68 BYRD finally Driving

[68byrd]

I finally got to drive the car today after along time working on it. My brother and dad did most of the work. It started out a pretty ok driver. Last year it was put in the shop in the fall to have some work done. We removed the engine and trans for the 3rd time('68 poncho 350 and 2sp auto) to fix some oil leaks. Stupid rope rear main. Thanks BOP for the updated Viton seal! An edelbrock performer and Holley carb were installed and the engine was dyno tuned @ MAS Performance in Ellsworth, WI. The radiator was replaced with an all aluminum unit from Summit. The fan shround was fabricated by my dad and an electric fan was added, also from Summit. The trans was replaced with a mild TH350. The suspension was upgraded with a Hotchkis TVS kit and Bilstein shocks up front. The brakes were upgraded from 4 wheel manual drums to 4 wheel power discs from Right Stuff. The 14" ralleys were ditched for 17" AR TorqThrust II's. F=17"x8", R= 17"x9.5". The tires are Nitto 555R. F=245/45 ZR17 R=275/40 ZR17. The rear end is the stock 8.2" BOP. The 2.79 open set up was swapped out for a 3.55 w/ Eaton Posi. We are very proud of this car because my dad, brother, and even mother at times did all of the work. Its now a totally different car to drive.

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[T_Raven]

Nice bird

[CruizinKev]

nice!

[ProdigyCustoms]

Awesome.

[Motown 454]

You have a nice looking car, and you made some sweet upgrades just in time for spring.

[CamaroJesse]

Thats a sharp looking car. You dont see a whole bunch of those. Very nice work!

[Chevy]

Love to see the home and family built rides, especially the ones that look that nice!
:twothumbs

[tony byram]

Great looking Firebird! Its gotta be straight to wear black, and yours is. Very nice ride!:cool:

[zman1969]

nice bird brother!

[CliffS]

Sweet!!!

[speedster]

That's a nice looking Firebird you have there. ....and there is no snow in the background so that means you get to drive it now !!

[Code Red]

nice but where is the car's cheese head ;-)

[Hidro]

:smoke::)

[1971CHEVELLE]

very nice

[68byrd]

Thanks guys for the kind words.

Code Red: The cheesehead is there, you just can't see it.

[68byrd]

Here are some pics of when the work was being done. I know the engine is the wrong shade of Pontiac Blue for a '68. You gotta change it up, right.

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[BMF Machine]

DatS ReaL BaD! I love the wheel sizes ya went with. They fill the gap nicelY!:)

[68byrd]

Here are some pics of the engine bay and engine. I wanted to take some pics of the fan/shroud/radiator. I guess I forgot.

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[Code Red]

hmmm those valve covers look familiar ;-)

[LSX1STGEN]

68 birds are our favorite. Keep up the good work!

[68byrd]

After driving the car for a little while it was back up on the jack stands to install the new exhaust. The rear sway bar from the Hotchkis TVS kit could not be installed due to the exhaust system. The exhaust was a custom compression bent 2.25" aluminized steel with Flowmaster 40 series mufflers. We opted for a header back kit from Pypes Performance. The kit is 2.5" mandrel bent stainless steel with a X-pipe. The quality of the system is very good. The system comes with clamps. We also installed the optional cut out lead pipes with electric cut outs. I know some of you guys are not fans for the electric cut-out. But they are fun. Anyways, instead of clamping the system we dry fit everything to get it nice and tight to the bottom of the car, then tacked and removed. The entire system was then fully welded from the mufflers forward. Also the lead pipes were modified slightly to get the valves just behind the front subframe rails. The kit went in fairly easily. The only thing that needed some "adjusting" was where the pipes go under the trans cross-member.

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Here is the original lead pipes w/o the cut-outs. The system fits up inside the drive shaft tunnel nicely.

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Here is the system tacked and clamped ready to weld together.

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Here is my dad playing with his new welder.

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Here is the "adjustment" to the pipes under the cross member.

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Here is the final assembly. Now we install it and fit and weld the tail pipes.

[68byrd]

I will post more pics and mabe a video or two we I get them. Also I will post some pics on what we did to get the rear sway bar mounted.

[PonchoJohn]

Gorgeous!

[Roadrage David]

Nice!.Its always good to see another Firebird!! being build up.

[Steve Firebird]

Rocken Hard with the 68! Nice job.

[gmcdermit1]

Very nice bird. My dad has a 67 that i'm workin on right now. It's also black,black interior and a 400, 4speed. I love those cars!:firefire:

[rohrt]

Very Nice

[cityofthesouth]

Damn good lookin Bird. I also have a "we're working on a 68 too" story for ya. It's nice to see one every once in awhile anyway.

[HOTROD99]

Very nice

[classiccardude69]

That is a really nice bird. I've always been partial to black. Keep up the good work!

[68400BIRD]

Looks great. But we need more pics.

[nvr2fst]

Nice bird, fello wisconsinite

[Motown 454]

Those headers fit up nice and tight. Sweet ride.

[litevette]

Very nice! I love the way your car looks!!!

[68byrd]

I love the stance also. The pictures don't do it justice.

[68byrd]

Its been awhile since I posted anything on the Byrd. Sorry about that. We've been driving it as much as we could while our unpredictable midwestern weather would let us. Since the last post the exhaust install was finished. We decided to weld the tail pipes instead of clamp them. The tail pipes fit really well and were not horrible to install and get them to exit where we wanted and clear everything. The only problem we has was the pass side rear swar bar link from the TVS kit being in the way. So we fabbed a bracked and moved the sway bar link from the inside of the sway bar to the outside. This gave us the room we needed for the tail pipes. I will try to post a pic of the rear sway bar installed. Pictures make things easier. After getting all that stuff buttoned up we put some miles on the car. It drives great handles very well, it feels like there is no body roll at all. We've also gotten a ton of postive feedback on how it looks. The stance and the wheels make the car look really tough. Here is a pic from the staging lanes @ the stip. I will post more of those later. Thanks guys for all the kind words.


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[68byrd]

The local drag strip new Eau Claire, WI (Rock Falls Raceway) has 4 muscle car events every year. Its for muscle cars only and is pretty cheap to run. The first muscle car day was great, the sun was out and we got 11 passes in before eliminations started. We raced the car about 8 years ago. Back then the running gear was different. Our best et then was a 16.1. Thats with the 2spd tranny and a 2.79 open diff rear axle. We were hoping to get into the 13's with the new set-up. Our best pass was a 14.19. That was on Nitto drag radials (275/60 R15) on stock 7" wide ralley II's. It wasn't as fast as we were looking for but it was a ton of fun.

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We figured if we trailered the car it wouldn't break. The track is about an hour away and if something did break it would be a pain in the ass to get it home.
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[67speedfreak]

Love it !

[68400BIRD]

Rockfalls is a great place. I havn't been there for years.

[Josue]

VERY nice progression! This are the same steps I want to take with my dad's 68 once it's in my possession, little by little so it's still drivable and you can have some fun with it!

[68byrd]

Alright, here are some more pics. These are from the last muscle car day this year at Rock Falls. With the drag wheels our best e.t. was 14.01. We getting closer. We installed a new MSD 6AL ignition the night before we went to the track. The weather didn't want to cooperate this time out. It would mist/rain for about 20-30 minutes on and off all day. Just long enough to get the track wet enough to make it not safe to race. It was still fun. Your not at work and there are muscle cars around, its always a good time.

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