Quote:
Originally Posted by rad400
Eric Keith do you think that if somethings had not changed in GM like racing Pontiac would have kept their engines and would would not be so far behind so to speak and far as aftermarket parts. Now I do know thing are now availible but it took so long.
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It was because of PMD's rich racing connections and finding ways to get around the GM's Corp. "rules" that engineers interested in high performce flocked to PMD.
I truely beleive PMD engineers would have found a way to keep the costs down and have their engines continue in production.
Lets start with when Jim Mcdonald, who later became President of GM. Jim took over for Delorean. He really didn't understand the performance image of the brand. He was told by Corp Accounting that your entry level Catalina was a couple of dollars more than the cheapest Oldsmobile. You have to get it down. Jim asked the advice of his Product Development man, Ben Harrison what they should do. Mcdonald wanted to start puting 350 cids into the Big cars to save cost. Delorean always felt the big cars should never have anything less than a 400 to mantain their performance image.
Ben had the weekend to think it over. He contacted the suppiers and crunched the numbers. He came up with offering a 3 spd in the big cars which saved more money then stepping down from a 400 to a 350. When he got into the office he fired off a memo to McDonald. It was too late. Ben met with McDonald and gave him the cost breakdown and saving. Ben said just send them a new memo. McDonald's response was, if I did that then Corp. would beleive I did not think it through well enough.
As Ben says, he most have known better. He became President of the corp. This began the long run of PMD general managers that did not understand the brand. PMD had have a chance with Bob Stemple, but he was too weak as a President against the accounts who now ran GM.
You also had Tom Goad head of Trans Am development making the 1989 T/A the fastest car out there with his hard work in getting and modifing the Corp (Buick) 3.8 Turbo. making the engine better and the T/A faster then the Buick GN.
Here is a perfect example of the guys behind the scenes at PMD. I just recived this e-mail from a past PMD engineer. It will also give you insight as to how these "GUNG HO" engineers tried to keep PMD out front. By the way Greg wants around $170,000.00 for his T/A.
Hi Eric,
I got your name from David Emerling; Dave and I go way back. We were both engineers at Pontiac Product Engineering starting in the 1970’s and worked on the Fiero program together.
I mentioned to Dave that I will be selling my 455 SD T/A and he suggested that I contact you. I want the car to go to a good home.
I ordered the car in late 1973 and still have the original order form. I took the car apart in 1980 to make it lighter, handle better, accelerate faster and increase the top speed. I basically duplicated the reworks detailed in a letter I sent to Tom Goad (in Product Planning) in 1973 asking Pontiac to build a TransAm that could run with the fastest Ferrari of the day, the Daytona (365 GTB) at one third the cost and have Car & Driver do another Pontiac vs. Ferrari comparison test. I still have this letter. Pontiac didn’t do it so I did. The car has under 13,000 miles; I had company cars at Pontiac and was single so I only drove the SD on nice days in the spring/summer/early fall. I put 5,000 miles on it on a trip to western Montana.
The car has sat for many years and has deteriorated. It needs paint, exterior, exhaust and interior work. Until the last two years it has been stored in my heated garage. I had a local shop work on it to get it running and they left it outside much of the time.
At any rate, the car contains numerous parts built for me in the Engineering machine shop, one of a kind vendor supplied parts, including a rear stabilizer bar I used for tuning the 73-74 TransAm for radial tires (it was never released as my management felt it was too neutral - I was the Chassis Development engineer for the 73-74 TransAm and did the tuning for radial tires: RTS; I kept Herb Adams in the loop as the T/A was Herb’s baby but Herb was running Special Projects by then (code for racing support/development) – Herb was a mentor for me) and a variety of second gen F car upgrades.
I have a three page document describing the enhancements. To achieve a 170 MPH top speed (car has 3.08’s & THM 400 as it is air conditioned) I put in a shorter stroke forged steel Pontiac SD 421 crank (came in a box with “Smokey” written on it), a wilder hydraulic cam, increased compression pistons as well as some unique engine cooling enhancements used on our 455 SD equipped tire test car at the GM Desert Proving Ground (I spent my summers there doing cooling/HVAC work for many years). I also have a complete set of 455 Super Duty blueprints including drawings for the dry sump system; depending on the purchase price, I may/may not include them with the car. I also have original 455 SD graphs from the GM20 dyno runs performed in our engineering test cells.
If you have an interest in this car or know someone who might be interested in purchasing it, please let me know.
Thanks for your time and interest. Please feel free to call (xxx) xxx-xxxx me with any questions.
Best Regards,
Gregg
Gregory E. Peterson – Senior Technical Specialist
LOTUS ENGINEERING, Inc., 35843 Mound Rd., Sterling Heights, Michigan 48310, USA
T (xxx) xxx-xxxx
xxxxxx.@lotus-usa.com
M (xxx)xxx-xxxx
www.lotuscars.com/engineering
I had to remove Gregg's phone numbers and email.