Ok, I was at Carlisle most of the weekend, so I am a bit late to this
discussion. But here is my take on events. I had a 73 Vega Kammback (2 dr
wagon to those not in the know). It was called a Kammback because the dude
that came up with the aerodynamics of the back end with the hatch with the
little flip to alter the airflow over the back end was named Kamm. So after
that little piece of worthless trivia . . .
IMHO the Vega engine got a bum rap. I liked mine. As already noted these
cars came out at a time when everybody was driving cars, with Herculean
V8's, that sucked that $0.28 per gallon gas at about 8-10 mpg. All of a
sudden the gas was made of unobtainium and ran to nearly $0.75. (Now we want
that price back). Chevy put a little 4 cylinder hi-revving engine in a light
weight body.
Well if you think on it for a minute you can just about figure out what
happened. The lazy American public is used to loafing around in a big car
with a V8 and lot's o torque. Except for the racers I bet very few of those
engines ever hit 4000 RPM. More likely normal was between 1000 and 2000 RPM.
And that worked just fine for those big V8's. Well now you have a little
(2300/140cid, which ain't exactly little by today's standards) 4 cylinder
that loves to run in the 3000 - 5000 RPM range. And do it all day long too.
As I recall, redline was something over 6500 in that engine.
Now hold on to your hats. Think about the relationship between oil pressure,
oil splash and RPM. And you wonder why a hi-revving 4 cylinder engine with
aluminum cylinders (impregnated with some sorta silica method, BTW) ended up
with scored cylinder walls. Damn, I just can't figure that one out. The
common American driver drove those cars like they did their V8's, rarely, if
ever, got them above 3000 RPM. On the other hand, if mine ever went below
3000 RPM it was stopped ;-). I had about 50,000 miles on mine when I had to
rebuild it. But I had to rebuild it for another reason. In one of the dumber
moves Chevy made with this car, the oil pan hung about 2 inches below the
frame cross member. I think I put 9 or 10 oil pans in that car. But I always
did it BEFORE I ran the pan dry. I let a friend borrow it for a weekend and,
well, let's just say he was too cheap to add oil. Fried the bearings.
I happened to work at the local Chevy dealer at the time, so I tore it down
and rebuilt it in the shop, with the help of a bunch of the regular
mechanics. Those mechanics were amazed at the absolute lack of wear on the
cylinder walls. In fact you could still see some of the honing marks in some
of them.
So from my experience and long discussions with the Chevy mechanics, I
refuse to believe the "urban BS" about that car having a bad engine. I
believe it was "bad driving technique" and poor driver education.
I had that car for about 6 years and no rust either, but then Wyoming only
gets 13 inches of moisture a year and they don't need no steekin salt on the
snowy roads either. I traded it straight across for a 67 Pontiac Firebird
convertible, 400 & "4 on the floor". Now THAT car I miss :-(
That's my story and I'm sticking to it.
Larry
On 5/19/02 1:31 PM, "conan@ralvm8.vnet.ibm.com" <conan@ralvm8.vnet.ibm.com>
made the profound revelation:
> The Monza (Spyder?) was eventually available with a small
> (less than 300cid) V8. IMSA allowed them in an "All American GT"
> class and they pretty much cleaned up for a while. :-)
> Pontiac Astre (Vega knockoff) ended up with a 2.5 litre version
> of the -early- Nova 4-cyl called the "Iron Duke". I believe this
> was the engine Steve was referring to as the 4-cyl that could be
> built up with v8 parts because it was originally designed as half
> of a small-block v8. (Still a pushrod engine.)
> The actual Vega 4-cyl was a new design using an aluminum block
> with an iron head WITHOUT iron cylinder liners, similar to what
> Porsche was doing at the time. Problem was that while Porsche
> compensated for the lack of iron cylinder liners with specially
> treated cylinder bores (I forgot the treatment..), Chevy unfortu-
> nately cheaped out and did not. The Vega cylinders ended up being
> VERY susceptible to wear, scratches and overheating. It ended up
> being a race between the engine and the body (rust) as to which
> would kill a nice looking car fastest. :-(
--
Larry B. Macy, Ph.D.
macy@bbl.med.upenn.edu
System Administrator/Manager
Neuropsychiatry Section
Department of Psychiatry
University of Pennsylvania
3400 Spruce St. - 1015 Gates
Philadelphia, PA 19104
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