Too funny. I wonder how many of these they ever sold.
A friend of mine once bought a late 60s Fold Galaxie in Shelburne ON. and drove it to Cobourg ON. He noticed there was a miss in the engine. Turns out it was running on 7 cylinders, and when he popped off the heads, there was a wooden block wedged into one of the cylinders.
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Prince Edward Island
'64 Parisienne CS "barn find" - last on the road in '86 ... Owner Protection Plan booklet, original paint, original near-mint aqua interior, original aqua GM floor mats, original 283, factory posi, and original rust.
I have not read the article yet but you really have to wonder why anyone would want to do such a thing to a masterpiece, like a Chevrolet V-8. I suppose in certain types of racing with engine size restrictions, this would make some sense. Interesting.
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1957 Pontiac Pathfinder Deluxe sedan restored 261 six
1974 Chevrolet Caprice Estate wagon low mileage original 400 V-8
I think it was in the December 1970 Hot Rod that Bruce Crower had developed a 207 c.i.d version of the Chevy small block V8 that was turbocharged and made mega horsepower. It was on the cover.
As for rendering half the cylinders inoperable, back in 1974 people were desperate to stretch fuel economy, especially in a year that the emission controls had cars returning 8 mpg, or 18 with a Chevy six. Cylinder deactivation didn't come along in production until Cadillac released it on their V8-6-4 for 1981. We all know how that turned out.
Sesco sectioned a Chevy small block V8 & used 1 bank to create a crossflow head inline 4 that could share all the latest head development with the V8. I guess it was done for Sprint cars.
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67 Chevelle Malibu Sport Coupe, Oshawa-built 250 PG never disturbed.
In garage, 296 cid inline six & TH350...
Cam, Toronto.
I don't judge a man by how far he's fallen, but by how far back he bounces - Patton
Pretty much describes my 6 litre engine in my G8. It has "Displacement on Demand", also known as "Active Fuel Management" which does the same thing. Once it's at a steady speed, even low speeds like 30 mph, it settles into 4 cylinder mode. And it works, I can get pretty great mileage with a 361 horse V8.
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1966 Strato Chief 2 door, 427 4 speed, 45,000 original miles
1966 Grande Parisienne, 396 1 of 23 factory air cars
Believe it or not, that same article back in the day inspired me to built a similar engine.
I bought a Black, Red buckets, 1966 Grand Parisienne, 3 speed column shift with the 283 engine apart in the trunk.
The manual trans is what encouraged me use this car as 1/2 of a 283 would be so under powered.
I didn't go as far as the article and left the pistons complete as this was just to be an experiment.
In essence, I built it leaving the pushrods out of every 2nd cyl in the firing order and blocking half the 2bbl carb.
It actually ran O.K. and moved along reasonably well, took a while to get up to speed.
I didn't drive it enough to get a feel for fuel economy, but it was pretty good.
I had an opportunity to sell it soon after, so I installed the missing pushrods and brought back all 195 H.P.
I always wanted to try another, but in a very light vehicle, too many ideas, too little time.
Funny thing is, its since been proven that keeping the pistons intact, is more fuel efficient than "hole-ing" them.
About 5 yrs ago I saw what I thought was the very car, nicely restored, but no owner in sight. Might not have been the same car, but how many bolt action black/red G.P.s could there be??
I assumed the owner probably rebuilt the engine again, and wanted to ask if he found 8 little bands in the valley or pan when it was apart.!!
Lots of innovative engineering was done by some of the big names of the aftermarket back then. Bruce Crower, Ed Iskendarian, Gale Banks, Smokey Yunick just to name a few.
I toured Isky's shop back in the mid 70's and saw some of the projects they were working on. Some never saw the light of day, but they were certainly trying new things.
Ak Miller was another innovator, working with turbocharging and propane. His shop was interesting as well.
Many of these guys were heavily involved in Bonneville and dry lakes racing, and the friend I was with on that trip has run at Bonneville ever since.
Yes, the variable displacement had teething troubles but since then has been implemented successfully no doubt.
I think the first V4 engine was created by Lancia back in the 1930s or 40s. Ford of Germany brought a V4 to production in the early 1960s. That engine was in turn developed into the 60 degree V6 that was first seen here in the Mercury Capri in 1972. That has nothing to do with cylinder deactivation, but I just thought it was interesting.
Ak Miller, I remember reading that one of his turbocharged engines emitted cleaner air than it took in on the freeway.
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67 Chevelle Malibu Sport Coupe, Oshawa-built 250 PG never disturbed.
In garage, 296 cid inline six & TH350...
Cam, Toronto.
I don't judge a man by how far he's fallen, but by how far back he bounces - Patton
My first job out of high school was driving a parts truck for Zephyr Motors on Broadway in Vancouver in 1971. They were a Lincoln Mercury dealer that also sold Ford trucks. My parts truck was a Ford Courier that was converted to propane and turbo charged by Impco. I believe they were affiliated with Ak Miller in some way. That little truck was a rocket by standards back then. I had a lot of fun with it!
My first job out of high school was driving a parts truck for Zephyr Motors on Broadway in Vancouver in 1971. They were a Lincoln Mercury dealer that also sold Ford trucks. My parts truck was a Ford Courier that was converted to propane and turbo charged by Impco. I believe they were affiliated with Ak Miller in some way. That little truck was a rocket by standards back then. I had a lot of fun with it!
Pretty cool recollection. It musta been 1972 because it was mid-year 72 when Ford brought the Mazda-based Ford Courier pickup to market, along with the Sprint Edition cars and the Pinto Wagon variants.
Not bad for a Chevy guy, eh?
Impco sounds familiar when it comes to propane carbs. Ak Miller was quite a respectable innovator.
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67 Chevelle Malibu Sport Coupe, Oshawa-built 250 PG never disturbed.
In garage, 296 cid inline six & TH350...
Cam, Toronto.
I don't judge a man by how far he's fallen, but by how far back he bounces - Patton
