This ad brings up an interesting question: how do you promote a relatively new engine in a dated, unremarkable car? In Oldsmobile’s case, for this December 1991 ad, you ignore the issue entirely. By the time this went to print, the Achieva (what a name) was slowly finding its way to dealerships across the country and the Calais as featured in this spot was a rapidly fading memory. But as this ran in racing-friendly Autoweek, Oldsmobile apparently had faith that readers would focus on the Quad 4, the main subject of the ad. There was so much hype around the engine, after all, and it looked so good on paper.
With so much effort put into the new engine, introduced for 1987, the was little choice but for Quad 4 advertising to simply feature the outgoing, brougham-hangover Calais. Initial versions boasted about 160 horsepower out of 2.3 liters, but a high-output 180 horsepower version came online for 1990 in both the 442 and International Series (there’s that confused marketing again). A special 190 horsepower version came with the 442 W41 package and was offered for 1991 only, during which time it was raced with some success against other manufacturers’ competitive production models.
The W41 engine would continue in early versions of the Achieva, but as it turned out, the real problem wasn’t so much the dorky Calais the engine was attached to, but its own unrefined manners. When it came to Oldsmobile quality, drivers really could “feel it,” and according to some sources, real-world durability wasn’t much to brag about, either. By 1993, max horsepower was 185 and by 1995, high-output versions were gone. Too bad; large capacity, free-revving four-cylinders can be a lot of fun, and in terms of output, GM had a lot to brag about. Consequent de-tunings and re-engineering quieted things down, but only somewhat, and the N-bodies were getting more and more rotten all the while. For the last engine truly designed by Oldsmobile, it would seem the party was over before it really began.
As one should expect from such a unique and powerful, yet inexpensive, engine, the high-output Quad 4s have developed somewhat of a cult following. For one thing, they offered a level of performance that was truly noteworthy in their day and at their price point (compare the Quad 442 to the outgoing G-body 442, as an example). For another, they came to the market at a time when the hottest competition either used turbos or at least six-cylinders. My only experience with the engine was in the late ’90s behind the wheel of a non-W41 Quad 442 with a broken exhaust, where it pulled quite lustily to its redline; it sounded like hell, but was quite fast. As I’m sure a handful of our readers have had even more positive encounters with intact examples, let’s take a moment to remember one of the more uncommon motors from The General.
The Quad 4’s power was very impressive for its day, especially the higher output versions. Unfortunately, with the exception of the Cutlass Supreme, I wouldn’t have been caught dead in any of the cars it made its way into.
My parents bought new an ’88 Oldsmobile Cutlass Calais International Series with the Quad 4 engine. That was a great car – all blacked out with a red interior. My Mom raced around in that car and put 100K miles on it in the first year with constant trips to KU Medical Center with my very ill older sister. The dealer kindly replaced a cracked head under warranty, even though it was over on miles, only charging us $100.00 for the job. My mom didn’t like the car as well after that repair work – apparently the dealer had decreased the compression with the new head in order to hopefully prevent it from cracking again, which made the car less exciting to drive.
I wonder if anyone ever put one in a Vega? Could be a bargain version of the Cosworth Twin Cam.
I remember being very impressed with the cutaway drawings of the Quad Four in gushing R&T articles about the new motor.
I remember some excitement at the Quad four’s release. My understanding is that vibration was excessive because it lacked the balance shafts typical for an engine of its displacement.
Another strikeout for GM:
1) Vega
2) Diesel cars
3) Quad 4
Fiero, Aztec, SSR could be considered foul balls–maybe.
They’re back at the plate:
1) ignition switches (possibly an extra strike for being inexcusable)
Am missing anything? Oh, one foul for all the semi-hybrids notable only for the large lettering on their sides.
Oh, and a foul for the overstated fronts on Chevrolets and Cadillacs, which look like Halloween face masks.
HYBRID!
The Tahoe/Yukon/Escalade Hybrids actually were full hybrids and could run entirely on electric power, as were the later pickups. The early Silverado/Sierra and Malibu/Aura/VUE “hybrids” were really just an elaborate start-stop system with some added functionality.
IMO both were solid technology, but the decision to refer to the earlier system(s) as a “hybrid” at all, while technically accurate, was an invitation for ridicule. “Prius” and “50mpg” were still synonymous with the word at the time, so it’s no surprise that the world was profoundly underwhelmed by a V8 fullsize pickup “hybrid” that yielded a 1mpg net improvement in fuel economy.
Eventually GM wised up and re-branded this form of “hybrid” as “eAssist”
Or the 2015 Corvette, which just had a Stop Sale and Recall issued by GM…
There aren’t ANY new (or upcoming) GM cars on my interest list now. That’s never happened before. Not even the Camaro or the Corvette would be my go-to if I won the lottery. I guess GM no longer ‘Builds Excitement”.
Don’t worry, I’m sure you can find a nice 97 Trans Am some where, maybe you can even add some stick on chrome portholes too…..
Wasn’t Pontiac the “We Build Excitement” division? No Pontiac, no excitement.
Or the 130,000 Tundras that just go recalled……oh no wait, that’s not a GM car, so….its ok.
nice…
WRONG as usual, Carmine! Toyotas are perfect. They run for infinity billion miles maintenance free, run on happiness and rainbows, cure cancer, and instead of normal exhaust they emit only kittens and cotton candy.
As a formerly satisfied owner of Chevy and Olds from the 50s and 60s, I’m not trying to whip on GM. It’s just disappointing. I followed those little Vega panel wagons and the Quad 4 with great interest, but was never able to get one (fortunately, as it turns out).
I was very impressed with these when they first appeared. Finally a sophisticated DOHC from the General! I had a friend who owned one and liked it at first but later soured on it; he never told me exactly what happened to change his opinion, but it was his last American car. I would guess the typical head gasket woes, but don’t know.
In any case, I just stumbled across a 1999 article from ‘Engine Builder’ magazine
http://www.enginebuildermag.com/1999/04/rebuilding-the-gm-quad-4/
I think it explains why, despite their obvious potential, these engines are not being rebuilt and refined – this quote kind of sums things up, I think:
“Our extensive research shows there are actually a total of six different blocks, three cranks, three rods, seven heads, four cam housings, four front covers and three oil pumps used on these engines from 1987 through 1995, and that doesn’t include the changes that were made for the 2.4L engine! It’s no wonder that everyone seems confused about what goes where, when and why.
Reading the article, it also seems that a lot of these changed parts are not interchangable so unlike an SBC you can’t build a ‘Best of Breed’,
I’m not real surprised that there are all kinds of variations of the Q4, it’s been SOP to have running changes on all motors for many years now. I had a turbo Dodge where I had to know what day it was built in order to get some emissions parts correctly ordered.
It was not likely to have the same amount of ubiquitousness as the SBC given it’s mission. However, I like the fact that there are a bunch of mix and match things you can do with a Q4, provided you can *find* the parts you want to mix. I’m not sure which parts are not interchangeable, but it’s well known in the Q4 community that the hot heads will swap along with some of the cams and intakes, etc.
The Q4 has an afterlife powering hot rods and some British cars, due to it’s small size and power output. This company: quad4rods.com makes a bunch of parts for that reason.
My “unicorn” would be one of the W-41 motors with the Beretta GTZ Getrag in my dear old Sunfire GT. That would have been fun.
Good grief, that reminds me of my father’s 1950 Packard, for which if you wanted to get points you had to know not only the maker of the distributor but the part number.
My Peugeot 406 with 2.1TDI was like that accessory belt? certainly sir which airconditioner compressor is sirs car fitted with, the Pug shop fitted the wrong belt so how the hell was I supposed to know.
It’s common for many engine designs to be refined and lack interchangeability. That’s what updating does. To cite the example of another large displacement four-cyl screamer, you can’t take a closed deck block from a Prelude’s 2.2 VTEC and bolt on a later cylinder head, designed for an open deck block.
I see that a lot of GM die-hards do in fact scoop up, refurbish and enjoy their Quad 4s. It’s the nature of the engine–medium displacement and complex–which keeps it unpopular in the applications where the SBC is used, for instance.
Speaking of Quad 4 hotrodding…Id like to see one of these in a T-bucket. OR, as much as I hate GM power in Jeeps….one of these in a Kaiser-era CJ-5 would make for a helluva sand/mud eater. At least in those days, they did use Buick V6 and V8 engines. ALTHOUGH, so did the first XJs and MJs in the early 80s. Quad 4 + 4×4 2 Door Cherokee Chief….HMMM…..
I sort of recall that the Quad 4 was the starting point in developing the Northstar V8.
The 2.3l Quad 4 HO was also in the 90-93 Chevy Beretta GTU and with its standard 5 speed Getrag manual trans, it was quite noisy but very quick.
I do remember those. In those days, that was a pretty legit alternative to a Mustang or F body. Id like to see how a GTU…or was it GTZ…stacks up against a Dodge Daytona with the Turbo II. The IROC R/T with the Lotus cylinder head was untouchable as FWD cars go…
The idea was to make the Quad 4 pretty power dense and with a fairly big displacement for a 4 in the event, if or when, they needed to be put in the full size H and C body cars, Oldsmobile had tucked a Quad 4 into a regular whites and wires FWD 98 Regency Brougham during the Quad’s press intro to show how well it performed even in a big car.
I am surprised that Oldsmobile and Buick did not try to put it in the Oldsmobile Cutlass Ciera and Buick Century. They offered the car with a base 4 cylinder(iron duke and then the 2.2l) throughout the whole time the car was made. If not the DOHC 2.3l then perhaps the SOHC Quad 4 that was in the Skylark/Achieva/Grand Am from 92-94. Or would it have been competition for the Ciera/Century v6 models?
They did stick it in the Cutlass and Grand Prix W-body cars, in both DOHC and OHC variants. It was also supposed to be the base motor for the never was GM-80 FWD F-body and the 2nd gen Fiero.
I remember the Fiero was supposed to get the Quad 4–that would have been cool
I really liked the Quad 4 in my 1995 Grand Am. Mine was the first year of the balance shaft, the engine was no where near as loud as some would have you believe. Compared to the pushrod lump in the Cavalier and my S10, the Quad was quiet, indeed. Just not as smooth as a Honda. Lots of go for me; I loved getting on the freeway everyday from work and letting it run up through the gears. When the second water pump started making noises I called it a day. Mine was new enough that there were no head gasket issues. Why oh why did they make it so complicated to change the water pump? Why did they stick the starter on the Northstar in the “vee” of the engine? Typically, if GM had just fully developed the design, I think they would have had a winner. It’s sad.
The other problem was that the body parts of the car the Quad 4 came with started falling apart the minute we left the dealer lot. A real heap.
Hmm, a seemingly modern and sophisticated twin cam 4 that makes good power but sounds like a box of hammers. Did the Saturn designers collaborate with the Quad-4 guys?
This is example of GM trying to maintain all the brands. When Saturn was developing a separate DOHC motor, why didn’t GM just develop a good solid design and share it across lines? Divisional pride was out the window already. It could have saved some customers headaches.
“Throw stuff at the wall and see what sticks” was their SOP for years, until BK.
Though originally the plan for Saturns OHC engines called for a very small displacement, they were planning 1.3-1.6 litre engines, what they ended up with was a 1.9, suitable for compacts, but perhaps not really what would be needed if it was going to be put in a midsize-fullsize car, as was planned for the 2.3 Quad 4.
Plus, Saturns engineering and development was pretty much “walled-off” from the rest of GM, Saturn operated as a stand alone subsidiary.
In the late 80’s, Olds was suddenly designated as ‘import fighter’ after years of plush, cushy 98 Regencys and Broughams. So, to suddenly whip up the Quad 4 and drop it in the formal roof Calais was a non starter. The Acheiva didn’t have a chance.
By the time the Intrique came around, the Oldsmobile name was ‘box office poison’. And some wonder why it was canned. Images of old ladies going 45 in left lane, puffy roofs, and velour pillow seats killed it. Can’t change image overnight.
Olds fans go ‘They were building the right cars and GM killed them’
Actually it was GM slapped badges on various shared cars, and tried to say ‘All new Oldsmobiles!’ Intrique was just another W body, nothing special. Alero was just a Grand Am without cladding, and when Pontiac removed the clads, why bother? The Aurora could have also been a nice Pontiac.
And lets not even go into all the rebadged trucks as ‘Olds’, when a GMC is the same exact thing.
GM trying to maintain 6 divisions with sinking 20% share was doomed to fail.
The Alero was by far the best-looking of its generation of N-bodies, even compared to the decladded Grand Am. Perhaps not super distinctive other than the Oldsmobile “face”, but good-looking. It also drove well; not a home run but a very competent drive.
Sadly, they just didn’t hold up. GM quality or lack thereof killed that car. When I first met my wife, her Alero was 7 years old and had about 140K on it. At that time, the clearcoat was shot and peeling all over the car, the dashboard mat had curled up and peeled, the lettering was coming off the radio buttons, the power locks had stopped working, two window regulators were on their way out, it had a slow coolant leak, the CD player and cassette deck were both wonky, the ignition cylinder was starting to fail… No excuse for all that on a car that was less than 10 years old. Yes, it lived another 5 years after that, but with a constant litany of new problems and old ones growing worse.
I guess the number “0” on the race car says it all.
Ha!
I don’t have any experience with the original Quad 4, but I do have some with its successor, the 2.4 Twin Cam, in an ’00 Alero. A lot of the roughness had been eliminated with the balance shafts, and though it was down on power compared to the HO Quad 4 (I think rated at 160) it felt pretty strong. Didn’t feel overly high strung and actually a pleasant driving experience.
When it was working, that is. Not exactly trouble-free. It made it almost to 175K miles without any major work, though it was leaking oil and coolant like a sieve by that time, but lots of little annoyances along the way.
sis had a 94 Achieva with the Quad OHC (SOHC version) that had 115hp. It was a willing and playful partner as long as you kept the revs up, but was as smooth as a Briggs and Stratton 3.5hp flattie. Noisy too, as you felt it vibrate the whole cabin at high rpm.
I loved it at first, but when it hit high miles and needed multiple timing chains replaced at low miles and an absolute PITA water pump replacement that it became a $250 trade-in fodder when they got their 2004 Envoy, just because we (dad and I and her husband) got fed up fixing the damned thing. It had 140,000 miles on it at the time.
By the time the Quad 4 was finally updated, then the EcoTec was on the way.
Looks like GM got it right, with Eco, but now they have to sell themselves as “New GM”.
Maybe should have changed name to ‘Chevrolet Motor Co.’ or even ‘Fisher Cars’, to start fresh.
Great little motor, just too bad that it didn’t find its way into a lot of suitable tin. My buddy in college had his dad’s beater Calais on loan for a while. It was a 4 door with a slush box and looked absolutely REGAL with its custom body work–crinkled left front fender. True it had all the wrong boxes checked except for that little powerhouse Q4. For an ugly little wretch that thing would haul ass! The Q4 gets dinged for being a bit noisy and rough, but personally I could care less about either of those things. I want my car FAST…comfort and subtlety be damned.
GM did in fact have the right cars to put these in, at one time or another. As was mentioned before, a Quad 4 Fiero would’ve been the BALLS. Id one-up that with a turbocharger, myself. The W body coupes supposedly could be had with the Q4 and a Getrag 5spd but Ive never seen one. Wouldn’t be a bad ride. But where this engine would really shine would be in the J body coupes. What coudve been…
Between the high-winding DOHC inline-4, lightweight FWD chassis, and basically being offered as a homologation package, this really was the proto-Integra Type-R.
I had 2 cars with the Quad 4, an 88 Pontiac Grand Am that went to 180K miles, and a 93 Olds Achieva SC that did just over 100K when it got totalled. Both with 5-speeds. A friend of mine had an 87 Grand Am the same time I had mine, his was the 2.5 (Iron Duke) with auto, it felt like 3/4ths the car mine was, slow, thrashy and not much fun. Mine felt really fun to drive, like the engine was so much better than the “base” one, you could forgive it’s other faults (pretty much all the paint peeled off by itself, and every panel had multiple rust holes by the time it was done) But the AC blew cold right up to the end, it always started, -20 or 100 degrees and nothing more than maintenance stuff ever got done to it. WIth the “sport suspension” it handled pretty good, too. Another friend had a V6/auto Grand Am, it wasn’t as fast as my Quad powered one, and the handling wasn’t nearly as good (it plowed in corners like mad). The Achieva was the same deal, an acquaintance had a V6/auto Achieva at the same time as mine, my car felt way more nimble and willing to move, driving his Achieva felt not much different than driving my Dad’s 84 Calais…
So I never understood all the anti-Quad stuff I read online, the engine revved like mad and made both my boring Detroit-mobiles feel like something you’d enjoy driving.
I seriously dislike the styling of the 1st generation N-body, but I’d jump at the chance to own a W41 Calais. The Quad4 was an absolutely wild engine for the time, typically half-baked and horribly flawed, but there was really nothing like it in the U.S. for quite a few years. 190HP and 7,200rpm are still decent specs for a naturally aspirated 2.3l up to the current day.