You guys are good! Yesterday we asked you to identify the mystery crankshaft that we saw at the machine shop the other day. While it took you a few guesses to get there, the masses eventually nailed it as a Pontiac 301 crank. Specifically, this one was from a turbocharged 301 which was a slightly different animal than the standard issue 301 in the fact that it had a beefier block, a tiny cam, a carb with different jetting for the turbo, and its own freak show of an intake manifold that you’ll see below. The turbo engines were rated at 205hp and a mildly impressive 345 lb/ft of torque. The numbers sound kind of sad today but with respect to other factory offerings in 1980 and 1981, that was actually pretty stout.

We had never seen the inside of this 301 Pontiac engine before so it was a happy surprise to see this one going together. The cylinder heads are comically bad with siamese ports that are barely large enough to fit your fingers into. Moving up, the intake manifold was a cast iron lump that looks like it flows air about as well as the pellet style catalytic converter that the engine was trying to breathe out of. Believe it or not, the rough inspiration for this engine came from the short deck 303ci race engine program of the early 1970s where Pontiac was trying to develop a small block to compete in the Trans-Am series with. The 301 was the last “real” Pontiac engine produced and it ended production in 1981.

SCROLL DOWN TO SEE THE INNARDS OF THIS 301 AND THEN TAKE A LOOK AT TODAY’S CHALLENGE – NAME THE BLOCK!

HERE’S TODAY’S CHALLENGE –