'62 at Muncie(test and tune)

[bill dedman]

Originally Posted by Hemi Moose

Are you looking for another Pontiac or any old car from the 60's to do up...why not letter up the one you have now with some graphics & give it a nasty name...it sure would look cool.

There was a Pontiac salesman from England, Arkansas, named Charlie Micthell, who ran a string of high-performance full-size Pontiacs in the late-'50s/early '60s. His cars were always REAL fast. But the one that always stood out in mt mind was a '61 Ventura with a Tri-Power 389 that had some sort of dealer-installed, solid-lifter package that was rated at 363 horsepower. It's not in the classification guide right now (and I'm not 100% sure if it ever was) but that car ran within 2-tenths of his later, 1962, 410hp 421, which had a lot more carburetion (two 4's.) I seem to remember that it had an aluminum intake manifold.
Could be wrong about that; it was 50 years ago...

I just wondered if any of you Pontiac guys have ever tried to get that specific engine approved for Stock Eliminator, or at least, Super Stock?

Or, would parts for that very special motor just be too hard to find?

Charlie was REALLY hard to beat when he had that car...

Thanks for any information!

[BlueOval Ralph]

The 363 was in at one time about the same time Cheby released the 61 409 as I remember the cam was the McKealer 8 or 9

[Hemi Moose]

Originally Posted by brent flynn

thought about callin' it "Stormbringer"...too bad its not a Tempest!

Well if you find an old Tempest paint it black as well and you can call it the "Storm Trooper" just like Ted Nugents old song...

[Rich Biebel]

McKeller cams were over the counter or dealer installed options.
Pontiac had HP ratings for them going back into the 50's.
They were solid lifter cams and pretty hot for the era.
Cam, lifters and springs got changed
All the non production line combos were knocked out in 1968 or there abouts.....
There was a number of those cams and they were designated by numbers as Ralph said.....I think there was about 3 different grinds that were legal at one time.
Pontiac labeled their real high perf. engines with a T designation....Like in Trophy.....

T-395
T425

They had some real nice cast exhaust manifolds and I tried to buy them for my '58 Pontiac street car......Much less restrictive form std and bigger......Never could get it from my local Pontiac dealer by the mid 60's so I worked with what I had.....

I was hooked on Pontiacs in my teenage years.....GTO's were too new for my budget so something from the 50's was what I had to stay with

My '58 Pontiac was driven to the track and ran in the 14's.
Stock shortblock.

[Bunkster]

I believe this is Roy Dean, from Ohio, in a 421 stick car. Good grief, these were neat automobiles!

[BlueOval Ralph]

There were a lot of McKeller cams in production as he was the # 1 cam designer at
Pontiac as I have been told he also did some corporate designs from time to time.

Originally Posted by Rich Biebel

McKeller cams were over the counter or dealer installed options.
Pontiac had HP ratings for them going back into the 50's.
They were solid lifter cams and pretty hot for the era.
Cam, lifters and springs got changed
All the non production line combos were knocked out in 1968 or there abouts.....
There was a number of those cams and they were designated by numbers as Ralph said.....I think there was about 3 different grinds that were legal at one time.
Pontiac labeled their real high perf. engines with a T designation....Like in Trophy.....

T-395
T425

They had some real nice cast exhaust manifolds and I tried to buy them for my '58 Pontiac street car......Much less restrictive form std and bigger......Never could get it from my local Pontiac dealer by the mid 60's so I worked with what I had.....

I was hooked on Pontiacs in my teenage years.....GTO's were too new for my budget so something from the 50's was what I had to stay with

My '58 Pontiac was driven to the track and ran in the 14's.
Stock shortblock.

[brent flynn]

some engine pics...its not a show car will try to get some bird engine pics tomorrow eve...thanks!

[bill dedman]

Originally Posted by BlueOval Ralph

The 363 was in at one time about the same time Cheby released the 61 409 as I remember the cam was the McKealer 8 or 9

Thanks for that, Ralph. If it was in the Classification guide at one time, I don't understand how it got deleted from the book. Can anyone here explain how that happens?

That car was not a lightweight package, but it was really fast, for the time. I don't know if the heads were different (from the 425-A, 348hp heads) but I do remember that it said "prepared by Ray Nichels Engineering" (A NASCAR guy, at the time) on the front fender. That was a last-gasp efort from the 389 (before the 421 was realeased.)

I just thought with all the interest in nostalgia racing nowadays, this would be a good candidate, if it were a legal combination for Stock Eliminator, since it was so formidible, back in the day... It won a lot of races, and was just gorgeous!

[Hemi Moose]

Just curious but are these actual photos of the car tinkered with somehow, what is this term called in the photography circle or how do they do that...

[chris ok]

Stormbringer- Deep Purple- Richie Blackmore-Fender Stratocaster. Whew......

Great looking car. Real cars have chrome bumpers!!!!!