1967 GTO project thread

[Nicks67GTO]

Spent yesterday cleaning up my ride height and washing the old girl. Both were long overdue and we had a big local show yesterday and I have a fun cruise today. This has been a battle. My car has a nasty A body pimp lean to the driver side. From all I gather its not too unusual really. I had the same frame shop that straightened my frame out originally, look it over last week. I thought I may have warped the frame a bit when I boxed it. The results were that it was straight as an arrow and way better than anything that ever left GM. So it was time to mess with some shims. Originally I had shoved a ton of shims in there just to get the car going with the other wheels and tires. This resulted in a high ride height in the front and a car that was all over the place side to side. Anyhow this is the kind of stuff that isn't really fun to do but the end results are good I think. The nose came down 1-1.5" and the rear came down just a hair as well. With the proper shimming right to left i'm within a 1/4" in the front and maybe a 1/2" in the rear. Its unnoticeable without a tape measure from all angles. I might mess with the rear a little later on to see if I can dial it in but for all intents and purposes that's good enough. I also have a bit of rake. I think the GTO's just look a little better with a touch of rake.....

[Gil]

Very nice !
Gil

[andrewb70]

Nick,

Looks very nice. Are you getting any high speed vibrations?

Andrew

[1989GTA]

Your car looks good. I agree with a "touch" of a rake.

[tommycomfort]

Man Nick, that looks fantastic!

[Nicks67GTO]

Nick,

Looks very nice. Are you getting any high speed vibrations?

Andrew

Since I dropped the nose? I guess I haven't had it out on the interstate yet....that is a good question. It would change my drive line angles wouldn't it?

[Nicks67GTO]

Gil, 1989GTA and Tom,

Thanks guys! I appreciate the kind words!

I'm really happy with how it's turning out. It definitely got some attention at the cruise and show the last few days. Remember im in Iowa and the Pro Touring thing isn't really common around here. As an added plus I also got to meet forum member ROHRT {Ryan} at the cruise along with his wife and son and their 68 Firebird convertible. He ran me around the block in it. It was the first time I have been in a convertible I believe. Good stuff. It was a great last few days.

So I'm thinking about doing a chin spoiler from this guy....The reason being is that i'm going to get a finned aluminum power steering cooler and mount it on the bottom of my radiator support and I think this will cover it up nicely and add a little bit of subtle pro touring flair to the car.

Honest opinions. Do you think this will work with the car?

http://www.spoilersbyrandy.com/Pages/6667GTOLemans.aspx

[Onebad78ta]

Very nice

[andrewb70]

Since I dropped the nose? I guess I haven't had it out on the interstate yet....that is a good question. It would change my drive line angles wouldn't it?

Changing the front ride height has zero effect on driveline angles, only the rear ride height effects driveline angles.

Andrew

[Nicks67GTO]

The last few weeks iv'e gotten a few more things done....

-I finished up my Vintage Air. Its great to have a functional AC/Heat/Blower system back in the car. It was a huge PITA to be honest but I'm glad I did it. The heat is hot and the ac is Ice Cold!

-If you notice the 4 SS screws in the fender in picture 2. That's where I mounted the electric coolant valve and then I doubled back on the coolant hose to the rear of the car as seen in picture 1.

-In pictures 3,4,5&6 you'll see I used VA's lines but cleaned up the suggested install. I tried to keep the install as clean as possible without flopping stuff everywhere. You will also notice an aluminum bracket I bought off Ebay to mount the dryer. It was about 13 bucks and looks a world better than the strap VA gives you. I also need to do a quick scuff and shoot on the dryer its mounting. It got scratched up pretty good with all the tinkering around.


-I also relocated a new radiator overflow can to under the passenger side fenderwell. Although the canister is sideways I don't see any sort of issue with this and it's out of the way of everything. Its also running downhill so it should be easily drained. Worst case is that I have to unbolt the canister and drain it. That would take all of 5 minutes where its at.

[cspecken]

Looking good!!!

[Bobby326]

Nicks67 i installed vintage air in my 67 also. Did you crimp the lines yourself or did you bring it somewere to get it done. If you did how much was it. Just currious.

[Nicks67GTO]

Nicks67 i installed vintage air in my 67 also. Did you crimp the lines yourself or did you bring it somewere to get it done. If you did how much was it. Just currious.

I did everything but crimp the lines and charge it. I took it to a local radiator/AC shop. They did the crimps and charge for around $175 bucks.

[Motown 454]

The car looks great, nice job.

[Nicks67GTO]

The last few weeks I did a little work. Nothing too cool but progress is progress. I added a Derale power steering cooler to the underside of the driver side fender by the front bumper. I drilled some holes in the inner fender, used rubber grommets and ran the lines through under the battery. It should get plenty of air and be protected under there. I also added a new 150 Amp alternator from http://www.qualitypowerauto.com/ I don't necessarily need it right this second but my old alternator was just that....old. This gives me room to grow with my electronic parts like EFI, electric fans and fuel pump. Install was bolt in and all I had to do was parallel another #10 wire from the alternator to the starter post.

I signed up for my first auto X next Sunday. Its a local Iowa chapter SCCA event held about 2 miles from my house. If the weather holds out i'm hoping to give it a crack! If all goes well there i'm going to make plans to hit up Goodguys in DesMoines over the weekend of the 4th of July. Is anyone else that follows this thread planning on going?

[Motown 454]

Nice work Nick!

[tommycomfort]

Looking good Nick. We're planning to be in Red Moines with both cars. Looking forward to seeing the gto in person.

[Nicks67GTO]

Last weekend I ended up heading to the Goodguys Heartland Nationals in DesMoines with the intention of running my first auto X. I drove the GTO down from Waterloo since its only about 2 hours on the dot and I got a solid 16.5MPG running 75-80 MPH the whole way. I was pretty pleased with that. One thing led to another and I ended up auto X'ing all day Friday and Saturday. What a great time. One of the best times iv'e had in a long while. I dropped 9 seconds off from my first lap to my best time, I didn't smash the car up or break anything and just had a blast. Mission accomplished. The weather was beautiful, I made some new friends, saw a lot of old ones from around my area and ended up finishing with a best lap of 45.5 seconds with a lot of room for improvement left....especially behind the steering wheel. The winning time in street machine was a 40.xx. I took lots of people for rides, met some folks from the board here and all around just had one of the better weekends iv'e had in a good long time.....So I guess that means I'm heading up to St Paul in two weeks to do it all over again for Street Machine Nationals....anyone else heading up there?

Here's a video of one of my late runs on Friday....gotta throw a shout out to my wife, she was holding my 6 month old son in one arm and taking the video with the other haha. You can hear my little girl saying go daddy go in the background too. Ahhh what a weekend. If you click the picture it takes you to the video.



Ryan Buck rode along and stuck his GoPro cam up on my vent window. This is the same run as the one above but its a car vantage point...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bB_TpAfk1IY

Heres a few random shots from the weekend...










Look who showed up to the fun...

[lucky13firebird]

Awesome. Yeah, i averaged 13.8 miles a gallon my entire trip. It was cool seeing yah and your car and family at the show. That gto is looking good.

[Nicks67GTO]

So last weekend at Goodguys I had this nice young lady ask to go along around the track. I didnt know it but her dad was snapping pics of the run with a nice camera. She ended up sending me a few pics. I think its a pretty cool shot.