Bell Housing/t90 To Pontiac Adaptability?

Looks to me like the first step is to see if a BOP bell housing will hang on it. From there it would be time to look at the clutch options based on the flywheel size. Drilling and mounting a clutch on a blank flywheel is not hard.

 

Yes, a standard BOP Bellhousing will bolt up just fine. It's just half a 389. The Starter location, I'm not so sure about. The Bellhousing he's got there, looks so odd, because of the unique Engine/Transmission arrangement of the Tempest. There's no transmission that hangs there. Just a Torque Tube, as they used the Corvair Transaxles in the back.

 

I've seen the Pontiac slant 4 in our Jeeps back in the '70s, but never drove one. Anything was an improvement over the F134. Then the Dauntless arrived!
I have another odd large displacement 4 cylinder waiting for a Jeep project. Its an alloy block/iron head Mercruiser 3.7 liter (about the same as a 225). They claim around 170hp, and they have a ton of touque. They also use the standard Chevy bellhousing. Maybe transplant in an FC150 w/automatic?
-Donny

 

The adaptor I mentioned would not fit the bell housing shown on the engine. So, I suppose as already said the first thing would be to find a standard BOP bellhousing, which shouldn't be too hard to find.

Another alternative is the one piece bell housing Jeep used for the Dauntless in 71 which are probably rare but they show up now and then. The questionable part is whether that engine could be adapted to a right hand side starter, looks like the oil filter might be in the way, but that could be changed to a remove filter. I have had two Jeeps which were converted to the 225 V6 with T90s mated to one of those one piece bellhousings by drilling and tapping a couple of extra holes for the T90. I have one of those two bellhousings in the barn, but don't want to part with it just yet.

 

Looks to me like the starter position will be a problem.

Here's a Pontiac BOP bellhousing with a starter bump on both sides -



The bump that's on the driver's side seems lower than the bump on the earlier pictures of the engine in question. Hard to say from just pictures, but it seems like Pontiac took part of the space where the other bank of cylinders would be to mount the starter.

If you had one of the original bell housings, I'm sure a machinist could make the T-90 plate adapter work with the original bell, as long as the depth of the original bell is the same as the usual BOP bells.

 

You *might* be able to use a Buick starter on the passenger side, in the low mount location, but I honestly have no idea.

 

I have a couple bellhousings on the way of different configurations. Will see if they work out. Thanks for all the advice so far!

 

Remember, "that" motor NEVER had a transmission bolted to it, just the clutch and then a torque tube with a small diameter driveshaft to the rear mounted transaxle assembly. So that's why that bellhousing trans location looks weird to you.