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Engine Porn (beyond ... saturation)


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Mixing the good with the bad....

Vega Cosworth

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The original Vega was just fine, until the Budgeteers took over from the engineers !  The head gasket was supposed to be stainless steel because of the aluminum to head bake.  The $ buck meisters insisted on a cheaper head gasket.  The net result was that only 3 of the 4 Death Valley test cars made it !  So ! "they passed on their 'savings' " to the unsuspecting buyer public !  "Hey, we'll paid for your new head gasket, but the secondary failure of the engine block is your responsibility" just like their transmission warranty  that replaced the outer case but left the gasket and ruined gears up to your expense to replace.  Not technically fraud, but at least disinformation on the sales sticker .  I still appreached my 1955 Bel Aire sedan and my 1964 Corvair.

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A fine example of Big Three compared to Made in Japan. We wanted economy cars... we were given pieces of shit and told we were lucky to get that.  Only Vegas I gave seen in the last 40 years were V8, that's the only thing that kept them on the road. Vagas were probably the biggest turd GM ever made.

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The only known car to start developing body rust while sitting in a dealer's show room.

The only engine (standard vega) that had an exhaust egr passage running full length of the head, right next to the main oil passage.

And people wondered why the valve seals failed so quickly, and they started blowing smoke so soon....

 

I seen people putting V8s in them as soon as they hit the used car lots, only to find that the unibodies were so weak, that a good romp on the throttle would break the windshields, and cause the doors to pop open.

The only way to get even moderate power to work in them was by going to a full cage.

 

Don't know Mike, they have a history of putting out turds, like the Corvair, and just about all their front wheel drive cars, except maybe the Toronado.

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I think the blocks used a special silicon/aluminum alloy (somewhat like hypereutectic pistons) to avoid using sleeves that wore the rings out prematurely. It wasn't completely perfected yet and you couldn't simply over bore them. They were bad oil burners.

 

And this reminds me that a co worker DID have one in the mid '80s, but it had the replacement 'Iron Duke' block in it.... and it did run very well.

 

 

The Fierro had a bad name but I liked the looks. They should have had a turbo V6 option.

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I think the blocks used a special silicon/aluminum alloy (somewhat like hypereutectic pistons) to avoid using sleeves that wore the rings out prematurely. It wasn't completely perfected yet and you couldn't simply over bore them. They were bad oil burners.

 

 

 

The blocks were indeed a special Aluminum with silicon nodules mixed in for the piston rings to slide on.  You "could" overbore the block but then had to acid etch the new bore to reveal the silicon nodules.  When GM abandoned the Vega they sold the Al and Silicon design to Porsche which I believe Porsche still uses.

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