I can't remember where I read that anymore, but yes, the dual range Hydramatic was a fluid coupling, but I'm not sure if it was D-B or if it was ZF that bought it. The Germans centralized their supply companies before WWII so ZF did trannys, Bosch electronics, Solex fuel, and VDO instrumentation. Still works that way from what I understand. I know that the first automatics on the 220 series looked like something that would bolt into an Oldsmobile and ran like it. GM was dumping the old tooling, and they picked it up and used it for a basis for theirs. Yes, D-B bought Borg-Warners for their 300 series, but it didn't work in their 220 series, they needed something different. The Hydrak was a stop-gap, it essentially was a standard transmission with a fluid clutch and was pretty failure prone. I don't know why they didn't pursue the angle with B-W further, it could have been that the hydramatic tooling was all off a suddent available. But remember this; GM has been selling it's technology a lot, the V-8 that Land Rover used was a Buick, it's the old 300, so why not sell the technology? I'll try and hunt down the source.
There is no such thing as a small block or big block Pontiac. They are all the same (unless you count the 301, but even Pontiac guys don't count that.)
Denny Manner obviously wasn't the only engineer working on the Stg2 project. At some point there were up to 20. Some of them raced. Some drag, some oval. Early on Dennis raced. One of the engineers designed and used what we now call no hop bars some 10 to 15 years before they came out. I know, because he told me at Flint about a month ago. I get back to the Reynolds car only to find an elderly man on his back with just his legs sticking out from under my car looking at the no hop bars on it! Had to help him up...
Pontiac had their own versions of Chevy musclecars in the 60s and 70s in Canada. They even had Chevy engines in them. The Beaumont is a Chevelle, the Acadian is a Nova, the Parisienne is an Impala.
Cylinder heads will interchange between small block and big block Oldsmobiles. If you've ever seen the difference in width between a small block Olds intake and a big block Olds intake, you'll know how they take the space up.
Mopar wasn't the only, or first, car company to build a 383. Mercury had one from '58 thru '60. It was called the MEL family = Mercury, Edsel, Lincoln. There were 410, 430 and 462cu. in. versions. They were not part of the "Y" block family.
DKW is a defunct German car and motorcycle marque. In 1916, Danish engineer Jørgen Skafte Rasmussen founded a factory in Zschopau, Saxony, Germany, to produce steam fittings. That year he attempted to produce a steam-driven car, called the DKW. Although unsuccessful, he made a two-stroke toy engine in 1919, called Des Knaben Wunsch – "the boy's desire".
Yup, and the intake manifolds will not interchange between them. One is called the "high block" and cleverly, the other is the "low block." There are a lot more low block 383s out there then high blocks.
A little Road Runner/Super Bee trivia.............When I went to order my '69 Super Bee with the 383 Magnum motor I wanted factory air. But, when we lifted the hoods on both Road Runner's or Super Bees with A/C the motors were blue instead of red like on the non-A/C cars. Chrysler Zone rep told me that Road Runners and Super Bees with A/C had the standard 383 and not the Magnum 383. Needless to say, I ordered my Super Bee without A/C and added an aftermarket unit to it after it came in.
This is true. To add to this, 1970 (and, possibly, 1969) B-bodies with the 383 4-speed and no AC received the 335-horse engine, not the 330-horse engine.
I see the Mercury as a '58 option. Yup. And the same is true with the 318s. If I recall, the early 318s "A" series are referred to as "Poly Engines" for their combustion chambers. The "B" series came in 350, 361, 383 and 400 cu. in. All the first series engines were heavier than the later series.
I know – that's what was stated previously. I merely stated there were two 383s on the Mopar side. There were two 410s on the Ford side. And if you look at Ford, they had a 427, 428, 429, 430!
Right Diego. Those first two were part of the"FE" family. Starting with the 332, 352, 390. Ford certainly had way too many engine families with not many, if any, parts would exchange. Then we could get into the "M" series of smog engines. The changing Windsor firing orders, etc...............
And 360, 361, 391 FEs.....try being a guy that likes building them. You end up with about 5 different automatic transmissions sitting around that are all technically the same, but won't bolt up to what you've got (for the record, I know what everything goes to, but I can't imagine being new to the Ford game). An M has a 385 series bellhousing like a 429/460, but is based on the Cleveland, which has the same bellhousing as a typical small block Windsor for instance.
- And here I thought it was "Das Kleine Wunder" from a car they slapped together in the 30s that would run forever, learn something new every day!
