In order to properly tell the story of the 1245 GT Coupe one must first take a good look at that period between 1965 and 1975 in the Western world. That new generation of Baby Boomers born after the war, had arrived. The leading edge of this phenomenon was reaching their 20’s by 1965 and these new people were about to change everything that went before them in ways that simply could not have been imagined then.. Nothing about the established world was going to be the same again. In the early 60’s the two largest Motor companies Ford and GM were still very traditional organizations, both marketing largely traditional product.
By 1965, though, Ford had decided to change its image and whether this was by Devine intervention, luck…. or brilliant crystal ball marketing, I don’t know…. but the Total Performance strategy was in place and beginning to do a fine job of linking itself with the changes that were happening. Just as an example think San Francisco, the Hippie revolution and Rock and Roll.
Every single publication you picked up seemed to have something about a Cortina GT or Lotus Cortina or Galaxie or Mustang or Fairlane. Enzo Ferrari himself had a hand in helping the Ford cause by reneging on a deal for Ford to buy Ferrari, Ford decided to clobber him anyway and built the GT 40. Ford were on a roll and getting stronger as we moved towards the 70’s. GM on the other hand were dealing with the aftermath of Ralph Nader’s Unsafe At Any Speed, become more conservative than they should have…..and all this at the same time the race to the moon was on.
People were beginning to think differently about everything…. and anything was possible. Then Ford Commissioned the DFV formula one engine and that just about put the cherry on top…..
Ford had reinvented themselves in a period that I would guess was from 1963 to 1970. By comparison, GM had done practically nothing new.
Up to now I have been talking about what was happening at a corporate or product level …but… there was a whole other world opening up as a result of companies like Ford BMC and Renault using their product effectively in Motor Sport …The Aftermarket Tuner.
Seemingly like mushrooms, these operations came out of nowhere in the 60’s and they all had two objectives in mind…make cars go like hell and hook up with a manufacturer. Links between these operations and OEM's were beginning to result in specialist product on the street: In SA as an example
• George Armstrong* – BMC
• Meissner – Ford
• Van Rooyen – Ford & Alfa
• Conchie / Porters – Renault
• Lawsons / Volvo
• ???????/ GM
We are talking about the largest motor company in the world here guys – no representation.
But there was a far more sinister thing happening to the industry and GM were completely oblivious to it..
The companies getting involved in this wonderful new world of what amounted to performance saloon cars were starting a new and very powerful market phenomenon called StreetCred. How do you describe it….well I guess a simple comparison would be two cars rolling up to a road house in 1970, One a Capri 2.0 GT the other an Opel Manta 1900. On paper the two cars were pretty similar in all aspects but with the very real possibility that the Opel could outhandle the Ford easily….did that matter… NO. The Opel was basically a wus’s car and in the Ford you were ‘The Man’… GM did not learn that lesson until the Kadett SuperBoss was launched 20 odd years later.
That said, GM were fielding some exciting product. We saw Viva Gt’s, SR Kadetts. Even the colonies were beginning to get restless and Monaros came to the fore. The difference? Ford were living the performance mantra from the boss, Ford himself, (the man who ordered the building of the GT40) to the salesman on the floor, it was becoming a culture in the business.
There were some ventures into motor sport by GM in the late 60’s: ONE was the Sunoco Z28 Camaros and even that was an 'under the table' deal that clearly embarrassed the GM hierarchy and the SECOND, also in the Americas, but this time South America.. Argentina, where the local engineering operation were living dangerously and had developed a racing cylinder head for the straight six chevy, this used in local Formula racing. SO…. whilst these & some others were pockets of bravery around the world, there was no culture of Motor Sport or even an understanding of the performance car ethos within GM. I say these words with conviction, I know because I was there.
I remember having full-on heated discussions with some of my peers at GM for heavens sake, where we petrolheads were being criticized for supporting motor racing and performance cars.
Comments like “Motor sport does nothing for the brand – we are wasting money” rang in the halls of GM even in the days of the Can Ams….absolute fact. The higher one moved up the food chain in GM, the more you found the traditional GM attitude which relied on the fact that the company had been around doing things this way for jonks and did not need Motorsport to sell cars.....these comments at a time when GM in SA were going through a really tough time in the late 60's and the Dealer Body were seriously unhappy for many reasons.
There stepped into the breach one Bob Price......more later P
CHEV 3800 GT
Re: CHEV 3800 GT
Ford in South Africa was like a Beetle in Germany, became part of the local culture but being just that did not mean they were superior to the General's offerings. Which as told in your post we'd expect the Monaro not to have tackled a Fairmont GT at the time. Had they put some effort into the Chev SS as you guys proved with that prototype Ranger the Fairmont GT would have the same status as the Capri Perana then and today, second to the SS as the Perana is second to the Can Am. We can argue that until 2012 when the world end's fact is that year 1973 with what was a little effort from non-GM brass those that gathered around the Chev Dealer Team they proved exactly this which you have said. One year was enough as that era is never to be repeated here not even the Superboss will ever have the iconic status as the greatest local GM effort ever with what was an over the shelf 302 engine.
The best GM had on offer compared to Ford Performance set-up was "Revcounter" where you could buy Rostyle's, fancy mirrors, mudflaps and such cosmetic odds. Hence the achievement's in 1973 was no fluke but a brief show of credibility the General had on offer. We patiently wait for the story about the 3800 GT !
The best GM had on offer compared to Ford Performance set-up was "Revcounter" where you could buy Rostyle's, fancy mirrors, mudflaps and such cosmetic odds. Hence the achievement's in 1973 was no fluke but a brief show of credibility the General had on offer. We patiently wait for the story about the 3800 GT !
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993 Kadett
- Posts: 64
- Joined: Sun 16 Dec 2007, 13:33
Re: CHEV 3800 GT
You make a very valid point there VMX and that was to be my next comment. I was proud to be a GM employee, it was (and still is) a first class manufacturing company, producing outstanding products even at the time. I was convinced that our cars were better than Ford’s and I believe that to this day….but…there was a whole new world opening up and the General just refused to get involved. That was the frustration… I am sorry to make this long winded, but I need to sketch the total picture.
Bob Price, an American, arrived in SA to take over the CEO position in late 1970 and arrived in SA as a troubleshooter. GMSA was losing market share and had just been through the trauma of chopping its dealer body in half. You will recall that GM had two dealers in every town in 50’s and 60’s one was Chev, Opel, GMC and the other Pontiac, Vauxhall, Bedford. That could not be sustained and Dealers were chopped.** The Dealer Body was not happy and when Bob arrived he had to deal with a disgruntled front line, the dealers wanted some excitement in the product and some stability… He did it brilliantly. He had arrived just as the new Firenza was coming down the line and after evaluating the product and situation wholistically by also talking to dealers and staff, he stopped Firenza production dead in its tracks prior to the launch. All cars built were contained and a massive programme instituted to ensure that this one was going to be 100%. He delayed the launch for six weeks (can you imagine the disruption this caused in the larger logistical chain) In that time, all cars built were evaluated and reworked and believe it or not, all 2.5’s were re-equipped with Weber twin chokes instead of the Carter YF specified for the car.
Just lets look at that one decision.. 1. He had to stop Carter YF sourcing, including a two month pipeline to the states…and deal with the political and business implications) 2. He had to switch on the supply of Webers (at that time only used on the Ranger SS), have the design changes made to fit the Firenza, parts sourced, the built cars reworked and sufficient supply to get the lines going again all in six weeks…..in the normal process, that change would have taken six months. There were 26 other upgrades made to the car in that six weeks... This was a serious player and somebody you absolutely did not mess with. There is of course, a story that if you dredge certain areas of Algoa Bay you will find a huge crate of Carter Yf’s……
Why do I tell you this story, well because this is the guy that brought you the Can Am, if you think Basil was the main brain, think again, It was Basil’s concept and he built the prototype and had a very clear idea of what a 302 Firenza could do on the track and would do that very well…..but the two people (who hardly get any column inches) who were the stars that turned that idea into a fabulous production car were Bob Price, the Mentor and Jonny Pittaway. Jonny the Engineer responsible at GM, for 95% of what you see today as a Chev Can Am. When Basil called Bob Price out of the Blue in 1972 to tell him of his idea on the Firenza V8 he did not know just how fertile the ground was…….
That then is a very basic outline to the point of what happened to get the Can Am and as the first GM employee ever to drive the prototype BVR V8 and somebody who stayed close to it all the time, I will tell the background in later posts…..but on to the 3800 GT.
If you then take GM’s position in early 1972, our image was not that of the most modern, forward thinking Motor Co on the planet and the development of the Can Am at the time, whilst being hugely exciting was not going to be the magic bullet that would change all our products from very reliable and well made pumpkins to a silver coaches overnight. We needed something else, something Mr average could identify with, something exciting in volume production, something that would help change the image of the business and do it through the product.
Luckily we had just the platform for that, the 3800/4100 series was in the wings and had the chance to move that image. GMSA had made the decision to move to single branding…. Chevrolet…… Buick, Vauxhall, Cadillac, Opel, Pontiac, Fridgidaire, Bedford, Holden, AC spark plugs and GMC were put in the closet for a while and we had a singular identity, something that was to work very well for us. You all remember “Braaivleis, rugby, sunny skies and Chevrolet…. Simply great stuff to attack Ford with. The 25/38/4100 series was launched (known as Project 1245 inside the General) and immediately into the # 1 sales position. The Firenza was doing sales better than we expected in 1972 and with the 1245 we were entrenched not only at # 1 overall but started to move that Fuddy Duddy image.
Lets face it, the 1245 was a great platform for a performance car. Those big engines were great in stock form… as lazy as the days were long but economical and reliable and because of their massive torque at low rpm made the cars at least feel pretty good. The idea for a performance version of the car was festering in the engineering dept but not an official project yet. It came about simply as a result of there being a gap in some projects and Gary Windram ( a local engineering manager in experimental engineering, later to become a platform engineer for Corvette in the states) gave in to a group of us who wanted to give this thing a go. He put together a small budget and we were allocated the ex durability 1245!!!.. and made it clear that we had to make it work with whatever we had. This was a car that had just completed 150000km at high speed on gravel roads at full load…. and was not in the greatest of shape, in fact we saved it from its normal fate of being scrapped... The “Brown Bomber” was cleaned up, some small body cracks welded up and after a week or so we had a thouroughly smart looking car. First job was the engine… but…. we could not use the old one and no budget for a new one, so a little bit of lateral thinking was required. I contacted a good colleague at the engine plant who had helped us with some forged flat tops for the Ranger engine a few years before…
And sold him the idea of an inspection of a 150000km Chevy 3.8 as a straight swop for a stripped down QA new engine quality check (the parts of which would normally be scrapped anyway)…Jackpot! We received the parts for a complete 3800 engine in a box .. just what we wanted.
More tomorrow….
** (This was to come back and bite us in the butt in the 70’s because many of those Dealers picked up the newbies on the block…. Datsun and Toyota……..! Those two companies almost had a ready made dealer group when they started.)
Bob Price, an American, arrived in SA to take over the CEO position in late 1970 and arrived in SA as a troubleshooter. GMSA was losing market share and had just been through the trauma of chopping its dealer body in half. You will recall that GM had two dealers in every town in 50’s and 60’s one was Chev, Opel, GMC and the other Pontiac, Vauxhall, Bedford. That could not be sustained and Dealers were chopped.** The Dealer Body was not happy and when Bob arrived he had to deal with a disgruntled front line, the dealers wanted some excitement in the product and some stability… He did it brilliantly. He had arrived just as the new Firenza was coming down the line and after evaluating the product and situation wholistically by also talking to dealers and staff, he stopped Firenza production dead in its tracks prior to the launch. All cars built were contained and a massive programme instituted to ensure that this one was going to be 100%. He delayed the launch for six weeks (can you imagine the disruption this caused in the larger logistical chain) In that time, all cars built were evaluated and reworked and believe it or not, all 2.5’s were re-equipped with Weber twin chokes instead of the Carter YF specified for the car.
Just lets look at that one decision.. 1. He had to stop Carter YF sourcing, including a two month pipeline to the states…and deal with the political and business implications) 2. He had to switch on the supply of Webers (at that time only used on the Ranger SS), have the design changes made to fit the Firenza, parts sourced, the built cars reworked and sufficient supply to get the lines going again all in six weeks…..in the normal process, that change would have taken six months. There were 26 other upgrades made to the car in that six weeks... This was a serious player and somebody you absolutely did not mess with. There is of course, a story that if you dredge certain areas of Algoa Bay you will find a huge crate of Carter Yf’s……
Why do I tell you this story, well because this is the guy that brought you the Can Am, if you think Basil was the main brain, think again, It was Basil’s concept and he built the prototype and had a very clear idea of what a 302 Firenza could do on the track and would do that very well…..but the two people (who hardly get any column inches) who were the stars that turned that idea into a fabulous production car were Bob Price, the Mentor and Jonny Pittaway. Jonny the Engineer responsible at GM, for 95% of what you see today as a Chev Can Am. When Basil called Bob Price out of the Blue in 1972 to tell him of his idea on the Firenza V8 he did not know just how fertile the ground was…….
That then is a very basic outline to the point of what happened to get the Can Am and as the first GM employee ever to drive the prototype BVR V8 and somebody who stayed close to it all the time, I will tell the background in later posts…..but on to the 3800 GT.
If you then take GM’s position in early 1972, our image was not that of the most modern, forward thinking Motor Co on the planet and the development of the Can Am at the time, whilst being hugely exciting was not going to be the magic bullet that would change all our products from very reliable and well made pumpkins to a silver coaches overnight. We needed something else, something Mr average could identify with, something exciting in volume production, something that would help change the image of the business and do it through the product.
Luckily we had just the platform for that, the 3800/4100 series was in the wings and had the chance to move that image. GMSA had made the decision to move to single branding…. Chevrolet…… Buick, Vauxhall, Cadillac, Opel, Pontiac, Fridgidaire, Bedford, Holden, AC spark plugs and GMC were put in the closet for a while and we had a singular identity, something that was to work very well for us. You all remember “Braaivleis, rugby, sunny skies and Chevrolet…. Simply great stuff to attack Ford with. The 25/38/4100 series was launched (known as Project 1245 inside the General) and immediately into the # 1 sales position. The Firenza was doing sales better than we expected in 1972 and with the 1245 we were entrenched not only at # 1 overall but started to move that Fuddy Duddy image.
Lets face it, the 1245 was a great platform for a performance car. Those big engines were great in stock form… as lazy as the days were long but economical and reliable and because of their massive torque at low rpm made the cars at least feel pretty good. The idea for a performance version of the car was festering in the engineering dept but not an official project yet. It came about simply as a result of there being a gap in some projects and Gary Windram ( a local engineering manager in experimental engineering, later to become a platform engineer for Corvette in the states) gave in to a group of us who wanted to give this thing a go. He put together a small budget and we were allocated the ex durability 1245!!!.. and made it clear that we had to make it work with whatever we had. This was a car that had just completed 150000km at high speed on gravel roads at full load…. and was not in the greatest of shape, in fact we saved it from its normal fate of being scrapped... The “Brown Bomber” was cleaned up, some small body cracks welded up and after a week or so we had a thouroughly smart looking car. First job was the engine… but…. we could not use the old one and no budget for a new one, so a little bit of lateral thinking was required. I contacted a good colleague at the engine plant who had helped us with some forged flat tops for the Ranger engine a few years before…
And sold him the idea of an inspection of a 150000km Chevy 3.8 as a straight swop for a stripped down QA new engine quality check (the parts of which would normally be scrapped anyway)…Jackpot! We received the parts for a complete 3800 engine in a box .. just what we wanted.
More tomorrow….
** (This was to come back and bite us in the butt in the 70’s because many of those Dealers picked up the newbies on the block…. Datsun and Toyota……..! Those two companies almost had a ready made dealer group when they started.)
Re: Various Capri Spares
Good stuff, you speak of things some I was aware other in my archive, such as the stringent testing of the Firenza's. That's noted in a report on the cars at the time. The HC's indeed launched some time in UK before us here.
Interesting the Carter carb think some very early cars may have had Carter's, they claimed the Weber added about 12 hp.
This you tell is food for thought, waiting on next meal !
Interesting the Carter carb think some very early cars may have had Carter's, they claimed the Weber added about 12 hp.
This you tell is food for thought, waiting on next meal !
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993 Kadett
- Posts: 64
- Joined: Sun 16 Dec 2007, 13:33
Re: CHEV 3800 GT
Why leave to tomorrow that which has been done today already…. More of the 3800GT
OK so work started and the engine sub assembly was put together with a set of flat-top pistons specially made for the project, they were a bit heavy with the local supplier just filling in the std piston dished crown but they were a good start.. Compression was up from 8.1 (actual) to 9.5 : 1
The inlet manifold was fabricated from two 2.5 (weber) inlets. We started with two 36DCD downdraughts running on what was basically a plenum inlet manifold.
Exhaust manifolds were taken from an OHC Pontiac straight six engine we had in the store. As castings, they required some clever welding by Gert, our allocated fabrications man, to get the attachment to the head right but as port spacing was identical, they looked like original production parts! Two sets of 3 into 1, (front three and rear three cyls)
Camshaft was the stock Kommando 250HO part. This had a little more duration than the stock 3800 cam but still not even mild. Damn!!! but those cams were so placid we could have used them in a lighting plant engine!!
I need to point out at this time that we had to be very careful indeed that everything we did was production feasible, because already this early in the project our colleagues in the engine design section were referring to our efforts in experimental engineering as the ‘Hot Rodders’ and that they would show us how to do it properly once we were finished…. That. was. not. going. to. happen.
The trick to this 1st engine was going to be in the cylinder head. We had learnt plenty from the Ranger 2.5 and all we knew was built into the new head. The 3800 engine is a six cylinder version of the 2.5 so all we had to do was use that which worked and make them production feasible… NO Porting or grinding. There are three things to remember on this range of heads: Valve throat angles and seats, valve shapes and the ‘Bump’ required at the floor of the inlet ports to jack up the flow rates.
Valves were 1.94 inlets and 1.6 exhausts, stock V8 parts given a little machining treatment and throats cut at 70 and 78 respectively with a perfectly good production feasible 3 angle valve job. No grinder touched the head.
The valve train was modified to take pushrod guide plates and stock 302 valve springs, Lifters were standard hydraulic. By that time we knew how to overcome the 5200rpm valve train surge that caused the lifters to pump up. The red line was set at 6000 rpm.
The exhaust system was the easiest thing on earth. Two std silencers used with the second one located in the same position but just on the other side of the Pshaft. Front pipes fed each system. Pipes exited together side by side requiring a little body surgery to widen the aperture to take both pipes and sounded absolutely magic with the resonator box not used. The whole thing looked like a production installation. Gert was a marvel.
Gearbox was stock 4 speed 3800 & diff 3.23:1
The machine was put together and started up…Now I know I am amongst like minded people, so you will understand when I say that the temptation to “plant it’ was excruciating but we had to run the beast in. We took the view that we would use the time to set up the carbs and do the low speed calibration to eat up the time. We did… and probably had the finest transition phases ever!... also took some time to modify the ignition advance curve….the frustration was building.
I will never forget the first time I opened those secondaries, it was like all our Christmases and Birthdays rolled into one. ‘Bam’ …. Little did we know that even untuned, the engine was up 70% on a stock 3800…. Yes absolutely true. Our pals in the engine design were going to have a hard time matching this. But even more amazing to us, after tuning and set up, that old Brown 4 door matched Basil’s prototype Can Am in acceleration above 120 Km/h….. and I’ll tell you why More Tomorrow…
OK so work started and the engine sub assembly was put together with a set of flat-top pistons specially made for the project, they were a bit heavy with the local supplier just filling in the std piston dished crown but they were a good start.. Compression was up from 8.1 (actual) to 9.5 : 1
The inlet manifold was fabricated from two 2.5 (weber) inlets. We started with two 36DCD downdraughts running on what was basically a plenum inlet manifold.
Exhaust manifolds were taken from an OHC Pontiac straight six engine we had in the store. As castings, they required some clever welding by Gert, our allocated fabrications man, to get the attachment to the head right but as port spacing was identical, they looked like original production parts! Two sets of 3 into 1, (front three and rear three cyls)
Camshaft was the stock Kommando 250HO part. This had a little more duration than the stock 3800 cam but still not even mild. Damn!!! but those cams were so placid we could have used them in a lighting plant engine!!
I need to point out at this time that we had to be very careful indeed that everything we did was production feasible, because already this early in the project our colleagues in the engine design section were referring to our efforts in experimental engineering as the ‘Hot Rodders’ and that they would show us how to do it properly once we were finished…. That. was. not. going. to. happen.
The trick to this 1st engine was going to be in the cylinder head. We had learnt plenty from the Ranger 2.5 and all we knew was built into the new head. The 3800 engine is a six cylinder version of the 2.5 so all we had to do was use that which worked and make them production feasible… NO Porting or grinding. There are three things to remember on this range of heads: Valve throat angles and seats, valve shapes and the ‘Bump’ required at the floor of the inlet ports to jack up the flow rates.
Valves were 1.94 inlets and 1.6 exhausts, stock V8 parts given a little machining treatment and throats cut at 70 and 78 respectively with a perfectly good production feasible 3 angle valve job. No grinder touched the head.
The valve train was modified to take pushrod guide plates and stock 302 valve springs, Lifters were standard hydraulic. By that time we knew how to overcome the 5200rpm valve train surge that caused the lifters to pump up. The red line was set at 6000 rpm.
The exhaust system was the easiest thing on earth. Two std silencers used with the second one located in the same position but just on the other side of the Pshaft. Front pipes fed each system. Pipes exited together side by side requiring a little body surgery to widen the aperture to take both pipes and sounded absolutely magic with the resonator box not used. The whole thing looked like a production installation. Gert was a marvel.
Gearbox was stock 4 speed 3800 & diff 3.23:1
The machine was put together and started up…Now I know I am amongst like minded people, so you will understand when I say that the temptation to “plant it’ was excruciating but we had to run the beast in. We took the view that we would use the time to set up the carbs and do the low speed calibration to eat up the time. We did… and probably had the finest transition phases ever!... also took some time to modify the ignition advance curve….the frustration was building.
I will never forget the first time I opened those secondaries, it was like all our Christmases and Birthdays rolled into one. ‘Bam’ …. Little did we know that even untuned, the engine was up 70% on a stock 3800…. Yes absolutely true. Our pals in the engine design were going to have a hard time matching this. But even more amazing to us, after tuning and set up, that old Brown 4 door matched Basil’s prototype Can Am in acceleration above 120 Km/h….. and I’ll tell you why More Tomorrow…
Re: CHEV 3800 GT
Eish I reckon you should finnish the story via PM 
everything is well read until you touch a nerve ! 
Was there a reason why you went 3800 and not 4100 ? As you know at the time there was hardly a thing that could catch a Can Am from a rolling 60km/h or so 1st gear is good for 100 km/h besides a lot lighter than the 3800. However the 3800 box is unlike the nice close upper ratio's of the Muncie. If you explain why now at least a good night's sleep could be had ! 
3800/4100 had 4 doors they were caravan towers like Fairmont GT's ! 
everything is well read until you touch a nerve ! Was there a reason why you went 3800 and not 4100 ? As you know at the time there was hardly a thing that could catch a Can Am from a rolling 60km/h or so 1st gear is good for 100 km/h besides a lot lighter than the 3800. However the 3800 box is unlike the nice close upper ratio's of the Muncie. If you explain why now at least a good night's sleep could be had ! 3800/4100 had 4 doors they were caravan towers like Fairmont GT's ! -
993 Kadett
- Posts: 64
- Joined: Sun 16 Dec 2007, 13:33
Re: CHEV 3800 GT
VMX you can rest easy and have a very good night's sleep! First your Q about the 38/4100 engine. The decision to use a 3800 was because I wanted to run a big bore 3800 on the 2nd engine, 101mm to be exact and as we had the blocks cast locally I had already been in touch with them to increase the bore and deck casting wall thickness to make this possible. The decision to go to a big bore 4100 was made later. The reason for the Bore increase was to be able to use the 2.02 inlets on the later engines without valves being shrouded by the bore wall. The 3800 was always a better revver than a 4100 anyway.On to the acceleration issue and I should have mentioned this earlier perhaps. Not many folk know this but the BVR prototype was built with a 307 stock engine. Even when fitted with a Quadrajet it never produced anywhere near the power of a 302. Having driven the car many times, it was diametrically opposed to the production cars in terms of power delivery. It had torque at low rpm that could hurt buildings but flat at the top end. Amazingly, it was not much slower than the production car in a 0-100 dash at 5.7 sec. By comparison again to the production car it was easy and very pleasant to drive because of this power delivery. I may as well mention that the production cars were completely different to the BVR proto in every single mechanical detail:
BVR's Proto mechanicals as received at GM:
Engine: 307 two barrel C10 truck
Gearbox: Holden Saginaw
Axle: 3.08:1 modified Firenza 2,5.
The car was very well made and had an amazingly solid feel about it and I am sure that the decision to go ahead with the project had a lot to do with how well the car had been converted. Their was also a BVR auto prototype, thank heavens that did not make it to production! P
Re: CHEV 3800 GT
Yes, was aware of the two 307 prototypes one being auto. Hennie v/d Linde was working for Basil at the time from what I understand he was involved with the 2 prototypes. In retrospect having driven an auto V8 Capri Perana in the case of the Capri's I reckon the auto was quicker than the manual and a more pleasant drive. The Capri's shifter manual shifter I'm sure had something to do with that. The V8 Capri just feels like strong V6 Capri. Unlike the Chev as you say thankfully they built 100 of the best end of story it was designed to be the best and fastest in it's day not for comfort. The 305's I think was an option just under 5 litre but as with the 307 truck engine would have been a car more on parr with the Capri and it's Fairlane engine.
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993 Kadett
- Posts: 64
- Joined: Sun 16 Dec 2007, 13:33
Re: CHEV 3800 GT
Apologise for being a little late guys but here is some more:
When the 1245 project started, the cars built for SA engineering work were not reworked Opels. The cars were built as dedicated 25/38/4100’s from scratch, all with the correct mechanicals. As part of this batch of cars were two two-door coupes, one Auto and one Manual. These were not GSE spec but plain Coupes built to 4100 spec. The white manual was being used as an engineering fleet car at the time – it needed a proper home badly….
So….. The initial results on the Brown Bomber were surprising and we eventually ended at a power figure 80 % up on the stock 3800.
Things moved aittle slowly at the time because of the intense workload on the Can Am but after we had sorted the engine properly, the car was again tidied up and the suspension lowered some 25mm and new bits fitted. Brakes were std but all in good shape. The car was readied for a peer review. A roster was opened for Senior engineering staff to use the car on O/night evaluations for about two weeks. Our target was to get the OK firstly from Engineering management so that we could continue the project….. The process did not take that long and after the first week we had an OK from Gary to go. We had not only been allocated some funds…. but best of all, our request to take over the 4100 manual transmission Coupe for the project was agreed to. The timeline here was around March of 1973 – just at the start of the Can Am reign,
I’ll keep this short, we then immediately got the support of the design guys and suddenly special parts were made available. A 5 speed ‘dog leg 1st’ ZF appeared as if from nowhere, wheels and rubber arrived, the only set of uprated brakes in the place ended up on my desk. And the suspension guys started with their slide rules.
The Coupe was stripped that day and a spec sheet drawn up and work began anew. While we re-engineered bell housings and started fitting new mechanicals into the car, the work on the 2nd engine began. The styling guys immediately did the blackouts as in the pick to give it a “corporate go faster look”
The new engine was to be a big bore 3800 with the new block giving just under 4.0L capacity. The 101mm pistons had been delayed so we went with some 100mm units along with 6” factory con rods. The piston/rod assembly was 22% lighter than the old engine. Engine capacity up from 3769cc to 3890cc.
No change to the head so CR went up to 9.7 :1
Camshaft was interesting. In the set-up to manufacturing engines in SA, a huge amount of tooling arrived which was scheduled for changes and upgrades as years went by. We found tooling for a 292 truck cam lobe with some 9 degrees more duration and more lift than the 250HO cam we were using. By using the standard blank camshaft castings and fitting offset keys in the cam grinder equipped with the 292 masters, we machined two camshafts with two different degrees of overlap. This was still very mild timing but we kept to the commitment that any spec changes to the engine assembly must be able to be carried out by the existing plant. Strangely there were no ‘hot’ road cams available inside the GM corporation world wide for the L6 at the time. Even the Argentinians had only their racing profiles available. (A stab at allowing us to work with Isky to use an aftermarket cam and generate a local performance cam was turned down. No surprise!! It may be good to mention that later mods to the engine using a good aftermarket street cam gave another 30bhp easily with practically no loss in low end response.)
Exhaust manifolds were changed to tubular headers – 1¾” tubes 32” long – A Local manufacturer had been ID’d.
The inlet manifold was modified to increase runner length at each port by 30mm.
Carburettors unchanged except for choke tube increases.
The engine this time was run on the engine dyno and optimized with full aircleaner and exhaust system in place. Power was now up 102% on the standard engine…… The reason I don’t quote power figures is because horsepower talk is very much like “how long is a piece of string” and each Test facility in those days used its own method of testing to arrive at a given figure.
Our Dyno testing was hugely conservative and our “test one” was about as realistic as anything could be. What I will tell you is that the 3.9 GT engine produced exactly 25bhp more on our Dyno than a stock 350 Chev SS V8.
The new package was put together and was quite simply sublime. We had to give the car to the N&V guys to sort out a few noise issues, so the sweet exhaust note was toned down a bit and we opted to fit a BMW CSL style aircleaner to reduce induction noise. Those two mods cost us 5bhp but still ended at double the power of a stock 3800.
Performance was great. 0-100; 6.9 secs and a top speed of 231.2…. (those figures are to the test std of two test personnel + test equipment + 50Kg) those don’t sound amazing by today’s standards but this car could outrun a good stock Capri V8 and considering it was both bigger and heavier, that was cool! 0-100 one-up was 6.3 secs.
The real test though was still to come, because the car was to be given to the company Brass to evaluate in exactly the same programme as before. Now can you put yourself in our shoes. It is one thing to give a performance car to a bunch of engineers to evaluate…BUT to give a performance car to the Brass consisting of all dept heads including finance and human resources & where ALL drove automatics…… this in addition to the history of the company I have just described???... The issue was further complicated by the fact that the car had FIVE GEARS (Why should a car have five gears – that’s unnecessary - an actual comment at the time!) and worse, 1st gear was in the wrong place. This was going to be a tough two weeks…
More tomorrow….
When the 1245 project started, the cars built for SA engineering work were not reworked Opels. The cars were built as dedicated 25/38/4100’s from scratch, all with the correct mechanicals. As part of this batch of cars were two two-door coupes, one Auto and one Manual. These were not GSE spec but plain Coupes built to 4100 spec. The white manual was being used as an engineering fleet car at the time – it needed a proper home badly….
So….. The initial results on the Brown Bomber were surprising and we eventually ended at a power figure 80 % up on the stock 3800.
Things moved aittle slowly at the time because of the intense workload on the Can Am but after we had sorted the engine properly, the car was again tidied up and the suspension lowered some 25mm and new bits fitted. Brakes were std but all in good shape. The car was readied for a peer review. A roster was opened for Senior engineering staff to use the car on O/night evaluations for about two weeks. Our target was to get the OK firstly from Engineering management so that we could continue the project….. The process did not take that long and after the first week we had an OK from Gary to go. We had not only been allocated some funds…. but best of all, our request to take over the 4100 manual transmission Coupe for the project was agreed to. The timeline here was around March of 1973 – just at the start of the Can Am reign,
I’ll keep this short, we then immediately got the support of the design guys and suddenly special parts were made available. A 5 speed ‘dog leg 1st’ ZF appeared as if from nowhere, wheels and rubber arrived, the only set of uprated brakes in the place ended up on my desk. And the suspension guys started with their slide rules.
The Coupe was stripped that day and a spec sheet drawn up and work began anew. While we re-engineered bell housings and started fitting new mechanicals into the car, the work on the 2nd engine began. The styling guys immediately did the blackouts as in the pick to give it a “corporate go faster look”
The new engine was to be a big bore 3800 with the new block giving just under 4.0L capacity. The 101mm pistons had been delayed so we went with some 100mm units along with 6” factory con rods. The piston/rod assembly was 22% lighter than the old engine. Engine capacity up from 3769cc to 3890cc.
No change to the head so CR went up to 9.7 :1
Camshaft was interesting. In the set-up to manufacturing engines in SA, a huge amount of tooling arrived which was scheduled for changes and upgrades as years went by. We found tooling for a 292 truck cam lobe with some 9 degrees more duration and more lift than the 250HO cam we were using. By using the standard blank camshaft castings and fitting offset keys in the cam grinder equipped with the 292 masters, we machined two camshafts with two different degrees of overlap. This was still very mild timing but we kept to the commitment that any spec changes to the engine assembly must be able to be carried out by the existing plant. Strangely there were no ‘hot’ road cams available inside the GM corporation world wide for the L6 at the time. Even the Argentinians had only their racing profiles available. (A stab at allowing us to work with Isky to use an aftermarket cam and generate a local performance cam was turned down. No surprise!! It may be good to mention that later mods to the engine using a good aftermarket street cam gave another 30bhp easily with practically no loss in low end response.)
Exhaust manifolds were changed to tubular headers – 1¾” tubes 32” long – A Local manufacturer had been ID’d.
The inlet manifold was modified to increase runner length at each port by 30mm.
Carburettors unchanged except for choke tube increases.
The engine this time was run on the engine dyno and optimized with full aircleaner and exhaust system in place. Power was now up 102% on the standard engine…… The reason I don’t quote power figures is because horsepower talk is very much like “how long is a piece of string” and each Test facility in those days used its own method of testing to arrive at a given figure.
Our Dyno testing was hugely conservative and our “test one” was about as realistic as anything could be. What I will tell you is that the 3.9 GT engine produced exactly 25bhp more on our Dyno than a stock 350 Chev SS V8.
The new package was put together and was quite simply sublime. We had to give the car to the N&V guys to sort out a few noise issues, so the sweet exhaust note was toned down a bit and we opted to fit a BMW CSL style aircleaner to reduce induction noise. Those two mods cost us 5bhp but still ended at double the power of a stock 3800.
Performance was great. 0-100; 6.9 secs and a top speed of 231.2…. (those figures are to the test std of two test personnel + test equipment + 50Kg) those don’t sound amazing by today’s standards but this car could outrun a good stock Capri V8 and considering it was both bigger and heavier, that was cool! 0-100 one-up was 6.3 secs.
The real test though was still to come, because the car was to be given to the company Brass to evaluate in exactly the same programme as before. Now can you put yourself in our shoes. It is one thing to give a performance car to a bunch of engineers to evaluate…BUT to give a performance car to the Brass consisting of all dept heads including finance and human resources & where ALL drove automatics…… this in addition to the history of the company I have just described???... The issue was further complicated by the fact that the car had FIVE GEARS (Why should a car have five gears – that’s unnecessary - an actual comment at the time!) and worse, 1st gear was in the wrong place. This was going to be a tough two weeks…
More tomorrow….
Re: CHEV 3800 GT
Hi 993,
This is truly amazing and can not wait to read the next part
I bought a 4100 in 1975 and had it for 13 years a lovely car and a cousin of mine were featured in the Car magazine in those years for a Ranger that did the Ton up on Kyalami in the days when you still got a badge for being able to do this.
Please more more
Those days the Highways were just build and I remember as well that the JHB traffic Department had Highway patrol cars all 4100 with solid lifters and what have you.
Keep it up please.
When did you leave GM
This is truly amazing and can not wait to read the next part
I bought a 4100 in 1975 and had it for 13 years a lovely car and a cousin of mine were featured in the Car magazine in those years for a Ranger that did the Ton up on Kyalami in the days when you still got a badge for being able to do this.
Please more more
Those days the Highways were just build and I remember as well that the JHB traffic Department had Highway patrol cars all 4100 with solid lifters and what have you.
Keep it up please.
When did you leave GM
1974 Chevrolet Elcamino 350CI 220Rochester TBI
2010 BMW 335I Full house Sports pack
2010 BMW 335I Full house Sports pack
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