67 GTO build

[67King]

Alright, been here a while, not posted anything about my build, yet. Wanted to make a bit of progress, and it comes in bunches.

Bought this car as a 15 year old on May 13, 1989. Have wanted a GTO since I saw one in a junkyard coming home from a remote work location when I was 14, and the guy driving stopped there to look for a part for his car. The one I saw turned out to be a 70 Judge, and though the engine wasn't in it, it was allegedly in the trunk. White car, red interior. WT7 opted (black rear wing, hood scoops, chin spoiler).

Anyway, built the engine in high school, drove a little in college. Decided to do a better build in grad school, then thought I'd scuff it and shoot it. But I ended up stripping it down to the bare metal, replacing a quarter panel, shooting it in epoxy primer......then it got de-prioritized, as I got married, graduated, moved to MI, started workking for Ford, had kids.....you get the point. My father, who was not a car guy, but enjoyed the GTO, passed away a few years ago, which inspired me to get cracking.

Will try to not post up too many "plans," but only what I've done so far. Summary is boxed the frame with a Helwig FX kit, cleaned up the factory welds, smoothed out all of them, etc. Global West front suspension. Used their coil over setup, but didn't do the extended travel. Went with ridetech coil overs, as I'm not a fan of twin tube shocks. That caused problems I'll get to. Rear coil over aalso GW. Went with a custom width Currie 9" rear, UMI arms in the back. Wilwood disks all around (yes, I know there are better options, but get it going, first). Wheels are what I've wanted since I bought the car, American Racing Torque Thrusts. 17X9's, trying to run 275's at all four corners. Fronts are going to require entirely reworked wheel wells.



Transmission is a TKX. Car was originally an automatic. Went with a stick since they are more fun, and I didn't want to run cooling lines, or deal with controlling the transmission.

Car was actually an all numbers matching car, so I'm keeping what I'm taking off. But using the original block. Since it is the original one, I went belt and suspenders to protect it. 4 bolt main caps, lifter bore girdle. Bored 0.035" over to use off the shelf pistons. 4.25" stroke with BBC 6.800" rods. 461 CID is the result. Edelbrock round port heads, CNC'd by Butler. 2.11/1.77 valves. Doug's headers.

Lots of bodywork to do. I hate paint and body, so I'm doing trunk and floors, but am going to let the pros do the rest. Car was originally Tyrol Blue. INterestingly, Pontiac painted it over red oxide primer, and most of the cars that are repainted don't quite match.

Anyway, pictures coming.