It's "only" $1,700

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Pontiac-151c...-/161961907348

 

Um , Hysterical ?

But , but , at $1700 that's only $425 each for those mighty Duke cylinders !

And , my oh my , a Duke with both serpentine belt AND TBI ?

I think I'm in love

 

I say hysterical because I have a funny memory of my aunt and uncle. Both are deceased now. We were gathering for a family reunion at my grandparents house. My uncle came rolling up into my grandparents yard in a brand spanking new 1983 monte carlo. Trailing behind him was his wife, my aunt, in her brand spanking new camaro...and she was mad. He had made her a deal that she could have one of those "new body style camaros" if he could just have the monte carlo he wanted. Come to find out she was mad at him for making her get the Iron Duke!...LOL

 

man was that thing ever slow....

 

I keep seeing people laughing about it but I don't even know how it sounds.How fast it did 0 to 60?What was the gas mileage or can you turbo it .People only laugh about the poor thing even thou today we have a 4cyl Camaro with a smaller displacement than that engine.

 

Don is right and I was of course joking , the poor ol Duke had about as much business being under a third gen hood as a turtle has of having a set of disc brakes ! A friend had a 83 Camaro (if my memory serves me correctly) with the Duke coupled to a 4 speed standard and no amount of revving & clutch dumping could make it launch faster than my 1974 SuperBeetle .

He was so bummed out to have been crushed by a Bug that he sold it in absolute disgusted dejection and bought a second gen with a well built 383 to go Bug hunting with , but $4000 in go fast goodies along with a nice little 50 shot to the Bug took care of that Camaro too . Took him one turbocharger and about $6000 more to finally vanquish my dreaded Beetle .

 

Careful, in one pic that 2.5 turns into a 60* V6!

The late 2.5 wasn't too terrible, but the early-mid 80's version was deadly. I had an 85 S10 with an auto trans. There was a river valley between two hills that I had to cross on the interstate everyday on my way to work. I'd have to hold the pedal to the firewall coming down, burying the needle if I wanted to be doing better than 45mph by the time I got up to the top of the next hill and reached my off ramp.

There's a scene in Terminator 2 where the heroes "borrow" a mid-80's S10... The discussion in the first 10 seconds pretty much sums up life with the 2.5L.

 

Wow , Good spot ! Honestly !

I looked quickly at those pics and clicked through them so fast I missed the one picture of the 60* six , looking back at the pics it looks like a front wheel drive version with the starter on the "wrong" side & the intake plenum on "backwards" .

And yes to also back Drew and Don up again , I'll say I've been in even old early 1950s cars with the 6 cyl flatheads & 2 speed slushboxes that had more get up and go than that poor poor Camaro , all but crippled with that tiny lil go cart engine . What was the little shopping cart sized econobox of the day , a Chevette I think ? ..... A Duke was even slow in one of those

 

I'm thinking with the transverse motor mount brace, distributor ignition and TBI the 60* looks like it's a 3.1L from an early-mid 90's minivan - Lumina APV or Pontiac Transport, etc.

The 2.5 looks to be late 80's at least, from the coil packs. I can't remember seeing a throttlebody hood like that, but admit I've never paid much attention to 4cyls.

Both engines have a tag on the valve cover that says they were donated by General Motors. Rather than crate engines, they look more like the demos you'd see in a dealership, or something that was donated to a school as an educational tool.

I don't think the Chevette ever got saddled with the 2.5, Citation was a comparable crap-wagon that got the 2.5.

 

Classic! I remember this scene from Terminator vividly. I never noticed that it was an S-10 though. Thats funny. The ONLY domestic 4cyl that was worse than the iron duke was Ford's. Ford had two variations of theirs; the 2.0, and the 2.3 One had 73HP and the other had 79HP....yes, you read that right 73 and 79HP I had a 1983 Ranger pickup in 1988....a 5 year old vehicle mind you. It had the 2.0 That thing wouldn't haul a bed full of cotton! I was going down the highway after about 6mos of ownership when i heard some ticking going on. Suddenly the oil light came on and 5 seconds later a cloud of smoke and that was all she wrote. Apparently the oil pump siezed and it locked up within seconds lol

 

LOL!!!

 

One of my favorite posts about engines was from Sofakingdom a couple of weeks ago. I dont remember the thread, but he was recalling visiting a dealership and checking out the "all new" 5.0 crossfire engines. He said he "popped the hood and lo and behold there stood in front of him two throttle bodies. 2-2.5's" Two Iron Dukes!...LOL!!!

 

New Camaro has a 4cyl 2.0 that's probably faster than the 5.7 from 82

aren't there any mods for this Iron Duke?Turbos? Anything?

 

The 2.5 duke in our 86 S10 I believe was the first year of the FI offered and it was a damn good reliable motor, hardly put any money in it at all, I think a lock cylinder for the ignition and a starter with 200k miles on it, was a slow dog though. 2.5s really only well suited for the fieros, I used to work with a lady with an 88 2.5 fiero and it was a night and day difference in get up and go since they didn't weigh as much.

 

Well, lets put it this way...
0-60 was irrelevant when 60 was the top speed of the vehicle when going up any hill. You litterally had to turn off the AC to get that

MPG wasnt too terrible at 35mpg highway and 23 city

Turbo you say? It would blow up in a heartbeat...lol

 

And this is why i beleive it earned the name iron duke. It was a tough little engine. It was just extremely weird seeing one in a Camaro! It didnt belong, and allot of people HATED GM for putting one in there too. It was a significant wake-up call that the muscle car era was indeed over, and a new way of engineering was in its birth pains.

 

[QUOTE=FirebirdUSX;6027610]New Camaro has a 4cyl 2.0 that's probably faster than the 5.7 from 82

WAY faster. The 2016 4cyl 2.0 is pumping out 275HP! To put that into perspective, it will blow the damn doors off of not only any v8 thirdgen (best 245hp) but it will also outrun any Corvette of the same vintage.

 

comedy gold DonW

"Turbo you say? It would blow up in a heartbeat...lol" ....crying

 

I think mine was rated at 88hp in my Mustang, with a 1bbl carb and a 4spd manual transmission.



It was definitely much safer to pull out into traffic than either my 85 Fiero or my 85 S10. I've got photographic evidence somewhere that it could bury the 85mph speedometer.

It's got a little more pep now...



There WAS a Super Duty 2.5L from Pontiac. It's pretty much just a trivial footnote at this point, but it was the "BIG, BAD" 2.5L Iron Duke. You could maybe turbo a 2.5, but it'd probably puke it's guts out without major modifications.

The 2.5 in the early Fiero was just as miserable as the trucks and everything else. By 88 the 2.5 had been refined a bit and they ran a lot better. Still not fast, but not so sluggish you're afraid to merge onto the freeway.

 

Its interesting that under the hood it doesn't look that small.The alternator,servo ,AC ,etc fill up the place.A 4cyl from Europe is tiny compared to that.I understand that its a 2.5 but by European standards that's a big engine .

I'm sure a stock Iron Duke in good condition should be expensive at this point because they are rare.

 

Wow Drew! And just like that you could give the GT's of the day a run for their money. I love it!

 

My wife is from Switzerland about a 30 minute drive from your border. I remember the first time being there and seeing the cars and the roads. Man are they ever small! At the time she was driving this little thing called a Twingo. When my 6'3 250lb **** got in it it leaned pretty heavily to one side. Pretty comical The first time I drove it I nearly wrecked like...3 times. Public transit over there is so prevalent that there are litterally buses and trams, and trains crossing your path all the time. I stalled her little 5 speed on one of the tram tracks and when I finaly got it started, you guessed it, here came the damn train. I couldn't figure out how to get it into reverse! In a panic I opened the door and stuck my foot out and with ONE foot i Fred Flintstoned that TINY car to safety!...LOL

 

I can imagine those things were not designed for people that big.

Ford makes the Fiesta which is small as f***.I'm I guess 6'2 (1,88...hope my math is right) and my feet touch the steering column but not only that but if you have an itch in a private area you can't move your feet to sides.You are literally 1 inch away from jaws of life without having a crash

3rd gens on the other hand I have to pull the seat in front to get to the pedals.I also understand what you say by small...I'm having the time of my life parking my Firebird and Chrysler 300M (its weird because the Firebird is the size of the 300M) next to european cars.Even 4 door BMWs look tiny and those are considered big.

 

Just remember, the Chevy Citation had a Iron Duke in it. They were indestructible, but they didn't have any power. That's probably why so many 2.5s were mated to a manual trans.

 

So cars are continually getting smaller in Europe in general and the thirdgens seem large...interesting. Here in the US the thirdgens seem small compared to what is being produced today.

 

I somehow missed this in the post for the iron duke. It states that: "This engine came off the GM assembly line and was crated. It has zero miles."

NOW I understand the asking price!

 

That's a great motor for a restoration

 

I had iron dukes in an '84 fiero and an '87 celebrity schoolmate had one in a '78 Monza-had a special sealed aluminum air cleaner-you had to replace the whole air cleaner assembly when the element got dirty...Sometime~1984 or 85,GM had to repair quite a few iron dukes under warranty because the conrods were forged at the wrong temperature and prone to cracking and breaking if engine given high RPM abuse.

 

Third gens are @5 meters long and 2 wide.The new camaro is abit smaller.What happened the car got taller /bulkier and heavier but that's because IIHS is kinda forcing new safety standards (Euro ncap is a pathetic joke compared to iihs).I think some american cars became too much European or Asian in design.

Those VW Golf ,Fiesta and other small things like Renault (they don't even sell cars in US) were always small.I mean there are some french cars around here that have 800cc engines and the biggest one you can get is 1200cc.

 

I am not sure if I agree with that... Back in the 90's I took a 4 Cyl Fiero for a spin from a dealer's lot... it had the sunroof and everything... The only records that thing holds is the slowest car I had ever and still have ever driven.

I have a booklet from Pontiac IIRC has all the parts and pieces you can buy off the shelf to turbocharge your Duke. It called is the Duke SD or Duke HD, I forget...

John

 

A girl I dated while in school had a 1979 Capri 4 Cyl Turbo. The Capri that year was a Mustang that was just more refined. THe Turbo was shot so they took it off and made it NA... That was a slow car...

The funny thing was, they put the tail lights, bumpers and the ground effects from a 1987 Mustang GT... It actually looked really good even tho I am no mustang fan.

 

Ha.. My friends older sister had one of those Capri Turbos. We used to sneak it out for late night excursions and one night we ran it too hard and smoked the lil engine. Even with the turbo you just about had to powerbrake it to make it spin. It wasn't funny when we had to call his dad to come pick us up 2 in the morning