You asked for it!

The CFI existed for one reason only - to help the smallblock V8 in the Z/28, Trans Am and Corvette meet emissions.

As I mentioned, the system used two 4 banger throttle bodies. Since GM had the tooling bought and paid for on the old Z/28 Crossram manifold, they wanted the CFI system based on that. Well, it's one thing to have two Holley 800 cfm carbs on a screaming 7,500 rpm suedo-race engine, and completely another when you have two 275 cfm TB's on an emissions legal daily driver. For one, the intake runners and ports needed to be drastically narrowed in order to keep intake velocity up. This had the effect choking off any air over 4500 rpm.
Balancing the TB and fuel distribution was also problematic. Both because of how the TB's needed to be positioned on the old Crossram design, but also because each TB required it's own IAC. If one IAC was having a bad day, the rudimentary computer would send it a signal to quicken it's step. Unfortunately, the same signal would also go to other IAC - which didn't need any changes. As you can imagine, that could lead to a poor idle quality, even driveability issues.
The system was also very susceptible to vacuum leaks, especially between the intake manifold base and top plate.
As these engines aged, all of these issues become exacerbated. No wonder so few are still left in original condition. Who wants to figure all that crap out?

Louis Cuttitta, the chief engineer on the engine, felt that he could have fixed all of those issues, but GM wouldn't let him deviate from the basic design for cost reasons.

Long story short - development of TPI was underway immediately after CFI's release, so no further work was done on it. TPI is essentially the port fuel injected version of it - *with improvements*.




The only way to describe how my Crossfire ran when I bought it was - like poop. It runs waaaaaaaaaaaaay better now, but I'm still tweaking. On a cool evening, with the t-tops off, when you put your foot into the throttle, and the hood flaps open up and you hear the motor suck in a big gulp of fresh air, it's pretty cool. I still wish it were a stick though.

 

Thanks for the story. That explains quite a lot that I'd never known.

The story reminds me of the way that GM used to work, and why it was a good idea to wait a year or two to buy a new design.

To be fair, emissions development was much harder back then, with nearly annual changes in emission standards and fuel economy standards. Back then all cars had to meet one emission limit, and it would be phased in all at once. Now, there are several different levels (or bins) that cars can meet, and new standards are phased in over a few years. That makes a huge difference to the engineering and manufacturing organizations.

 

Good info Charlie.

Back to Pontiac, I can't help but wonder if the rumored RWD renaissance would have pulled the brand out of obscurity. It would have been risky for sure, but I think it would have been awesome to have a 3 or 4 model line up with a 4 cylinder alpha, AWD epsilon, and RWD zeta.

 

You know, something like what Pontiac was really needed a leader with not only vision and passion, but also *****, to navigate GM's corporate bureaucracy. Over the past 2 or 3 decades, Pontiac came to many forks in the road, and usually took the one of least resistance. Imagine if DeLorean was king of Pontiac for life. Would the aforementioned 3rd gen Firebirds have been more distinctive in their powertrains? As HuJass mentioned, the Fiero was to get it's own top motor. IIRC it was to be an all aluminum, turbo version, of the 2.8L V6 (punched out to 2.9L) with about 290 hp. No way was Corvette going to let that happen without a fight. I can imagine if DeLorean was in charge, him pounding his fist on everyone's desk until Fiero got that motor.

No guts, no glory. When Pontiac's leaders showed no guts, Pontiac lost it's glory.

 

I think all of GM was better when the divisions fought tooth and nail to "out do" each other. Competition improves the breed, and what better competition than you're own sister company down the hall?

 

Just to add, yes the laughably narrow ports were the biggest performance hindrance, it also suffered from horrendous fuel distribution issues. TBI doesn't really atomize fuel very well, nowhere near as well as a carb. Add all that surface area in the manifold for it to condense on, and the turn getting from the plenum into the runners and you just had a recipe for disaster.

And now back to your regularly scheduled programming

290hp keep dreaming, it took 20 years for GM to kick out a turbo engine with 100hp/liter. Even the 1989 turbo grand prix only made 205 HP and that was from the 3.1L (yes i cheated and looked it up, and it was done out of house by ASC/Mclaren who knew a thing or 2 about turbos, eh?). And has there ever been an aluminum block version of the 60' V6 in a production car?

 

Fuel distribution was a huge issue. Under certain conditions, fuel will actually "puddle" in the intake. Performance-wise, Cuttitta developed the stop gap L-69, until TPI was ready. Essentially throwing a Q-jet and new exhaust (and afew other improvements) on the LU5. It was enough to keep the Z/28 and Trans Am competitive with the Mustang GT.

I'll tell you though, now-a-days, people are really getting these CFI cars to run pretty great. It takes some work though.

As far as the Fiero's V6, yes this was pie in the sky rumor mill stuff. Whatever the engine's final certified output would have been - it was kiiled.

 

I'm gonna make this short and sweet (since the board DELETED my long winded reply)

Pontiac's death was a combination of things, and it was a long time coming.

1) The homogenization of the divisions started the spiral. Pontiac was always the 'rogue' division that benefitted the most from it's "freedom" both technically and figuratively (marketing & image)

2) The Aztek (2001) was a huge misstep. And while it didn't kill the division, it muddied the image enough to get 'common' people talking negatively about Pontiac and questioning.

3) Failure to fully capitalize on the Vibe (2002). Vibe could've been HUGE and could've established a whole new entry level buyer for the franchise.

4) The death of the last TRUE Pontiac (in terms of image and marketability) the Firebird Trans Am (2002). Many of us "kids" couldn't afford them, but we aspired to own them and they clearly conveyed what Pontiac truly was.

5) The introduction of the GTO (2004) which was supposed to be a Buick (original plans were to import Holdens through Buick a long time ago) and ended up being what an Oldsmobile wanted to be. GTO was an awesome car, but it WAS NOT a "Pontiac" Throw in GM's typical dumbass marketing efforts on top of that and it hurt the brand instead of helping.

6) The introduction of the cheap, unappealing, sedan only final GP (2004) was the TRUE beginning of the end IMO. The former 'wide track' GP had a huge following and was a substantial car. Volume car number 1 bites the dust.

7) GM tried to make Pontiac become Oldsmobile (circa 2005). Say what you will about the cladding and it's image, but GM sold a lot of "boyracer" Pontiacs with a lot of cladding. When GM revised most of the line to be less aggressive and started trying to make Pontiac fight BMW, the huge marketing disconnect started.

8) The introduction of the G6 (2005) and it's subsequent guaranteed failure. The program had been so cheapened and the car was so bland that it's was obsolete when it hit the market. By now other brands such as Mazda had perfected the 'Pontiac formula' and were executing it much better than Pontiac itself. This failure was doubly ensured by the higher price of the G6 relative to the Grand Am (remember GM wanted Eps 1 to "grow" the customer like Toyota and Honda did with the Camcordrollavic) That priced the car out of the target demographic. On top of all this, the rollout was horribly slow and it introduced the new and forgettable alphanumerics that GM didn't have the $$$ to market properly to begin with. This was the deathblow IMO. So dies G6 or the G6 program, so dies Pontiac.

9) (Circa 2005) GM hits the first big financial crisis and the Pontiac and Buick names are said to be "damaged" throwing all future plans into chaos. Pontiac is rumored to soon be a Scion-like entity. Shortly after that the cancellation of the NA Zeta program left Pontiac with ZERO products and caused an already broke GM (SEE: the main reason for the cancellation of NA Zeta anyway: GM's bad financials) to 'cobble' together a line up.

10) The G8, (2008) although a great car and a success considering the situation was neither a "Pontiac" nor a volume car to support the volume channel/division that was Pontiac at the time. In hindsight, dare I say Pontiac would've been better served with a SUBSTANTIALLY updated G6?.

11) GM's desire to finally become a true global company (circa 2007-2008) found Pontiac orphaned because it was not a global division and it essentially served the same purpose as Chevrolet, only less efficiently. As a result, Pontiac is dropped from the Alpha program (the afore mentioned death of the G6 program) and 90% of what hope was left for the division evaporates overnight.

12) GM, in dire financial straits, decides Pontiac is expendable in theory, (circa 2008) but not quite in sales volume (yet) so they tack the name onto the 'survival plan'. They figure they'll either follow through with the plan to wind it down, or via a small miracle and better financial times, revive the division as the niche it was supposed to become (after 5-6 years of theoretically 'leaving it hanging')

13) Obama and his minions tell GM that IF they're going to clean house, they need to clean the house now. Not in 5 years.

From there on out, millions of Pontiac fans such as me were slapped in the face as the name was disgraced and thrown out with the trash without so much as a bit of remorse. That about sums it up... Still pretty wordy, but hey...

*all dates are approximate and from memory.

 

I don't see what you guys found so great about the previous GP. Neither the '97 nor the '04 were appealing to me, but of the two I liked '04 better. The late model GP GXP actually was a valiant attempt at a FWD sport sedan.

 

At the time that Oprah did that I was selling VW/Mazdas we got a couple of those G6's on trade.

 

GP GXP most underated car IMO. Best Wbody ever made.

 

I disagree with theses two. The GTO was defiantly a Pontiac, it just wasn't a GTO. It would have received less backlash if it was called Pontiac Monaro.

G8 was the most Pontiac car at Pontiac in 2008. RWD, bold styling, V8 options. Naming again hurt this great car. It needed to be called Grand Prix. This was the Grand Prix that Grand Prix fans had been waiting their whole lives for and then GM changed the name on them

 

I never heard about the turbo motor, but the 3.4 DOHC was to go into the 1989 reskin. Some pics I had laying around my hard drive ...

 

Charlie,
You have a good memory of the 2.9 turbo engine proposed for the Fiero, your hp numbers were dead on. From what I recall, they wanted that engine as early as 1985. I remember one car that said "Porsche Eater" on its rear tailights. Here is a link to a story about the 2.9 turbo fiero: http://www.realfierotech.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=5883


Hulki Aldicati tried to push the corporate envelope for Pontiac. They were testing numerous Fiero's with v8's. Word has it, they raced an alum chassis v8 Fiero at Milford versus a Corvette. The Fiero blew the doors off the Vette, when important people were there from downtown. The next day, that Fiero was ordered crushed.

In the GTP racing class, the Fiero GTP won the Manufacturers Championship in 1987 and 1988, I am sure the Corvette entries were not happy losing to them.

The 89 prototype shown here was still built on the 88 spaceframe, they just added an extension to the frame.

 

It looked better than a Monte Carlo or Lumina of its time period. Chevy was still running their 1.5 generation w-body while Pontiac and Buick had Gen 2. It didnt appeal to everyone but I sure loved it. Lots of young adults were into them buying them upon graduating college. Which GM killed with the 04 refresh. It just didnt fit the image pontiac had created the previous 5 years.

Also GPs were way faster than anything Chevy had to offer a fwd buyer. A true performance car of that segment with a decent aftermarket following.

I remember reading awhile back that when the W-body debuted, Gm originally tried to put a v8 in the Lumina, but they didnt have a fwd trans that could hold together. Same thing for the 2000 impala debut. The trans from the Caddy was to big and GM wouldnt put forth the funds to build the fwd trans for v8 torque.