Pontiac 195 4 Cylinder Engine

The Pontiac 195 four-cylinder engine was produced from 1961 to 1963 and was known as the “Trophy Four” motor. It was only used in the Pontiac Tempest and was designed to attract customers who were looking for good gas mileage in a family size car.

The engine was essentially a Pontiac 389 engine block cut in half. The same exact heads, valve covers and many other parts that were used on the 389 were interchangeable with the Pontiac 195. This also allowed Pontiac to keep production cost cheap for the 195 simply because it could be produced on the same assembly line right beside the 389. For customers who were not too thrilled about the power of the Pontiac 195, there was a four-barrel carburetor option that could be ordered from the factory that pushed the horsepower up to 166 bhp.

Problems Associated with the Pontiac 195

There were several problems with the 195 that lead to its demise after a 3-year production run. One of the biggest issues with the engine was that it had a lot of problems with vibrating heavily because it was improperly balanced. This led to problems with the timing chain in the earlier models literally being shaken apart over time. Pontiac tried to fix the problem by using rubber engine mounts to absorb the vibration and also beefed the timing chain up to where it was strong enough to handle the unbalanced engine.

Another issue that the 195 shared with its big brother, the 389, was that the OEM factory cam timing gear was coated with nylon and this low-quality coating would become brittle and start flaking off the timing gear at around 30k to 40k miles. The flaking of the nylon coating was destructive to the engine because the pieces that would fall off were ground up in the timing chain which would send them into the oil and clog up the oil pump pick. Once this occurred, the engine would be deprived of motor oil.

Over time, the engine, usually without warning, would seize up completely or damage the rod bearings and main bearings. Either way, the bottom half of the engine would no longer operate correctly which resulted in the mandatory replacement of the crankshaft, oil pump, rod bearings, and main bearings. In some cases, if the bearing spun in the rods or block, it was necessary to replace the block and/or rods.

These problems, combined with the fact that the horsepower wars of the 60s were just starting to heat up, led to low production numbers of the 195 due to obvious lack of enthusiasm for the engine which ended production for the Pontiac four-cylinder by the end of 1963.

Engine Specifications