AMC V8 ENGINE HISTORY

horsepower and torque like the AMX superstock, but it had a lot less compression and wasn't as fast, so you know they had that AMX

engine

that was underrated, it had a lot more horsepower than they claimed, so 390 in the 1970 rebel machine and Some of the other full-size cars at the time were a Generation 3 high-deck block, unlike the previous 390, as they kept the hole in the race for the same. For the highest platform block, it had a diameter of 4.1 165 and remained the same. 3.57 stroke for the first 390's, they simply made adaptations for the taller block, now unfortunately the rebel machine was only made for one year which was 1970, and it was unfortunate that they offered some of the full size matadors and AMC Rebels that did pretty decently after 1970, but the rebel machine version disappeared.

One of the caveats is that if you find an original 1970 Rebel machine these days, it's actually a very rare and collectible car and there are still some of those around who really didn't build a very high volume of those cars, so many some of them fell by the wayside or were scrapped or wrecked or whatever, but there is a remnant of those cars left and they are actually very collectible in 1970, another high. The platform block that AMC produced was the 304 cubic inch

engine

. Now the 304 was produced for quite a few years from 1970 to 1981. The 304 was a very durable and reliable engine, but it was not a real power engine, the highest horsepower version was in the early '70s and '71.

It produced 210 horsepower. strength and 305 pound-feet of torque. They only came with factory two-barrel carburetors. They actually never produced a 304 with four cylinders and used them in the Javelins and various other AMC vehicles from 1970 to '81, unfortunately, like every other engine we've talked about due to EPA restrictions and regulations, the engine numbers Horsepower steadily decreased and they never produced a 304 that had as much horsepower and torque as the first two years, in fact they dropped to about 125 horsepower in the later years and in 1981 they stopped or ceased production of the 304 engine. 304 cubic inches. The 304 was also used in some Jeeps.

Now it is important not to confuse. The 304 AMC engine, the Jeep kamanche in those years also had a 304, but it was an international 304. Many people confuse it with the AMC 304, especially considering it was used in some of the other Jeeps, but the Kamachi is actually the complete engine. The Kamachi size actually got the Internet the National 304, which has nothing in common with the AMC 304 engine except for the fact that it has the same cubic inches, aside from that totally different engine in 1970, they also produced a V8 of 360 cubic. The 360 ​​had two cylinders. and four cylinder versions and it was more or less the same, it followed the same pattern as the 304, although it was a larger engine, it had more horsepower as the years went by until the 70s, the horsepower figures simply They started to slow down because of all the regulations, so of course the highest horsepower four-cylinder version of the 360 ​​was in the early years of '71 to '73, I believe, producing 290 horsepower and 390 foot-pounds of torque, now the two-cylinder version of the 360 ​​during those early years.

It was rated at 245 horsepower and 365 torque, the 360 ​​had a 4-inch bore of 80,000 and a 3-inch stroke of 440,000 and was also used in a 1970 AMX as a lower-powered version in comparison. with the higher powered 390s they offered. It was also used on the rebel and the Matador now, the other thing is that they used the 360 ​​on quite a few Jeeps at the time, in fact the 360 ​​AMC was used on the JS series Jeeps until 1991 1, even after Chrysler Corporation will buy Jeep. they still kept and used the AMC engine until '91 although the casting said 5.9 instead of 360 when Chrysler took over and then of course we talk about the 390, the high bed 390 was only made for one year which They stopped in 1972.

The 390 got a longer stroke and they produced the 401 cubic inch engine. AMC increased the stroke of the 390, which was 3574. They put in a longer stroke crank. Canon which had a 3.680% stroke was rated at 335 horsepower and 435 pound-feet of torque. This engine was used in the early 70's in the Javelin The Matador and the Ambassador. It was also used in full size Jeep jeries as well as some international trucks and travel vehicles in the early 7's. International bought some of those engines. for some of their lighter duty vehicles and was called the 400 when it was on an International engine not to be confused with the 401 International engine which was completely different, sharing the cubic inch but was an International engine.

AMC actually offered a stronger block. Version of the 401 high deck that AMC sold over the counter and was designed to be a racing block and was actually designed and used with a smaller bore in the Trans Am racing series that they offered because the TransAm series required them. use a block that was actually sold to the public, so they made it an over the counter crate engine or a block that was available for the public to purchase and that's how they got around the Trans Am rules of being a crank engine. production. Even though it was never actually produced or installed on a factory vehicle, that block was available for sale, it actually had enough meat in the mains that I could drill it out and put a four bolt main cap on it.

AMC never offered a four bolt one. factory or over-the-counter main block, but they actually sold four-bolt main caps that a machine shop could install on that block, so I thought it was a pretty interesting thing what they did to make their way into the Trans Am racing series and They were able to get away with it, even though it wasn't technically a production engine, it actually went out of production after the '78 model year, the only engine that stayed in production until, like I say, '91 was the 360. The 304 had quite a production run. well they made the 360 ​​and 304 for quite a few years until the late 80's and then the 360 ​​continued until 91, after the 360 ​​was discontinued in 1991 the AMC V8's were no more and literally the AMC.

The car company was on its last leg now. I think it's important to mention another situation that happened here because it really led to the demise of your company. They produced another vehicle between 1975 and 1980 that did not have a V8 but was a very unique car, it was called the AMC Pacer. Now the story behind the AMC Pacer is quite detailed and elaborate. I'll briefly go over what happened to that car because they spent so much money producing the AMC Pacer that it literally contributed. For the downfall of his company, the AMC Pacer was designed to be a revolutionary new car and it actually was.

It had 36% more glass area than any other car. It was a wide, round, bubbly looking car. Most of you are familiar with it. They spent many years, a lot of research and development, and a lot of money designing this car. It was actually originally designed for use with a rotary engine. Now many people don't know that General Motors had a rotary engine program for many. years into the experimental stage, they were going to build a Corvette with a rotary engine just before AMC went into production with the Pacer in 1975. GM actually canceled their rotary program and decided to discontinue it, which put AMC in a real bind because They were actually a few months into production and getting ready to use the GM press to produce these cars, they had to go back to the drawing board when GM did this and redesign a lot of the car, they had to move the firewall, they had to change the frame rails.

They had to do a lot of redesigning to fit their straight-six engine into the car, so they were able to do it, they had a straight-six engine and they went ahead and produced the car with the straight-six engine and it worked pretty well. Well, the first few years it was popular, it was a very selling car, unfortunately there were problems with the AMC Pacer, some things went wrong and the real downfall of the AMC Pacer was that two other elements of the car were that the six-cylinder engine that they put it had terrible fuel mileage there so it wasn't very fuel efficient as it was competing with the Vegas and the pintos and some of the other four cylinder cars and then even the imports that came in at the time that we were in the 30-35 miles per gallon range, while the Pacer barely got 25 on the highway and was around 1819 in the city, so it was not fuel efficient and gas prices had started to shoot. the oil embargo and that was a big disadvantage for the Pacer, a lot of people stopped buying that car just because of the bigger engine and the fact that it had poor fuel consumption.

The other problem with the Pacer is this. It's a segment of society and I'm one of those people that looks at the Pacer and says it's the ugliest car I've ever seen in my life and I'll never buy something like that, so there was the Pacer, you either loved it or you didn't. you hated but the people who hated it and thought it was super ugly, we really hated it and we would never buy that car, that was another problem that came along with the Pacer that affected its sales in 1980, sales had fallen so much. The bad thing about the Pacer is that AMC just killed it, they lost huge amounts of money on the Pacer, they gambled on the Pacer and had so much money in it that it basically put AMC on the verge of bankruptcy, they were bought out later.

Chrysler and company's initiative simply failed and they never recovered from the Pacer crash and fire. That wasn't the only reason they closed and went under, but it was a big part of it. So now the advantage of the AMC Pacer is that today the AMC Pacer, if you can find one, is actually a very collectible car and is worth a lot more than what it sold for new in most cases, ie. If they are in good condition, there are actually cars. clubs that are nothing more than AMC PAC, you can see them on YouTube, they have these car rallies, so AMC Pacer and the people that own those cars absolutely love them, people like me who have never owned one and just can't stand see him.

Many of them hate them with a passion that we really do, but you know, it is what it is. I thought about throwing it away because it was actually one of the things that caused the demise of the AMC car company, which is a shame because they had some really good engines, they had some really powerful engines, they had some cool muscle cars, the rebel AMX machine, They had a few actually and for the most part their V8s were very reliable, they were very solid and reliable engines with very few problems, it just worked. it didn't work out well for them, they didn't have the money or the capital to recover from the downturns in the economy and the regulations that were imposed on them and just the failure of that AMC beat, so that's basically the story of the AMC V8 I know there are gurus at AMC, just like any other car company, that could probably add a lot to what I said and probably correct some things I said and that's no problem, so if you have any comments or concerns or want to correct something I said, feel free free.

I'll certainly be the first to admit that I don't know everything about this. I certainly don't know everything there is to know about this, but I hope you enjoyed it because That's a pretty accurate description of the

history

of these V8s and gives you a good idea of ​​what happened with the company and what was produced, so I appreciate you watching and I'll talk to you very soon in the next series of videos that we'll look at. Jump back on the GM bandwagon and we'll look at Cadillac V8s, so my next series will be Cadillac.

Pay attention. I'm going to try to release one a week, about seven days after the debut. From this video you should see Cadillac's

history

of the V8, so stay tuned and make sure you like it. And please subscribe, it really helps to get these videos out there, it really makes a difference and I really appreciate you watching. I appreciate the subs and likes and again be sure to ask or comment anything you want below and I'll talk to you very soon, I promise.