Saw this article on Hot Rod today. All aluminum Pontiac with lots of good parts including dry sump and very fancy headers, Cam is fairly small and the header shape is unusual so I'm guessing that this is a street engine in some sort of weird vehicle? The article doesn't say what it is going into but the cam is too small for drag racing. I suppose it could be some sort of road race car. The small cam, dry sump and weird headers could all work in a road race vehicle.
https://www.motortrend.com/how-to/510-inch-pump-gas-pontiac-engine-westech-dyno-test/

Road racing wouldn't you want quick revving and top end rpm vs just big cubic inches? Seems like a very expensive way to get there as well? Buicks, Olds, and Pontiacs cost $$$ to build.

I look at engines like that with all the trick do-dads and then look at how fast the F.A.S.T. class guys run with no real visible speed parts and it makes me wonder how much of the trick looking stuff does one really need?

It says torque wins races. Of course that's not true. If it was, we'd all have semi truck engines in our race cars. Horsepower to weight ratio wins races.

And I agree, the Pontiac motor has way too much in to it to only make 650 horse.

Switch the carb and it will pick up power...

Agree, looks pretty exotic build for those kind of numbers. That engine is far less than the sum of its' parts. Wonder if the cam is mistimed, either installed wrong or ground wrong.

Wow, exactly right on the horsepower! I snicker every time I hear the torque statement.

Thank you!!

Yeah I have serious doubts about that carb design. I would be interested in the back story on the engine design. Peak power is 5900 RPM but the valvetrain and the oiling system appear to be NASCAR type stuff. 7/16 pushrods, Crower rocker arms. Peterson R4 pump, etc. Those are serious high dollar parts. Even the water pump uses a NASCAR style multigroove belt.
Maybe it is just designed to look like a NASCAR engine? Could be going into a vintage NASCAR chassis for track days or something.

Also has a Wilson bling spacer, real money was spent.

What type of carb booster? are we looking at?
Doug

Booster? That looks like a derivative of Pro Systems old SV1 carb.

I mean, trying to reinvent the wheel sometimes doesn't work when the wheel was invented 5500 years ago. If something was better, it would have been figured out long ago.

Same with boosters. All this time with annular, dogleg, straight leg, forget all that....

Just drill some holes in a tube!

Is this going in a boat?

An "aerosol" carb. Design has been around for years and not very successful IMO and certsainly not the best way to make power.

Motor Trend and Westech Dyno are a platform to showcase advertisers' products. I remember Horsepower TV around 2012 Built an Edelbrock headed hydraulic roller cammed 440 six pack that made a whopping....410hp. Seems they want us to pay attention to the bling but not the power it makes.

That is a really good possibility. Those headers could fit in a boat and that would explain the dry sump system as well as the heavy duty valve train. This engine design would make sense for a boat engine that was going to be pushed hard for long periods of time.

I’ve dynoed motors with various versions of the KRE hi-ports.
One thing that seems a bit odd to me is the cam selection.
You’d think big split and wide lsa would have been used to help extend the power band, yet it’s peaking at only 5900.
Seems more like a street EFI type cam to me.

For sure, the hp doesn’t really seem commensurate with the total scope of the build……. At least in my mind.

Thats the same head I sent you for testing on your flow bench correct ???

Thank you again.


Yes the cam is very strange. Good bit of lift but way short on duration (especially for the cubes) and wide lsa

Probably for a heavy street car with 3.42 Gears and a very streetable converter. Definitely not a priority drag car.

with a 4.310 bore and 510 cubes I'm guessing its some kind of offset ground (2.200 BBC journal) factory Cast 455 crank.....So keeping the revs down and the torque up makes perfect sense to me.

So Because of that, I'm thinking the "small" intake lobe is the built-in Rev limiter for the combination. Thats a LOT of lift for that short of a

Pontiacs tend to like wider Lobe Separation angles and the cam in fairly late compared to a BB Mopar, I never understood exactly why,

That's got to be some killer ramp on the camshaft no?