1968 firebird 461ci stroker project

[Gil]

This is not too far from were I live, yes !

1/4 mile tracks are little more difficult to find but should not be a problem.
Gil

[68firebird]

This is not too far from were I live, yes !

1/4 mile tracks are little more difficult to find but should not be a problem.
Gil

OH, that looks fun!!!!!!!!!

[lucky13firebird]

charlotte motor speed way is down the road from here but its gonna be a while before anything happens there that i can attend. That track look familiar... i've prob played it in FORZA 4 or something.

adjusted my floats today to sync with my new edelbrock fuel pump. My old pump was not pumping properly so i had raised the float levels, but now that i have a pump thats running 6 psi all the time i had to tighten up the floats to make them close the needles sooner, carb was getting kinda flooded.

BTW if anybody is still running a carb, and has heat soak issues, edelbrock part number 9266 totaly solved my heat soak problems without adding too much height. its a heat insulator gasket thats 3/8" thick and is a divided plenum. comes with longer studs and the devided plenum keeps my monster bottem end torque at the same monster level with good vacuum signal for idle and off idle around town driving. best $17 i've spent on that carb.

while i was at it i took a video to explain the basics of the edelbrock carbs. I've honestly met people who had NO CLUE how to adjust them. they thought the idle mixture screws actually adjusted the whole mixture throughout the rpm range... so yeah. if you're one of those people, got you covered ;-)

[lucky13firebird]

Been throwing around the idea of a low profile street fighter style scoop, or using it as an extractor facing backwards. Dunno yet, but it'll just bolt on so it's not permanent. Eventually I'll just glass over the hole in the hood but one of these two options should work for now. The scoop is what's left of the goofy drag scoop that was on the hood when I got it for free. I'll probably cut down the back some more so it'll slope towards the opening, not be straight across like it is now.

[Gil]

Reverse extractor with a little roots mock-up & triming sounds visualy better to me !
Very nice !
Gil

[lucky13firebird]

yeah, reverse with more taken off the front so not as big a bump.

[lucky13firebird]

went to the 1/4 mile track with my family and dragged some friends along, it was their first time, and they had a blast. getting a little faster now, best pass so far was a 13.7 at 106 and a 2.5 60ft. I managed a 2.3 second 60ft a couple times but heat soak killed my carb and the passes were horrible. The 5/16 fuel line running next to my block like that was heating up the fuel too much. That and that stupid heat crossover thing all pontiacs come with.

I bought new 3/8 fuel line and ran it to the carb, but this time way out of the way of any heat sources, should pass enough fuel now to not be starving out by the time i hit second and third gear. Later on I may change out the entire fuel line all the way back to the tank, we'll see though. fuel supply should also help me in future road course events too, not just drag racing. guys at the track were telling me to get an ice box but that's not a realistic fix for me... I just keep picturing ice water sloshing out of that thing on hard corners... maybe works for the drag guys... but this isn't a drag car.

next mod will be to pull my intake manifold and JB-weld the darn heat crossover under the carb, and use gaskets that block it off... its just TOO MUCH HEAT. while i'm at it, I'll trace my intake ports on some paper and port match the manifold, I doubt it'll do much but I figure i'll at least remove any sharp edges that restrict airflow if any of the ports don't quite line up clean...

trying to get the little things hammered out on this thing so i don't embarass myself too much when I finaly make it to at least one of the goodguys events this year.


also- bought a hammer and dollie kit, so I'll start work on the couple dents in the left fender, so that after i cut out the taillight panel i can slowly start prepping for real paint, plus a few less dents wouldn't hurt anything.

[lucky13firebird]

fixed the vapor lock issue with the 3/8 fuel line rerouting. Takes a little longer to warm up in the mornings too now. Got it nice and warm on the way home and then hammered on it, no more stumble in the higher rpms and pulls hard in all three gears. can't wait till next weekend.

[68firebird]

Looks like its moving now! sounds good too.

[Gil]

Yes, very nice !
Sounds 1/4 mile should be way better than last Sunday !

When are you planning a 5 or 6 gears ?

Gil

[lucky13firebird]

6 speed? NEVER, these FORD 3 speeds are awesome. Practically unbreakable. The ones that were special ordered for pontiacs are really rare, BUT when you do find them, people practically give them away... I bought the last one for $100... i have 3 of them, 2 spares and one in the car. my plan next is for a ford 4 speed. those were never made in a GM input shaft size so i'll need to get the pilot bearing replaced with a custom made one that lets me put a ford input shaft in a pontiac crank. the cool thing is the trans itself will bolt right up, since pontiac bellhousings have 8 holes already, 4 for GM trans, and 4 for ford and you can use which ever you like...

a 6 speed conversion costs much too much to be practical for me. 3-4k total cost for a swap. for that kind of price i can just pro-charge the 461 and not worry about the gear spread.... ;-)

[lucky13firebird]

my gear spread i have now is 2.42, 1.61, 1 ..... with the wide ratio 4 speed I'll be able to launch a little harder and not have as big an rpm drop with 2.78, 1.93, 1.36, 1 ...... and for how though those trans are, they are very affordable.

[bonecrrusher]

Your mentioned your near Charlotte Motor Speedway - where are you from?

Are you going to checkout the Power Tour this weekend @ Zmax?

[lucky13firebird]

update-, prob going to power tour kick off, and visit some friends while i'm up there.

[lucky13firebird]

I will if I can, back up plan was to just go drag racing, it's only $10 for that here

[lucky13firebird]

took a sunset cruise and did a couple donuts... didn't make it to hot rod power tour kickoff but did get to go racing that weekend at the strip

[lucky13firebird]

Well, today I found out my thermostat has been stuck in the closed postition and its costing me some power. doesn't overheat on the street but causes issues at the track...

Aside from that, I saved myself $400 today by fixing the hole in the fiberglass hood instead of buying another one. I bought $6 worth of fiberglass matting in a big sheet, and $15 of fiberglass gel resin. I cut a chunk out of my own metal hood and threw it under the hood on top of my tempest hood, and the firebird hood was upside down on top of the metal chunk. that way the fiberglass had a form to follow and the patch would then have the ridge just like the factory hood did. I was actually really simple, now i just need to do the finish body work on it, filler primer etc. but it looks good, I'm very pleased with it. posting pics and a video in a few minutes.

[lucky13firebird]

here's the video of the whole process. a couple hourse of work edited down to 8 minutes. I didn't know how it would turn out but it turned out really really good. i mean the hole was over a foot long and almost a foot wide... took three layers of fiberglass matting and gel in between each layer. the last pic before it was painted shows the matting before i applyed a layer of gel to it too, and then sanded it. no more rivet holes of a giant hole in the middle either. just need to primer it a few more times and block sand and maybe use a tiny bit of filler. now my fiberglass hood looks like a factory flat hood, just much much much lighter...

[Gil]

Hey Lucky,
you are a "know it all" dude !
nice work
Gil

[lucky13firebird]

Dunno about knowing it all, but I'll try it all for sure. Writing this as I'm waiting for a tow. My pinion yoke nut backed out and dropped my driveshaft on the ground as I was coming home from being in the field for 4 days... chances are my gears are **** now so I can re gear my 12 bolt. On the sunny side of things I'm going back out in the field for a week so when I come back again all smelly and such my parts will be home and ready for me to install them. Whatever it is I want to install. Also a good note is that patch I made for my fiberglass hood turned out really well. Just needs some sanding and paint. But is the right shape and everything. It's anything but rough. The sloppy painting gives it an odd look but it's strait.