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Old 01-12-2021, 10:08 PM
Way2qwk4u Way2qwk4u is offline
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Join Date: Aug 2015
Location: Westport KY
Posts: 58
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Drove the car off and on during the summer on the weekends. Started to plan other upgrades to the car. First on the list was the suspension. Seeing that the stock shocks were on the car and that the other bushings were cracked and worn. I placed an order with UMI Performance and installed their full stage 3 kit and installed it on the car. Unfortunately I cant find the pictures of that or of the new Dakota Digital dash install. Car handles so much nicer with the new suspension on. Made a world of difference. I recommend UMI and their products.

The Dakota dash really made the car nice to drive and gauges easier to read and kind of solidified the Pro Touring or RetoMod theme. I like the old car look but wanted some of the modern touches. This car was never numbers matching and it sure is not a GTO or collectible in that sense. I do find it cool that of the car shows I have been to, I never see another Lemans though.

Also while under the car doing the new suspension I took out the stock carrier and gears and installed a set of 3.73 gears and a posi-traction unit. Installed new bearings and seals and installed a rear cover and bearing cap braces. I am pretty sure based on tooth count that the stock ratio was close to 2.73. I know that it would hardly get moving but once it was going it cruised really well.

All of this work was completed in 2014-2015. I also installed a new Kenwood head unit and new pioneer rear deck and kick panel speakers. My uncle had already butchered the dash metal to install a Sparkomatic some "wally world" brand I guess radio. It was around this time I began contemplating the next steps for this car. The original 350 still ran excellent but time had taken its toll on all the gaskets. They were all starting to leak and the motor was due for a refresh. Story from my father was that it was rebuilt in 1980 and was from one of his earlier cars. I cant remember if it was a GT-37 or another car he had. The trans was a TH400 with a TransGo shift kit in it as well. So by this time the motor and trans had about 35 years on them.

So it was a difficult choice for me on what to install in the car. I really wanted to stay with pure Pontiac power. But after doing the research and making various budget sheets and pro/con lists, I settled on going LS. I just at this point in my life could not justify the dollar per HP ratio. Where I work almost 98% of our fleet is LS powered and I get first dibs on any retired vehicles. Also I already had a fully rebuilt 5.3 that was siting on a stand in the garage.

So in 2016 I started gathering parts together for the swap. I wanted to have it all ready so that I could enjoy the car while I was working on getting things together. I finally had every thing together this year. And I really got started in November and took the car off the road. Before that I had the car ran on the dyno to see where it was before I got started.

297 Tq
228 WHP

Goal would be 600- 700 WHP
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