1963 Pontiac Tempest LeMans - "Oh, This Old Thing?"

[Ed Blown Vert]

1963 Pontiac Tempest LeMans - "Oh, This Old Thing?"
Hot rodders have always been fascinated with sleepers. More than just about anyone, we have a special appreciation for the car that looks like junk but goes like stink. Somehow going fast just seems more special in a car that looks slow. Ha ha, fooled you-you lose, pal. Sleepers and sandbagging are woven into hot rod mythology: Recall the little Nash Rambler, the hot rod Lincoln, the little old lady from Pasadena. She's my little Deuce coupe, you don't know what I got.
So maybe it's just our shady background, lurking in the back alleys of the motoring world as we do, but hot rodders love to see the rat sneak in and steal the cheese. All this was driven home to us once again by the reader reaction to Kurt Urban's outrageous green '72 Nova ("Sucker's Bet," Nov. '06.) It was crusty on the outside, tricked out to the nines on the inside, and you guys went nuts over it just like we did. A car that devious becomes a legend in its own time.
We know you are going to like this car too-it's really sneaky. But the funny thing is, Rob Freyvogel and Tom Napierkowski didn't set out to build a sleeper with their '63 Pontiac LeMans. Rob says it just sort of evolved that way. (Rob has since bought out Tom's half of the car so Tom could move on to his next project.) For example, note the two big honking turbochargers, hidden away out of sight under the rear of the car. That wasn't premeditated; the location was forced by the Tempest's tight engine bay. "There was no place else to put them," says Rob. But since the Pontiac Y-body (same basic platform as the Corvair) was originally equipped with a transaxle out back, there was ample room for the turbos and associated plumbing under the floorpan's rear kickup.
Then there's the scabby red paint-the very same paint, bleached and peeling, that was on the car when Rob and Tom found it out in the California desert. The Tempest body shell, minus its engine and driveline, was resting on top of another car when they dragged it away for $400. As the project was approaching completion, Rob says, "We really were going to paint the car, but then we thought, No, this is good the way it is. This way we don't have to worry about scratching it every time we lean over a fender." There's another reason we are drawn to sleepers: Here function rules over form. It's not about looking good. It's about running good, and we can respect that.
So the LeMans was originally built not so much to scam anyone, but to have some fun, to serve as a testbed for Rob and Tom's homebrewed performance inventions, and to do it without spending a ton of money. The engine is a 427 big-block Chevy that he says is "mainly circle-track flea market stuff." A Lunati steel crank, Eagle rods, and 0.030-over SLP pistons with 8.5:1 compression ratio make up the short-block. The heads are Brodix Big Brodies, while the intake is an old Holley Strip Dominator with some porting work. Bullet Racing Cams supplied the mechanical roller grind with 0.630-inch lift, 246-degree duration, and 116-degree lobe separation. The headers are homemade tri-Ys. There's nothing terribly outlandish here; the big power is in the turbocharger system.
It's funny how things come full circle. Back in the early '60s when rodders began to experiment with turbos, the blowers themselves were mainly pirated from diesel truck and tractor engines. That was essentially the only supply path at the time. Now, 40 years later, guys are finding that it is the cheapest path. The Holset HT3B turbos on the LeMans are from a Cummins-powered earthmover, and "you can buy them all day on eBay for 150 bucks each," says Rob. (Rebuild kits are $40.) A big fat charge cooler resides in the trunk, adjacent to an insulated plastic picnic cooler that carries the ice water. "It really works nice," Rob says. "It doesn't sweat all over the place and make a big mess like an aluminum tank will." The remote rear turbo installation was mulled over carefully. "At first we thought it would produce turbo lag, so then we figured maybe that would help launch the car off the line. But in practice we haven't experienced any significant turbo lag." The aft-mounted turbos also aid weight distribution. "You can add 100 to 150 pounds to the nose of the car or to the rear of the car," Rob observes sagely.
Rob manages the fuel delivery with a FAST control unit driving a set of eight Bosch 60-lb/hr injectors, while the ignition system includes Rob's own Frankenstein-inspired ignition amplifier that consumes 50 amperes. Yikes. "When you are working with high boost levels and combustion pressures you need lots of spark," Rob says. A mechanical engineer whose company supplies textured carbide coatings, Rob has launched another business, Engine Logic Systems, to develop his high-output ignition, which he calls Variable Spark Injection. Triggering eight OMC outboard marine coils with a 70:1 turn ratio ("I find they really hold up," he says) Rob can hike up the primary circuits to 620 volts for racing, then back them down to 250 volts for cruising to give the secondary insulation a break. The system is configured to operate at double-spark up to 2,000 rpm and single-spark thereafter.
With its flexible fuel-mapping capability, the LeMans has been run on everything except fondue fuel: pump gas, race gas, methanol, E85 ethanol, and Rob's current favorite, E98 ethanol. "It's nice because you don't need as much volume as with methanol," he says. And along with the greater energy density, the E98 makes plenty of power, has a wide and forgiving tuning window, is lots cheaper than race gas, and has decent availability in Rob's part of the world. Western Pennsylvania is Sprint Car country, and he learned about the fuel driv-ing in a limited Sprint series that runs LS1 spec engines on E98. So while the Tempest may appear socially irresponsible from nearly every other angle, its carbon footprint is comparatively minuscule.
Early on in the learning curve the LeMans was strapped to the chassis dyno, where it made 875 hp at the rear wheels at 22 psi boost. With some tuning experience under his belt, Rob now calculates that he can make 1,162 flywheel horsepower at 5,800 rpm with 27 psi. And he's confident he can turn the screw up to 30 or 32 pounds if need be. At 25 psi Rob has run a best of 9.86 at 149 mph, and that was "banging, popping, and missing all the way down the track," he says. Rob knows there's more there to be had with additional tweaking, but the next order of business is to install a full rollcage so he can be both quick and safe. That addition will negate much of the car's sleeper image, but as Rob sees it he has no choice. "A rollcage just screams race car, but it has to happen," he says. But that's OK because the Tempest is still go for its original mission: having fun and inventing new ways to go fast. "I love this," Rob says. "This is how guys did it back in the '50s. This is basic hot rodding-doing stuff on your own."
Quick Inspection:
'63 Pontiac Tempest LeMans
Rob Freyvogel
Butler, PA
POWERTRAIN
Engine: In 1963 the Tempest LeMans was powered by a 326ci Pontiac V-8. The engine in the car now may be painted blue, but it's no Pontiac. That's a 427 big-block Chevy with a 0.030-inch overbore and Brodix aluminum heads. The build is on the conservative side to accommodate the pair of Holset turbos stashed away under the rear of the car. The homemade 4-2-1 headers use 2-inch primary tubes and 3-inch collectors, while the throttle body is a 1,600-cfm airdoor from Electromotive.
Power: The car made 875 hp at the rear wheels on a chassis dyno, but that was early on the development curve. Based on the car's e.t. and trap speed, Rob now estimates that he has over 1,100 hp available.
Transmission: Rob axed the Tempest's original drivetrain configuration, an odd setup that employed a rear-drive transaxle and enclosed driveshaft. He opted instead for a GM Turbo 400 with a transbrake and electronically actuated valvebody.
Rearend: Rob says he learned about the virtues of the '57-'64 Olds-Pontiac rear axle reading HOT ROD. His uses a Strange 35-spline spool and axles with a 3.08 ring-and-pinion.
CHASSIS
Frame: Except for a pair of fabricated subframe connectors, the Tempest's unitbody structure is stock and original.
Suspension: While the front suspension is stock, the rear now employs coilover spring/shock assemblies and a pair of Chassis Engineering ladder bars.
Brakes: The rotors and calipers are Wilwood Super Lights, while the master cylinder and power booster are from an '86 Buick Grand National-no engine vacuum required.
Wheels: The steel rear wheels- 9x15s using the GM big-car 5x5 bolt pattern-were custom-built by Stockton Wheel Service in Stockton, California. The front steelies are 14-inch GM stockers, and Pontiac dog-dish hubcaps are installed on all four corners.
Tires: Hoosier 28.5x10.5 Quick Times are on the rear, with Goodyear radials on the front.
STYLE
Body: The GM Y-body platform, used by the Buick, Olds, and Pontiac compacts from 1961 to 1963, was a bit of a strange ranger, sharing some architecture with the Corvair. But the lines were pretty clean, especially on Pontiac's Sport Coupe version for '63. Rob didn't change a thing on his.
Paint: Rob believes his LeMans was repainted sometime in the mid-'80s in its original factory metallic red. That's the same paint it wears today.
Interior: Except for a set of Auto Meter gauges artfully spliced into the dash, the cabin is pretty much all stock, with factory bucket seats resplendent in early-'60s GM red vinyl.

Photo Gallery: 1963 Pontiac Tempest LeMans - Featured Vehicle - Hot Rod Magazine



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[Blitzed]

That is awesome

[johnd]

My mom had the year before version of that car, a '62. That is quite possibly, in it's stock form, one of the worst cars ever made. The roll center was 6" below ground level. It was an auto and there was no "Park"-no $hit!. Emergency brake only. It was a V4 (V8 cut in half) ran hot and dieseled worse than anything else I have ever seen. It had hideous understeer and just plowed in turns-that is until the rear suddenly left the ground and passed you if you pushed a little far-which is what my mom did the night she got hit by the dump truck in his lane in a curve and got killed doing it. The only reason that "Unsafe at Any Speed" was written about the Corvair was that there were a lot more of them and lots more people died in them because of that. That being said, I knew a guy that had the 326 version and it ran pretty well in a straight line.

[Danger731]

SLEEPER, MY Buddy had a dodge dart with a stock 383. It was ugly.