Pete Hagenbuch, Chrysler engine development engineer

pete hagenbuch, chrysler engine development engineer

Pete Hagenbuch was a Chrysler engine development engineer in the engines area from 1958 through to 1987; he worked in valvetrain, performance, emissions, and other areas. His work covered Chrysler’s most legendary engines — the 426 Hemi, the B/RB-series big blocks, the LA small blocks, the 2.2 turbos, and even the Australian Hemi Six. He is friendly and approachable, and currently volunteers a good deal of his time at the Walter P. Chrysler Museum in Auburn Hills. You can read a number of his articles in our models and toys section.

In his own words:

After gaining a BSME at West Virginia University, where I also met my wife of 47 years, I earned my MAE degree from the Chrysler Institute of Engineering in 1958.

I worked in various phases of engine development, from the "parts and pieces" groups (pistons and rings, valve train) to engine performance, and finally, turbocharged engine performance. During that time I was involved with every engine developed by Chrysler, from the slant six to the 2.2 and 2.5 four cylinders. I retired at the end of 1987. I had purchased my first computer in 1986, an IBM PC Jr. with no hard disk and 384 K of RAM. I had the then-new Lotus 1-2-3 spreadsheet software in a cartridge, version 1A. I learned everything Lotus could do in the next couple of years and graduated to a Gateway (with a hard drive!) in 1992. I took some time out from the computer in 1990 to build a 32' x 12' screen porch on the side of our house. That was my big retirement project. When we decided to move to the city in 1998, the thing we missed most was that beautiful porch.

So here we are back in the present. Ann and I have been volunteers at the Walter P. Chrysler Museum since it opened its doors in 1999.

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We were quite specialized in those days. The "Engine Lab" had a number of specialist groups, as follows:

The coordination group whom we claimed learned less and less about more and more until they knew absolutely nothing about everything. Seriously, they did all the jobs no one else wanted to do. Scheduling, record keeping, engine builds and on and on.

Then there were the specialist groups who, we said, knew more and more about less and less until they knew all there was to know about nothing. I was one of the latter.

The groups, each led by a Senior Engineer, were as follows:

1 - "The piston group" which had responsibility for durability and performance of pistons, piston rings, cylinder bores (mostly the type of finish which had very large implications on run-in and oil economy), piston pins and oil economy.

2 - "The valve group" which handled all things related to the valve train. Such as valves, tappets, camshafts (a huge subject by itself), pushrods, valve springs and retainers and, of course, cylinder heads; particularly valve seats, and on heavy duty engines valve seat inserts and rotators, and valve rockers. Here Chevrolet did the whole industry a disservice when they invented stamped rockers. There were times I practically lived in vendor plants trying to get them made properly. We tried out own stamping plant but after a six month program they said "we don't want them!" In fact, it was stamped rockers which got me to Australia for five weeks in 1969. This group, which I headed for 7 years, produced some of the most exciting and interesting work I did at Chrysler.

3 - "The bearing group". Again, bearings were a tiny part of this group's responsibilities. Primarily, the cylinder block was theirs; also oil pump, connecting rods, crankshaft, timing chain or gears, rear main bearing oil seal and the oil pan and oil pickup. I never served in this one.

4 - "The performance group". We stepped on everybody's toes controling cam profiles, valve and port shape, combustion chamber, compression ratio, intake manifolding as regards distribution of F/A mixture, spark advance schedules, you name it! Also carburetion (remember them?) and later fuel injection which, when I retired was still single point, or "throttle body" injection in most cases. TBI was not a popular system. For a number of years this group did all the calibration work for EFI but eventually there was a whole new group set up which covered this area; emissions. And more recently engine performance, being of little importance in the 1980s, was folded into this group just before I retired on 12/31/87.

I entered "the lab" in 1958 after graduating from Chrysler Institute of Engineering and was assigned to the Piston Group. My first project was the development of the 170 cid slant six followed closely by the 225 version. I also did a lot of production contact working on field problems like a newly approved piston ring source who gave us a different metallurge for production than the stuff we tested and approved. The worst of this was the new rings created such heavy cylinder bore wear that the engines were junk after 20,000 miles. The name McQuay Norris still gives me chills!

I also got to work with our premier HD truck and industrial engine, the 354 double rocker which had all sorts of sophisticated stuff like Bright-Ray coated valve heads, Stellite seat inserts, sodium filled stems, and positive valve rotators. These engines were legendary. The most famous use was in the train at the Detroit Zoo where they had several locomotives and the engines just went on and on, well into the 1960s when they were finally replaced by the (I think) 413 RB engine.

In late 1959 I became the lead engineer of the valve group. Nothing like learning from the top! Got to work with the Hyper Pak 170s on valve dynamics (meaning float tendencies). This wasn't much of a job, my stock 170 got spun to 6400 rpm every time I wanted to beat someone. I ran this group through 1968 and worked with damn near everything. Development of the LA including the 273 and 273 HP and then the 318 LA. Lots of work with B and RB engines. By this time we had a "race group" in the lab. We worked together on many items, including a valve tip wear problem on the 426 Hemi, the first to be called a "Hemi."

As I remember, this problem was fixed by chrome plating the valve tips, polishing the rocker pads, increasing oil flow to the rockers, and loosening up the tolerances between the valve keepers and stems. Later on, we my group worked with Engine Design (a completely separate operation then, under a different Chief Engineer) to develop a hydraulic camshaft for the Street Hemi. The problem was valve dynamics and/or pump-up of the hydraulic lifters. This one was a pain. We'd run-in the new cam and lifter set and then blow up the engine trying for 6800 rpm. It seems like we went through a couple dozen engines but it was probably 12 or 15....I don't remember. It was fun, though!

Another project was development of the "Kangaroo Six", a large-displacement ultra-light weight design we did specifically for Chrysler Australia. In fact, it was so light and flexible that the oil pan literally fell off the first endurance engine! After beefing up and a lot of fooling around it turned out to be a pretty good engine. I know Australia increased the displacement at least once, making it damn near as big as the Hudson Hornet.

In 1969 I was assigned to preside over the near-total demise of the large engine performance group. I remember few accomplishments here, mostly just putting out fires. However, Chrysler Australia got into big trouble setting up production on the Kangaroo six they cried for help. The natural one to go was my ex-boss (over both Piston and Valve Train Groups) but the fool was afraid to fly that far. So I went in my previous capacity and they were in such dire straits it took me 5 weeks to get them back on track. And the biggest problem was the damned stamped valve rockers. I loved Australia!

In the early 70s, performance was practically forgotten and my work evolved to emissions, a period I would rather forget. Performance became driveability and emission controls strangled both. Air pumps, EGR valves, catalysts and high exhaust back pressure. Humbug!!!!

The most exciting time at Chrysler, at least for those of us who survived, began in about 1974 when the term "Financially Troubled Chrysler Corporation" was coined, probably by the Wall Street Journal, which never published a positive word about us during that whole period. Thank God for Lee Iaccoca. I worshipped the guy from afar. Thank the Lord I never had to work for him directly! I'm truly sorry he got tied up with Kerkorian in trying to buy the company. It cost him getting his name on what truly deserves to be known as the "Iaccoca Tower" at CTC.

We all went home for the month of December but were given next year's vacation pay. With holidays paid, I never missed a days' pay. I remember coming in during that period to keep the high performance 225 project afloat. Are you aware of that one? Pretty damn nice job.

In the late 1970s I worked on the development of the 2.2 4 cylinder, continuing to improve its performance pretty much through the 1980s. And, of course, the 2.5 version too. I believe all the tooling is now busily at work in China.

And last but not least, the 2.2 and 2.5 turbos. We started out with nobody who knew a lot about turbos. I knew enough to want to look at superchargers instead or also, knowing even then that the turbo is not really the answer for passenger cars, but nobody would listen. The powers that be insisted it be a regular fuel engine but the trouble was the detonation sensor wasn't reliable. I believe we did include a statement in the owners' manual stating premium fuel was advised but it was OK to use regular. I used premium in mine.

I had my first turbo in a 1987 Dodge Daytona. Nice car. I had a 1988 Daytona turbo when I retired. This was the much-improved model with the long branch intake manifold. Really nice! And my last was a 1989 LeBaron coupe with 2.5 turbo and automatic trans. Ann and I took it on a 7000 mile trip out west and I have to admit, though I disliked the engine, it was good in the mountains.

Slot racing

pete hagenbuch, slot racing champion This photo is of Pete Hagenbuch in 1962. In his own words:

The trophy was for winning the Formula 1 final after a series of heats and a semi-final race — in George Maxwell's basement on a four lane track for 1/32 scale electrically powered models. The electrics come from a 12 volt automotive battery connected to a trickle charger to keep it at full charge.

I forget the dimensions of George's track but I'd estimate something on the order of 75 to 90 feet per lap. The tracks were in some form of distorted figure 8s, which made the lap length equal for all for lanes (or slots).

I guess I figured anybody associated with cars and/or car lovers would have seen a slot racing track at least once. In the later 1960s, any hobby shop that was serious about business had at least one or two tracks, some had as many as four.

The cars were guided by a device which attached to the bottom front of the chassis and carried two brushes to pick up current from the copper strips which were cemented to the track surface on both sides of the slot. We also had brakes built into the hand controller which shorted across the motor brushes turning the motor into a generator.

Nowadays you can buy yourself a complete slot car at any hobby shop but from what little I've seen of them they'd never even come close to the ones we built. I have a Unimat lathe on which I made some wheels, and I converted it into a drill press or milling machine. I used 1/2" aluminum for the main chassis, which held the motor, gears and guide. From this was hung a brass plate which served as the mounting for the body.

At most events we ran three classes; F1, Sports (topless) and GT (coupes). My winning car was a Maserati 250F.

A number of us built fiberglass bodies for ourselves and our club mates. I've sold them to people in most English speaking countries. When I quit racing (1968) I gave all my molds to a friend in the club so they'd still be available.

I just touched on motors. We started out using Pittmans (railroad motors) but soon the Japanese came out with a line of "tin cans" that were lighter and more powerful. We used to install ball bearings, rewind the armatures, put in super field magnets when they became available. We balanced the armatures after advancing the commutators a bit. And I also balanced my rear wheel and tire assemblies; something my mates didn't know. Hell, they were probably doing the same thing.

Enough! Now you know all the latest dope on 1/32 slot racing from 40 years ago. I have a scrapbook full of pictures; cars, tracks, people. Plus I still have about 30 slot cars; all sitting on my desk in a monster case. You can see the case in the current photo. It's behind me with a small silver bowl and a large Ferrari model on top of it.

Models and replicas

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