64 Touge Goat

[touge goat]

As with any good project that takes much more time than you originally thought, my project has a name: Touge Goat. The name comes from what I intend to do with the car. "Touge" is the Japanese form of hill climb/downhill driving. Most of my friends around here have imports, (mostly Nissans, which in my opinion is the lesser of the import evils, being rear wheel drive and having torque), and they "touge". Since I have always loved road racing and there is a lack of road courses here in the boonies of Boise, Idaho, I figured that hill climbing, or "touge", would be the next best thing. I decided to name my project this because I want to show my friends that 45 year old Detroit iron can still be better in the turns than new Japanese plastic:1st:. I also am going to autocross fairly often. Sorry for the long-winded explanation, but I wanted to explain the weird name and also tell what I plan to do with it so that I can get advice on what to buy, alignment, etc.

So here is a list of parts I have or hope to have on the car by the time I’m done with this step of the project:

Engine:

Rotating assembly: Pontiac 455 bored .030” over, std. stroke, stock crank and rods (with ARP rod bolts), and forged pistons.
Air and valve train: Ported 96 heads, Ram Air IV high lift cam, cloyes true double roller timing chain, crane 1.52 roller rockers, ported torker II intake, and a Demon 750 carb.
Oil system: Canton road race oil pan, Melling 60lb. oil pump, crank scraper, and windage tray.
Ignition: Pertronix flamethrower HEI distributor, MSD 6A box, Pertronix rev-limiter, and MSD or Crane cams spark plug wires.
Transmission and drive train:
· Th-350 or 400 (not enough money yet for a TKO.)
· TCS 3000 stall converter
· Powermaster XS mini starter
· 10 bolt rear with Eaton posi and 3.90 gears, stock axles.

Brakes, wheels, and tires:
· Rear Brakes: rebuilt aluminum drums from full size car. (rear discs will come later)
· Front brakes: Baer 11” drilled and slotted rotors, wildwood or kore3 corvette 4 piston calipers.
· Wheels: most likely c5 or c6 wheels (Large width and diameter for little $$:)).
· Tires: staggered tire fitment, 245ish up front and 275-295ish in back, I probably wont get anything above 295 in the rear.
Front suspension:
· Upper A-arms: Hotchkis tall spindle
· Lower A-arms: Stock rebuilt with poly or del-a-lum bushings
· Spindles: B-body tall spindles
· Shocks and springs: Qa1 coilover conversion
· Large swaybar
· All poly or poly and del-a-lum mix bushings
Rear suspension:

Drop springs and some mediocre shocks until I can afford a pair of Qa1 rear coilovers
Watts link
Frame:

Boxed frame and maybe cross supports
4 point cage
Poly or solid body bushings
Interior:

full interior and sound deadener, but with weight reductions here and there (swiss cheese doors, no rear window regulators, no rear seat, lightweight racing seats up front, etc)
5 point harness(es)
Body:

GTO badges
Fiberglass front bumper (later a fiberglass hood)
Kind of going for the streetfighter look with satin black body paint and titanium painted accents
Fabbed front spoiler

Well I think that’s everything… and once again sorry its so long, I wanted to make sure that I had everything. I also plan to have this be a summer daily driver. If you guys have ANY comments at all about my car, what I am planning to buy, or a piece of advice, please feel free to tell me, after all that’s what this forum is about right?
Ill get some pics posted up shortly

Jeff

[touge goat]

I just realized that I never said what kind of car it is! :pat:
haha
well its a 64 pontiac tempest.

[BMF Machine]

SweeT, lots of PonchO fans round here! Can'T wait for progress and picture updates!

[Restomod]

Sounds like a great plan,pics when you get em.

[cdoggy81]

Very cool project & can't wait to see some pics!

A few questions for you about the engine.... :)
I assume the heads you have are of the 1971 96cc D-port variety (found on 400 engines with ~8.2:1 CR) NOT the 1968 RAII round ports! Do you already have these parts or is there another reason why you want to go with a Ram Air IV high lift cam, crane 1.52 roller rockers, torker II intake, and a Demon 750 carb? Are you building this engine yourself or ? Will you have ac or power brake booster? Who is doing the head & intake porting?

This will be a real neat car when done!!! What is your time frame?

[touge goat]

thanks you guys for the nice comments and I should have pics up tomorrow.

cdoggy, dont worry they are not round ports haha, and yes i already have the parts you listed, and i got those parts because they were in my price range and should give me the rpm range and torque curves im looking for. me and my

[touge goat]

thats odd, it posted it while i was typing... anyways, i am building the motor with my grandpa and the heads are a pair of his old heads before he stepped up to edelbrock heads (he is the one who ported them), no ac will be on this car,there should be enough vaccum to have a power brake booster, but will have to see when it is together (im young so having non-power brakes doesnt bother me). About the time frame... well Im only 17 and still in high school, and will then go into college right after. So i see this as being a pretty long, slow build. luckily i have freinds and family who have knowledge about welding, cutting, etc, and i also have pretty good access to those supplies as well, so hopefully the only things i will have to pay for are parts and miscellanious fabricating supplies. Because i have WAY more time on my hands than i do money.
Well, I hope that I answered all of your questions.

Jeff

[b-man]

Jeff,

As a fellow '64 Tempest (and '64 GTO) owner who has had a few 455s I'd like to give you some advice on your combo.

455s don't like 3.90 gears unless they're used pretty much exclusively at the dragsrip. Even at that, a 455 runs very nicely down the drag strip with 3.31 or 3.42 gears.

For a street 455 I wouldn't go much deeper than 3.23s. With 3.90 gears you'll kill that 455 if you ever decide to drive very far on the freeway, 455s don't like running 3500-4000 rpms for extended periods. Your 455 with the RAIV cam won't need to be turned higher than 5500 RPMs, they're not a high-RPM engine unless you have a huge cam and race-ported heads.

I have 3.89 gears in my GTO that I used to bracket race and I never take it on the freeway. I run it around town at 50 to 55 and that's about as fast as it likes to cruise for any length of time. It has 28" tall 275/60-15 tires that help keep the RPMs down compared to the 26" to 27" tall low-profile tires you'll likely be running.

These engines have monster torque and can pull some very tall gears. I used to run 2.56 gears in my 455 Tempest and the car still ran high-13s in the 1/4 mile at the top of 2nd gear (TH400 trans). Gear it tall, you won't be sorry, a 3.08 is a great all-around gear for a 455 with a TH400.

A stock lower end is fine in these engines, but I wouldn't spend any money rebuilding stock cast rods and putting ARP bolts in them. You can buy good stock-replacement type forged rods that already have ARP bolts for just a little more than it costs to rebuild the failure-prone cast rods, around $250. 455s are very hard on rods with their long 4.21" stroke.

A stock HEI distributor that's been recurved for performance is all you need, something you can save money on.

Good luck, Bart

[touge goat]

b-man, thanks for your input, I have found out in recent months since i had my rear end built that, yes 3.90 gears were a bad idea:pat:. Hopefully there can be some money left over for some new gears towards the end of the build.

I probably should have put what i have bought and what i will buy in two different sections, or gave them notes. when i bought the car it had the 455 in it with the rotating assembly that i am going to reuse, though if I could change one thing about my motor it would definately be the rods. I have also already bought the HEI distributor and rev-limiter(it was a good deal from a guy on PY). Thanks again for all the input everybody and keep it coming so i dont miss anything or do anything stupid during my build:yeah:.

Jeff

[touge goat]

I finally got some pics!

Here is the car a couple weeks after i got it (the mailbox hoodscoop will NOT be on it for very much longer, i have a spare steel flat hood)
https://static1.pt-content.com/images/pt/2009/01/IMGP0184-1.jpg

here is my roof after a good wire brushing and a couple coats of por-15
https://static1.pt-content.com/images/pt/2009/01/IMGP0189-1.jpg

after the por-15, on went the dynamat
https://static1.pt-content.com/images/pt/2009/01/IMGP0574-1.jpg

here is the engine bay when i first got it (after I took off about 600hp worth of stickers, but it looks like i missed one:banghead:).
https://static1.pt-content.com/images/pt/2009/01/IMGP0183-1.jpg

My new swaybar is way bigger than the puny stock one!:smoke:
https://static1.pt-content.com/images/pt/2009/01/IMGP0572-1.jpg

And here is it after i tore down the entire front end (you dont have to worry about my safety, i have cleaned the garage twice since this picture haha).
https://static1.pt-content.com/images/pt/2009/01/IMGP0573-1.jpg

[WS6]

very cool. My friend actually has touge on his license plate for his Miata.

[gtoroadracer]

Hi Jeff, Looks like you are off to a good start, you laid out your ideas and you have a game plan. I will give you a couple suggestions to point you in the right direction. Since you are building a car that you want to handle you have to take a couple things into mind one being weight placement. You want the least amount of weight and what you have you want it all the right places. GTOs are very heavy in the front and not a lot of weight in the rear. So what ever you can move around for example a battery, move it to the trunk. Try to keep weight below the centerline of the car. Imagine if you took a string and attached it to the camshaft and ran it back to your trunk lock that is your centerline, keep as much weight below that line. A couple things I saw on your list I would maybe change. Wheels and tire keep them the same size. a 255 wide tire should fit front and rear on a 8 or 9 inch wide wheel. By running a wider rear tire you are designing the handling characteristics of the car. The car is going to want to understeer. Also keep the height of the car in the rear down. If it is too high in the rear the car is also will want to push. I would suggest putting on a big rear sway bar the same size as the front, no more no less. I noticed you want to install a watts link. I assume you are keeping the standard 4 controls in the rear. If that is the case YOU do NOT need a watts link. A rear suspension should have no more that 4 links touching it. The stock 4 link suspension runs at various angles this keeps the rear in its place from going side to side and front to rear. A watts link is used on a 3 link suspension and it is designed to keep the rear center. You can not use it on a 4 link suspension. I designed my own three link suspension and watts link. 4 link is designed for drag racing a 3 link is designed for road racing. If you can let me know anything else you are looking to do I can help you with that as well.

[touge goat]

thanks for the advice gtoroadracer, I have been thinking about the weight distribution front to back. the car already had the battery moved to the trunk, though i will get larger wires and a new battery box for it. i am hoping that the fiberglass front bumper and later the fiberglass hood will also help to get the distribution to a good level until i get out of college and have money to afford other lightweight parts. I really like the idea for keeping weight below the camshaft, i had never really though about that, but will definately keep that in mind. I probably will run the same size tires front and back now, though i will probably go a little bigger to 265-275 (if they will work on the front) or so to give me traction for autocross with the lowend torque. I also will definately have no rake on the car, i dont like that look plus I have heard that it puts extra stress on the steering linkage. Thanks for telling me about the watts link! I am keeping the stock type rear suspension though i will be getting hotchkis boxed upper and lower a-arms. I saw that a few people were putting them on their cars and researched the design and benefits of it to see if i could possibly fab one, but didnt see that it is only beneficial to a 3 link. Thanks for saving me a huge waste of time! I might go to a 3 link and watts link, but that would be a long-long time down the road.

Jeff

[touge goat]

i forgot to talk about my sway bars, i have both front and back, i just eyeballed them with a tape measure, they look to be 1 3/8" up front and 1 5/16" in the rear, though i could be off a 1/16" or so, they were my dads old sway bars and he doesnt know what brand they are, but he thinks they may be old HO racing swaybars. (they are also both solid).

Jeff

[65chevelleboys]

i just got doing alot of work on my 65 chevelle.any questions i might be able to answer for u please just ask .

ps the guys on this site or great got alot of help through the years.

[1971CHEVELLE]

Very cool project:)

[derekf]

Jeff, you might want to take a look in the Suspension section for people's thoughts on the B-body spindles; the cliffs notes version is that they do improve some aspects but create some nasty bumpsteer issues. Proper fix is to use the stock spindles with tall ball joints from SC&C or use the tall AFX spindles from ATS. Seems to me that on a hill climb is not a good place to have bumpsteer.

In the back, you're going to really need to strengthen the shock points if you're going to use them to hold up the car with those coilovers; El Caminos with air shocks tend to break/crack the upper shock mount - and they're just using the air shocks to help support the load, they still have the stock springs too.

There's lots of A-bodies around here (I've got two myself) and the amount of knowledge that other folks have is staggering. Please feel free to post up specific questions in the appropriate forums, some folks don't typically read the Updates forum but stay in the technical ones.

[jackfrost]

a watt's link can help a converging 4-link rear. the stock style suspension locates the axle laterally well enough for a pedestrian driver, but a watt's link does it much more precisely, and takes the load off of the upper links. Marcus from SC&C has written quite a bit about this in the G-body watt's link thread in the suspension forum.

https://www.pro-touring.com/forum/showthread.php?t=46556&highlight=watt%27s+link

[touge goat]

"Jeff, you might want to take a look in the Suspension section for people's thoughts on the B-body spindles; the cliffs notes version is that they do improve some aspects but create some nasty bumpsteer issues. Proper fix is to use the stock spindles with tall ball joints from SC&C or use the tall AFX spindles from ATS. Seems to me that on a hill climb is not a good place to have bumpsteer."

Haha, you are right, it is definately not the place for bumpsteer:), I would like to run B-body spindles though because of the easy disk brake conversion (but it wont bother me if I have to run short spindles), do the bumpsteer tie rods like the Baer trackers actually work to eliminate bumsteer if they are tuned right? Thanks for the info on the shock mounts, I will definately have to keep that in mind when i go from shock and springs to coilovers down the road.

Jack frost, thanks for telling me more about the watts link. now i will have to decide if i want a watts link or not now when I get to the rear end:hmm:.

Thanks for all the great comments! 65 chevelle, thanks for offering any advice I need. I look forward to continuing on my project and asking a lot of questions from everybody as I go.

[touge goat]

I finally got some pictures of my progress over christmas break!

sound deadener over the whole floor
https://static1.pt-content.com/images/pt/2009/01/dynamatfloor1-1.jpg
https://static1.pt-content.com/images/pt/2009/01/dynamatfloor2-1.jpg

took off the rear body stuff
https://static1.pt-content.com/images/pt/2009/01/Rearend-1.jpg

and got my block and crank back from the machine shop (block was honed, and crank was ground)
https://static1.pt-content.com/images/pt/2009/01/Crank-1.jpg

I also got pictures of some other stuff i did before the break
started on refurbishing my gauges
https://static1.pt-content.com/images/pt/2009/01/Gauges-1.jpg
Also redid the dash (needs to be cleaned though, there is a lot of dust still on it, i am also debating whether to paint the heater control satin black or not)
https://static1.pt-content.com/images/pt/2009/01/Dash-1.jpg

[b-man]

Looks great Jeff, nice progress!

May I ask where you bought the the Dynamat and how much it cost?

How much did you have to buy to do the floors, and what grade did you buy?

I really want to this on my Tempest as soon as possible, I just finished repairing my rusty floors and sealing them up with silver POR-15.

[touge goat]

thanks B-Man, I kinda lucked out with my floors, it being an Idaho car, i only had a tiny area of rust on my passenger side that i was able to fix with some por-15 myself. I got the dynamat off ebay, it is their "extreme bulk pack that has 36 sq. feet" i think it cost about $100. I only used that pack to do my whole roof, and the part you see in the first photo. the rest of the sound deadener is a cheaper, thinner kind that I had a roll of. Im not sure what kind it is, but it molds really well to bends and creases (at least better than the dynamat which is kinda thick).
I think that so far I have about 60-65 sq. feet or so of sound deadener on my car right now, though I need to buy more dynamat for for the doors, to finish off the firewall, and my trunk once I'm done fixing the floor.

[SixSpeed454SS]

Nice project. Good luck from another Poncho guy.

[hechtrod]

touge goat, my man! Love the touge name. Put an SR20 or VQ35 in that bad boy for weight distribution...j/k (sort of). Boise, eh? Not far from me here in northern Utah. Lookign forward to this build!

[Motown 454]

The car looks greeat, Nice build.

[sprintracer]

any updates?