It only ran like it was made of lead.
I’d love to get my hands on an early chrome bumper Vega and do some Hot Rodding…I always liked how the 2dr looked even when I was young I noticed it… I nice LT1 under the hood would be wicked or an entire Camaro drivetrain with a 6sp manual…that would be fast and really fast because of the high final drive with the 6sp…top speed wouldbe over 160 for sure… Hmmm…my next other project? lol… I need a new career first… My desires for car projects exceed my financial abilities…but I fear that will always be the case…unless I hit the Powerball… A guy can dream right?
I just found this link…Aw man…
'71s and '72s had the chrome bumpers. '73 was the year the feds mandated the 5mph bumpers and they had to switch to the slotted front end, which I always thought looked like the front of a WWII troop carrier.
Cosworth Engineering used to make a complete conversion kit to drop a smallblock V8 under the hood of a Vega, complete with a beefed up subframe, a new rearend, and all the necessary hardware. There was plenty of room under the hood. It’s rumored that GM was originally considering selling a smallblock V8 version, but it never happened. V8 Vegas actually became common in hot rod circles. There was a fella here in Hooksett NH that had one up until probably 5 years ago. They were definitely cool.
I liked my Vega, although I’ll be the first to admit it was a constrction of all the cheesiest parts known to man. I had the 2-door (hatchback) and it was a great little car when it was new. I got rid of it after four years when the rear axle with wheel slid out of the housing and off the car. The retainer clips in the diferential assembly had a habit of falling off, freeing the axle from its prison…whereupon it would try to escape from the car.
I could list the other problems for which there were ultimately recalls, such as the breaking idle stop solenoid brackets that fell into the accelerator linkage and held it open, and the insufficient coolant system volume, but why bother.
Read this pretty comprehensive history of the Vega. There is a whole section devoted just to the aluminum block engines they tried (and failed with).
http://ateupwithmotor.com/model-histories/compact-and-economy-cars/195-chevrolet-vega-cosworth.html
That was the best history of the Vega that I’ve ever seen. Thank you sincerely for the link.
The Vega gets bashed a lot, and deservedly so to some extent, but plenty of other car makers in this era had their share of iffy designs.
An example could be the early/mid 70s Subaru with the wet sleeve engines. This meant the aluminum block housed removeable cylinder liners that sat atop copper gaskets of varying thicknesses.
The liners were designed to protrude above the block by about .005 of an inch and this helped to seal the head gasket.
Now think about the following, which the engineers apparently failed to do during all of this.
Subaru recommends head bolt retorques EVERY 15k miles.
Block is aluminum.
Cylinder liners are steel.
Cylinder liner crush gaskets are copper.
Copper is a soft metal.
Needless to say, head gasket failure could be brought on by overheating, the passage of time, and other factors such as the sun rising in the east, change of wind direction, etc. 