301T owners defend your engine!

[b4black]

301T onwers defend your engine!

Another one fo those "Worst engine ever built" Lounge threads and the 301T has already been named!
http://www.turbobuick.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=63082

Didn't Hot Rod magazine rate it the #1 worst? I think it should be called #1 most misunderstood engine.

 

[81nascar]

I think It's a lost cause to try to convince these guys about the 301. While I agree it's not the best engine design. It's not exactlly the worst engine ever built. I think you are right to say that it is misunderstood. Most of those engines ran very well for a long time. They idle pretty good and got good gas milage(which was there pupose). It was never designed to be a drag car. You have to look at the car for what it is. A light weight engine made the car feel more neutral and it handled better. I manily speak of the turbo motor as it was more heavy duty and had better performance. Not mention a 301 turbo could shut down the 403 Olds and with a couple of small mods and turning up the boost can take out the 400 Pontiac of that era(77-79 in stock form). I am convinced that one guy had a 301 turbo and rapped the piss out of it and it blew up and then told everyone that it was junk and now it seems that's what people go off of. Look at Neil. He went 13's his first run with hardley any money into it. The only thing he purchased new was a cam. He only runs stock engine parts with stock intake and heads. That's a pretty good time considering what he had to work with. BTW most of thw 301's that I see usually have way over 100,000 miles on them and they are still going. Not bad for a p.o.s. motor. There will be alot of 400 T/A's that will get a suprise from me this summer so I will just let them keep talking and then ask them to put up or shut up. My car is done on a budget ,so if I get beat then no big deal. Hey it's just a 301,but it sure made you sweat it for a minute didn't it?

 

[80TTAPaceCar]

They can talk all they want wait till i get my Heads back from KRE

 

[Neil Smedley]

There were thousands of Caddilac owners that got screwed in the eighties with the 4100 Caddy engine...now if you want to talk about a piece of crap.........................

 

[Neil Smedley]

I put the previous post up BEFORE i read the worst engine list.....lol

 

[Joe 1320]

The main problem I had with the 301....... keeping it together at over 350 HP. They would spin bearings, throw rods, etc..... I did manage to get a full weight 79 firebird into the 12s with the 301. That was with a decent shot of nitrous, gears and converter.

 

[81nascar]

80TTAPaceCar what did you have done to your heads if I may ask? Who KRE? I would have ported mine and put bigger valves in it ,but after looking at the ports I didn't feel I could justify the cost or the time(but that's just me). I figured I would just give it more boost to make up for the flow. Any chance you'll get some flow numbers on those heads? Anyway good luck.

 

[pat83t]

Originally posted by Joe 1320
The main problem I had with the 301....... keeping it together at over 350 HP. They would spin bearings, throw rods, etc..... I did manage to get a full weight 79 firebird into the 12s with the 301. That was with a decent shot of nitrous, gears and converter.

From what I understand the buick 231's would spin bearings quite often also. That was the down fall of mine. I was reading in the Buick Powersource manual that this was due to small oil passages in the block not allowing enough oil flow. They suggested drilling the oil passages out to 3/8 inch and chamfering the crank. This book was wrote by the same engineers that built the buick indy motors, so they can't be too bad of guys.

P.S. I followed thier advice and seemed to help oil pressure.

 

[80TTAPaceCar]

81nascar check your email

 

[elk93001]

I'm glad to see that the Quad 4 is listed. Not only is this engine a piece, but fixing the garbage that breaks (ie head gasket/ water pump change) made me want to run the car down the hill and into a tree.

The Chrysler/Mitsu 3.0 engine is pretty junky. I like the "Uncle Buck trail of oil smoke" they leave.

On the other hand, I have a N/A 301 and it has given me 165,000+ miles trouble free. Doesn't even burn oil and still has good compression ( I have had this engine checked over to make sure that it was ok since it didn't burn any oil). I only have 2 bbl on it, but it accelerates pretty good for an everyday driver. Gas mileage: I did get about 31 MPG on a trip from CT to Harrisburg PA. I didn't believe it myself until I did a return trip and got similar results. It also has minimal emissions junk on it: No air pump, not alot of vacuum lines etc.
This engine is easy to work on. It's too bad GM didn't put more development into this engine instead of that junky 4100. Maybe some of the weakness could have been corrected.



B4Black, you are absolutely right, a misunderstood engine. For the times: 1979, a second oil crisis, CAFE standards increasing, pollution standards getting stricter, the 301 isn't all that bad.

The GM 3.8 V6 is by far the best engine ever designed. The day they quit making those will be a very sad one. As sad as the last turbo Buick.

 

[1badTTA]

Read my post on the 3rd page.