1982 Chevrolet V-6 Chevette Prototype: By the Insane, for the Insane

From the November 1982 issue of Car and Driver.

There is a small, fairly obscure group in the recesses of Chevrolet Engineer­ing whose job is to keep the velocity­-minded Chevy-buying public stocked with the parts necessary to turn their engine from furbelow into fireballs. This isn’t the racing department. (Chevy isn’t into racing. Remember that.) The group is called Product Pro­motion Engineering, and the most out­rageous of its offerings are branded with a stern, governmental-sounding decree as being “for off-road use only.” But of course.

Here’s one little Product Promotion nocturnal fantasy that made it a few miles farther than the paddock of the Street Machine Nationals—a snarling, snapping, V-6–stuffed Chevette. While Chevy’s production engineers were still in the “what if” stage of Chevette development, the bow-tie brigade was cramming the Citation’s high-output, 2.8-liter, 60-degree V-6 into the divi­sion’s most uninspired dogcart. And great balls of fire, it went like stink!

That first experimental V-6 Chevette required extra engineering effort, be­cause the engine had started life in a transversely mounted configuration and had to be converted for north-south operation with new manifolding and a completely different transmission. But when Chevy reoriented the 2.8-liter V-6 for fore-and-aft installation in the Camaro and S-10 truck last year, the transplant operation became as easy as a high-school shop-class lesson. The compact, narrow V-6 plops right into the Chevette’s engine room, complete with the bell housing and Borg-Warner five-speed from the Camaro, as if it were custom-fit.

It was this version of the V-6 Chev­ette, built up by Chevy’s regular pro­duction group in H.O. trim, that made its bow before Chevy sales and market­ing brass hats. And it was this Chevette that came home to Ann Arbor with us after a grueling day at the GM Proving Grounds under the relentless flogging of the nation’s motoring press. It lasted barely long enough for our rigorous tech inspection.

Straight-line performance was phe­nomenal. The 90 percent increase in horsepower (from the 70 hp of the base 1.6-liter Chevette to the 135 hp of the V-6) shot the little putt-wagon from 0 to 60 mph in only 8.7 seconds and helped it knock off a quarter-mile in 16.2 sec­onds. Our most recent fifth-wheel stats for a production Chevette (13.9 seconds from 0 to 60 mph, 19.1 seconds for the quarter-mile; C/D, November 1979) are laughable in comparison.

The 60-degree V-6 is a dandy engine. “It smacks of the Fifties V-8s,” says an enthusiastic Ron Sperry, a component designer in Product Promotion. “It’s a good base engine, like the 283-cubic­-inch V-8—lightweight, compact, with lots of up-option power levels.” (The existence of a prototype Citation with an electronically fuel-injected turbo 2.8-liter V-6 pumping out about 180 hp of­fers hope that the high-rpm potential of this engine will be plumbed in the near future.) Pure speed aside, the balanced firing of the V-6 configuration gives the Chevette a smoothness and a willing­ness to run hard that a four-cylinder en­gine couldn’t hope to impart.

Other than adding a set of Goodyear P185/60R-14 Eagle NCTs, a Camaro steering wheel, and lousy Corvette seats, the Chevette’s light-duty support components are left woefully intact. The brakes, the cooling system, the steering (overassisted rack-and-pinion), and the rear axle would have to be upgraded to handle the power load if the car were destined for production. (In fact, one too many hole shots rendered the V-6 Chevette’s rear end a semi-­toothless, inoperable mess.)

Production is not likely to be the destiny of this piece, though. “Not unless the price of gas shoots up overnight and we need a high-mileage nickel rocket quickly,” says Chevy general manager Bob Stempel. His inscrutable smile indi­cates that this is not beyond the realm of possibility. At this point, however, you’ll have to look to Product Promo­tion’s bible, Chevrolet Power, for the pieces for an “off-road” Chevette of your own.

Source: Reviews - aranddriver.com