Project Tomahawk

[atomicjoe23]

Hi all. . .thought I would introduce myself and my car. . .I've been visiting the website for a while now (just reading never posting) and have only made one post so far (asking for people's opinions of the truckarm style rear suspension).

I'm in San Diego, CA and I will be getting out of the military late this summer so I will finally be able to start work on my own Pro-Touring project. . .a 1967 Pontiac Firebird 400. I've owned the car for 7 years now and I haven't been able to do anything with it in that time because I've been Hawaii for the last 5 years (was in school in South Carolina for the two years previous HI) and the car has been in my dad's garage in Illinois. Now that I'm getting out and I have a good job that pays well lined up I will finally have the time and finances to start work on the car.

Problem Child Kustoms is currently working on a front and rear 3/4 views drawing of the car as it should look when completed. . .the car is going to be a modern pro-touring vehicle but it's going to place a lot of emphasis on the vintage SCCA TransAm racing cars of the late '60's and early '70's as well. . .here are my plans:

Color: Black (possibly graphite or charcoal instead though) is going to be the main color with some graphics reminiscent of the old shcool musclecar graphics. . .I haven't decided on the secondary color yet but Brian's going to be helping me out with that. . .possibly red or silver. . .and possibly the use of matte-finished black-out areas on the hood

Body Mods: stock Firebird 400 hood with scoops, SCCA TransAm racing style front air dam, '69 Firebird TA decklid spoiler, possibility of rear window louvers, and side exit exhaust just in front of either rear wheel (exit through the rear rockers/quarters not below the rocker panels), relocated gas fill neck to a racing style quick fill gas cap ala the Dodge Chargers, shaved door handles and drip rails and flush mounted glass, there will be different mirrors on the car also but I don't know what style as of yet. The rear wheel wells will have accentuated (exaggerated) flares also. The chrome will be sent out to be black chromed so that it will still be shiny like most chrome you see but it will have a smoked out appearance along with a blacked out grille. I wanted to use the Hella Black Magic lights as headlights, but they aren't the right size. . .I'm going to be looking to see if I can find a way to have the headlights blacked out though.

Interior: Gonna be mostly black and pretty much all custom. No rear seat. . .a race style spare wheel/tire carrier will be in it's place and there will be a 8-10 pt. rollcage installed as well (the door bars will be bent in such a way as to not interfere with getting into or out of the car and the roll cage will tie into the front subframe through the firewall as well). Racing harness with re-covered aftermarket seats (Sparco Modena's with carbon fiber backs) will be installed. I will have a custom made pistol grip shifter (MOPAR style) for the T-56 as well. Custom center console (I like the new Dodge Demon concepts center console. . .very similar to what I had in mind) with a center storage unit will hold the power window and power door lock controls as well as the A/C controls more than likely; the A-pillar will hold a couple of gauges(coolant temperature, oil pressure) and I will have a central dash gauge pod (for monitoring the forced induction whenever I get the twin-turbos installed. . .fuel pressure, boost psi, and EGT) as well. Autometer gauges (speedometer, tachometer, fuel level guage, and volt/ammeter in the guage cluster) with notched billet bezel rings (check out the new Dodge Demon concept cars guages and you'll see what I mean) all the way around in the custom dash. . .I'm thinking a symetrical "double hump" style dash vs. the stock assymetrical dash with only a hump where the stock gauge cluster is and a Vintage Air Gen II A/C. The radio will be hidden (probably in the center console) and all the control knobs will be billet. I'm going to have a dash mounted engine "Start" button (red) and a dash mounted hazard light button as well. . .dash will also probably house a GPS unit since the radio will be in the center console and the steering wheel will be a three arm with flared holes in the arms.

Wheels: PS Engineering 5-spoke wheels (as seen on the Edelbrock-Yunick '68 "Best Damn Camaro in Town" TransAm racer; I'm thinking 17's all the way around and using mini-tubs in the rear to facilitate some really wide meats in backalthough I may go with Vintage Wheel Works or E Wheels of the same style due to immediate availability of the wheels vs. waiting for the PSE's to get handmade (maybe get the PSE's down the line).




Front Suspension: Campbell Auto Restoration front subframe/suspension set-up

Rear Suspension: Still undecided at this point in time. . .I'm really wrestling with this. It's between DSE Quadra-Link, Lateral Dynamics 3-Link and Watt's Linkage, 21st Century Street Machines Corvette IRS, or a truckarm set-up.

Chassis: DSE weld-in integral subframe connectors and the aforementioned 8-10 pt. roll cage which will tie into the front subframe throught the firewall.

Engine/Drivetrain: Sticking with traditional Pontiac power here. . .will start out with re-building the stock 400 (punched out to 467 using a Butler Performance rotating assembly. . .internally balanced 4.25" forged crankshaft w/3.00" mains motivating SCAT or Eagle 6.800" forged 4340 con-rods and 4.181" forged aluminum Ross pistons w/Total Seal gapless piston rings. . .only change could be an upgrade to forged Oliver con-rods but I'm thinking not since I will be upgrading to a larger bore aluminum block built for twin-turbos as soon as I can get it built. . .$$$ will be the limiting factor the twin-turbo package) with a Kinsler EFI intake (will look similar to Mark Steilow's original Mule set-up with the individual intake trumpets) backed by a 4-speed to save money and get the car on the road that much faster initially, but I'll be upgrading both the engine and the tranny while I'm still driving with the punched out 400 and Muncie. I'll be looking to put 400+ horsepower/lb-ft of torque to the rear wheels with the 467. Future engine will remain a Pontiac block but will use one of the new aluminum aftermarket blocks of fairly large displacement. . .initally will be running with the same Kinsler fuel injection set-up and heads as with the 467 but backed by a T56 6-speed (500+); but I won't be happy until I have a set of turbo's pressurizing a custom intake manifold (who knows how much power this will put out. . .depends on how much psi I end up running but it will still have to be pump gas friendly and have acceptable street driving manners. . .acceptable to me at least.

Fuel System: Will use a custom made Rick's Hot Rod shop fuel cell and the fuel delivery will be all be from Aeromotive built to support the twin turbos from the very beginning.

Brakes: Gonna be Baer brakes all the way around. . .the biggest that I can fit inside the wheels and will probably end up using the Hydraboost along with an in-cab adjustable proportioning valve to make sure they always feel just right.


There's a lot of stuff that I still haven't decided on but I've got the basics decided and Brian's drawing is going to help make sure that I've got a very clear picture of where I want to end up. Since the car is in Illinois right now I don't have any pictures of the car to post right now. . .I will post one as soon as I can find the couple of pictures that I do have buried away somwhere and when I get the completed drawing from Problem Child Customs I will add it to the post as well. Will probably take me a couple of years to finish this one off but I don't ever plan on getting rid of this car (my first muscle car and the first car I ever bought and paid for on my own) so I'll be patient and do it the way I want it done the first time.

Any of you out there with any suggestions (especially those of you with first gen F-birds) feel free to send the suggestions my way. . .any and all input would be appreciated.

[69TAPoser]

Sounds very cool, can't wait to see some progress. Glad to hear you are going with Pontiac power too!

Phil

[Ralph LoGrasso]

Welcome to the site.

[camaro608]

Welcome to the site.

second that sounds like a pretty sweet project send some pics when you start working on it

[atomicjoe23]

I've gotten a couple of drawing back from Brian at ProblemChild Kustoms now (3 to be exact). We're ironing out all of the little details as they pop up. . .I will post up the final version when it's done.

[Steve Firebird]

Welcome to the site and good luck on a great sounding project. How many Firebirds are on this site any way. Its great!

[atomicjoe23]

I don't think that their all that too many of us on this site or on lateral-g.net

[atomicjoe23]

Time to post up some more updates on the Tomahawk!!! I've been working a lot with Brian from Problem Child Kustoms and I decided to make some last minute changes in the plan right before Brian finished the final drawing so he's working on the revisions. . .it will be a bit longer before a finalized concept drawing is complete and I can share it with you all. . .be patient. . .I'm sure it will be worth it.

I can provide some of the details on some of the changes that I've decided on though:
-Spott's Performance Super 400 hood
-'68 Firebird door windows (cleaner appearance without the vent windows that the '67's have)
-'68 Firebird rear side marker lights
-'69 Camaro front valance panel/foglights grafted into the '67 front valance panel (the '67 front valance panel will be filled in some as well. . .the '67 Firebird foglights/front marker lights will go away and that area will be filled in with metal. . .I've still got to figure out what I'm gonna do for front turn signals now though)
-'69 Firebird/TransAm tail lights
-hidden antennae
-gas cap door will be filled/smoothed into the rear tail light panel since the gas filler neck/cap are going to be relocated to the driver's side C-pillar
-Hurst pistol grip shifter with black pakkawood handle

That's the majority of what I've come up with so far. . .the item that is causing the most rework for Brian though is changing the front/rear fender flares. . .I'm going with some pretty radical flares. . .if you've seen the DynoWest Camaro you will know where I'm going. . .if you haven't seen this car do a search and you will find photo's on this website.

Let me know what you think and if anyone has suggestions on what to do about the front turn signals, a suggestion for more aerodynamic/attractive mirrors and door handles let me know (I've decided against the shaved door handles with poppers because a lot of tracks won't let you run with them).

[Chad-1stGen]

Ok someone had to say it so it might as well be me

[atomicjoe23]

Ok someone had to say it so it might as well be me

The car is currently 1940 miles away from me in my Dad's garage(I'm currently in the military. . .only 7 months left). . .so I can't exactly just walk out to the garage and snap a pic or too. . .I wish I could. . .once I get the completed concept drawing from Brian (ProblemChildKustoms.com) I will post up the concept drawing.

Here's the link to the Dynowest Camaro and another '69 Camaro and a '67 GTO that have inspired the look I'm going for (these cars are all track-only cars so they are a little more extreme than what I'm going for with a car that I wholly intend to drive on the street on a regular basis. . .not to say that it won't see it's fair share of track time either though!!!)

'69 Camaro
http://www.popularhotrodding.com/fea...vrolet_camaro/

DynoWest '69 Camaro
http://www.racehome.com/images/dynowestcamaro.jpg
http://www.racehome.com/images/camaros/dynowestcamaropro-touring.jpg
http://www.racehome.com/images/camaros/dynowestcamaro1.jpg
http://www.racehome.com/images/camaros/dynowestcamaro2.jpg
http://www.racehome.com/images/camaros/dynowestcamaro3.jpg

Be patient and the pics will come.

[Mr.VENGEANCE]

welcome!

[dslwizard]

Stay plugged in, Joe. Thanks for your service and keep up the good work.
mike

[atomicjoe23]

OK, some more updates:
-Brian is working on the last revision to the concept drawing so I should be able to post that pic up soon.
-I've decided to go with a quick change Tiger Rearend. . .saw it on Musclecar where Lou is using one on his '65 Mustang fastback which he will be competing with in the NASA road racing circuit so I know it will stand up to the use (abuse???) that I will put it through
-Also decided to try a second thing that I saw Lou using on Musclecar. . .the AFCO three link kit. . .should be considerably cheaper than any of the ready made kits out there. . .will be lighter than the truckarm suspension and I get the overall impression that a three link rear suspension with a Watt's link is the preferred rear suspension for the type of use that I am most interested in.
Once again. . .let me know what you all think!

[Hammered]

I can't wait to see another 'bird being built. I hope you get home safely.

[restomodbird69]

i would like to see some teasers if you got them.brian also did my rendering,he is a great guy to work with

[muthstryker]

sounds like its going to be a cool project. good luck and come home safe. oo and heres that gto site. well more pics anyways. its a 64 gto http://www.gtoroadracer.com pretty cool. doesnt have any specs but ive seen them somewhere

[atomicjoe23]

sounds like its going to be a cool project. good luck and come home safe. oo and heres that gto site. well more pics anyways. its a 64 gto http://www.gtoroadracer.com pretty cool. doesnt have any specs but ive seen them somewhere

Thanks for the link. . .I'll check it out right now!!!

i would like to see some teasers if you got them.brian also did my rendering,he is a great guy to work with

Brian has been AWESOME to work with. . .I got the go ahead from Brian to post up the renderings so I'll post them up as soon as I get home from work this afternoon.

[atomicjoe23]

Here are the renderings begining to end. Hope you all enjoy!!!

First one--67 F-bird red stripes--no spoiler or louvers


First revision--added 69 TransAm spoiler and rear window louvers


Second revision--added hood pins and rear window retainers


Third revisiion--added 69 Camaro foglights


Fourth revision--added fender flares. . .see next post


Final Revision--revised fender flares and front spoiler (previous front spoiler was too 70's/80's-ish for my taste). . .see next post

[atomicjoe23]

Here are the renderings with the initial addition of the fender flares and the revised fender flares to my liking.

[hdesign]

Very Cool! I like the industrial, no-nonsense look about it. I like the innovative stripe, dare to be different!!!

Great job on the rendering as usual Brian!!!!