Newbie with a thing for Pontiacs

[jarretts70]

Hello all, My names Jarrett. I live in Spruce Grove, Canada - just outside Edmonton.

I've been lurking around here for a couple weeks. Cool site, so thought I should join up! In the past I built an 1987 Monte Carlo SS - Hotchkiss arms, b-body spindles w/ 12"brakes, 383 stroker, TKO600, etc. It was a fun car but a couple of years ago I needed cash to buy our acreage so the SS went away.

As noted, I've got a thing for Pontiacs. Currently my fleet is down to a couple. I've got a 1970 GTO that I found abandoned & largely gutted. I was putting it back to nearly stock but had a change of heart and now it's back apart for a full frame off overhaul. It won't be too crazy. I plan to box the stock frame, and add some simple suspension upgrades. I already had built a decent brake setup on the original spindles that I want to retain, so my plan is to use SPC control arms with tall ball joints & a few other goodies from SC&C. The engine is undecided. I already had a built 428 Pontiac for it, but would up using that in my other car. The Pontiac purist in me says build a stroked 400 that looks stock but is much larger. But I'm really tempted to do an LS swap. One thing for sure, it will be a stick shift. It's an original 4 speed car.



The other car is a 78 Trans Am. I bought it as a basket case about six years ago, some guy took it apart to restore and then decided he didn't want such a large project. I bought it with the intentions of doing a quick paint job on it then assemble and flip for a quick profit, which would help finance the upgrades to my GTO. Of course the thing snowballed...I wound up blowing it right apart too. Suspension wise it's pretty stock; it was born with the base suspension, but I tracked down most of the pieces to upgrade to WS6 specs. It was a 400/TH350 car, the engine was supposed to be numbers matching - turned out not to be. Oh well, my fault for not checking...Truth be told, I'd have bought it anyway. So it got the 428 short block that had been destined for my GTO. The top end is all proper 78 T/A. The goal was to look totally stock, but with about an extra 100 hp. I got the car assembled & running in August; currently, the sheetmetal is all back off it so I can paint the jambs, etc. Then I'll re-assemble for paint.

Thanks for listening to me ramble on!

[NOT A TA]

Sounds like a couple cool projects! Start a project thread for the bird so we can see some pics and keep up on it.

[andrewb70]

Welcome!

Andrew