now this is gettin funnier by the min.free... 100.00. when i have something to sell it aint worth anything but when i have to buy something the price is always over the top lol oh well gotta pay to play!!!!!
There is a Pontiac straight eight in our town that is built and he has no troubles at all. High compression head, dual carburetors, HEI, custom dual exhaust using the Corvette six factory split manifold idea and it runs great. The Hydra-Matic that has had a refresher too from a good knowledgeable shop. It runs great and is no slouch. But not a high RPM engine either. Normbc9
wow, nice, this head looks to be one of the edelbrock- or even edmunds-heads, rare find and nice eyecandy in first.. these engines were neve made for high rev (as you said, Norm), only for being reliable,simple to repair and less of redundant parts, for this reason i always loved the simple two stroke engines. all the expandable parts are to get for little money at kanters, so there's no way to talk about a sbc again.... not to forget the sound while this machine is idling! i lost a woman about sittin' behind the tailpipe and listening instead of going home..
They make plenty of low end torque. Should roll the hills just fine. Remember when those cars were new there were still a lot of states with open speed law, and they were a highway car. Where you are going to run into a problem is if the engine is shot, it isn't going to be real reliable if it isn't any good to start with. I have seen more good ones than bad ones over the years but it is something that needs to be mentioned.
This is a good car.. stored inside and has very little use in the last 15 or so years.I know the car a long time and always had a soft spot for it.I dont think its been use in that time eather! the guy who owns it has a number of cars and keeps them very clean and well looked after. here is a shot of the front.
The key is what gear ratio is in the back. If it's high, like a 4.11, then it might be in your interest to swap say a '56 3.08 or so gear into it for highway cruising. But if you're going to drive it around town the taller gear will make it slower to accelerate, too. Being in Canada you have to watch as the straight eight is a US Pontiac import, but a lot of Canadian model Pontiacs have a Chevrolet drivetrain and chassis. US cars from '49-'57 use more or less the same chassis with a few upgrades.
For a cruiser I don't think you can go wrong with the straight 8. You probably aren't going to have much of a hole shot but geared right I'll bet you could give 'em hell on the 5 mile course. Keep your oil changed and everything adjusted, don't expect it to out run a 340 Duster stop light to stop light and you are golden. Well maintained they are a sweet engine.
I new that! Im after a cruzer and low and slow is what Im after. just want to take it to shows. a number of friends have had flatty sixs in there cars and took them for ever to get to a show.lucky to get 80 kmh on highway as long as I can hit 100 or 110 kmh Im more then happy..
you dont have to tell me about the Canadian Pontiac!! been down that road! 60 Canadian pontiac is on the same setup as the 59 Chevy.. trunk floor is total different but from there forward is the same!
gday, I have a 54 chieftain, Its a six but it maybe relevent mine had a 4:11 rear gears so 60mph would be the most i could push it with a bit of mechanical sympathy (lots of 60 y.o hard to find parts spinning at max rpm for long periods). I swapped out the centre with one from a 1956 pontiac 3:63 (37-56 BOP are the same) so its a bit better now but I still wouldnt recommend sitting on 70mph. In the end the block split from the valve seat to the bottom of the block so that put an end to that and now I have a ohv v8 install just about finished. They really need an over drive for freeway driving. Heaps of people will tell they are great on the freeway and they are but its not so fun on long distances. Clint
62 miles per hour / 100 kph. I just got back from a week in MB, and while I saw some people going maybe 110kph that was about it. My brother in law was sort of nervous when I was rolling 125 kph between San Clara & Rivers. A whopping 77 miles per hour. The speed limits here can run to 75 mph, and people drive "ten over" all the time. I would not flog that straight 8 car 80+ mph (130kph) all day on the highway - but at 100kph it will be very happy. I asked one of the aunts how she traveled from province to province when she was young. She drug out a photo album with some pics of a big Hudson with a trailer behind it... Enjoy your summer. drive that big iron while the roads are clean & the weather fair. I put 1500km on a rental car last week, it was really nice there right now. B.
It might be too late but I will add my 2 cents. I just rebuilt the straight 8 in my 50. If the one you are buying has not been rebuilt then there are a few things to look out for. As mentioned the lack of Oil Filter can be bad so pull the oil pan and clean it and the screen very well. Also as mentioned I would run straight 30 or 40 weight instead of the 10W30's or such. Next thing is about the internals of the motor. The pistons have a bolt that holds the wrist pin in place. That is why mine needed to be rebuilt because one of those bolts fell out and the wrist pin was floating and scarred my cylinder wall. The newer pistons have the spring clips so that will not be an issue for me any more. Next thing is the oil pump. It is bolted on from the outside so easy to get to. If the motor has any amount of sludge built up in the pan I would suggest rebuilding it and there are kits available for that. Last internal thing is the cooling system. Right behind the water pump is a metal "tube" that is inserted into the block and it is supposed to direct water at the valve guides to help keep them cool. Make sure that the "tube" is clean and free of blockages on the holes for the valves. I had 1 of those that was blocked and sure as shoot I needed a new valve in that spot. Lastly I would look into the tranny. Pull the pan and check it as well for sludge or anything suggesting a hard life. One of the weird things with the HydrA-matic is the torque converter. It is actually a 2 piece unit that has 30 bolts and a rubber gasket holding it together. If you have fluid leakage near there it is probably that gasket and it is a BITCH to replace. Before the rebuild though the car would cruise very nicely at 65 MPH and even got to 90 once but I didnt want to push it more then that since it was reving pretty high. If you get it you will enjoy it. not much HP but it has enough Torque to bring down a brick shit house.
I've had a string of straight 8 and flathead 6 Pontiacs and I always drive the shit outta my cars. The above quotes are correct with a few changes. The most common gears in the 55-56 Pontiacs were 3.23s and that's a great gear for a straight 8 pontiac with a hydro. The first thing I always do with an older pontiac is swap to a 55-56 thirdmember with 3.23s....be sure and check, your car may already have 3.23s. I'm not that familiar with 53-54s. The rear gear interchange is from 1937 [I believe] to 56. After that the gear is totally different size and won't interchange in your housing.
Well its been over a year sence I made this post. I ended up passing on this car last year cause I simple never had the money. Divorce does that to ya.lol. the car was sold. I'm in much better shape now to buy a car and I had to go look for it and see. Well the guy will sell it. Going to have one last look at it and decide next week. If I see what I like ill bring it home.
1955 - 1962 Canadian Pontiacs came with a base model, 261 cu in engine that was basically the GMC truck engine. It came about this way. Pontiac in the US dropped their 6 cylinder models with the introduction of the V8 in 55. But in Canada there was still a demand for a 6 cylinder car. So they borrowed the GMC engine. As a more expensive car, and a step up from Chevrolet with their 235 cu in six. As the Canadian Pontiac was really a Chev in Pontiac clothing, it weighed less than its US counterparts. So the 261 was a fairly hot car for the fifties. A good 261 could take a 283 Chev at least, up to 30 - 40 mph due to the superior low speed torque. The Chev would pull ahead eventually but the Pontiac six was hard to beat stop light to stop light. Putting a used Pontiac six in a 54 or older Chev was a popular hop up, since it was a simple bolt in job. Some guys got really good at rebuilding and hopping them up. I remember a local guy had good results using an Isky cam, split exhaust manifold and a bigger carburetor off some kind of truck.
Actually the 261 is a bigger 235. The Canadian Pontiac came with a 270 GMC. Totally different engine. I had lots of fun with 270 and 302 GMC engines. I stand corrected. It makes more sense that they would have a 261. But the one I saw had a 270.
Rich I hate to start an argument but I was born in Canada and have lived here all my life. Pontiacs came with the 261. I'm not saying you didn't see one with a 270 but whoever put it in, it wasn't the factory.
I want a straight for my 51 Pontiac Chieftain. I came across two of them five years ago. If only I knew how cool they were at the time.
I'm going to have to take your word on this one. My friend Olly Jensen had a '54 (I think) Pontiac that he said was Canadian and I know it had a 270. I had a 270 in my 32 at the time and we swapped parts back and forth a lot.
Back in the day, (late 50s) my dad had a 51 poncho (american) with a straight 8 and hydromatic. It would run an honest 100 mph, took a while to get there and took a while to stop. Our speed limit in the 50, 60, early 70s was 65 daytime, 55 at night. I can't think of a 50s car that wouldn't do the speed limit, so don't worry about 100kph!
Up to 54 Canadian Pontiacs used the same 239 cu in flathead six the American cars used. They only went to the 261 when Pontiac dropped the six and straight eight in favor of the V8 in 1955. Canadian Pontiac management wanted to have a six cylinder car in the lineup so they borrowed the 261 truck engine. It was available, and it gave Pontiac a little better engine than the 235.
Ollie's car was not a '55. Unless Canadian bodies were a year behind US. This was about 25-30 years ago. I never really say the engine in the car. I did sell Ollie a 270 for a spare engine. He told me it was a 270. Maybe he was wrong and he had a 261. Didn't know the difference. But he could sure tell it was an OHV 6.
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