67 Butternut Build

[68firebird]

Looks great!!! I am super jealous. prodigy did a great job. congrats, money well spent in my opinion, LOL, my wife would say otherwise.

[Happyfunballs]

I hope to find a Butternut 67 one day. Looks fantastic.

[NOT A TA]

Great write up Steve! Good luck with the rest of the build.

[BCHALK22]

Nice car and cool story

[bonecrrusher]

Digging the color.

[ProTouring442]

Stunning!!

Shiny Side Up!
Bill

[sjaroslo]

Thanks a lot for the encouragement, everyone, I really appreciate it. I know that my saga was a little (!) self-indulgent but again, it was a story a long time in the making....

[Ron.in.SoCal]

Great read Steve. Enjoy the journey!

[WS6]

Get yourself a factory assembly manual. I'm sure they are out there and readily available for the car. This should help you put the car back together even with all the changes. Of course, posting pictures and asking for help works too. Good luck. The wheels look fantastic. The posed before and after shots are great.

[Motorcitydak]

Really nice write up! I also like the way you duplicated the old photo's

[sjaroslo]

...And it ain't much! Still waiting on parts to roll in and looking for advice to get going on the plumbing, so while this morning's plan was to do some undercarriage reconnaissance with respect to what kinds of clips, brackets and holes remain available to hold hard lines and e-brake cables, etc., I decided to tackle the Console mount bracket. Would it have been easier to install this bracket before the trans went in? Oh, HELL yes. But my fat fingers and a u-joint socket on one side and a ratcheting box end wrench on the other (two clicks, tighten, repeat, for about 20 minutes) conspired to get it in.

My American Autowire kit showed up, and I'm spending money on new parts like a drunken sailor (my CC company blocked a huge online order I was trying to place with Heartbeat City over the weekend and sent me a text message--"Is this you trying to place this order?" "Yes, please." "OK.") and I'm not sure where I'm going to find the space for all of the boxes that I'm still anticipating from Wegner, Vintage Air, HBC and Rick's Camaros, but I'll cross that bridge when I get to it.

Right now, with the car in the air, I'm not doing anything else until I figure out the fuel and brake plumbing and the e-brake requirements and routing--but I'm still waiting for the tank from Rick's (expected any day now) and the rest of the Wilwood brake kit from Frank.

Lots and lots of questions, not too many answers--probably a good epitaph.

[Steve68]

very nice, looks like Frank,Bob, Michael took care of you, Looks like the move to Sanford, swallowed lots of cars, parts, and time into the black hole!

[zzfranczz]

Great story. I am as well on the west coast and have a 1967 Camaro. I like the name of the build and am still fishing for mine. For what is worth I copied your list from the post to my notes, as is. It is similar to what I had in mind (can not afford the LSX but that was my original plan) and like you started out a few years back with a call to Frank. If anything he filled my head with dreams of PT cars and realities of costs as well as an understanding of the process. I can only say I have much respect for the guy and that is the advice I am still using to guide my build. Not having funds or time I am still waiting to get my project rolling. It would have been a no brainer for me if he had been on the West Coast.

Anyway keep the posts and pics rolling up. Your efforts on the fourth are greatly appreciated. Good luck in finishing.

[sjaroslo]

Thanks, Frank, I appreciate the post and the bump to get my build back on the front page :-) I have updates to post--just not nearly as many as I would like--but knowing that folks are actually getting something from the thread helps with the motivation. Maybe I will try to set aside some time during the Thanksgiving downtime to post an update!

Although there is no question that the work that Prodigy did for me is top notch, unfortunately, at the moment, there is no way that I could recommend him with a clear conscience. Something has obviously gone horribly awry, which is just plain unfortunate, but now that my calls and e-mails are no longer returned, and he owes me over $600 worth of product that was bought and paid for months and months and months ago with no prospect of it ever happening in sight, I would steer clear until a thorough explanation is provided. I will be the first guy to jump back on the Frank bandwagon if he can get it together, but until then, please don't go there based on any recommendation from me. Man, that just pains me to even have to say....

[130fe]

Steve, I agree with your post 100%. My car is the blue 68 in post 11. I was there last Feb when the LS conversion was started........ My situation might be different than others because I am from Orlando originally and have time (we don't return back to the states until next July) to wait. I originally wanted to do the LS swap, change suspension and do minitubs but the lack of communication and recent trend of transactions (others) has changed that decision. I just hope the LS swap will be done by the time I get back......

[fxdlryan]

Steve,

I love your build. I think your car was in process while I had my horrible experience with Prodigy. $36,000 worth of parts paid for and after 3 months, nothing delivered. I filed a credit card dispute, got my money back from the credit card company and moved on. No axe to grind here, Frank is a knowledgebale guy and would probably be a great guy to have a beer with. But under no circumstance would I ever do business with him again nor recommned anyone else do so.

[sjaroslo]

Well, much time has passed and unfortunately I don't have as much to show for it as I would like! Amazingly, the plumbing STILL sits, waiting for me to get my act together, but I have found various other small projects to try to keep my mind off of the intimidation factor of the plumbing. In fact, I've even made some progress on that front, so all is not lost--I just can't seem to get out there to make a final push for a final design. More on plumbing perhaps later.

As I had mentioned earlier in the thread, everything was relatively rosy back in the July timeframe, with the expensive parts that I had ordered mostly through Prodigy rolling in--Wegner serpentine drive system, Rick's Tanks/vaporworx system (unfortunately, after a very lengthy delay waiting for the CTS-V pump to arrive before they shipped out the tank, they shipped the wrong tank--no corner notches as was ordered by Prodigy--but Hector was all over the mistake, had the correct tank out to me in a jiffy, and arranged for FedEx to pick up the other one), Vintage Air, and a bunch of Wilwood stuff--so it was the Wilwood stuff that I decided to tackle first.

I have another thread here https://www.pro-touring.com/showthre...iper-Alignment that delves into an issue or two that popped up during the front rotor install, and sorry for the duplication of some pix, but it has been rewarding if not a little frustrating, but I suspect that's how most builds go.

The truly crazy part is that, once I got up the nerve to say "OK, I'm going to tackle the front brakes installation!," I got out in to the garage, got all of my tools lined up, and did Step 1: Undo lug nuts and remove front wheels--except the wheels would not budge! I beat 'em and kicked 'em and rocked 'em and rolled 'em, and they were like on there with Super Glue or something... Anyway, one of the things that you learn when you have your car built in Florida is that everything that can, comes back with a fine glaze of surface rust on it.... Because the wheels had been riding directly on the hubs (no rotors in place), they had developed a slight resistance fit due to the hub-centric design. A careful application of a stout screwdriver-as-prybar actually got the marriage to break up, and the very simplest of everything that I was going to be doing for that part of the project was finally accomplished! I hoped it would all be downhill from there, but maybe not so much.

So as not to bore the ones who have stayed here and not checked out the caliper alignment thread, the short story is, once the calipers were all bolted up nicely (and they are beautiful and the instructions are really good and the rotors are HUGE and weigh a ton), I was not happy with how the caliper centered over the rotor, but thanks to the suggestions of several Forum members, especially Jay at The GMR, we came to the conclusion that either Morrison doesn't include (or Prodigy had removed and forgotten to reinstall) the C6 bracket that holds the wheel anti-lock sensor. The thickness of that bracket was just the right amount that would re-align the caliper/rotor relationship perfectly. The parts were less than $10 each, and after some Dremel work, some ball joint work, some Torx head work, some Loctite work, I was able to get everything back to the state that it SHOULD have been in the first place and those disc brake pads slid in like a hot knife through butter! Of course, if I had known at the time, this would have ALSO been a great time to have replaced the front wheel studs--but that is fodder for yet another of my ridiculous threads: https://www.pro-touring.com/showthre...Nut-Pipe-Dream

Although it was logical to begin on the front brakes, it was also practical, because the major parts that I was still waiting for from Prodigy were my rear calipers and a few smaller brake-related parts. Unfortunately, this is where the phone calls and e-mails stopped even being acknowledged, and I am out the $600+ that it took to source them from Summit, which pisses me off more than just about anything that has happened with my relationship with Frank. It especially stings after I stick my neck out to publicly endorse him in this forum and end up, in essence, with him having stolen that money from me. As I said earlier, in no way does any of this take away from the beautiful car that the shop bolted together for me, but my ringing endorsement earlier on just feels pretty embarrassing these days. I hope that something changes and that there is a future for Prodigy but for right now, they are on my sheit list.

BUT, once I put the anger behind me, I ordered up my parts and actually, am right in the middle of working on the rear rotor/caliper installation as I type. In taking apart the rear brakes, I found that I wasn't particularly impressed with the safety-wiring that the shop had done on the rear rotors/hubs, so I took them all apart, re-torqued the bolts, and re-safety wired. I also picked up a replacement caliper mounting kit and shims, because I want to re-do the work that the shop did there, as well. I am curious if they used Loctite on the mounting bolts, so I'll find out. If they did, I may abort my plan of re-doing it, unless I absolutely have to.

Let me post this up and then I'll start working on some pictures to go along with the narration...

[sjaroslo]

Yes, my rotor is as large as the stock wheel on a 67 Camaro. Yes, I may be compensating for something; I try not to analyze it too deeply


Safety wiring is actually fun!


The hub is off


Who would have thought that a little piece of sheet metal could be such a PITA??


Stevie likes!



The work on the rears begins; Florida = SURFACE RUST!


Safety wiring the rears is a little less fun than the fronts because of the drum/parking brake protrusion. Why are the rears, done by the shop, so much more banged up than the fronts, done by the rank amateur?

[sjaroslo]

One thing that has remained a constant for me through this process has been the incredible transfer of wealth directly AWAY from me and into the pockets of the various vendors who support our habits and tempt us with really, really cool stuff! Through the setbacks, through the delays, through the adversity, somehow I have mustered up the strength, the determination, the intestinal fortitude to continue to charge things to the credit cards with wild abandon! But oh, my, there is just too much neat stuff out there. Since my initial post, the UPS and FedEx deliveries have continued to stream in, unabated. I'm doing my part for America.

Twist Machine Shift Handle


Coil pack bracket from CBM


Wilwood Master Cylinder


Wegner Serpentine drive pulleys and polished accessories




Lingenfelter Engine Block Oil Feed Adapter Kit (although difficult to see in the photo, this beautiful piece has two ports on it, one I'm using for my auxiliary oil pressure gauge and the other for the oil temperature gauge that I'll be adding--plus I can run the stock sender up top for the ECU [although the documentation says that the ECU doesn't need to see the oil pressure signal, which I think is crazy])


American Autowire complete wiring set


GMPP Ignition Coils & Wiring from Fred Beans


GMPP Intake manifold and throttle body from Fred Beans


Plus about half of every black fitting that Fragola makes, plus about a million smaller items here and there from NPD, Rick's, Classic Industries, etc. I'm sure I've bought some parts twice :-(

My Christmas list contains the following (although I am not expecting to receive any of this from anyone, just more of a "wish list," I guess):
Twist machine billet fire extinguisher and mount kit
Marquez inside rear view mirror (even with my spending with reckless abandon, this one is hard to justify at the price!)
Norris catch can
PRC or Billet Specialties Coolant Overflow tank
DSE Wiper Motor
Fesler headlights (just ordered these through their Black Friday sale)
Braille battery and billet holddown

And someday, at the very end of the build (so maybe never), Corbeau LG1-wides in black leather with seat heaters ("wide," for me, "seat heaters" for the missus)

OK, I have a little more to share with regard to plumbing, but I need to run to the store to pick up some stuffing and veggies for OUR turkey, as we were away at family for the main day--no leftovers for us! A tragedy (see "wide seat needed" above...). I really appreciate your taking the time to read and look through the pictures; comments are always welcome, and encouragement seems to do me wonders! Thanks.

[WS6]

Good looking parts you've got there. Merry Christmas early.