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John DeLorean left Pontiac in '73 to go start DMC. And probably do some coke. The GTO was one of his babies. I imagine that not having him there to go to bat for the nameplate had something to do with it going away, because they didn't really shy away from putting holy badges like SS and 442 on cars that didn't deserve them in the late 70's.
GM got choked pretty hard around '73 because of the oil embargo and much more strict EPA regulations. The way they approached both of those problems was to lower compression ratios and run the engines much, much hotter. Cars went from running at a nominal 180° to running at 200-210°. This cut down on emissions, but the oil of the time COULD NOT handle the extra temps and would cook off. It caused a lot of premature engine failures in mid-1970's American cars, including making massive clouds of black smoke from badly worn valve guides. The same engines that had been rock-solid reliable ten years earlier were suddenly anemic junk, and most people didn't really understand why.
GM also dropped all convertibles from the lineup for the 1976 model year, because they believed the feds were about to ban them for safety reasons. It didn't happen and GM reintroduced convertibles in 1986. There were a few companies doing aftermarket convertible conversions in the interim.
Oh if you want to read up on something interesting from the time, look into Soichiro Honda and the development of CVCC technology. CVCC created multiple zones of fuel/air mixture in the combustion chamber (rich near the spark plug, leaner on the other side of the chamber) so that the flame kernel would more thoroughly combust the fuel during each power stroke, and create fewer emissions. The early CVCC Hondas didn't even need catalytic converters to meet emssion standards.
There was a rather famous interaction between Congress and representatives of the Big Three, who told Congress that the reduction in emissions they wanted was not possible, and then Honda sat down in front of them and said, "Can do, can do." Much to the chagrin of the other manufacturers.
Another interesting thing from the early 80's was Smokey Yunick's "Hot Vapor" engine. He built an Iron Duke in a Fiero that made like 200hp and got 70mpg by creating a vaporized gas/air mixture under low boost in the intake manifold. Smokey hated computers, so the system was completely mechanical. He shopped it back to GM, but they were going in the direction of EFI and weren't interested.
The Hot Vapor Fiero is in the Don Garlits museum in Florida now.
Honda engineers innovated a new fuel delivery solution to help their engines meet increasingly more strict fuel emissions requirements. This video explains ...
The issue with switching to unleaded is valve fouling. The lead acted as a lubricant between the valves and the valve seats in the head. The fix for that is stainless steel valves and/or hardened valve seats. Stainless steel valves are more expensive, and hardened valve seats require an extra machining step in the manufacturing of the head (and also more expensive). But once that problem is solved, you can run whatever CR you want as long as your gas is high enough octane rating.
They had to go to unleaded to keep from clogging catalytic converters in 1975 MY cars. But they started dropping compression ratios and running the engines hotter in '73. '72 was pretty much the final year of the ultra-high-performance, solid lifter engines with big fat Holley carburetors in US cars. In '73, they introduced the Rochester Quadrajet, which had much smaller primaries and larger secondaries, and also had a solenoid to slam the butterfly shut to try to keep the hotter engines from dieseling after being shut off. In '75, GM introduced HEI ignition, which replaced all the old points-type ignition systems in the earlier engines. HEI was actually great, and is still found on a lot of hotrods and older cars that still run distributors.
One of the interesting events that happened around that time was Soichiro Honda introduced the CVCC technology, that burned much, much cleaner than what everyone else was using. The CVCC used a staged intake system that created a range of rich-to-lean fuel/air mixture in the combustion chamber (richer closer to the spark plug, leaner as it moved away) and would create a flame front that consumed more of the fuel and cut way down on hydrocarbons.
And of course, GM had placed a bet on the Wankel and it didn't work out for them. GM could afford to lose. AMC, who had planned on buying Wankels from GM for their mid-70's and later lineup, was hit pretty hard when the engine of the future wasn't.
I've kind of got a grudge against Toyota, because their reputation for reliable engines is based on outright theft. The 22RE is the illegitimate grandchild of the old Chevy Stovebolt 6, and the 4A series DOHC engines were pretty much a straight copy of the Ford/Cosworth DOHC 4. They just switched it from imperial to metric measurements. The 4A led to the 7M series that led to the 1JZ and 2JZ, which are the giants that all other Toyota engines stand on. And Toyota was having all of their R&D paid for by the Japanese government to give the Japanese auto industry an unfair advantage in the US market.
But Honda has always been an extremely forward thinking engineering company and they've come up with some really innovative and interesting concepts.
I do know Lotus claims to have invented the variable valve timing that eventually became VTEC. It was for the next generation LT5 they were developing for the ZR1 Corvette in the 1990's, but GM cancelled the LT5 in favor of the LS series of pushrod V8s. The LT5 wasn't going to fit in the C5 Corvette without a comically bulging hood.
tiddlywinkler
in reply to EscapeVelocity • • •I like those, and I like the Chevy Laguna S-3.
Performance was abysmal compared to cars from a few years earlier, but the bones were still there.
EscapeVelocity
in reply to tiddlywinkler • • •tiddlywinkler
in reply to EscapeVelocity • • •John DeLorean left Pontiac in '73 to go start DMC. And probably do some coke. The GTO was one of his babies. I imagine that not having him there to go to bat for the nameplate had something to do with it going away, because they didn't really shy away from putting holy badges like SS and 442 on cars that didn't deserve them in the late 70's.
GM got choked pretty hard around '73 because of the oil embargo and much more strict EPA regulations. The way they approached both of those problems was to lower compression ratios and run the engines much, much hotter. Cars went from running at a nominal 180° to running at 200-210°. This cut down on emissions, but the oil of the time COULD NOT handle the extra temps and would cook off. It caused a lot of premature engine failures in mid-1970's American cars, including making massive clouds of black smoke from badly worn valve guides. The same engines that had been rock-solid reliable ten years earlier were suddenly anemic junk, and most people didn't really understand why.
GM also dropped all convertibles from the lineup for the 1976 model year, because they believed the feds were about to ban them for safety reasons. It didn't happen and GM reintroduced convertibles in 1986. There were a few companies doing aftermarket convertible conversions in the interim.
EscapeVelocity
in reply to tiddlywinkler • • •tiddlywinkler
in reply to EscapeVelocity • • •Oh if you want to read up on something interesting from the time, look into Soichiro Honda and the development of CVCC technology. CVCC created multiple zones of fuel/air mixture in the combustion chamber (rich near the spark plug, leaner on the other side of the chamber) so that the flame kernel would more thoroughly combust the fuel during each power stroke, and create fewer emissions. The early CVCC Hondas didn't even need catalytic converters to meet emssion standards.
There was a rather famous interaction between Congress and representatives of the Big Three, who told Congress that the reduction in emissions they wanted was not possible, and then Honda sat down in front of them and said, "Can do, can do." Much to the chagrin of the other manufacturers.
Another interesting thing from the early 80's was Smokey Yunick's "Hot Vapor" engine. He built an Iron Duke in a Fiero that made like 200hp and got 70mpg by creating a vaporized gas/air mixture under low boost in the intake manifold. Smokey hated computers, so the system was completely mechanical. He shopped it back to GM, but they were going in the direction of EFI and weren't interested.
The Hot Vapor Fiero is in the Don Garlits museum in Florida now.
EscapeVelocity
in reply to tiddlywinkler • • •Honda CVCC Carburetion and Cylinder Head Design Explained
YouTubeEscapeVelocity
in reply to tiddlywinkler • • •tiddlywinkler
in reply to EscapeVelocity • • •The issue with switching to unleaded is valve fouling. The lead acted as a lubricant between the valves and the valve seats in the head. The fix for that is stainless steel valves and/or hardened valve seats. Stainless steel valves are more expensive, and hardened valve seats require an extra machining step in the manufacturing of the head (and also more expensive). But once that problem is solved, you can run whatever CR you want as long as your gas is high enough octane rating.
They had to go to unleaded to keep from clogging catalytic converters in 1975 MY cars. But they started dropping compression ratios and running the engines hotter in '73. '72 was pretty much the final year of the ultra-high-performance, solid lifter engines with big fat Holley carburetors in US cars. In '73, they introduced the Rochester Quadrajet, which had much smaller primaries and larger secondaries, and also had a solenoid to slam the butterfly shut to try to keep the hotter engines from dieseling after being shut off. In '75, GM introduced HEI ignition, which replaced all the old points-type ignition systems in the earlier engines. HEI was actually great, and is still found on a lot of hotrods and older cars that still run distributors.
One of the interesting events that happened around that time was Soichiro Honda introduced the CVCC technology, that burned much, much cleaner than what everyone else was using. The CVCC used a staged intake system that created a range of rich-to-lean fuel/air mixture in the combustion chamber (richer closer to the spark plug, leaner as it moved away) and would create a flame front that consumed more of the fuel and cut way down on hydrocarbons.
And of course, GM had placed a bet on the Wankel and it didn't work out for them. GM could afford to lose. AMC, who had planned on buying Wankels from GM for their mid-70's and later lineup, was hit pretty hard when the engine of the future wasn't.
EscapeVelocity
in reply to tiddlywinkler • • •tiddlywinkler
in reply to EscapeVelocity • • •I've kind of got a grudge against Toyota, because their reputation for reliable engines is based on outright theft. The 22RE is the illegitimate grandchild of the old Chevy Stovebolt 6, and the 4A series DOHC engines were pretty much a straight copy of the Ford/Cosworth DOHC 4. They just switched it from imperial to metric measurements. The 4A led to the 7M series that led to the 1JZ and 2JZ, which are the giants that all other Toyota engines stand on. And Toyota was having all of their R&D paid for by the Japanese government to give the Japanese auto industry an unfair advantage in the US market.
But Honda has always been an extremely forward thinking engineering company and they've come up with some really innovative and interesting concepts.
I do know Lotus claims to have invented the variable valve timing that eventually became VTEC. It was for the next generation LT5 they were developing for the ZR1 Corvette in the 1990's, but GM cancelled the LT5 in favor of the LS series of pushrod V8s. The LT5 wasn't going to fit in the C5 Corvette without a comically bulging hood.
EscapeVelocity likes this.
EscapeVelocity
in reply to tiddlywinkler • • •tiddlywinkler
in reply to tiddlywinkler • • •I'm also a fan of the Boattail Riviera.
These were all in the closing years of the Bill Mitchell era at GM styling.