#1  
Old 05-23-2023, 12:23 PM
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Default Project Angry Bird - 68 Firebird Build

I’m starting the summary part of my build of a 68 Firebird originally a 350 2bbl auto car in Cameo Ivory with Red interior, Rally Wheels and a Console. Nothing special…. I’m building it to be a fun street car, able to race with the locals and do some no prep small tire racing. I’ll not have the initial HP to be competitive with 1200 and up HP cars, but I’m building the rolling car so that I could eventually drop a 2000hp bullet in and go racing!

Goal is 750-800 HP using some high end parts along with some old school stuff. Kauffman is providing many of my Engine Parts. Starting with a 70 400 Block with billet 4-Bolt caps and front cap. Filling the block to below freeze plugs. We will bore the block .030” over and align bore the mains, deck the block and do standard deburr, tapping front oil galleys, etc…. May do bronze bushings on the lifter bores if needed and will use a full SD Mega Brace epoxied in. Kauffman found me an Eagle 3” main 4.21” stroke (2.25” RJ) forged crank to mate to my 6.80” Aluminum new old stock Superod rods and Custom 4.155” bore Ross Pistons with Dish and set my static compression at 9.5:1. Balanced by KRE. Comp Hyd Roller .600”ish lift, 254 @ .050” Duration and 108 LS (may change). BOP belt. Luhn Pump, Stefs 1240 pan. Kauffman 80cc 330cfm High Ports with comp 930 springs. 1.6 ford rockers and KRE stud girdle (may change to t&d shaft), innovators west balancer. MSD 7AL-3 with Boost Timing Master to remove timing. For now I’m installing my 76mm TorqStorm Supercharger but by the time it’s built, I’ll either have twin 76s or a single 94mm so HP will be higher than my block can handle. Intake is port matched Northwind With C&S Aerosol 900 Blow through with super pro bowls for e85 and C&S Belt Driven Pump. Should see 12psi boost. Mad Dog 2” Primary race headers. Will have a 100-150 shot of Nitrous for a scramble. Timing will be pulled for it with 7AL-3.

All engine parts are in hand just waiting to deburr/fill block and then it all goes to machine shop soon.

Body is a total restoration and I’m doing all of the work. It needs Trunk and Floor Pans, both frame rails, inner/outer rockers, quarters, tail pan, mini tubs, trunk drops, firewall and cowl, plus cowl shoulders and more…. May have been easier to list what I didn’t replace. I’ve already built a jig and set the body on it, stripped the car and have blasted it and I’m ready to epoxy and start putting it back together.

Front stub is on my Fab Table with tube arms, ViKing coilovers, mustang rack, 2” dropped spindles and wilwood brakes. Cutting all crossmembers out, and tubing out the front of the subframe with 4130 tube for high clearance and to lighten the car. Up front will be a big radiator, intercooler and surge tank with clear view filter. Will feed Nitrous from surge tank with its own pump.

I’ll build a 7.50 cage and plan on still keeping most of my factory interior. It would be too pretty not to have that red interior! Wife wants leather so I may have someone do it but I want factory appearance.

Rear suspension is 9” Ford with 3.23 gear 35 spline, strange axles, braced and retubed with DOM. Calvert Mono leafs with 1” drop. Assassin Bars, Innovative Racecraft front adjustable perches, Funkhouser ARB, 10Deg sliders and shock mounts. Viking Shocks.

Powerglide with SFI bell and a Brake and 3800 Hughes Converter is already purchased.


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  #2  
Old 05-23-2023, 12:29 PM
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COOL!

Need some pics now.


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Old 05-23-2023, 12:35 PM
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I’ll start the thread this week and bring you up to date. It’s now very far along on new metal install.

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Old 05-23-2023, 02:00 PM
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When I purchased the car over a year ago, it was a package deal from a good friend who’s a body man so he had already begun collecting parts. I bought this 68 with Title and it came with an equally rusty 67 Camaro roller. Most of the sheet metal was for the 67 but it turns out it worked out to my advantage. I sold all of the Camaro parts and kept the following:

All New Dynacorn parts - Floor Pan, 67 Trunk Pan, Outer Rockers, 67 Fenders, rear sail panel, tons of trim, outer wheelhouses.

I since bought 68 quarters, DSE mini tubs, trunk drops, rear tail pan, doors, 69 TA Fiberglass/steel framed hood, heater delete firewall, inner rockers, cowl supports, upper dash, inner/outer cowl, cowl shoulders, inner quarter panels (at door jamb).

I’m reusing the original deck lid and upper cowl. I’m patching the lower fender mounts at bottom of cowl (a-pillar lowers), roof is decent but needs patched in the rear window opening in a few places. I need to replace the rear package tray because mine looks like someone dukes of hazzard jumped this car because the passenger frame rail was shoved up along with passenger package tray brace so I may do something out of aluminum or a combo of chromoly tube and aluminum.

The goal is not to have a complete back half car. I think if Langer and Kinser can run in the 4s with a full body, I can too! But, I want to drive this on the street. In fact, I want my wife to be able to drive it to work too and enjoy it. So I will mini tub and keep it nice. I’m not a body man, but I know how to fabricate, I’m an Engineer so I have CAD, have a CNC plasma table and so on…. Plan is to start with a rust free shell and go from there.

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Old 05-23-2023, 02:16 PM
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nice project, look forward to your build. I love the Sanders too.

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Old 05-23-2023, 02:16 PM
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We pulled it out of the Rhubarb and I brought it home and into the shop.



My 19 year old Son helped me start preparing to get it off the old Cragars. I had bought a nice set of Draglites on Hoosiers so he was dying to cut out the trunk pan, pull the rear and and mock up the new Skins!




I sold the 10 bolt to someone restoring a 68 with same gear code. 2.76 baby!



We mocked this up so my Wife could get an idea of how it may look someday and then started the tear down! I did sell the Draglites and ended up with some nice Sander Engineering Beadlocks. More on that later.

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Old 05-23-2023, 04:37 PM
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We removed the front stub and built a body jig based off GM and Fisher Body dimensions on the intardnet. I had driver frame rail basically missing at the bottom near the spring Evelyn bucket. Other than that everything was intact so the shell fit perfectly on the Jig.

As you can see the floor is basically junk.







At this point the inner rockers looked salvageable so I planned on saving them.

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Old 05-23-2023, 04:52 PM
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This is awesome...u r going to mess up those locals!

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Old 05-23-2023, 04:55 PM
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We blasted the housing and stub so I could get the stub mocked up on my fab table at ride height. Front of my rocker should be around 6” off ground so I set it on the table accordingly.



We started bolting on parts that arrived. I’m using cheap Speedmaster upper and lower a-arms but pitched the junk China ball joints for Moog lower and an extended QA1 rebuildable upper.











I also had purchased a Chromoly TH400 trans crossmember from Smith Racecraft and front and mid plates from All Pontiac (Butler). Gutted my TH400 and mocked it up. I’ve since decided to go Glide Trans so I’ll mock it up soon. Decided at this point to start cutting crossmembers out for pan clearance and for installation of a 45” wide mustang rack.

I cut more floor out of the shell after adding some bracing. As you can see the outer rockers are gone (both sides). One had a snake skin so it had been put to use at some point.





At this point, I was still planning on keeping inner rockers, patching toe boards and moving forward.

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Old 05-23-2023, 05:00 PM
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very cool project ... my 2 cents, dont put money into a stock block if you are going that far eventually ... IA2 now.

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Old 05-23-2023, 05:24 PM
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Started removing metal on the toe boards and purchased a patch kit. Ended up finding some major rust inside of the rocker that included some repair of the inner rocker support that is originally galvanized thicker gauge metal. Basically if you want to ensure rust will come back, ignore areas like this. I want the car to outlast me so I decided to fully remove inner and outer as well as the support. If you look at it this way, you cannot “really” replace the outer rocker without having the inner rocker out of the way. Many experts will say install the outer and all of its supports and move on. Install the inner last just before you fully burn in everything.


Now we’re getting serious!

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Old 05-23-2023, 05:44 PM
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You have your work cut out for you. I would definitely think about not using a stock block.

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Old 05-23-2023, 07:43 PM
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Its going be killer when you get that baby done

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Old 05-23-2023, 07:57 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Gach View Post
You have your work cut out for you. I would definitely think about not using a stock block.

I’m considering getting a MR1 block but haven’t looked, does anyone know if they sell them small bore like mine? Not buying new pistons


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Old 05-23-2023, 08:24 PM
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Whats your bore size ? i know Allpontiac has.

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Old 05-23-2023, 08:37 PM
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We got so deep into the body that I just decided it was time to remove everything that was rusty and get the remainder blasted and start fitting new sheet metal.


I decided back when I purchased the package deal to keep the 67 trunk floor due to its symmetrical design, since I was Mini Tubbing it - the shock mounts would be cut out anyway, plus it came with the package! Well I ordered 67 rails to fit the trunk and by chance I dodged a bunch of extra work. The aftermarket does not sell a real 68 frame rail. They sell you a 67 for the driver side and a 69 for the passenger side. Then you have to modify the 69 rail to be shorter. My dumb luck eliminates the extra work! So my 67 rails we’re ready to install. I removed all of the EDP coating and hit them with zinc weld through primer inside and out. I installed them on the jig in place and measured everything with my remaining trunk floor/rails to make sure it all liked up. They are bolted to the jig using the factory rear spring eye holes and factory “peg” locations on the Jig.



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Old 05-23-2023, 09:05 PM
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Finally Quarters come off and i started removing outer wheelhouses. I took a ton of measurements before cutting the car apart so I’m confident it will go back together.





After finding rust in the inner rocker and seeing the huge amount of work the toe board patches presented, I opted for a new firewall. I cut out the old firewall and fully removed the inner/outer rocker on the driver. Plan was to install floor, firewall and work on the driver side before replacing the passenger rocker. After some time I decided to cut even more.



At this point, I knew it was evident I needed to sand blast a ton of inner structure and get it in epoxy.

I did take a minute to cut out the rusty mounts on the stub. Burned them in and cleaned them up top and bottom side. At this point I have mock up block, mid plate trimmed to allow it to drop in place.

Headers were dropped in but I never mocked up the heads to figure out how the headers will fit. At this time I had purchased my Stefs 1240 pan and knew all of this had to come out for more trimming of the crossmembers. In fact I decided to just cross brace the frame and cut crossmembers out totally in favor of 4130 1-5/8” tube.





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Old 05-23-2023, 09:09 PM
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More trimming of the body




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Old 05-23-2023, 09:14 PM
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Below you can see I cut out and installed the first new piece of sheet metal. Inner quarter support.




At this point I was very close to blasting. Still needed to remove extra ply at passenger outer wheelhouse where it meets the inner structure. You can see my blast media so I was somewhat ready.


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Old 05-23-2023, 09:20 PM
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Blasting day!



I’m going to chemical strip the roof and of course the rear sail and package tray will come out soon. I really need to epoxy the exposed metal but I started installing metal instead!

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