1968 firebird 461ci stroker project

[captainofiron]

my 2 favorite cars, if I could sell my Impala for any other car it would be a 67 GTO

[lucky13firebird]

Double post

[Todd in Vancouver]

Great reading and I have way more respect for a real car guy building his dream than a garage queen spotless build that guys pay to have built and sit in the garage. I like how you roll and how you are building your car. Definitely watching this build as you progress.

[lucky13firebird]

1968 firebird burnout competition 461 stroker:

Sorry, turned burnout video right side up and reloaded it.

Thanks todd, yeah its been wild but I wouldn't have it any other way. Just wish I could've afforded to start with a more solid car...

[lucky13firebird]

461 pontiac stroker dual 3" exhaust:

Finally fixed the exhaust and connected the two sides together with a crossover. I had lost a muffler on the highway last week. It tore off at the factory weld. So I welded it back together and added the crossover at the same time. Here's a clip of how it sounds. Thrush chambered 3" mufflers. Btw you wouldn't believe the damage to my headers. Not from losing the muffler but from cracking. Two detached tubes on the left bank. Sounded so bad I was afraid it was a head gasket blown out. So I welded all the tubes back to the flange just to be safe. And did new exhaust gaskets.

That huge dent in the crossover is to clear the 4.5" used nascar sprint cup drives haft with 1350 u joints. I made that with a sledgehammer. Not pretty but it works. The crossover made the exhaust much quieter, the car is hearing safe again, sounds good when you get on it though.

[lucky13firebird]

Spent an hour or two under the car adjusting one of my shift linkages. It was not adjusted to the right length and shifting from 1st to 2nd was a nightmare. Now everything works smoothly and shifts fast. I shift out of first around 55-57 on a hard pull. Loving the 2.42 first gear and 3.31 12 bolt rear. Had to cut and weld my shift lever to get it at a better angle and then reinstalled the shifter assembly and took the kids and wife to a cruise in.
461 stroker in car 0-90 68 firebird:

The little guys love cars. And wife says if I ever get her a prius she'll kill me. She's a keeper.

[slammedwhitec5vert]

Really cool how you've been able to keep it on the road while doing all this work....

[lucky13firebird]

Kicking it at another car show today In North Carolina.

[lucky13firebird]

Well, just ordered a 13" c4/c5 kit from ccp for the front, and taking my ls brake setup off the front and transferring to my 67 tempest. That way the lighter car gets a slightly bigger front rotor (same caliper practically) and then that'll help push my caliper forward some and away from my hellwig 1 1/4 front sway bar. Btw gotta hand it to hotckis, their big block 67-9 camaro front lowering springs are amazing, they sit just right and are the perfect stiffness for a pontiac powered 68 bird. Really wish I would've gone with a hotchkis front sway bar, even with only a 2 year warranty. .. they claim they don't interfere with ls brake conversions. Unless hellwig wants to replace my bar with one that's 1" shorter... blowing through a red light or two a couple times a year after the bar pushes on the caliper in a tight turn and pushes all the fluid out back to the master cyl... or making a 5 point turn just to get into a parking space really kinda makes you want to write a nasty letter to hellwig... off course I forget about the next hard corner I take and the car stays flat... enough with the rant. But buyer beware, lifetime warranty is great and all but ls brakes and hellwig front sway bars don't mix.

Btw I blew out my ccp braided rear center brake hose a couple weeks ago on a hard bump or two. They sit on a 12 bolt at the wrong angle and when you bottom out you blow out the hose by kinking it. Been driving on just front brakes for two weeks now. I decided not to go back to a ccp hose because they don't fit stock 69 Camaro brake lines... I needed a brass adapter just to make it fit... and that's just an extra place to develop leaks as far as I am concerned... I ordered one from in line tube. They sent me a stock rubber one. I called them and they sent me the right one no hassle at all. Great people to deal with. Also just a heads up, it bolts right up to a stock 69 Camaro line system and doesn't sit at any odds angles... and its the commercial -3 stuff so when you blow it... just get a replacement braided hose (you'll never need it from the looks of the one I got, quality stuff) in the right Lenth and bolt it to the fittings on the ends.

Customer service is a make or break for me and quality of parts because I drive this thing to work and to buy food with my kids everyday... so the whole backorder or odd ball race only low mileage stuff doesn't cut it for me...

Btw I haven't mentioned it yet but brphotrods has great customer service too. Messed up a minor order once and set it straight in no time and refunded my shipping. (In cash literally in the box) I have their machined drum hub and bearing kit, brackets, and the rear spacers for my 12 bolt. Great stuff. I've driving thousands of miles all over this Country and towing **** to boot and it's been no issues besides the goofy ccp braided hose with I'll never buy again and that hellwig sway bar madness. Hoping that going to 13" c4/c5 corvette brakes on the front will take care of it. Otherwise WARRANTY be damned I'm cutting a 1" chunk out of the middle of the sway bar and welding it back together.

[Mattycamaro]

Thats A Badass FireBird man!! You Stationed in Ft Bragg?

[lucky13firebird]

Yeah ftbragg

[Gil]

Roots rad rat Bird... Amazing...
You have all my respect & attention.
Gil

[Bob's68]

God that Bird looks mean! You get my respect for driving the hell out of that, instead of just collecting parts like myself.

[lucky13firebird]

thanks guys, theres nothing like stepping outside on a summer morning at 5 am and breaking the silence with a 461 stroker as you light it up and prepare to face the day in your hand built monster of a car. ;-) Aint the prettiest thing, nor the most high tech, it don't even have a radio and fixing the power steering is last on a long list of things to finish on it, but i love it. It's kinda like a sum of all badass movie cars, cept its real and my kids ride in it.

today i got my fan shroud and fuel fittings for my edelbrock rpm mech fuel pump. And I cleared the garage so i can tear into it and swap over my front end (fenders, hood, bumper assy...) that i got from an old man in New Jersey who had something to do with Nunzi Romano, i'm not sure but i almost want to leave Nunzi's name on the fenders in respect to the legend but the fenders are white, so I'll paint them black and cover up the name. Besides, Nunzi had nothing to do with my motor, so in a way it wouldn't be right to have his name on my car.

I also test fitted one of my back wheels on my 67 tempest to see if a 9.5" wheel and a 275mm tire would fit in the stock wheel well of a 67 gto/tempest. busy busy, hopefully tommorrow is more productive, today was kinda slow since i was up till midnight guarding a soldier/prisoner at a mental health clinic. follow him around like a tail, dunno what this kid did but he's not allowed to even close the door to pee.

[lucky13firebird]

Swapped out the busted cpp braided rear brake hose for the braided one from in-line tube. The blowout that left me with no rear brakes was probably caused by me, I bolted the splitter block facing up, so on a hard bump it bottomed out again the trunk floor and blew out the rubber hose inside the braiding... BUT I do have two major complaints about the cpp piece over the in line tube one...

- it's $36 vs $29 bucks for the in line tube one and it doesn't have a plastic coating on the outside... it's super rusty after only 3 months under my car....

- it's not a direct fit for a stock 67-69 f body... it's threaded for 3/16 brake lines on all three sides... This meant I needed to go down to Napa and get a brass fitting that went from the next size up down to 3/16 or change out my hard line (which wasn't gonna happen ). I'm glad i just used an adapter because hoses are wear items and now my in line tube piece, which is a direct replacement for stock, is in with no adapter and fits like it should.


Took a pic of the oily dusty underside of the car. That ugly dent i put in my crossover on the exhaust gives me 1.5" of clearance from the drive shaft under full suspension extension. That and it's the front of the drive shaft so it doesn't move up and down much. Just whatever flex the cross member has.

[lucky13firebird]

Corvette brakes for 68 firebird unboxing: http://youtu.be/-wmcy31gR0k

Got my brakes from cpp. Good looking brakes, and great price at $395 plus hubs. Also installing the edelbrock fuel pump today. Will post pics as soon as I'm done, if I'm lucky I'll get the brakes done too. Meanwhile on a side note, I test fit the tempests 17" front wheels I just got today and they do clear the 13" c5 brake setup. Oh and a pleasant surprise was that the boss wheels are made in america...and are dirt cheap. Due to the rear quarter issues on the tempest, the bird may wind up with the boss wheels, 18x9.5 rear and 17x8 fronts. It'll solve the rubbing issue in the back too, since the 18x9.5 boss wheels are -4 mm instead of +15mm offset. .. which ironicly fit the tempest perfect...


Edit to add- I replaced my worn out stock pump with an edelbrock performer rpm unit. It's self regulated and doesn't require a separate fuel pressure regulatdor. While I was at it I got rid of about 5 feet of rubber fuel hose that went under my harmonic balancer and then up the front of the block, past the carb and then behind the edelbrock carb where it splits to feed both fuel bowls. I used 5/16 steel fuel line and sections of rubber hose to connect everything. Came out much neater, now I just need to do my fuel line under the car.

[68firebird]

nice price for the brakes. and of course they look good behind those rims. good progress!

[lucky13firebird]

DO NOT DEAL WITH CPP. I'm installing the brakes right now and have to make my own part already.... and it was advertised as direct bolt on. oh and don't get me started about how rude their customer service is... lifetime warranty my butt.

[lucky13firebird]

here's the video of the brake install

Did the brakes, here's some quick pics. Explaining to follow, gotta run and finish the right side now. Oh just to avoid confusion, the before pic is of the right side and the rest are of the left. The calipers are behind the spindle vs in front like the old brakes.

edit to add since i didn't want to bother with another post-

The hellwig sway bar is no longer a problem and i can do tight parking lot turns,

three big things that were an issue, these were explained in the video but here they are again anyway.

1- not all gm spindles are alike, i happened to have one that was threaded in the upper spindle brake anchor at 1/2-20, the kit is specifically made for the 5/8 threaded spindles, which wouldn't be such a big deal if they had said so in the listing on ebay, and would've been even less of a big deal had they not been so rude. they simply told me to make my own shim, refused to send me a 1/2-20 bolt pair, and even suggested i buy the "right" spindle... all this for a suppossed "bolt on" no machinging needed kit...

2- they included some cruddy chinese bearings but forgot to include the bearing races... they must've assumed that your drum hubs will have some... and then forgot to install any in the drum hubs i bought from them... yeah, tell me about it, so much for a "complete" kit. I had to pound out the old ones from the cut down hubs i was saving for the tempest.

3- disc brake installs require longer wheel studs, they included some longer ones threaded in the stock thread size BUT they forget to tell you that they're .600 or something shank diameter, while the stock ones for a pontiac are .480... i know this because I used some super long ones on my moser axles. And yes the stock drum hubs i bought from them do include studs, but again those are only good for stock drum applications... again, so much for a no machinging required kit that suppossedly bolts on to stock drum hubs and stock drum spindles.

---- oh and i will add their customer service is horrible, after being blown off by them I looked through their ebay feedback and sure enough i'm not the only one----

no complaints about the kit itself though, years ago a sub $500 kit that included drum hubs and hoses and corvette calipers with 13" corvette rotors would've been unheard of. There are otheres that sell this exact kit, but claim the hubs and brackets are made in america. OH they are cheaper to boot... by about $25 bucks. Had i know i would've gone with them...

[Gil]

Nice video & setup ! Hum...
No fun if no problems, you know
When do you plan to have new tires ?
Very good work, keep it up !
Gil