67 Butternut Build

[sjaroslo]

It started for me some time in the 60's, as a teenager growing up in Northern California. My oldest brother had bought the first of many Corvettes when I was 8 years old, and the bug bit. Fast forward to the 70's and I was reading every Hot Rod or Car Craft magazine that I could get my hands on, when a cover photo one month showed a custom yellow Rally Sport with blacked out trim and American mags and I was in love--the die was cast and I became a Camaro Guy. At the end of the decade, getting ready to head off to college, and a casual conversation with an acquaintance one Friday night at the Jack-in-the-Box reveals that he has a 67 RS/SS without an engine or trans and is looking for some working transportation, and I have a tuna boat of a 69 Galaxie 500 with a 302 that runs OK.... Before you know it, my best friend is towing me 3/4 of the way across Santa Rosa on the end of a stout chain using his Dad's El Camino--a tow which included dragging the car up one of the steepest roads in the area. Stupid things that kids do.... Soon, a machined-but-unassembled 396 finds its way into the family garage, followed by a want ad Turbo 400, and a car is born. "Rat On 1" served me well through my college years, despite my having a complete and utter lack of knowledge about Camaros and despite all of my book-learning. I'll spare you the details of all of the injustices that I perpetrated on that poor car, but will just sum it up by saying that when I started working at my first real job after school, I later discovered that the HR Manager at the firm had thought that someone had left an abandoned vehicle in the parking lot and had begun the preparations to have it towed away (we still occasionally reminisce about that colorful incident as the then-HR-Manager has been my beautiful bride for 20 years now). This is the only photo I have of her, showing how she looked when I dragged her home (there are plenty of future stories about the 66 Corvette also shown--Corvette #2 for my brother, and she also called my house her home for a number of years earlier in this decade):

As is often the case with life, once I got that good job in Silicon Valley and started to have a little bank rolling in, a brand new 83 Volkswagen GTI found its way into the garage, and Rat On 1 sat neglected for a short while, until I realized that it was unlikely that I was going to be able to derive any pleasure from driving a multi-hued, oil-leaking and -burning, rainwater-sieve of a car when I had a nice shiny new car with air conditioning and windows that sealed up, etc., and Rat On 1 was sold off, never to be seen or heard from again. End of Chapter 1--let me post this and see how it looks and I'll let the rest of the story flow.

[sjaroslo]

I do want to be clear, this is not a "long lost love re-found" story, although I did stumble across Rat On 1's VIN number many years ago, and did attempt to locate her through the California DMV, but no subsequent records were found. This IS a story of the bug that bit, and never let go, and about how one can find love again. I never lost my interest in Chevys, Camaros or Corvettes, but I was lucky enough to be able to own a string of nice, new cars throughout my life, and never got the fever quite as badly as I had it as a youth--until the 66 Corvette was on the market. This was my brother's 2nd Corvette, owned since 1972, and I have a long history with it. I rebuilt the 327 in High School auto shop after he sucked a valve during a shakedown run of a new 650 double-pumper. I drove the car in High School while my brother served in the Navy in Viet Nam. I helped friends paint it in their makeshift garage/paintbooth. I came home from college one Christmas with a pair of "camelhump heads" that my brother commissioned me to purchase and install after he won one of his first court cases in his burgeoning legal career. I lived through the various abuses imposed on the poor Corvette as the result of it living the life of a daily driver in San Francisco--the T-Bone, the Head-on, the slashed tires, the burglary attempt. Then in the early-2000s, it came to light that my brother was finally tiring of owning the car, as he also had become able to afford nicer, newer vehicles, and the 66 was being neglected and had no shelter to call home. A deal was struck (VERY generous on the part of my brother), and another mid-sixties bowtie was finally occupying my garage! Since this is a Camaro story, I won't dwell too long here, other than to say that under my tutelage, the tired 327 was replaced with a crate 350 with a hot cam kit, the trans was rebuilt, and the entire front and rear suspension and drivetrain was sent out to be rebuilt, powder coated and made like new again. Those were great projects for me, and I enjoyed them a great deal, but for as big of a part that Corvettes have played for me throughout my life, I couldn't shake the nagging reminder that I was a Camaro Guy.

The work on the Corvette simply ignited the long-smoldering desire I had to have another Camaro. My saintly wife allowed as how it would be OK to start a Camaro project, but there was no way that we could house TWO Sixties vehicles, and so the happy next chapter in the life of the 66 is that she is now back with my brother, who has rediscovered his own enjoyment in working on the car, and has proceeded to make numerous improvements and additions to her, including a Vintage Air system that we did together in my garage. Having the powerful 350 under the hood, and no longer being shackled by the concern of originality, has also allowed him to better enjoy the car and drive it like he stole it more often. But remember, this is my Camaro story, so let's get back on track.

How she looked at the end of her stay with me:

End of Chapter 2

[sjaroslo]

Fast forward to 2010, and the hunt is on for a nice 67 to rebuild. I knew that I wanted to go Pro Touring, so I didn't really want to start with anything TOO nice or too original or too important, but I knew that it needed to be an RS, that an RS/SS350 would be a bonus, and that a convertible was definitely in the running, although not likely to happen. Thank you Craigslist, and a nice little 67 RS/SS350 with a NOM, partial interior redo and the need for a complete paintjob was located. I definitely paid too much, but in the end it turned out to be a nice California car, garaged since 1980, with absolutely no rust repair needed anywhere. Now, don't get me wrong, I don't think that there was an unharmed panel anywhere on the beast, but she was definitely not rusty! Since I knew that I was going to radically re-make the car, I wasn't too worried about the current drivetrain, so I knew that it ran but I didn't even test drive it before the purchase, but I hadn't thought about getting it from it's current home in Belmont to my house in Santa Clara. For a variety of reasons, my wife drove me over to pick it up on one of the hottest days of the year, in the late afternoon (i.e. during rush hour), and I hadn't realized how high up the rev range was on the 327 that was in there--in addition to it not being able to stay in 1st or 3rd gear! (later figured out that the shifter was hitting the console and therefore couldn't fully engage). That was a STRESSFUL drive home, with one eye on the temp gauge, trying to figure out how to not fry the clutch while riding in stop-and-go traffic, and having lost sight of my chase vehicle! But there was no actual drama, only imagined, and I was finally the owner of my SECOND 67 Camaro.

This is how she looked in the seller's garage:

The next chapter introduces our story's hero, Frank at Prodigy Customs. More to come!

[Happyfunballs]

Excellent story so far.

[Tango68SS]

..so you shipped her here to the Sunshine State to have Frank work his magic!! Nice choice! I will follow this one and look in on her while you ply away on the "left coast"...

[dug]

why you gotta leave us hanging?

[sjaroslo]

why you gotta leave us hanging?

Sorry, it was lunch, and even though I've been waiting for almost 2 years to be able to start this thread, I'm still typing it on-the-fly and I really don't know what's going to come spilling out next until I'm sitting here at the keyboard! Thanks for reading.

[sjaroslo]

I lurked on this site and Team Camaro for some time, gathering ideas and watching others' dreams be turned into reality, and I noticed a supporting vendor who was going out of his way to provide advice, counsel and expertise to help others, in addition to running a pretty cool shop and turning out some pretty decent projects for many of you here. I had a general idea of what I wanted, but had nowhere near enough knowledge to feel like I could make educated decisions about the direction of my build, and as a result, I decided to take up Frank on his offers to consult on my project and determine some products to use and a direction to take. I should also at this time give a well-deserved shout-out to a gentleman at Campbell Auto Restorations, here in my neck of the woods in Silicon Valley. I regrettably don't remember his name, but I had also heard very favorable comments on the boards regarding the quality and thoroughness of their work, and he was very kind to look over my car, give me a lengthy tour of their facility, and helped me to frame up some realistic expectations of what a quality build was going to take for my car. I must admit, as rational as I was trying to be about the work needed, I was living in a fairyland compared to what a true high-end shop was going to do to create a memorable Pro Touring machine.

This is probably a good time to digress and point out a few facts that you may have already gleaned from having read this far: I possess a reasonable mechanical ability--nothing approaching what many of you exhibit here every day with your projects and your amazing customizations, but I can bolt things together OK. In fact, that is the best summary of my talents--I can bolt things together OK. I'm not that creative, I'm not that talented, I'm not that patient. So I knew that fabrication, welding, and most definitely paint and bodywork were NOT my bailiwick, but I knew from my time in high school and my experiences with the Corvette that I definitely wanted to be involved in doing a lot of the mechanical work on the car. So, having spent time with the folks at CAR the day before, I finally screwed up the courage to give Frank, a total stranger and a busy man, a call the next day and see about picking his brain. We had a fantastic, wide-ranging conversation that actually touched on all aspects of a nice Pro Touring Camaro build, with Frank sharing his experiences of having actually worked with many of the confusing choices available to us in this fabulous day-and-age of hot rodding. He provided me high level ballpark estimates on all of the major sub-systems, and really gave me food for thought regarding the reality of what these choices would cost. I took copious notes, thanked him for the generous amount of time that he had spent with me, and went about my business, head swimming with all of this new found detail to try to comprehend and digest.

The story might have ended there, or at least stalled out, as I had a lot to think about and CAR had a lengthy waiting list, if I was going to end up going that route, when I received a fortuitous call the next day from Frank--a scheduled build project had fallen through, and even though our previous conversation hadn't really centered around Prodigy actually doing any work for me, might I be interested in considering slotting my build in to this newly available slot? I was overjoyed at the prospect of having my car become a Prodigy-built vehicle, so after a little soul searching and discussions with the wife, and review of the financial situation, the decision was made and the Butternut Build was born!

Here she is on the transporter in December of 2010, Florida-bound:

[sjaroslo]

What sold me, beyond Prodigy's reputation and expertise, was Frank's notion of a "roller"--a weathertight, painted and welded/fabricated body where they do all of the work for which I possess no skills, yet I still get a little "skin in the game" by being responsible for the finishing aspects such as powertrain, wiring & electrical, plumbing, and brakes. Much of that will be a stretch for my skills and abilities, but I feel that I can at least develop a passable attempt at completion. Even though I did feel that engine and transmission placement was in my wheelhouse, we were a little uncertain on whether the Magnum T56 was going to require trans hump modification (it did not) and the prospect of dangling a half-ton of engine/transmission over the top of my newly painted fenders was more intimidating than I could bear, so we factored in to the build that I would purchase the engine and have it delivered to Prodigy where they would mate it to the clutch, scattershield and trans and stab it in place for me.

Here are the basics of the direction I decided to take, mostly with Frank's assistance, some of my own pre-conceived notions:

AME front sub-frame
LSX 454 GMPP Crate Engine
T56 Magnum trans w/Quicktime scattershield
Smoothed firewall
DSE Mini Tubs
DSE sub-frame connectors
Chris Alston Chassisworks g-link rear suspension
Chris Alston Chassisworks FAB9 rear end housing with Moser 35-spline axles and Wave-Trac Ford 9" pumpkin
Prodigy Smoked Glass kit
Wilwood brake package
Prodigy core support, aluminum radiator and A/C condenser
Dynamat install (this is me being fat & lazy)
Stainless Works headers, Magnaflow stainless 3" exhaust, Prodigy tailpipe kit
Ididit steering column
Retro-Electro headlight door kit

So, that's the parts list, now a little about the finish selected. Remember back in my teens it was a yellow Camaro on the cover of a magazine that hit me hard and made me dream of owning a yellow Camaro someday. Unfortunately, my lovely wife had equally strong feelings AGAINST yellow cars.... I had been showing her pictures of the mustardy-yellow of that original car of my dreams, but she quickly categorized it as being "school bus yellow" and quickly disabused me of the notion that our Camaro would be that color. Around that time, I had purchased a copy of Jason Scott's Camaro Restoration Guide by Motorbooks Workshop, which at that time pictured a beautifully restored Butternut 67 on the cover. Don't get me wrong, I've been a huge fan of original Butternut Yellow also since high school, when a fellow student threw me the keys to his Butternut convertible one July afternoon and let me take it for a drive, it just wasn't the color that I had in my head at the time. "What about this color yellow?" I asked, showing her the cover of the book. "Now THAT'S a nice yellow!" was the reply, and again, the die was cast. I know that this is a very polarizing color, but I have absolutely no qualms about it, I love it. And keeping marital harmony is a huge deal when you've been together with your lady for this long--besides which I have learned many, many years ago, SHE has the eye for color and design--I sadly DO NOT. If Butternut was a yellow that she could embrace, that's what we were going to do.

I should also mention that I truly appreciate the Camaro restoration movement, and while I didn't suspect that my mini-tubbed and lowered Pro-Touring Camaro was going to fool anyone into thinking that it was a nuts-and-bolts resto, I did at least at that time have plans to give a generous nod to the stock appearance of these beautiful cars. A very close friend is a purist and owns a very nice survivor, lightly modded, and he tried his best to be my conscience and made sure that stock appearances weren't too far off of the radar. At the time, Wheel Vintiques 17" was about as radical as I was planning to get in the wheels and tire department...

Thanks for indulging me so far, guys. I promise that the good stuff is on its way.

[sjaroslo]

This might be a good opportunity to discuss the wisdom of shipping your car from California to Florida to have it worked on.... Was it a wise financial decision? At the time, with my fuzzy logic, I tried to justify it by the huge gap between hourly labor rates between Northern California and Orlando, FL--roughly $100 per hour here at the time, and $60 there in 2010. I figured that there were a lot of hours in the build (there were) and that at $40 per hour difference, that certainly takes some of the edge off--which it did, but let's not kid ourselves to the same degree that I did at the time. $900+ to get it out there (open carrier), $2200+ to get it back (high-end enclosed carrier), and a couple of flights out there to check on progress, and you need a hell of a lot more hours than it would take to bang out a brand new car from flat stock to justify this decision on a financial basis.... Would I do it again, is probably the better question to ask, and given the same set of financial considerations, and knowing what I have sitting in my garage at the moment, I think that the answer would have to be "yes!" Maybe not quite as emphatically as I made the decision originally, but I am so happy with how the car turned out and the knowledge that I own a Prodigy-built Pro Touring Camaro is worth something to me. I know that sounds a bit shallow, but truth be told, I'm OK with that.

Here are a few progress pix I'm happy to be able to finally share:

The build begins

This is the first time in over 30 years I have owned a Camaro that was all one color (even if it is primer)!

The mini-tubs commence

Body work central

The interior gets some attention

On to the rotisserie!

DSE weld-in sub-frame connectors--awesome

[sjaroslo]

Can't begin to express the joy in one's heart when pictures of the first painted panel roll in. How can a grown man get giddy over a photograph of the underside of a trunk lid?? We'll move quickly through here because my fingers are tired and I want to get to the really good stuff!


Now, you didn't think that I was going to make it that easy on Frank, did you? I wanted the Rally Sport stripe, I wanted the pinstripes.... Originally Frank was going to sub out the stripes but he came up with a great method of using paint, so my stripes are not only beautiful but they are in paint, under the clear, and the car's flanks are as smooth as a baby's behind. Here's the black base going down.

Fresh out of the booth! Sit in the Florida sunshine for a while and bake...

Let the color sanding begin

Some assembly required! We've jumped forward quite a bit, and you can see the Smoked Glass kit on the ground, getting prepped to be installed.

[68firebird]

Great story, love your ideas.

[sjaroslo]

This feels like a good time to delve a little deeper into my experience with Prodigy. While I am absolutely pleased with the end results, I will acknowledge, as I think will Frank, that everything was not entirely peaches and cream all of the time on the build. I do want to say, first and foremost, that nothing has changed my feelings about Frank as a person and as a carbuilder. I honestly believe that he conducts himself with the utmost respect for his customer and their property, and from having had the pleasure of hanging out with him several times and in various venues, I can attest that he is above all an honest, forthright gentleman. I don't believe for a minute some of the accusations that have been levied his way. I can say that we conducted this transaction on the basis of a telephone call and an Excel spreadsheet! The prices that Frank quoted me in December of 2010 are the prices that he charged me when the progress billings came through. He is a man of integrity and he is sincere, and his adherence to his quoted prices is a large source of pride for him, which I appreciated.

Where the major source of any tension between us stemmed from was the timeline. I don't know if it is obvious from the pictures, but my build started right around the time that Frank was changing shops, and was going through quite a few personal issues with a staff member, and that all cascaded on to my build. It started out in Apopka but transitioned to Sanford. So, my expectations were set early that we were probably looking at 6 to 8 months, and it turned in to 18.... Although I shipped the car in December to fill the slot, it wasn't touched until April of 2011, so that colored my opinion on how things were progressing throughout the build. In retrospect, I think that if the expectation of an 18 month build had been set upfront, I would have been much less nervous and overly annoying. In the end, I put a lot of pressure on him to wrap up the work and get the car on a carrier, and he did, and I've been very happy. Of course he didn't know at the time everything that was in front of him, and I probably could have been a little more understanding and patient, but in the end all's well.

I think it has been said before here that I think Frank became somewhat a victim of his own success, and his business practices hadn't caught up to the level of sophistication and the volume of projects that are moving through his shop, and I think that is the area he most needs to concentrate on. And I believe that he has and continues to improve, and I am here to endorse him 100%. I have several more thousands of dollars in parts ordered through him, and I look forward to still sucking him dry of information, help and guidance moving forward. And the same goes for you on the forum, as well, as you'll see that I have a crapload of work still ahead of me, and little idea on what to do first!

[WS6]

Love Butternut Yellow! Glad to see a car being built with that combination.

[sjaroslo]

Here's the initial payoff, if you've hung in with me this far. A few shots in the driveway before she left on her journey, and how she looked this weekend when she last saw the light of day for likely another 18 months!



I personally feel that even these pictures don't do the car justice. I can spend a lot of time in the garage, just staring at her, and seeing the light bounce off of the curves and angles.... I have never owned a car this shiny and gorgeous!

[sjaroslo]

I am tickled every single time I see this. It's the little things.... :-)



(looks like I found another spot to hit with spray wash and detailer, sorry!)

Here's how she sits today in the garage:



I didn't mention specifically that the plan to stay pretty stock appearing flew out the window when I determined that Wheel Vintiques didn't make a Rally wheel replica beefy enough to harness the enormous meats that I wanted to put on the car. Then Frank ran an ad for a set of Forgelines that were available at a price too good to pass up. I'm not 100% positive that I would have chosen this exact wheel if I was making the decision from scratch, but I couldn't be happier with how these look on the car today, and the price was right! Also, I succumbed to the shiny objects of the Marquez brothers and couldn't resist Fesler's huge sale at the end of last year.... Marquez taillights and SS gas cap. Fesler hood hinges, hood latch, trunk hinges, door handles, and fender struts (still have to see if I can make them work with the new radiator support....). Bling on top of bling, man.

Motivation:

[sjaroslo]

After spending hours getting her up on stands last weekend, I had to do SOMETHING to get started on MY portion of the build, so I did the "logical" thing--started with the starter.



I'm sure this won't be the last time for it to be bolted up, as there was no physical way to measure clearances and view tooth engagement, with everything already assembled, but I had to get something accomplished.

Now, I'm faced with what to do to really keep the momentum going. I'm thinking that plumbing (fuel, brake and power steering) is the logical first step of the build, and it is intimidating the crap out of me. Where do I start? Should I buy pre-manufactured stuff from Inline or Classic Tube for a stock Camaro and modify it as needed to fit my new reality? Should I start from scratch? If so, with what products and where? AME sells a brake line kit for their subframe, but it is pretty pricy--but would be worth it if I knew it was a bolt-in fit and would work with the Wilwood stuff that is coming--but I don't know. My Stainless Works tank is coming soon from Rick's (had a wonderful telephone conversation with Hector several days ago--apparently he is from this neck of the woods and still has family here, so I think he felt a little homesick talking to me!) but the entire fuel system plumbing experience also lies in front of me. I just know that I need to make some decisions soon, so that I can get materials on hand and begin to take advantage of these Summer weekends coming up. I look forward to one day enjoying driving the car on those weekends, but for now, working on it is where my attention is focused.

Additional items on their way: the aforementioned stainless steel tank with vaporworx CTS-V fuel module (flow control to be ordered from CarlC sometime soon), AAW complete wiring harness, Wegner complete front serpentine drive and accessories, Vintage Air Gen IV A/C. Still to be procured, GM LS7 intake, DBW throttle body and fuel injectors/rails, and a GM coil kit, plus seats and the rest of the interior (Frank had a great upholstery guy do a new headliner while the car was getting buttoned up and that allowed me to complete (I hope) the final transition to becoming a Deluxe Interior car, even though it wasn't born that way).

I have to say, one of THE most daunting tasks facing me is that every single nut, bolt, screw, washer, grommet, gasket, clip, clamp and connector has been removed from the car--that's what you want when you are getting the kind of show-quality paint job that Prodigy is known for--but they were all removed by Michael at Prodigy--not by me! But as per our agreement, what was returned is a rolling shell, and so I have NO IDEA what needs to go where, how it goes together, what has to go first and what has to go second, what I still might need and what I can do without, etc. etc. It is something that you guys with limited knowledge and abilities such as myself really need to keep in mind should you decide to go this route as well. If I had taken it apart, at least I would have been able to take photos, save the old parts, and MAYBE could have developed some inherent knowledge of how it is supposed to go back together. As it stands, you will all be sick of me asking ridiculous questions about Camaro reassembly before Butternut sees the light of day again, under her own power.

I'm not certain that spending one's entire 4th of July posting on Pro-Touring.com would be everybody's cup of tea, but this has been a very satisfying experience for me; I've waited a long time to have a bank of photos and a story to share. I don't expect anyone to learn anything from my build--I'm no innovator, I don't have "the touch" that's going to make this a show-worthy or magazine-worthy build, but it is my car, I'm planning to have fun with it, and I'll welcome anyone who is interested to join me in the journey. Thanks and stay tuned!

[sjaroslo]

[boostin05blacksti]

Steve,
What a great story from start to current. There is many recurring things here..name, car, motor, trans, yellow.. I love the build man. It's been my pleasures to have meet you before this thread has opened. I started reading and then realized that I knew you. What can I say other than great minds think alike. Just as I was finishing reading I get a pm..listen man. Don't sweat the small stuff and just try to focus on one thing at a time. You CAN do it! Trust me..if I can anyone can. Just take your time and you'll get there. As far as what to tackle first feel free to give me a call. I don't know all the answers but I've been in your shoes. A bit of info on the brakes..now there is many different options and kits so the first bit of info needed is that. Manual, power..what setup ect. I went manual all wilwood. Actually bought my brake kit from prodigy. Master is a 7/8 and am running wilwoods dustribution/proportioning valve. - all fittings for the prop valve/block are 3/16 lines. I ordered stock lines from inline tube and the rear stock line is 1/4. I have a adapter that fixes that issue. I would do everything the same but when ordering get inline to make the one piece rear line that goes to the rear "T" in stainless at 3/16. Then all lines are the same. Also the rear line from the master to distribution block is 1/4 but the stock bends will not work. You can have them make a custom line by mocking up a coat hanger and sending it to them, again having it made in 3/16. Give me a ring this week man well talk... Looks great so far. I'm sure the finish will be outstanding.

[falcon269]

As the happy owner of a Steve-built 66 Corvette, I have every confidence in your abilities and look forward to sharing your journey. Route 66 awaits!