grand prix pontiac 301,regal buick 231 V6
now i know that a 305 can be build for respectable numbers and so can the 307 but i have never heard of anybody building a 301 in a grand prix b4 and even tho that the 231 is only a V6 i have seen a guy build a respectable N/A 231
so if anybody has some build 307,301,231 please post them up i would love to see them !!

 

[85 Cutlass Brougham]

The thing is, these engines are too expensive to build real power in as compared to how much it costs to do similar numbers in a SBC 350. The only one that has technical merit is the 231 V6 because it would help with weight balance. The 307 I think is heavier than the Chevy, and the 301 has too many issues to get in to. The 307 is dimensionally interchangeable with the Olds 350/403, so most are swapped out for a bigger engine, and the 301 Pontiac is easily swapped for a Pontiac 350 ( or larger), so most of them are removed as well. The 307/301 both had very compromised heads and bottom ends which are not conducive to modification, and they are not serviced by aftermarket intake manufacturers either.

 

[88ss408]

well most olds stuff that fit 330 or 350 will fit the 307 it's just that it's a smaller bore but yeah i know what you mean by they cost more to build
but i was just wondering if anybody has done any of them !
so when i say build them up i don't mean a 500hp race motor that i know is not possible but i mean intake ,carb ,cam ,port work ,headers you know just the basic stuff to make a good pavement pounder

 

[Uncletruck]

A bit off topic but I wonder if any of GM's other body styles used as many engines that the A/G's used from 1978 to their end in 1988. I counted 15 different engines, did I miss any?

Chevrolet:

V6- 200, 229, 262
V8- 267, 305, 350

Buick:

V6- 196, 231, 231 Turbo

Pontiac:

V8: 265, 301

Oldsmobile:

V6: 260 Diesel
V8: 260, 307, 350 Diesel

-UT-

 

[85 Cutlass Brougham]

You forgot the Olds 350 used in the 1978 Hurst Olds...

 

[andrewmp6]

The frame where the motor mounts bolt in looks like swiss cheese gm offered a lot of different engines in the g body which is good.You can run basically any engine that is a v6 or v8.

 

[Phoenyx]

I had a 301 GP. Put a mild cam in it, rebuilt a good quadrajet for it, new ignition parts, and duels. It ran good and strong (I'm sure the 3.73s and 4-speed helped lol), but there's one big problem with 301s. The stock heads really suck bad. They just don't flow enough air. They actually won't rev over about 4600 (I think, give or take a couple hundred RPMs). It's kinda cool because it works like a rev limiter lol. But it sucks because the low RPM limits building any real power.

 

[Vern]

The late I think 7a heads on the 307 work the same way. Tiny ports. The good thing about the gbodys is that you can put just about anything in that engine bay. Plus still lots of cheap available bodys and lots of aftermarket support. Hell I put a Cadillac 500 in mine with the factory Gbody AC and was even able to hook up the factory tach & oil pressure guage. Short of a turbo motor I don't see modifying anything smaller than a 350 as makeing any economical power to money spent.

 

[85 Cutlass Brougham]

The problem too is that these older engine designs lack the power density of newer ones. It is very had to make good power in a small displacement pushrod engine of this era without a really big cam and high compression. Forced induction changes the whole equation as the higher than atmospheric inlet pressure kinda makes up for the lack of good head flow. Head flow, of course, is the biggest problem here. Two valve engines need a big bore in order to have enough space for sufficient valve sizing, something all of these engines lack. Now with a 4 or 5 valve head, this equation changes completely, but the costs would outweigh the benefits in a hot rod application.

 

[88ss408]

i hear you on that man it's hard to make big power on small displacement motor's unless you forced induction that changes everything