1967 GTO project thread

[chuckd71]

Cool car and good thread. Was thinking about grabbing one of those shock tower braces myself, but does one end have some play in it? I realize some might be necessary for install, but then again it seems like if the car is twisting hard the brace will just slide a bit no matter how tight you make the nut on it. Maybe I'm wrong. Either way it looks cool.

[SSLance]

Any updates on the GTO Nick? I know you were busy last week on Cars and Cones but Midwest Musclecar is coming up soon...

[Nicks67GTO]

Any updates on the GTO Nick? I know you were busy last week on Cars and Cones but Midwest Musclecar is coming up soon...

Hey Lance. I just realized i havent updated this recently. The American Auto wire update, tanks Inc efi tank and fitech efi are in and seem to be running well. The car has about 100-125 shakedown miles on it. I had purchased an accusump recently from a performance years member for a song but unfortunately it's looking like I'm not going to have time to get that installed. I'll be at MMC...albeit scared out of my mind I'm going to hose a bearing in my old 455 on that road course. Hopefully a canton pan is enough to keep it alive. Im driving the gto there and back. I've got a few punchlist items I'm going to knock out over the next week and then it's off to putnam park!

[SSLance]

Right on... Can't wait to finally see it in person (and meet you as well).

How do you like the fitech setup so far? Was it as easy as they claim to get up and running and performance wise pretty smooth?

[Nicks67GTO]

The FiTech install/setup has gone well. There are a few minor quirks i need to work out of it yet and i'm pretty sure it wont be an issue. So far their tech line has been fantastic. As far as actually driving it, its completely different than the quadrajet. It's almost strange how smooth it is and it fires right off without touching the gas pedal. I'm looking forward to seeing if there's any gas mileage improvements on the drive to MMC. My 455 got 16.8MPG on the way back from St Paul last year running 75-80 mph the whole way. If the FiTech unit can beat that ill be impressed.

[Yelcamino]

Hey Nick, it was nice meeting and hanging with you and your friends during Cars & Cones last week! Maybe next time I'll have the Camino with me!

[Nicks67GTO]

Cool car and good thread. Was thinking about grabbing one of those shock tower braces myself, but does one end have some play in it? I realize some might be necessary for install, but then again it seems like if the car is twisting hard the brace will just slide a bit no matter how tight you make the nut on it. Maybe I'm wrong. Either way it looks cool.

Hey Chuck. Sorry it took forever to get back. One end is slotted. I mocked mine up, used witness marks and welded nuts to the back for ease of install. It's a tight space up there. I would highly recommend doing that. It would also prevent any sliding like you mentioned.

[Nicks67GTO]

Hey Nick, it was nice meeting and hanging with you and your friends during Cars & Cones last week! Maybe next time I'll have the Camino with me!

Herb. I had a great time all week. The garage time with Jimmy and Randy was a nice cap to the whole deal, thanks for having us by. Hope to see that El Camino out soon!

[SSLance]

Nick, did you use an adapter to mate the 4150 style base of the fitech to your spreadbore style intake or did you swap in a different intake? What does your fitech use for a fuel pump?

[WildCherry66]

Awesome build thread Nick! I just found it and read from front to back. Great to see all of the different things you have put into your GTO. I'm 29 and am getting ready to start tearing into our family's 66 Chevelle Malibu and so far have just been doing tons of thread reading and research and trying to put a budget/timeline together. So far I have invested in a 2 post lift that my dad and I installed in my shop to make a lot of the tasks safer and easier. I have been looking at a lot of the same parts you have used so it is great to see some real-world reviews of them. Thanks for such great posts! I will be starting a thread of my own as well once I get going on the car (hopefully this year yet)

-Chris (WildCherry66)

[Nicks67GTO]

Awesome build thread Nick! I just found it and read from front to back. Great to see all of the different things you have put into your GTO. I'm 29 and am getting ready to start tearing into our family's 66 Chevelle Malibu and so far have just been doing tons of thread reading and research and trying to put a budget/timeline together. So far I have invested in a 2 post lift that my dad and I installed in my shop to make a lot of the tasks safer and easier. I have been looking at a lot of the same parts you have used so it is great to see some real-world reviews of them. Thanks for such great posts! I will be starting a thread of my own as well once I get going on the car (hopefully this year yet)

-Chris (WildCherry66)

It's always nice to know people get use out of this thread. It's the main reason I do it. I'll be looking forward to your build thread. BTW good call on the 2 post lift. It would have saved me a ton of time having one.

[Nicks67GTO]

Nick, did you use an adapter to mate the 4150 style base of the fitech to your spreadbore style intake or did you swap in a different intake? What does your fitech use for a fuel pump?

Lance I used a performer rpm I had laying around which I believe is set up for both spread bore and square 4150 style. If I'm not mistaken though, i believe the FiTech unit will work with spread bore intakes. As for a fuel pump I sold all my robbmc stuff and bought a tanks Inc efi tank with a Walbro pump. So far so good there. The other nice thing about the FiTech unit is that it's internally regulated so the install is super clean. You wouldn't know I had any kind of efi on there without really looking close. I'll try to post up some shots.

[Nicks67GTO]

**Edit I just went back a few pages and saw that iv'e covered the watts and the tank install. I'm going to leave this though since there's some additional info now and I don't feel like retyping it out. Ill update more later


I just realized I haven't updated this in quite some time. Ill update over the next few days as I get a chance.

It's been a busy couple months. Iv'e had a lot going on with the car. I finished the exhaust, added a watts link, rewired the entire car with an American Autowire rewire update kit, added a tanks inc efi tank, a performer RPM I had laying around, and FiTech 600 EFI. I'm pretty impressed with the FiTech and tanks combo and I'm very impressed with FiTechs customer service. Ive had a couple little issues and 0 problems getting someone on the phone within a few minutes. I did 1100 miles of driving, 4 20 minute road course runs, and about 8 or so auto X runs at Midwest Musclecar Challenge in Indiana just last weekend. I had a total of 0 issues.

The tanks inc setup went in easy. The powder coat was very nice and the price was right. I opted for the 400LPH pump since ill be upgrading engines hopefully by next season. My only complaint was that the straps weren't powder coated. With the advice from a friend I canned the rubber gaskets, made some cork ones and sealed it up tight with aviation sealer. Apparently the leaking rubber gaskets is a common problem with the tanks setup.

In the picture of the pump and the sending unit you may notice 2 mistakes. The first one was that I didn't cut the return tube up high enough and it wouldn't go in the hole. No big deal. That was fixed in 5 minutes. The second issue I didn't notice, was that I have my sending unit float on backwards. My gas gauge was reading full at empty and empty at full. Don't do this. Its annoying. Fortunately my speedhut gas gauge was able to take car of the problem with a few pushes of a button but if you had a stock gauge you would be stuck fixing it.

[Nicks67GTO]

The re-wire was pretty straight forward. It was time consuming but American Autowire's directions are fantastic and I fired the car off without a single issue. As a disclaimer im an industrial electrician but i think if you have any kind of electrical knowledge this would be fairly easy but again...very time consuming to do right. Oh and buy their crimpers. I completely over looked this part of it and ended up scrambling with some half assed crimpers that got the job done but made it difficult. I also wish I would have thought ahead and done a nice little delphi connector for the back of my dash but again time was limited. that will happen next time it comes out for sure.

I yanked all the old stuff out, installed the new fuse panel, and wired away! I kept all the wiring hidden on the back of the engine, and under the fenders. I really hate sloppy wiring.

[Yelcamino]

Looks like a nice clean install Nick.

[tommycomfort]

Sure looked great at Midwest Muscle Car Challenge!

[Paraman1]

Did the gas mileage improve ? Not that 16.8 is anything to sneeze at as my lowly 250 HP 327 barely gets 12 but I believe that is due to it not being tuned properly (If I drove it more and worked on it less maybe I would mess with it).

[Nicks67GTO]

Looks like a nice clean install Nick.

Thanks Herb!

[Nicks67GTO]

Sure looked great at Midwest Muscle Car Challenge!

Thanks Tom. It was nice to finally meet you. Are you going to be at the DesMoines Goodguys over the 4th of July?

[Nicks67GTO]

Did the gas mileage improve ? Not that 16.8 is anything to sneeze at as my lowly 250 HP 327 barely gets 12 but I believe that is due to it not being tuned properly (If I drove it more and worked on it less maybe I would mess with it).

Of all the stuff that went on last weekend I forgot to calculate mileage. I will say that it didn't so much as hiccup once the entire trip. I bought the FiTech setup for a few reasons. Mileage wasn't really one of them since 16.8 with a worn out of 455 was pretty good imo. Although if it does improve I'll be impressed. A well tuned Qjet is the best street carb you can run imo. If I wasn't going to be stopping and turning hard I probably would have just kept it.