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NHRA Pontiac History
A Long, Proud History

By: Bruce Fulper
Rock & Roll Engineering
Grand Torrance, California

God bless Bunkie Knudsen and John DeLorean. Without those two guys Pontiac Motor Division may have never become the icon of late 1950s thru early 1970s high performance Pontiacs. They were the guys that ok’d the development of the original high performance parts such as the dual quad 316 in 1956, and of course the immortal 421. In 1955 Bunkie saw how successful Chevrolet was becoming using Smokey Yunick to develop and build those early Stovebolts for NASCAR. Then he saw Arnie Beswick win Stock Eliminator at the first Winternationals in Florida circa 1958 with a new tri-power 370 incher. So it was “off to the drag races” for Pontiac. While I’ll have a NASCAR counterpart on our new PontiacRegistry.com site keeping you up on the “turn left” end of Pontiac racing, I’ll be reporting on Pontiacs in drag racing and technical data for the early traditional V-8. If you have anything new to share please feel free to contact me at IndyWinner@dslextreme.com.

As an engine builder that thinks about engine design, I am impressed with many of the original Pontiac engineers’ ideas. Pontiac was one of, if not the first, to place a scallop at the top of the cylinder directly in line with the intake valves opening to promote better breathing by providing less valve shrouding. Folks, we’re talking 1953 or ‘54 here. Then, for the 1956 engine they said “Let’s add a second four barrel carb and a bigger cam.” Thus the first dual quad Pontiac production car debuted.

That was 1956. The engine was 316 cubes via a 3.937 bore and a 3.250 stroke. It was rated at 285 hp. Not too much is recorded in the way of performance results with that engine. We know Pontiac raced it on “the Beach” in Daytona Florida, which was a top speed only contest, but I’ve yet to find any drag racing results. If you have something please let me know so we can add it to the archives. But, let’s revisit that bore and stroke for a minute. Again, this is 1956. Chevrolet saw what Pontiac was doing and decided to come out with a larger engine, but it took them two years. They may have found out that Pontiac was delivering 347 cubes for 1957, which was the same bore as the 316 but the stroke was increased to 3.562. This change could be a trend towards more low rpm torque versus higher rpm horsepower. After all, the Pontiac engineers knew that it’s torque that accelerates you quickly. Horsepower is needed for top speed endurance.

Chevy wasn’t going to sit by and let their 283 get kicked around anymore so for 1958 they developed their famed 348. Their trend was to use a huge, by current standards, 4.125 bore and a smaller diameter less friction making stroke of 3.250. Good bottom end design, but they didn’t have a good head to feed it. Alas it was too little too late as in 1958 Pontiac had raised their cubes to 370. Pontiac had leap frogged ahead of the competition again. This time Pontiac opened the bore to 4.092 while leaving the stroke at 3.562. The extra stroke and cubes gave the 348 grief.

By now you sharp gearheads are thinking, if the dual quads were so good, why did PMD start building the tri-power in 1957. Again I turn to PMD’s intelligent design. Simply, they were in the business of selling LOTS of cars, not just a few hot rods. The tri-power gave the family sedan a two-barrel to drive around town, but when you stomped on it those two end carbs gave you a huge whomp in the bucket. Or put more scientifically, the manifold science at the time was adequate to develop terrific power with three two-barrels while being very efficient for every day driving. Consequently, while very few people knew of the dual quad 316, the high unit sales for 1957 made the tri-power a hot topic. The engineers were kicking butt. They made the engines larger and the tri-power better every year. Bigger jets in the 1961 thru 1965 years and finally three huge carbs in 1966. The ‘66 setup was the daddy of all Pontiac tri-powers. The best factory Pontiac tri-power ever made. Although, it’s worth noting that Oldsmobile did Pontiac one better in 1966 with their one year only 442 tri-power unit that used the same carbs. It had an easily switchable heat crossover block-off built right into the top of the intake. A very slick idea.

While we all know some of the other early Pontiac racers by name, Mickey Thompson was first and foremost the most innovative and impressive racer directly involved with Pontiac Motor Divisions drag racing efforts. In my next installment I’ll show you M/T’s first Pontiac powered dragster. I bet ya never seen this one. (1960)

Stay tuned for more....

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