70 Formula 400 Build
 

I finished stripping down the formula this week and it left for the body shop today. The body man/painter said one to two months but I have never met a body/paint guy who told me the truth, so we will see. This is a real formula 400, 4 speed car that was originally castillion bronze with deluxe sandlewood interior. I am not doing a frame-off restoration, mostly because the original engine and trans were gone when I got the car, and also because I intend to drive and enjoy the car and I want to keep the cost down. Therefore, my intent will be to build a nice driver. Fortunately, this car is very solid with no rust issues at all, (although I have not pulled the front and rear glass yet). While the car is gone I will work on restoring parts to be installed when the car returns. I'll post as I go because I'm sure I will have a ton of questions.

Nice ride!! check those subframe bushings for dry rot :)

Cool Chris! Glad to see you are building it. Should be a great ride when done. What are you planning for the motor/tranny?

Pat,

The car had a 350 Chevy in it when I bought it but it also came with a 73 455 Pontiac ready to assemble. The 455 was already bored .060 over and had new forged pistons and new rods pressed on. I also got a nodular crank, all the bearings, rings, and gaskets, etc... A set of 6X heads came with the car also. I had to have everything balanced but otherwise all I needed was the cam, lifters and an oil pump. I went with the comp cam 268 and used a stock 72 cast iron intake with RARE repop exhaust manifolds with the oversized outlets. A factory HEI came with the car so I went through that and will use it. I got an aluminum flywheel cheap so I used that as well. As I said before, I'm trying to use what I have and keep the cost down.

Chris

Just a thought, you should get that block sonic checked, .060 " over is border line for a 455.

Pat,

Here is how the engine looks right now. I still need to bolt on the exhaust manifolds and buy a fuel pump.

For the transmission I will use the muncie M20 that came with the car. It is a 1970 trans but not original to the car since it is dated about a month after my car was built. I went through the trans already and the gears are all in very nice shape, it just had a bad rear bearing so I went ahead and replaced all the bearings and brass. The shifter the car came with was an aftermarket so I picked up a correct one on ebay and set it up so the trans is ready to go in. The shifter I bought had the correct backdrive linkage which was missing since the prior owner was using headers.

The block was sonic checked when I had the balancing done.

By the way, nice build up, it will be a very nice car, I love the 1970-73 Formulas Firebirds ...

great color combination..........cant wait to see it done.........

Great!!!!!!!!! I think you are 100% on the right track......... Not every car needs or warrants a resto. One can do a lot of detailing and painting with a frame bolted to a body.

I'm doing same with my 72. Car is undercoated from probably new, and I am leaving it. I need to super clean or attempt to someday the underside, but nothing is rusty funky due to undercoat. I just checked my body bushings myself and mine are fine, amazingly.

Please leave no spoiler...... :)

You have the 12 bolt in it? Posi? gear? That is a real interesting point on the 70's. I am putting a 70, 12 bolt 3.55 posi in mine if the shop ever gets done with putting it togethor.

I think your color combo is great. It is one I remember seeing in person on some, and some magazine cars from the time were often in that color.

I'm not partial to brown, although I don't dislike castillion bronze. However, I had planned on painting the car atoll blue and leaving the interior sandlewood. Then I pulled the fenders off and got a glimpse of the original color on the side of the cowl. Damn, that is nice! So, now I'm leaning more towards keeping it the original color. The pictures don't do the color justice, it is much nicer in person.

The original 3.55 peg-leg 12 bolt is still in the car. I'll leave that till the end. I plan on adding a posi but want to drive the car with the 3.55's first. If I think it is too low I can change the ratio when I add the posi. I would have like to have gone with a 5 speed but the cost was too high.

The car does not have a rear spoiler and I will not be adding one since I prefer the non-spoiler look on the formula.

that color is excellent......with a high quality base/clear coat finish it will look great......I pulled the sub frame on mine because I wanted to do the bushings and paint under it.........you're only four bolts away.......

Chris,
Great call on finishing it up! Can't wait to see it.

Cool car Chris,,,,, enjoy and the color is great by the way (not so many of them around it seems when at shows).

Today's project was the pedal assembly. This car was very solid, there was no rust in the floor or under the dash. However, the pedal brace was very rusty which leads me to believe it was not painted or plated.

Might have come off a junkyard item if the original one had been damaged/ needed replacement at some point in life....looks a bit extreme rusty if there is no rust elsewhere around there :confused:

I sandblasted the pedals and brace, but even then the brace looked like crap. I used rust remover (acid) on the brace to kill the rust. It's pitted but since it's under the dash it will have to do. Besides, it's date coded so it's numbers matching :)

I used red primer then rattle canned the pedals two colors to simulate the original paint surface where the factory dipped the pedals in black paint.

good job! - looks great again

ok, that excludes swapping....weird. If I look at the bare interior pictures on top post of the floor & firewall, it's all clean and solid. Indeed strange how the pedal got so rusty.....
production fault?

Here is the date code, it's somewhat hard to read but it is March 1, 1970, and the car build date is late April.

I'm sure that you know this but don't forget that you will need a bellhouising to go with that Pontiac engine. Different bolt pattern than a Chebby.

FTR: Leave the car the original color. You'll be much happier in the end and it's easier on your painter.

I also think you will find that the 3.55's will be plenty for a built 455. Traction will already be an issue and you'll easily be 3000 rpm on the freeway.