Kevin Swaney and the team at Tin Indian Performance do one thing – build Pontiac performance engines – and do it very, very well. Swaney’s personal rear-engine dragster is the world’s quickest naturally-aspirated Pontiac, capable of knocking down 6.80 elapsed times at over 192 MPH. 

The engine, designed to run on pump fuel, makes a whopping 558 horsepower and 583 lb-ft of torque  on the Tin Indian dynamometer.

“When running pump fuel, the compression ratio is critical – we don’t go over 10.5 to 1 when using Edelbrock heads on these engines. The engine likes 36 degrees of total advance with this combination,” says Swaney.

They built this sweet 468ci Pontiac engine for customer Mike Matuszek’s 1966 GTO using a 455 Pontiac block along with an Eagle Specialty Products crankshaft and connecting rod combination teamed with KB Performance forged pistons. Bore measures out at 4.210-inch, with a 4.250-inch stroke on the crankshaft.

Tin Indian Performance supplied the custom COMP Cams hydraulic roller camshaft and hydraulic roller lifters, and Edelbrock‘s Performer RPM cylinder heads and Performer RPM intake manifold sit on top, sucking fuel through a Quick Fuel Technology 950 CFM carburetor. The exhaust is taken away from the cylinder heads through a set of Doug’s 1 7/8-inch headers designed for the GTO chassis – watch them turn blue during the pull!

The engine was a re-do from another performance shop, and the TIP gang made quick work of getting the combination up to speed and making big power.

“We were testing one of our new 4150 bolt pattern to Edelbrock Performer carb spacers. The engine also features a set of custom Tin Indian Performance Billet-TEK valve covers that we manufacture in house. We had to do a custom height to clear his AC box in the car and custom engraving pattern to get the engraving to clear the breather placement,” says Swaney. 

This customer was lucky enough to have a good Poncho block to work with.

“Good stock Pontiac blocks are getting harder and harder to come by. We don’t even mess around with stock rods anymore – not worth the risk.  We have access to pretty much anything aftermarket now for our Pontiacs – rods, cranks, blocks, heads, you name it,” Swaney explains.

In fact, he has another engine build in the works that uses all aftermarket parts that he’ll be sharing with EngineLabs as it comes together – a 511-cube monster that’s expected to make much better horsepower numbers. Stay tuned!