sometimes I wonder....

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cdnEHbody

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What chrysler corp as a whole was thinking in the 70s. I know my car is only a more door valiant with a slant and I love it to bits. But it seems like in terms of stream lining the assembly line process they weren't very efficient at it. Why bother with the 7.25 rear....when the base cars could have realistically used the 8.25 as standard. How about eengineers that didn't find a way to make a 904 for the slant that would work from the v8. Even the K member on some. Seems llike a very common practice with a certain....ahem bow tie group of companies.

I love mopars in general. No trolling. Just bored and awake and can't sleep.
 
'at's occurred to some of the rest of us. How about the mounting ears on SB? And the stupid "some blocks had em" front bolt tapping for the C barg / A body big block mount?

Why did they make the 904 shorter than the 727, and then follow suit with A body 4 speeds?

I'll tell ya. "Bow tie" has had their fair share. Sometime in the late seventies / eighties, some Shovits came out with NO rad drain and NO block drains. Some of the small V6 cars were a real ***** to change plugs. Mechanics found a way, but the "official line" was to jack up the engine. GM had their share of flat cams at least in SB V8s. o

The Chevy II stickshift / clutch linkage 'special engine block" was a rather doozie, doncha think?

I've forgotten more, thank the Lord
 
Been counters. Save a dollar times millions of cars sold equals profits even when it comes to safety lawsuit vs cost of upgrade. I wish they drop the /6 in the mid sixties along with your wish of dropping the 7 1/4. I never got the motor mount thing and that one advantage of Chev is the common bellhousing. But over all I think Chrysler is better at parts swapping than Chev is look at the wiper motor on my 65 cuda when they stop using it the mid nineties lol
 
The slanty was a clean slate for the engineers in the late 50's, and the V-8's
were not as far as the 1st gen. hemi and A(poly) were concerned. The "new"B-RB"
eng. was, but was never intended to cross paths w/an A-body.Therefore everything
developed for the '60 release was engineered around packaging and the service/
application requirements.The 7 1/4 rear has been an exceptionally reliable rear in
everything it was supposed to be in, and cost less to produce/sell than the 8 3/4
by far, which was the only alternative 'till the 8 1/4 came around much later.
People bought 6cyl. A's for economy,in purchase,service, and operation. It
seems silly to us today not to have ponied up the extra $70 or so for the new LA
273 eng. option when it came out in '64,but that is how it was, and often.Why pay
for something you don't need? The LA was a lightweight update of the poly A, and
those bellhousings just don't jive,remember the slants had small flywheels and a
very convenient to change starter position, Mopar didn't give two ***** about some
gearhead 40-50 yrs. later wanting to stuff a stroker 360 w/full length headers in
'em. By the way, the 7 1/4 in my '87 V-6 Dak is still going strong at 145K, and
it's hauled more than it should've, too many times!!! :)
 
On this topic, Why have small and big bolt pattern ? I don't know?
 
If we are picking on Mopars... Here are my tiny gripes.
1 - Why does a small block have 87 water pump bolts? Chevy did it with 4 bolts.
2- why make 2 different bell housing patterns for big and small blocks?
3- two different bolt circles for wheels
I love me some Mopars... But they really weren't efficient on some stuff.
 
Gee, I don't know, why did say.... Buick use 5 on 100mm,5 on 115mm, 5 on 4.75
in., and 5 on 5.00 in. ??
Again, the A-body AND the slanty were a clean slate project aimed at being tite
lite and rite as a compact efficiency ride. It is the only reason the 4" pattern exists.
Like every car,the older they get, bigger and heavier they get.Be it a civic,altima,or
whatever, so too did the A end up porkin up 500#+. Safety requirements were only
partially responsible for that.
As to the SB WP, I have no friggin idea what they were thinkin w/the gatling-gun
snout, and convoluted bolt pattern......but they have lots of company in that dept.!!
:coffee2:
 
yep ,I agree with "273" -it's the bean counters that pollute the automotive world -why make it good when it MUST be made cheap to compete? They aren't good at risk-if they built it good but more expensive,what if nobody notices and doesn't buy the product? Ya gotta risk defeat if ya want to win,I say.
 
cdnEHbody said:
How about eengineers that didn't find a way to make a 904 for the slant that would work from the v8.
Click to expand...

Simple,the 904 didn't exist before the /6, it was built specifically for the
/6....in an A-body.If you've read anything about TF trannys, they were commonly
(by the factory as well) referred to as TF6(904), and TF8(727), and never the twain
were intended to meet. "Till people wanted an 8, and mopar finished the new lite
LA 273, then they had to adapt a /6 tranny to the V-8. The 904 was smaller, lighter
and have you actually looked at the block architecture?Same bellhousings ain't a
happenin'.
 
Ever seen a pontiac 8 lug brake drum that's also the wheel center?

Late 50's to mid 60's.

How about different engine blocks for buick, olds, pontiac, chevy and Cadillac...all the way into the 80's? Granted they all had the same trans pattern.....
 
Killer6 said:
Simple,the 904 didn't exist before the /6, it was built specifically for the
/6....in an A-body.If you've read anything about TF trannys, they were commonly
(by the factory as well) referred to as TF6(904), and TF8(727), and never the twain
were intended to meet. "Till people wanted an 8, and mopar finished the new lite
LA 273, then they had to adapt a /6 tranny to the V-8. The 904 was smaller, lighter
and have you actually looked at the block architecture?Same bellhousings ain't a
happenin'.
Click to expand...

ah. Good to know.

The small bolt pattern is a head scratcher that's for sure.
 
YY1 said:
Ever seen a pontiac 8 lug brake drum that's also the wheel center?

Late 50's to mid 60's.

How about different engine blocks for buick, olds, pontiac, chevy and Cadillac...all the way into the 80's? Granted they all had the same trans pattern.....
Click to expand...

Buick, olds and pontiac (commonly shortened to BOP) had one bellhousing pattern, and chevy has a different one. There's also a BOP specific rear end and a chevy rear, and a BOP specific carburetor, and a chevy one, etc etc. but that's referencing different companies doing different things

Different engines was done as a seperate identity thing, like not producing a mopar with a ford motor they werent cranking out pontiac tempests with small block chevies.
 
floivanus said:
Buick, olds and pontiac (commonly shortened to BOP) had one bellhousing pattern, and chevy has a different one. There's also a BOP specific rear end and a chevy rear, and a BOP specific carburetor, and a chevy one, etc etc. but that's referencing different companies doing different things

Different engines was done as a seperate identity thing, like not producing a mopar with a ford motor they werent cranking out pontiac tempests with small block chevies.
Click to expand...

Didn't the Sunbeam Tiger (Owned by Chrysler) have a ford powerplant?
 
floivanus said:
Buick, olds and pontiac (commonly shortened to BOP) had one bellhousing pattern, and chevy has a different one. There's also a BOP specific rear end and a chevy rear, and a BOP specific carburetor, and a chevy one, etc etc. but that's referencing different companies doing different things

Different engines was done as a seperate identity thing, like not producing a mopar with a ford motor they werent cranking out pontiac tempests with small block chevies.
Click to expand...


We were discussing efficiency in mass production.

While Mopar and fomoco shared powertrains, gm held on to different engine families for it's different divisions,

I argue that this is a greater sin against corporate efficiency than almost any other that we can dredge up.

...and from the conglomerate that is "famous" for "standardization", nonetheless.

They did eventually "correct" it...in the 1980's.

Corporate efficiency won out over buick torque and Pontiac head design.
...and saturn innovation.

[spin]

I just realized you were suggesting gm engine design differences were akin to ford motors in Mopars.

gm was one corporation.

ford was a separate corp.

Chrysler was another separate corp.

Not at all the same.
 
After 39 years on the automotive assembly line I have come to learn one thing and there is a reason for it......thats it, theres a reason for it.
 
Years back i asked a gm rep why they didnt have a test port for fuel pressure on their tbi trucks.

Basic answer was 'ten cents' IIRC
 
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