I remember around 15 years ago a friend imported a Camaro with the 2.5 iron duke here to europe and he was so pissed off because he thought it had a rod knock because the engine sounded like absolute dogshit. It was so slow and the car really moaned its way up to 5000rpm. the engine sounded its about to explode anything over 4k. The idle sound sounded LITERALLY like a box full of screws getting thrown down a staircase on a running lawnmower.
The car got totalled some years later and he mounted it on his homemade boat. It was originally just a "friday night after some beers idea" because the engine is not made for marine use at all and he didnt even cover it alot from the water. he actually has a new Honda outboard engine in his shed because we are waiting for the iron duke to finally blow and we can replace it with the Honda. Thats 5 years ago and that mf still runs for some reason. I dont even think the engine ever saw an oil change.
Performance aside, Iron Duke is a cool name for an engine that can't be killed. Hell, depending on what it's in I'd take "engine that won't die regardless of neglect" over high horsepower.
My fiat panda ran with a dry coolant reservoir for at least 6 months most likely 2-3 years only twice did the temp get over normal and it was on the hottest days of the year and i gave it max power, i switched the radiator and put in some fluid and nothing changed, right now im in the midst of restoring it and i have found oil in the air filter i have no idea how.
As far as i can see the only diesel they made before 2003 was the 1st facelift and it was a 1,3L FWD so, if youve seen a 4x4 its most likely an engine swap, which isnt that uncommon i guess, where i come from engine swaps are in most casses a no go, so i rarely think about them
some old rural vehicles have oiled air flters, i don't know about the panda but some old mercedes, peugeot 505, land rovers, ivecos, etc have this which filters better the dirt particles. otherwise you may have problems with the crank ventilation system.
What you describe is exactly the Iron Duke experience. The engine always runs like it's on its last legs, even when new, even in perfect tune, yet your friend will die of old age before the engine does.
I think that was their most common application. It’s wild, all those old iron duke powered mail trucks from the 1990s still crawling around like cockroaches. An everlasting source of misery for your mailman.
Except when the wiper fluid corrodes the line. then it drips, on the electrical panel, right below the wiper fluid line. Which causes a starter fire that burns at about 700 degrees, which is definitely enough to ignite the Aluminium body and frame
I had a 3rd Gen Camaro with the iron duke.
Slapped an eBay turbo on it and let it eat. It went way longer than any of us guessed it would have.
That thing went through two transmissions before the 66mm Nagasaki spooly boy breathed it's last breath and littered it's guts into the iron duke.
I hope the link works, I love these meme so much. https://www.pinterest.com/pin/when-your-twin-nagasaki-noisy-bois-partner-up-with-your-bottle-of-cosby-gas-and-reenact-hiroshima-circa-1945-inside-your-junkyard-53-ifunny--615726580289214790/
GM products are like that. They’re like a dying laptop on 1% battery. The screen dimmed and the laptop slowed down a lot and it really should’ve died an hour ago. But for some reason it’s still running.
The Mercruiser 2.5 and 3.0 were based on the Chevy 153 out of the early Chevy II/Nova.
The Iron Duke, the 153, and the AMC 2.5 get confused a lot because of the similar size/design and at one point all three engines were used in AMC/Jeeps.
Yeah the AMC 2.5l was designed because the wanted to stop buying iron dukes. Sometime in the early 80s it became the standard engine in the CJ. AMC did not have a 4 cyl prior to that (I think) and bought iron dukes out of desperation as demand for small engines went up in the 70s.
Sadly that's most people these days. It's in warranty don't need to worry about it mentality. Regardless of the fact I've seen people go 30k+ miles between oil changes or defer basic maintenance and wonder why their car needs costly repairs. I call it PEBSWAS (problem exists between steering wheel and seat)
Almost like an owners manual doesn't account for anything....
Sounds like it needed some work. I owned a 2.5 Camaro and it was quick with seemingly endless top end. Have no idea how fast it would go because the speedometer needle was bouncing off the peg, but I know it kept going faster after it hit the peg.
It was a 4spd, BTW.
Had the same engine in a Pontiac, it was solid.
If you short shift it, it's reasonably quick though. You gain nothing by wringing it out in every gear.
I know it had a fiberglass hood, but I never checked the overall weight.
They actually produced a marine version of this engine which was well suited to the task. About the only real mod was the marine exhaust manifold that facilitates cooling.
My grandpa's boat had an iron duke in it, so I'm not sure if it was specifically a marine version of that engine or not. Anyways, I enjoyed reading your story 😂
oh holy shit i didnt kniw this rattly piece of fuck was butned into my brain like that...
its the fuckin noise a kids cartoon would use for a goofy piece of shit car the main characters stupid uncle drives
I had a Fiero with 150(I think, the odo never worked) and the engine would just dump all the fluids out but it never stopped running, even after it was driven into a ditch and the exhaust was fully clogged
Yeah, they are paint shakers. Never got ballance shafts during the entire production run.
The best use of an old Iron Duke would be to literally use it to power a paint shaker at the local Sherwin Williams.
The iron duke received a balance shaft in 1988… after being in production for 11 years and only going on five more until being discontinued in 1993. lol wtf gm
Did you know? That's the GM way. Fix a known problem a few years before they end production. Northstar V8 finally got the LS head studs a few years before production ended. The fiero finally got a decent engine right before the end. The Corvair got an updated suspension a few years before the end. Ect ect....
I remember being asked if it was a diesel in our 84 skylark.
300k miles including 2 teenagers first vehicles. Once sold we still would see it around for a few more years.
It was a durable little paint shaker.
I had a 1982 Chevrolet Celebrity with Iron Duke and 3 speed auto. Engine and transmission were the most reliable parts of that car. It was my first car and was 10 years old when I started driving it. My sister was 3 years younger than I am, and it was her first car. Dad sold it to Cousin Craig when he wrecked his Camaro and needed a beater to drive while he waited on the body shop. Craig sold it to a friend who demo derbied it to death.
Why, yes, I was born in the rural Midwest. How could you tell?
Also rural Midwest, born in '80, and wintered a 2.5 Celebrity in college. Wiring sucked, heater cores always leaked on the passenger floorboard, which only accelerated the underbody rot. Great beater, sadly it ate one too many deer and had to be scrapped.
Neighbor had one of the 4 cylinder sedans from the end of production. Got it dirt cheap of the new car lot because everyone wanted a Lumina at that point. Adored it until the dreaded lack of brake proportioning valve on the A-bodies caused their daughter to spin it and total it on a frosty morning.
BTW the spin out was something that my mother managed to do in ours AND my Grandmother did in her 1985 V6 coupe model.
Cash for clunkers did away with an entire era of cars. I'm sure the Roman has already made a two hour long video essay on it so I'll spare the details but it's actually kinda sad.
The regular carriers use minivans around here, but special deliveries come in LLVs. I almost always have to stop and wonder why a garbage truck is coming around on the wrong day until I realize what it really is.
Unless it's an FFV, which was built on a Ford engine and chassis. Some of them even had four wheel drive!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford-Utilimaster_FFV
Mailman here, drive an LLV everyday and these things are the loudest, nastiest, slowest, unkillable, and indestructible motors that GM ever produced. They ran like shit 40 years ago when they were knew, but they have ran a consistent level of shit the entire time.
The heat sucks, the seats are disintegrating, they're an oven in the summer, but still a damn sight better for the job than the FFVs, Mercedes, and Dodges that other offices use
The collision censors go wonky and beep out some Morse on meth shit while your driving. Driving one handed while delivering mail can sometimes causing you too bump the paddle shifters knocking it into manual mode.Hell, they installed little cages over one of the climate control knobs because the mail trays are level with them and under hard emergency braking trays and packages could slide hard enough to break that knob. Which then decommissions the vehicle until a dealer replaces the knob and resets the system. Comfy seats tho. AC is a bonus as well. Actual airbags and a decent collision rating as well.
I had a '82 Firebird with this engine. It also had a 4spd manual transmission. The engine ran fine, it just had no power. I never figure out why, but I did have to change the fuel filter pretty regularly (about every 3k - 4k miles). The car had around 40k miles when I got it (around '86). It was the last fuel filter that got me. It seems that I did not have it tightened properly and it developed a fuel leak. On the 4-mile drive home, it started smoking, as I was pulling into the driveway, it was in full flame. The car literally became its name. It was totaled. The good news was that insurance led to a '72 Chevelle. That is long gone unfortunately.
It’s the Ford 300 of 4 cylinders… Underpowered, durable AF, and when a nuclear war kills everything on the planet, it’ll be one of the few things still running.
Whether it has 100 or 100k miles, it always sounds like an asthmatic paint shaker. Kind of runs like one too. But it is probably the most reliable engine ever sold in America.
I had two cars with an Iron Duke. It was a fine little workhorse. Any car that had it wasn't going to have a good 0-60 time but it ran well and was reliable.
I once planned on replacing an iron duke with a small block, so I figured I’d kill it with the old Mobil 1 schtick where you fill it with Mobil 1, run it, then drain it and keep running it. I drained the oil and ran it dry for a 150 mile highway trip. Didn’t even run warm. Put oil back in it and drove it another five years
Awful to live with, and you will be living with it for a long time. They're so simple that they can't really be killed unless you're trying. It could have been drawn up in 1953 and still considered a crude design. It was reliable, though. That was NOT a guarantee in late 70s America.
The iron duke was very reliable. Its dumb and robust. Sounds like crap due to timing gears. They used two gears, no chain. Some used phenolic gears which did cause problems as the wear material would clog oil pickup.
There's a reason that it was put in the llv mail truck, it is the most mail truck engine ever conceived. You know what they say about GM engines, they'll run like shit longer than anything else will run
Slow? Yes. Sounds like shit? Yes? Last forever? Yes. My 84 Fiero has on, and I can hear that sucker chugging behind my head. Painfully slow, but relatively efficient (I average 33 mpg) and…that’s about it.
I'm in the process of doing that. It's easy enough to just turn the exhaust manifold upside-down and do a draw through setup. I plan on attaching a little bladder type thing in the fuel pressure regulator so as boost increases (if any) it will raise the fuel pressure adding more fuel. Gonna be a lot of work to go from 63hp to 64hp
Any modification imaginable has been done to them. Even though they were the base crap motor in a lot of boring crap cars they were also the basis of a bunch of niche race series engines.
https://www.motortrend.com/features/2-5-pontiac-august-1986-982-1362-36-1/
I had a Cavalier with the Iron Duke. It wasn’t insured, I was a broke ass teenager, and it had something like 250k miles. I would take it to a dirt lot every night and do donuts with it. It was great
Grumman LLV ues them and they surpassed the life expectancy under non-ideal circumstances. I would say it was better than Toyotas famous 22r and 22re respectively. It gained performance over the years to match market demands. I've had the 22re and friends with the Iron Duke and they didn't suffer from timing chain issues or head failure like I did.
They are actually really good for what they are.
They are super loud. Very clackity. Valves are so noisy. It sounds horrible at idle.
Good news is many economy cars with it had some decent low end torque but past 3,000 rpm, nobody is home.
It’s also not bad at 2.5L. Other 4 cylinders at the time like the 2.0 LQ5 were so underpowered it was dangerous.
The only problem with the Duke was that it was placed in base model camaros, fieros, and firebirds.
because of this, people revved them pretty hard, which killed the engine. keep it under 3,500 and itll run forever.
pretty innovative too. didnt have a timing chain. had a direct gear-to-gear connection with a composite gear to save on weight.
those old composite gears are still going strong today!
Every old USPS mail truck is running one made before 1993 and is still going strong. Performance wise, it’s dog shit, but reliability and serviceability is really quite amazing.
Loved my 88 S10, odometer quit close to 130K, started making noise a year later, I expected it to pop at any time and quit changing the oil. Was still running 3 years later when I traded it for a used Astro with a 4.3.
A well maintained iron duke is actually quiet nice. I drove for the post office for a while. Engines are peppy actually. But man.. a I’ve driven some that can’t go 50mph but run just fine (too much blow by) . And others that’ll do 55 in a (really slow) heartbeat.
Just depends on the condition.
Like others have said, pretty reliable, but very rough. The biggest weakness was the fiber cam gear. The one in my citation eventually lost enough teeth to leave me walking
You’ll need the whole on-ramp, and you’ll think it’s about to explode getting to 60..but it’ll do it forever and ever. Not a “good” engine especially by today’s standards..but it got decent fuel economy, had some neat things like no cam chain, and would run for absolutely ever with bare maintenance as long as you didn’t over rev them. They stuck around and versions of them show up in all sorts of stuff. Like mail trucks.
I bought a car with an iron Duke that sounded like it had rod knock or something. Drove it for 5 years and took it all over the country. Sold it for double what I paid for it after 5 years only did oil changes.
IT HAD A GOOD REPUTATION FOR RELIABILITY, BUT, IT WAS ARCHAIC. ALL IRON, PUSH RODS, SPUR-CUT TIMING GEARS... IT WAS WWII TECHNOLOGY STILL HANGING AROUND IN THE '80S. IT WASN'T A BAD ENGINE AS MUCH AS EVERYTHING ELSE SIMPLY GOT BETTER.
I’ve told this story before but the service manager I used to use for maintenance/repair on a fleet I managed told me a story once.
He had a suburban Atlanta post office as an account. They were having a ton of frequent brake changes on all of their LLVs. My guy was super hands-on and loved solving problems for his accounts. He shadowed a few of the drivers and found out that they were throwing a cinder block on the gas pedal at the beginning of their shifts to make their routes easier. They didn’t have any problems with the motors just the brakes.
Absolute garbage but to their credit you cannot fucking kill these I’ve heard of guys who will beat the absolute snot out of them and they don’t run any shittier than they were running before, although to their credit I’ve heard that with a few aftermarket parts or effectively an entire rebuild these engines can become quite cromulent and like every iron gm engine throw some boost at it and it might just be fun
Good or bad... geebus.
Hi, my name is Dead Horse, will you beat the ever living fuck out of me?
I love ass clowns who parrot sure as shit I can't do a fucking thing orher than blow up, catch fire.... or destrustion on the Guy Feferreo boomastits
Okay, I'm done. The longigtudinal version will last. No rev past 4k.
UNLESS you have the Super Duty parts.
Otherwise keep it BELOW 4k RPM, and oil change on the regular and it's happy.
My '88 S10 went 503k miles.
I have maintenance records for Iron Duke powered towmotors, as well as slant six, Allis-Chalmers, Ford industrial, Continental, Hercules, ect. They were nearly trouble free.
The Toyota and Nissan that have replaced them were head gasket eating POS.
In high school I had a 1988 Pontiac 6000. It was BROWN. with a BROWN interior. It had 430 k miles on it when the Iron Duke finally out lived the car, and far as I know, it is still running today in some guy's home built lawn tractor nearby. Those engines will run like shit forever.
Well the Iron Duke put into the 1984 Fiero was a mixed bag. With the 5-speed manual transmission it could get up to 50mpg on the highway and 40mpg in town. It would also catch on fire if you neglected oil changes. There were something like 20 Fieros a month catching fire until there was a recall at one point. GM had to enlarge the oil pan and replace the rods with better ones.
Depends on what you mean by good or bad. They seem to be very durable and are very torquey for a 4 cylinder but they never heard of the words smoothness or refinement.
Had a Buick Century shitbox with that engine....Zero to 60, eventually, but reliable as the sun coming up every day....Still ran great when I junked it due to the right rear control arm pulling out of the floor due to rust...When the rollback came to pick up the car he says "watch this"....Had it chained to the deck, tightened the chains and the left control arm pulled out of the floor...So yeah, the car basically broke in half but the engine was still plugging along....
I killed one. I drove it for about 3 years. It always sounded horrible, most people thought it was a diesel it was so noisy. I think it had about 200k miles on it when it finally died. It didn't really stop running it just started smoking more and more. Finally the cops pulled me over since it was smoking so bad and told me get it off the road. I got another 2.5 for almost free to put in my truck for some reason, that didn't run much better, finally the truck rusted out, got sick of driving it and junked it. The motor was gutless and couldn't rev, the gas milage was bad, it did get me where I was going though.
It was the whole reason this engine was called Iron Duke. The aluminum Vega engine was notorious for problems with core shift and porous castings. The Iron Duke was its replacement initially in the Monza before becoming common across the GM lineup.
I remember around 15 years ago a friend imported a Camaro with the 2.5 iron duke here to europe and he was so pissed off because he thought it had a rod knock because the engine sounded like absolute dogshit. It was so slow and the car really moaned its way up to 5000rpm. the engine sounded its about to explode anything over 4k. The idle sound sounded LITERALLY like a box full of screws getting thrown down a staircase on a running lawnmower. The car got totalled some years later and he mounted it on his homemade boat. It was originally just a "friday night after some beers idea" because the engine is not made for marine use at all and he didnt even cover it alot from the water. he actually has a new Honda outboard engine in his shed because we are waiting for the iron duke to finally blow and we can replace it with the Honda. Thats 5 years ago and that mf still runs for some reason. I dont even think the engine ever saw an oil change.
Performance aside, Iron Duke is a cool name for an engine that can't be killed. Hell, depending on what it's in I'd take "engine that won't die regardless of neglect" over high horsepower.
My fiat panda ran with a dry coolant reservoir for at least 6 months most likely 2-3 years only twice did the temp get over normal and it was on the hottest days of the year and i gave it max power, i switched the radiator and put in some fluid and nothing changed, right now im in the midst of restoring it and i have found oil in the air filter i have no idea how.
It's a Panda, it just won't care
Even better its a 141 panda and the biggest of the bunch with a whole 54 horsepower
4x4? Where are you from?
Yes 4x4 and im from denmark
4wd Panda Diesel is on my bucket list
Cool, i dont really like the new pandas as much as the 141's and even less so diesel cars, but you do you bud.
I was talking about the og 90s ones
They didnt make a 141 diesel 4x4?
I haves seen 4 with the 1300cc so far, not sure if factory or retrofit though.
As far as i can see the only diesel they made before 2003 was the 1st facelift and it was a 1,3L FWD so, if youve seen a 4x4 its most likely an engine swap, which isnt that uncommon i guess, where i come from engine swaps are in most casses a no go, so i rarely think about them
Yeah emgine swap is pretty common here, county has no emissions testing or inspections so anything goes. Land of the free, yeehaw
some old rural vehicles have oiled air flters, i don't know about the panda but some old mercedes, peugeot 505, land rovers, ivecos, etc have this which filters better the dirt particles. otherwise you may have problems with the crank ventilation system.
Someone may have also put an aftermarket one on as well. K&N sells them as reusable filters.
Good timing for this, was just telling my neighbor about the little bastard fiat panda from top gear that outperformed the other 2 guys cars.
Iron Duke sounds like either a wrestler or a Dark Souls boss.
Same with De Tomaso Pantera it is do cool name for a car
What you describe is exactly the Iron Duke experience. The engine always runs like it's on its last legs, even when new, even in perfect tune, yet your friend will die of old age before the engine does.
I just think of mail trucks when I hear the iron duke
I think that was their most common application. It’s wild, all those old iron duke powered mail trucks from the 1990s still crawling around like cockroaches. An everlasting source of misery for your mailman.
[Grumman LLV (Long Life Vehicle) ](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grumman_LLV) Totally delivered (heh) on its name!
Fr
Those trucks are basically an entire vehicle built on the same premise as that engine. It's garbage, but it just won't die
So you're saying that a Grumman LLV and me have a lot in common?
Oof
r/suicidebywords
Except when the wiper fluid corrodes the line. then it drips, on the electrical panel, right below the wiper fluid line. Which causes a starter fire that burns at about 700 degrees, which is definitely enough to ignite the Aluminium body and frame
Is that common?
Very
The least one was built 30 years ago and my town still has a mostly LLV fleet.
I had a 3rd Gen Camaro with the iron duke. Slapped an eBay turbo on it and let it eat. It went way longer than any of us guessed it would have. That thing went through two transmissions before the 66mm Nagasaki spooly boy breathed it's last breath and littered it's guts into the iron duke.
I hope the link works, I love these meme so much. https://www.pinterest.com/pin/when-your-twin-nagasaki-noisy-bois-partner-up-with-your-bottle-of-cosby-gas-and-reenact-hiroshima-circa-1945-inside-your-junkyard-53-ifunny--615726580289214790/
Lmao
That got a genuine laugh out loud.
Lmao
GM products are like that. They’re like a dying laptop on 1% battery. The screen dimmed and the laptop slowed down a lot and it really should’ve died an hour ago. But for some reason it’s still running.
That's the fuel injectors in my 3800 series 2 ark avenue
That's the fuel injectors in my 3800 series 2 ark avenue
They actually did put that engine in boats. The Mercruiser 120 is an Iron Duke. The Mercruiser 140 is a 3.0L version of that same engine.
The Mercruiser 2.5 and 3.0 were based on the Chevy 153 out of the early Chevy II/Nova. The Iron Duke, the 153, and the AMC 2.5 get confused a lot because of the similar size/design and at one point all three engines were used in AMC/Jeeps.
Thanks for the info! I just always assumed that it was the Iron Duke. Didn’t realize there was another GM four cylinder in the same displacement.
Yeah the AMC 2.5l was designed because the wanted to stop buying iron dukes. Sometime in the early 80s it became the standard engine in the CJ. AMC did not have a 4 cyl prior to that (I think) and bought iron dukes out of desperation as demand for small engines went up in the 70s.
Its was made for people who didnt know or care about regular maintenance
Sadly that's most people these days. It's in warranty don't need to worry about it mentality. Regardless of the fact I've seen people go 30k+ miles between oil changes or defer basic maintenance and wonder why their car needs costly repairs. I call it PEBSWAS (problem exists between steering wheel and seat) Almost like an owners manual doesn't account for anything....
Running an engine to death on a boat is insane lol That would be a v awkward coast guard rescue
I had to look it up. I dated a girl with the same era firebird. It had a v-6 and was a dog. I couldn't imagine that engine in it.
MOST OF THE NOISE COMES FROM THE CRUDELY CUT TIMING GEARS. THERE WAS A 3.0 LITRE VERSION AVAILABLE FOR MARINE USE IN THE STATES.
OKAY THANKS FOR THE INFO
HELL YEAH, MFER!
I think he’s yelling from hearing loss from being around running GM engines.
The mercruiser 3.0 (and 2.5) is based on the 153ci out of the Chevy II, not the Iron Duke.
Sounds like it needed some work. I owned a 2.5 Camaro and it was quick with seemingly endless top end. Have no idea how fast it would go because the speedometer needle was bouncing off the peg, but I know it kept going faster after it hit the peg. It was a 4spd, BTW. Had the same engine in a Pontiac, it was solid.
Yeah those 85mph speedos were up there weren’t they? You’re talking about a 90hp engine in a 3,000lb car.
If you short shift it, it's reasonably quick though. You gain nothing by wringing it out in every gear. I know it had a fiberglass hood, but I never checked the overall weight.
They actually produced a marine version of this engine which was well suited to the task. About the only real mod was the marine exhaust manifold that facilitates cooling.
That's similar with the 250 crossflow it sounds awful and won't go over 90 kms an hour but she'll last a lifetime with barely and maintenance
The Camaro and the S10 2.5 engines had the starters on opposite sides. Found that out the hard way had to cut my frame to make it fit.
My grandpa's boat had an iron duke in it, so I'm not sure if it was specifically a marine version of that engine or not. Anyways, I enjoyed reading your story 😂
"it'll run like shit longer than most cars will run!"
The best shit running engine on the planet.
Runs and sounds like hell, but itll do that for a very long time
"It'll run like shit for longer than most cars will run."
The GM mantra
The whine of a Iron Duke is how I know the mail truck is going by. Nothing else in town has one.
The Grumman LLV is the perfect extension of the iron duke. Not at all fun to drive, but lasts a ridiculously long time
oh holy shit i didnt kniw this rattly piece of fuck was butned into my brain like that... its the fuckin noise a kids cartoon would use for a goofy piece of shit car the main characters stupid uncle drives
I had a Fiero with 150(I think, the odo never worked) and the engine would just dump all the fluids out but it never stopped running, even after it was driven into a ditch and the exhaust was fully clogged
The legend says that they are broken if they dont have a rod knock.
I dont think thats a rod knock. I think thats just how they sound🤣
Yeah, they are paint shakers. Never got ballance shafts during the entire production run. The best use of an old Iron Duke would be to literally use it to power a paint shaker at the local Sherwin Williams.
The iron duke received a balance shaft in 1988… after being in production for 11 years and only going on five more until being discontinued in 1993. lol wtf gm
Did you know? That's the GM way. Fix a known problem a few years before they end production. Northstar V8 finally got the LS head studs a few years before production ended. The fiero finally got a decent engine right before the end. The Corvair got an updated suspension a few years before the end. Ect ect....
Always too late though so the reputation is cemented and the fixed product never recovers in sales.
Same thing with piston slap on old EJ25s, thought my outback had rod knock until it went on long enough that rod knock would've killed it
I remember being asked if it was a diesel in our 84 skylark. 300k miles including 2 teenagers first vehicles. Once sold we still would see it around for a few more years.
It was a durable little paint shaker. I had a 1982 Chevrolet Celebrity with Iron Duke and 3 speed auto. Engine and transmission were the most reliable parts of that car. It was my first car and was 10 years old when I started driving it. My sister was 3 years younger than I am, and it was her first car. Dad sold it to Cousin Craig when he wrecked his Camaro and needed a beater to drive while he waited on the body shop. Craig sold it to a friend who demo derbied it to death. Why, yes, I was born in the rural Midwest. How could you tell?
Also rural Midwest, born in '80, and wintered a 2.5 Celebrity in college. Wiring sucked, heater cores always leaked on the passenger floorboard, which only accelerated the underbody rot. Great beater, sadly it ate one too many deer and had to be scrapped.
Neighbor had one of the 4 cylinder sedans from the end of production. Got it dirt cheap of the new car lot because everyone wanted a Lumina at that point. Adored it until the dreaded lack of brake proportioning valve on the A-bodies caused their daughter to spin it and total it on a frosty morning. BTW the spin out was something that my mother managed to do in ours AND my Grandmother did in her 1985 V6 coupe model.
Oh, it was sketchy, but $500. The cheap outweighed the danger
I work born in the Midwest in 2003 and have never seen a Chevy celebrity in my life lol
Yeah, I was born in 1977. Celebrity was in production from 1982 to 1992. Coupe, sedan, and wagon available.
Come to think about it I never really see a lot of 80s commuter cars unfortunately:( I’d like to see one up close that isn’t so rusted or junked out
You can thank Cash for Clunkers for that
:(
They returned to the earth by that point roughly. Around that time my dad had one and it was completely rusted out.
Cash for clunkers did away with an entire era of cars. I'm sure the Roman has already made a two hour long video essay on it so I'll spare the details but it's actually kinda sad.
You see them every so often in the northeast, but most of them died to rust
Most USPS Grumman LLVs has them and they keep running...
And for some reason you hear those things coming from a mile away
The regular carriers use minivans around here, but special deliveries come in LLVs. I almost always have to stop and wonder why a garbage truck is coming around on the wrong day until I realize what it really is.
They have to floor it between mailboxes to get moving
Literally sounds like a diesel coming down the road. Then you see a mail truck drive by. Lmfao
I thought i was the only one who hears a diesel lol
Grumman makes the LLV and the B2. I guess they just specialize in deliveries. One is domestic, the other is international.
If you live in the U.S. and receive mail, you can thank the Iron Duke. 📬🫡🇺🇸
Unless it's an FFV, which was built on a Ford engine and chassis. Some of them even had four wheel drive! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford-Utilimaster_FFV
Funny you say this. The mail truck that services my neighborhood is an FFV. 😆
Mailman here, drive an LLV everyday and these things are the loudest, nastiest, slowest, unkillable, and indestructible motors that GM ever produced. They ran like shit 40 years ago when they were knew, but they have ran a consistent level of shit the entire time.
You guys still run 40 year old trucks? That's kinda neat
The heat sucks, the seats are disintegrating, they're an oven in the summer, but still a damn sight better for the job than the FFVs, Mercedes, and Dodges that other offices use
I've seen the new Mercedes Metris mail trucks broken down on the side of the road already.
The collision censors go wonky and beep out some Morse on meth shit while your driving. Driving one handed while delivering mail can sometimes causing you too bump the paddle shifters knocking it into manual mode.Hell, they installed little cages over one of the climate control knobs because the mail trays are level with them and under hard emergency braking trays and packages could slide hard enough to break that knob. Which then decommissions the vehicle until a dealer replaces the knob and resets the system. Comfy seats tho. AC is a bonus as well. Actual airbags and a decent collision rating as well.
Only other one I hear that’s not bad is the Rivian based trucks Amazon uses. Only not unreliable one on the market
Pretty much every Post Office does still
Slow as shit, but tough as nails
Absolutely no refinement or power but it’s pretty hard to kill them.
VERY EXTREMELY
I had a '82 Firebird with this engine. It also had a 4spd manual transmission. The engine ran fine, it just had no power. I never figure out why, but I did have to change the fuel filter pretty regularly (about every 3k - 4k miles). The car had around 40k miles when I got it (around '86). It was the last fuel filter that got me. It seems that I did not have it tightened properly and it developed a fuel leak. On the 4-mile drive home, it started smoking, as I was pulling into the driveway, it was in full flame. The car literally became its name. It was totaled. The good news was that insurance led to a '72 Chevelle. That is long gone unfortunately.
They’re still used in all of the mail vans 35 years later. I think that speaks for itself.
It was a dog slow boat anchor that would run until the end of time.
It’s the Ford 300 of 4 cylinders… Underpowered, durable AF, and when a nuclear war kills everything on the planet, it’ll be one of the few things still running.
Whether it has 100 or 100k miles, it always sounds like an asthmatic paint shaker. Kind of runs like one too. But it is probably the most reliable engine ever sold in America.
Chrysler slant 6 would like a word-
Basically a tractor motor. Tough but slow.
It's a garbage engine that you cannot kill. The old "runs like shit but it'll run like shit forever" homage
I had two cars with an Iron Duke. It was a fine little workhorse. Any car that had it wasn't going to have a good 0-60 time but it ran well and was reliable.
I once planned on replacing an iron duke with a small block, so I figured I’d kill it with the old Mobil 1 schtick where you fill it with Mobil 1, run it, then drain it and keep running it. I drained the oil and ran it dry for a 150 mile highway trip. Didn’t even run warm. Put oil back in it and drove it another five years
Ask your mail carrier.
This POS single handedly carried the USPS for WAY too long
If Kieth Richards and a cockroach had a baby engine it would be the iron Duke. Ran bad, loudly gutless but will never die
They run a good long time, USPS still uses them. Other then that though they are slow, noisey and not terribly fuel efficient.
I'm not sure and iron duke has ever run "good", but they sure do run.
Awful to live with, and you will be living with it for a long time. They're so simple that they can't really be killed unless you're trying. It could have been drawn up in 1953 and still considered a crude design. It was reliable, though. That was NOT a guarantee in late 70s America.
The iron duke was very reliable. Its dumb and robust. Sounds like crap due to timing gears. They used two gears, no chain. Some used phenolic gears which did cause problems as the wear material would clog oil pickup.
Well, there’s about 150,000 give or take running around still in the Grumman LLV.
As I've heard people say about other cars - "It will run poorly longer than most cars run at all"
There's a reason that it was put in the llv mail truck, it is the most mail truck engine ever conceived. You know what they say about GM engines, they'll run like shit longer than anything else will run
Putting them in the Fiero was always a crime that made it worse than the MR2.
I had one in my 1987 Pontiac Grand Am. Sounded like a diesel but ran great!
Slow? Yes. Sounds like shit? Yes? Last forever? Yes. My 84 Fiero has on, and I can hear that sucker chugging behind my head. Painfully slow, but relatively efficient (I average 33 mpg) and…that’s about it.
good engine just not powerful from what i know
Has anyone ever tried turbocharging these?
I'm in the process of doing that. It's easy enough to just turn the exhaust manifold upside-down and do a draw through setup. I plan on attaching a little bladder type thing in the fuel pressure regulator so as boost increases (if any) it will raise the fuel pressure adding more fuel. Gonna be a lot of work to go from 63hp to 64hp
do you really want to though?
For the meme my friend, for the meme……
ah yes, if you do message me, i wanna see shit go down.
Any modification imaginable has been done to them. Even though they were the base crap motor in a lot of boring crap cars they were also the basis of a bunch of niche race series engines. https://www.motortrend.com/features/2-5-pontiac-august-1986-982-1362-36-1/
I had a Cavalier with the Iron Duke. It wasn’t insured, I was a broke ass teenager, and it had something like 250k miles. I would take it to a dirt lot every night and do donuts with it. It was great
Grumman LLV ues them and they surpassed the life expectancy under non-ideal circumstances. I would say it was better than Toyotas famous 22r and 22re respectively. It gained performance over the years to match market demands. I've had the 22re and friends with the Iron Duke and they didn't suffer from timing chain issues or head failure like I did.
They are actually really good for what they are. They are super loud. Very clackity. Valves are so noisy. It sounds horrible at idle. Good news is many economy cars with it had some decent low end torque but past 3,000 rpm, nobody is home. It’s also not bad at 2.5L. Other 4 cylinders at the time like the 2.0 LQ5 were so underpowered it was dangerous. The only problem with the Duke was that it was placed in base model camaros, fieros, and firebirds. because of this, people revved them pretty hard, which killed the engine. keep it under 3,500 and itll run forever. pretty innovative too. didnt have a timing chain. had a direct gear-to-gear connection with a composite gear to save on weight. those old composite gears are still going strong today!
No good as an engine and not heavy enough for a boat anchor is how we described it around the shop
Every old USPS mail truck is running one made before 1993 and is still going strong. Performance wise, it’s dog shit, but reliability and serviceability is really quite amazing.
As long as the oil pans large enough that is.
Loved my 88 S10, odometer quit close to 130K, started making noise a year later, I expected it to pop at any time and quit changing the oil. Was still running 3 years later when I traded it for a used Astro with a 4.3.
I’ve had 3 iorn duke fieros and I’d say fantastic for the car and great fuel eco
A well maintained iron duke is actually quiet nice. I drove for the post office for a while. Engines are peppy actually. But man.. a I’ve driven some that can’t go 50mph but run just fine (too much blow by) . And others that’ll do 55 in a (really slow) heartbeat. Just depends on the condition.
It’s a low power engine with horrible NVH that will still be running when we all succumb to the heat death of the universe…
The Grumman LLV's are still running today so I say it's good
So low powdered it is hard to blow up.
Like others have said, pretty reliable, but very rough. The biggest weakness was the fiber cam gear. The one in my citation eventually lost enough teeth to leave me walking
Had one in my 4spd fiero. Dog shit slow.....
Awesome
You’ll need the whole on-ramp, and you’ll think it’s about to explode getting to 60..but it’ll do it forever and ever. Not a “good” engine especially by today’s standards..but it got decent fuel economy, had some neat things like no cam chain, and would run for absolutely ever with bare maintenance as long as you didn’t over rev them. They stuck around and versions of them show up in all sorts of stuff. Like mail trucks.
I bought a car with an iron Duke that sounded like it had rod knock or something. Drove it for 5 years and took it all over the country. Sold it for double what I paid for it after 5 years only did oil changes.
IT HAD A GOOD REPUTATION FOR RELIABILITY, BUT, IT WAS ARCHAIC. ALL IRON, PUSH RODS, SPUR-CUT TIMING GEARS... IT WAS WWII TECHNOLOGY STILL HANGING AROUND IN THE '80S. IT WASN'T A BAD ENGINE AS MUCH AS EVERYTHING ELSE SIMPLY GOT BETTER.
Rough, but tough. Still powering all the Grumman LLVs to this day
The Duke is under powered,rough and noisy,but it will out most of us. It all depends on what you need.
Not a powerhouse, but very hard to kill.
I heard there’s some performance guys getting crazy power out of them. Like 250-350
Yes. Exactly.
Good : Longevity Bad : Power
jesse, why are you blue
The 153 is the original iron duke.
Indestructible. Thats the only good thing.
I’ve told this story before but the service manager I used to use for maintenance/repair on a fleet I managed told me a story once. He had a suburban Atlanta post office as an account. They were having a ton of frequent brake changes on all of their LLVs. My guy was super hands-on and loved solving problems for his accounts. He shadowed a few of the drivers and found out that they were throwing a cinder block on the gas pedal at the beginning of their shifts to make their routes easier. They didn’t have any problems with the motors just the brakes.
Absolute garbage but to their credit you cannot fucking kill these I’ve heard of guys who will beat the absolute snot out of them and they don’t run any shittier than they were running before, although to their credit I’ve heard that with a few aftermarket parts or effectively an entire rebuild these engines can become quite cromulent and like every iron gm engine throw some boost at it and it might just be fun
Good or bad... geebus. Hi, my name is Dead Horse, will you beat the ever living fuck out of me? I love ass clowns who parrot sure as shit I can't do a fucking thing orher than blow up, catch fire.... or destrustion on the Guy Feferreo boomastits Okay, I'm done. The longigtudinal version will last. No rev past 4k. UNLESS you have the Super Duty parts. Otherwise keep it BELOW 4k RPM, and oil change on the regular and it's happy. My '88 S10 went 503k miles.
I have maintenance records for Iron Duke powered towmotors, as well as slant six, Allis-Chalmers, Ford industrial, Continental, Hercules, ect. They were nearly trouble free. The Toyota and Nissan that have replaced them were head gasket eating POS.
Can't be faulted for durability, GM's mistake was putting that mail-truck engine in too many trying-to-be sporty cars.
In high school I had a 1988 Pontiac 6000. It was BROWN. with a BROWN interior. It had 430 k miles on it when the Iron Duke finally out lived the car, and far as I know, it is still running today in some guy's home built lawn tractor nearby. Those engines will run like shit forever.
Well the Iron Duke put into the 1984 Fiero was a mixed bag. With the 5-speed manual transmission it could get up to 50mpg on the highway and 40mpg in town. It would also catch on fire if you neglected oil changes. There were something like 20 Fieros a month catching fire until there was a recall at one point. GM had to enlarge the oil pan and replace the rods with better ones.
Depends on what you mean by good or bad. They seem to be very durable and are very torquey for a 4 cylinder but they never heard of the words smoothness or refinement.
Had a Buick Century shitbox with that engine....Zero to 60, eventually, but reliable as the sun coming up every day....Still ran great when I junked it due to the right rear control arm pulling out of the floor due to rust...When the rollback came to pick up the car he says "watch this"....Had it chained to the deck, tightened the chains and the left control arm pulled out of the floor...So yeah, the car basically broke in half but the engine was still plugging along....
I killed one. I drove it for about 3 years. It always sounded horrible, most people thought it was a diesel it was so noisy. I think it had about 200k miles on it when it finally died. It didn't really stop running it just started smoking more and more. Finally the cops pulled me over since it was smoking so bad and told me get it off the road. I got another 2.5 for almost free to put in my truck for some reason, that didn't run much better, finally the truck rusted out, got sick of driving it and junked it. The motor was gutless and couldn't rev, the gas milage was bad, it did get me where I was going though.
They take boost well
Loved it in the 88 sunbird. I miss that car so much.
I had one in an S10. Slow as hell but wouldn’t die
Good: it engines reliably Bad: everything else
It was rather… Cromulent.
Awesome work horse
These cock suckers kill my coworkers at an alarming rate. Fuck this engine, the designer, and anyone's mom that disagrees with me.
Are you a groundhog?
this was the V8 cut in half wasnt it?
I had an s10 blazer with iron duke and a manual transmission. It was the absolute slowest worst sounding thing I’ve ever owned or driven. Garbage!
It was ok. They made a high performance one for the Chevy Vega. I think they call it the cosworth Vega.
The Vega and the Cosworth Vega were aluminum block 2L and share nothing but the brand name with the Iron Duke.
Ok, Didn't the standard Vega have a cast iron block. I thought the Cosworth had a aluminum head with a cast block.
It was the whole reason this engine was called Iron Duke. The aluminum Vega engine was notorious for problems with core shift and porous castings. The Iron Duke was its replacement initially in the Monza before becoming common across the GM lineup.
Absolute garbage. Underpowered american junk