On 3/30/2010 10:22 AM, Tim Wescott wrote:

There's an interesting Wikipedia article on the origins of the Chevy
Vega. Apparently it was designed by GM corporate engineering, and shoved
down Chevy's throat. Chevy wasn't allowed to make _any_ engineering
changes, they were very grudging about building the thing, and that was
a huge part of the problem.

Apparently the wear point on the Vega engine wasn't the cylinder walls
at all -- it was the valve guides*. But the oil leakage** got blamed on
the cylinder walls because who could believe in an aluminum cylinder
bore? For it's size it's certainly a damn strong engine.

* Which were as new and innovative as the rest of the engine, just
wrong. If you're going to make something that's new and innovative,
identify the parts that _need_ to be new and innovative, and do the
_rest_ of the thing with old reliable technology. Then when that works,
go back and innovatize the rest of the thing, one system element at a time.


That was only 2 of the trifecta of problems with that engine. The last
problem was the Vega engine cooked it's oil to a tar like sludge in a
short amount of time. I've also heard that and oil cooler didn't help
much because part of the problem was in that oil pooled in the cylinder
head too long and picked up too much heat there.

Tony