the northstar was first offered...when?

[Ralph]

OK, I thought it might just be something like the air intake route or something, thanks.

[PONCHO]

Did you know the valve train on the northstar was actually designed and engineered through the GM Quad 4? I am actually proud to own a 2.4 LD9 twin cam now.

[jadcock]

I wouldn't doubt it. Oldsmobile always has been a leader and innovator in the field, even if they never received credit. Did you know that Oldsmobile designed and created the Quad-4 engine? By the way, the "Quad-4" is a 2.3L engine, IIRC. The dual cam 2.4L is probably just a corporate engine, possibly based on the original Quad-4 design.

[PONCHO]

Dude it's all quad 4. They are all corporate engines. Visit quad4forums.com. The 2.3/2.4/2.5 engines are all basically different versions of each other. The Quad 4 name was dropped in 1996 for Twin Cam.

[jadcock]

Dude, enlighten yourself with a copy of the book "Setting the Pace". It's about Oldsmobile's first 100 years of history, incuding their development of the original Quad-4 engine. A GM corporate engine is always based on a particular design. Example, the "corporate" 3800 is based heavily on Buick's 3.8L V6 engine from the 70s and 80s. The "corporate" 305/350 during the mid 90s were based heavily on the Chevrolet small block engines. What you call the "corporate" Quad-4 was developed by the Oldsmobile division in the 1980s.

[jadcock]

Here, let me paraphrase for you...from pg. 411 from Setting the Pace:

For all its problems in the 1980s, Olds could still play "innovator" quite successfully. The Quad-4 engine is a case in point. It was born in 1981 as one of several programs seeking a viable replacement for the traditional V-8 in light of new mandates for even cleaner air and higher fuel economy. Chief engineer Ted Louckes was instrumental in the Quad-4's development: "We could see the demise of the big V-8...and we felt it was important that Oldsmobile have an engine of some substance to replace that.

Obviously, that's far from the whole text on the issue, which spans some 3-4 more pages of the chapter, but it's the first page, so to speak, of the history of Quad-4 development.