Horsepower of a '80 Turbo Trans Am?, what size eninge is i nthat sucker too?

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1985 Camaro Z28
305
5-speed Transmission
Flowmaster Exhaust
4 barrel carb
8mm wires
Kenwood 600 amp
Sony Deck
4 6x9 Jensen Speakers
2 4x6 Polk Audio
2 10" JL w0 Subwoofers

 

Pontiac 301, something like 210 HP. As far as potential to make more power, there is almost none. The engine is so lightly built it can't take much power, and there are almost no aftermarket parts out for it. Theres an article in a recent GMHTP about the motor that goes into really good detail, if you want I'll try and find it and scan it for you, its 2 pages long.

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88 Camaro (The mighty LO3 SC!)
305TBI/700R4/2.73/125,XXX miles
10" Open Element and Flowmaster 80 seires
Bosch Platinum plugs
Double silicone Accel wires


Next up: headers and gears

 

Is that with the turbo on or off? Think I could beat this car in a race?

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1985 Camaro Z28
305
5-speed Transmission
Flowmaster Exhaust
4 barrel carb
8mm wires
Kenwood 600 amp
Sony Deck
4 6x9 Jensen Speakers
2 4x6 Polk Audio
2 10" JL w0 Subwoofers

 

That's 210 HP with the turbo functioning. As far as aftermarket parts, almost all the parts for a 350 Pontiac block will work (with the exception of the intake manifold). If memory serves me correctly, that motor only produced 245 lbs of torque. Not much of a motor at all.

You "SHOULD" be able to beat him if you take all of your stereo equipment out of your car. You have better gearing, plus one extra low gear (not counting your overdrive) as he only has a 3-speed.

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89 T-Top Firebird 305 TBI Project Car (with approval from my wife!)

[This message has been edited by Nitroburn (edited December 10, 2001).]

 

I think it has 220hp,but it probably runs
16.0-16.3.

 

I would like that if you did please =) Thanks

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1985 Camaro Z28
305
5-speed Transmission
Flowmaster Exhaust
4 barrel carb
8mm wires
Kenwood 600 amp
Sony Deck
4 6x9 Jensen Speakers
2 4x6 Polk Audio
2 10" JL w0 Subwoofers

 

it had i belive right 210-235 HP and 310 ft lbs of torque, is stock form they were OK and the boost was only like 3 lbs. dont forget this was with horribly small cams (305 cams were like dragster sized compared to these) y-pipe 2" all the way back exhaust and horrible timing curves, just boosting up the turbo a bit, putting in a bigger cam and true duels and these cars were low 14 second cars easy. all the parts fit a 301 that the other engines do except for the heads, intake (special for turbo) and exhaust manifolds (also special for the turbo) cams, roller rockers, distributors, etc,..all fit

[This message has been edited by TempesT68 (edited December 10, 2001).]

 

Yeah. This car is completly stock. Its the kids mothers and I know that they dont keep car of it. My dad said that if you dont oil that kind of Turbo they stop working.

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1985 Camaro Z28
305
5-speed Transmission
Flowmaster Exhaust
4 barrel carb
8mm wires
Kenwood 600 amp
Sony Deck
4 6x9 Jensen Speakers
2 4x6 Polk Audio
2 10" JL w0 Subwoofers

 

yeah they run off the engine oil, you need to keep it changed usally every 2,000 miles 3,000 tops, turbo cars put alot of strain on the oil, too bad its not getting taken care of, those are cool cars.

 

Im a huge turbo ta fan and in mint form those cars only posted a 16 sec quarter in the high 80's. If its trashed even your LG4 will waste him by a few car lengths.
I love the TA but its only a car a mother could love.
Trash him.

 

For what it is worth... I had a 79 TA with a 301 4bbl (non-turbo) and 3:42 rear. I beat several LG4 equipped thirdgen Z28s with it.

 

I heard that the crank in the turbo 301 was HOLLOW and therefore very failure-prone. Still though, its a sweet-looking car and motor.. A motor like that begs to be beefed up and run like it was supposed to!

 

crank was not hollow, but they removed all the counter weights and other little things here and there to get the engine as light as possible, the 301 was actually the lighest mass production v-8 to be built (outside of exotic all aluminum stuff) they have a 4.000 bore and 3.000 stroke so its a pretty good ratio. alot of people seem to just think "oh its ONLY a 301 it had to suck" well really in this case its not, bone stock they were pretty doggy becuase of the horrible parts they came with. but swapping them out makes a night and day diffrence.

 

Regarding the Turbo 301, I've always wondered why people don't just take the turbo parts from the 301 and adapt them to a 455? Possibly EFI using TBI and the 7747 ECM?

Would the turbo exhaust manifolds fit a Poncho 400/455?

 

actually glenn, my uncle had a parts 81 TTA with a blown 301. He in fact did sell the parts to a guy who was building a street/strip 400 or 455, supposedly usinga better turbo but the turbo stuff.

 

 

80 Turbo TA----210 hp...320 ft/lbs of torque. Not bad for a little 301. Unfortunately it only came with an automatic and the car was way heavy. Stock vs. stock, a turbo TA would outrun an LG4 3rd gen, but I believe the 305 has more modificatiopn potential and less weight to haul around.

 

actually the turbo charged 301 was rated one of the top10 worst V-8 engines of all time by car craft, along with the caddy 8-6-4 engine, and the olds deisel 266. Car Craft claimed that the 301 put out 210 horsepower, and ran a pathetic 17.6 in the 1/4.

Those are just car craft's claims, but a turbo putting out 3 lbs of boost, on a smog equipped untuned 4bbl, with a measley 2 bolt 301 sounds like a good combination for bad HP numbers.

 

the reason I am on this board is my love for the IROC. I am restoring an 85 to mint (completed in May 02). But this Turbo T/A is my next project for purchase next fall. And like Mouse Camaro 305 says, the engine sucks. However I plan to pull the motor and do all that is possible to the 301. The rearend in those was a measily 3.08. Drop a good 3.42 in with some power and you could have have a good high 14,s. As I said earlier, its a face only a mother could love.

 

The turbo exhaust manifolds fit the regular 326-455 engines but unfortunantly the intakes are diffrent, there are some people that have made a intake to work wih the 301 turbo setup, too bad they didnt make this setup earlyer on a bigger engine, then everyone could have a cheap turbo setup for the 326-455 pontiac engines. really 210 HP and 320 ft lbs out of the smogged out to high hell engine is pretty good, agian with just a cam swap, duel exhaust and boosting up the turbo HUGE power gains were easly made.

 

Your right. I plan to make those mods.. However I am afraid that I cant find anyone that can modify the turbo to either intercool it or upgrade to new technology.

 

210 HP out of a turbocharged 5 liter motor is pretty good? I would question that, considering they got 190 HP out of a N/A 5 liter motor just 3 years later, with even tougher smog regulations. And as mentioned, the Chevy motor weighs less and has more parts available, and can be made faster than the Pontiac ever could be, for a fraction of the dollars.

Although I never had one, I remember those cars as an embarrassment to the whole product line. They were slug-slow (my 79 Z28, with a better cam in it than stock, would run off and hide from them) and had little or no other redeeming qualities I can think of.

Partisanship toward one brand of cars without letting reality interfere is a sure recipe for losing races and wasting money. Yeah, maybe with certain mods, you could get one of those into the 14s... but a 83 T/A or Z28 with the L69 was already knocking on the door of 14s as it rolled off the line; or for the same or less money than it would take to get teh old TTA into the 14s, you can put a N/A Chevy 350 in the same 2nd gen chassis, and get it into the 12s. There comes a point where you just have to face reality and move on, and IMHO those cars qualified as just such a reality check. The early carbed Buick turbo Regals were the same way: absolutely pitiful, no faster than the same car with a regular Buick 350 4-barrel, nothing even remotely like the later GN or the 89 TTA.

Like someone else mentioned, the 301 is the "short deck" version of the Pontiac block (NOT the same thing as a "small block") and therefore the intake doesn't interchange to the other motors. It doesn't seem like it would be too hard to do that by making some spacers, but I don't really remember how all that stuff bolted in there, i.e. if the intake was raised up those couple of tenths of an inch by putting it on one of the larger-displacement motors, whether everything necessary to make a turbo car would bolt back on.

To answer the original post's unasked question though, it's a cool enough car in its own way, but a bad candidate for any kind of mods. Probably the wisest thing to do would be to clean it up, fix anything wrong with it, and make it work as correctly as possible for what it was when it left the factory, and sell it. If I had one, I would do just exactly that without altering it from stock, then go looking for the "greater fool" who just has to have a Pontiac without regard for whether it's actually a better car or not, on e-bay. They're out there.

 

Firebird: A Source Book

I'm taking this right out of the book so don't think I'm smart.

The big news for the Firebird was, nevertheless, technical. Since the 400 cidV-8 was being discarded, Pontiac was forced to search out another answer to the performanceneeds of the big Birds. What resulted wasw a turbocharged editoin of the 301 cid V-8. This engine cranked out a respectable 210 hp at 4000rpm despite a relatively low 7.6:1 copmressoin ratio.

Engine: Tubro 4.9 Litler (301 CID) 4-bbl V-8 [L37 & LUB]
Transmission: Automatic
Axis Ratios: 3.08

 

A performance 301? Yeah right! This is by far the WORST V8 ever produced. It has siamesed intake ports, and GM used as little iron as possible in the block. A n/a 4.9L (301) T/A is probably the slowest T/A ever produced, considering the second gens are heavy.

 

Curious.....................

If the 301 is a 4" bore & 3" stroke, then why didn't they call it a 302?

Mathmatically speaking, it works out to be 301.6 cid. But If you round up, then it's a 302.

I would guess that they didn't want to infringe on two things. One of course being the Mustang. Why would they want people associating their engine with the Mustang. EEEEWWWWWWWW!!!

The other I assume would be the Chevy 302 during 67-69? Why embark on an era that your fellow (production) brother set, right? That'd be like Chevy building a 389 today. "That's a Pontiac motor!!! Chevy can't do that!!!!!" >

HEHE

I guess I just answered my own question.

AJ