[eaglesan13]

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

[pontorquer]

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

[eaglesan13]

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

Originally Posted by pontorquer

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

[pontorquer]

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

[CaptCrunch]

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

[bird72]

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.

[eaglesan13]

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.

Originally Posted by bird72

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.

[eaglesan13]

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.