The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area Engine Shop Pontiac OHC 6

So I saw a Le Mans going down the road the other day that said "OHC 6" on the fender. When I got home I looked it up. Apparently it was loosely based on the 230 chevy. Looks like a dandy re-power for one of our trucks????

they are interesting engines, however had problems with oil pumps.Two versions low and high performance, ran pretty good. Guess they were not that dependable as they were only produced for three years i believe.Have a friend that had an original firebird with one in it, He took it out and replaced it with a 383 chevy.

Take a look at this,

http://www.overheadcammerschapter.150m.com/history.html

There is a PONY OHC 6 being built over on Inliners in the Blown & Injected forum. Quite a build.

I believe the problem was with oiling the cam followers and cam bearings, not the oil pump. The engine is based on the 230 but no parts swap over.

Joe

I had read they had some problems at first with the belt that drives the cam. Only thing the heads are not interchangeable with a regular 230/250 block.....

John

I have a 66' 230 if anyone is looking. Contact me privately.

The only problem I could really see is, well they were only produced for 4 years....But it would surely be unusual.

The engines were not made in any great quantity because they were not popular and cost more than the base V8 engine did. Don't confuse problems with cost numbers. These were perfectly good engines with a LOT of advanced engineering for the time. But expensive to manufacture in low volume.

I believe those and the Vega are similar in head design and a brain child of John DeLorean.

I do believe these engines were 4.1L, or approximately 250 cubic inches, not 230. The high perf model had a split exhaust and a quadrajet, they were pretty neat.

I'm too lazy to convert to metric, but the 1966 and 1967 were 230 CID, the 1968 and 1969 250 CID.

Jon.

I stand corrected, I see now that the early ones were 230ci, or 3.8L and the later ones were 250ci, or 4.1L. The weakest one was rated at 165hp and the hottest one was rated at 230hp. Impressive.

I'm with CarbKing and here we use Cubic Inches. The Europeons and others can have the Metric system. The only advantage I've ever seen is that it makes Canadian gas look cheap until you pay for it.

Moneypit - at least once a week someone calls and asks me for a carburetor or repair kit for a n.n 1935 Packard, 1922 Dodge, etc., etc., etc. Where in the world are they finding these metric listings???

Of course, I never have what they think they are looking for.

Jon.

I'm not sure of the reason why, but Pontiac badged the cars with these engines in them with a metric displacement. They were listed as either a 3.8 or a 4.1 litre, said it right on the hood or a fender emblem.

Must have been the early Communist Invasion prior to Jimmy Carter's failed attempt at converting us away from The American System like Jesus wrote in the Bible. I would probably go for metric time. All those twelves and twenty-fours and sixties give me a headache.

the one I saw just said "OHC 6" and the 6 was red. It was on a LeMans, (or did I say that already?) As an aside, apparently we (the U.S.) have been officially metric since 1893 (the mendenhall act or something)

All of the Japanese cars I have worked on had US dimensions on there wheel and master cylinders. Why is that?

That's a good question - I have also noticed that in the past. I figure it has something to do with an industry standard regarding brake system hydraulics.

For those too young to remember there was a big push back in the 70's to shove the US over to the Metric ssytem. A lot of that shove came from our own homegrown intellectuals (re: Obama types) and from the Europeons who haven't been able to get much right for close to two centuries. Well some of it did stick but in large part we still have 12" to a foot, 16 oz in a pound and 32 oz in a quart. Remember boys and girls..nobody has come close to our level of success as a society or industrial giant and those who thought they were (Japan, Germany) got clobbered but good. And we did it the wrong way according to the brainiacs. So yes, darn straight I like our system and I'm not about to apologize for it.

Now let's get back to the Pontiac question if there are any left.

didn't anyone see the part about the US has officially been metric since 1893?

take it to the Spoon Dave, no politics in the forums

Bill

Yeah, your right Bill but it's history man.