Thread: Howdy, another new guy

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Hello Everyone,

I've been lurking around CHR about a month now and I'm impressed with the wealth of knowledge, expertise, wisdom and free-flowing banter in this group.

I'm fairly new to the mechanical world although I did have quite a few adventures with a '76 Deville several years back. I wish I would have kept that car but just couldn't afford to fix it up at the time.

Began drag racing in a '94 Eldorado in 2003 on a whim for a street car competition at Bandimere Speedway here in Colorado. I had fun so I came back the next year and left with a trophy (8th finalist out of 280+ entrants). The Caddy sure wasn't a fast car but was very consistent. I was bitten by the bug and didn't look back. The same event in 2005 is when I did in the '94 (don't know exactly what happened, wrist-pin, ring, ??? metal "glitter" on the dipstick bad clacking from one cylinder).

At this point, I had a decision to make: do I spend the $5k for a Northstar engine swap (plus another $2k or so to fix the now soggy suspension) or get a vehicle I would feel more comfortable working on myself.

My quandary was anwered returning from a camping trip this summer when, after many hours of driving and many days in the wilderness, my wife chimes "is that a Mustang?" (all muscle cars are Mustangs in her eyes ) "No dear, that's a Firebird"..... "it's for sale".... the u-turn was probably more than should be attempted with a fully loaded SUV but I had to take a look.

The 1st gen firebird had been my dream car since I was a kid.

Anyhow, this car had already been considerably modified for racing (another plus). I did buy the car and it's needed a fair amount of work thus far.

My new toy:

1968 Firebird "350"
tubbed, caged, and substantially gutted
396+.030 BBC from 69 Elcamino
mild (stock?) hydraulic cam
stock heads (don't know?)
750cfm Holley 4150
Edelbrock Performer dual-plane intake
Headers into 2.5" exhaust through glass-pack side pipes.
TH400 built with ~2800 stall converter
12-bolt with Eaton Posi, 4.56:1 Richmond gears, and Mark Williams Hi Torque axles (MW is half-mile down the road from my house) on single-leaf/ladder-bar suspension
32x15" Pro Trac radials

So far:

Rebuilt rear end. The 4.88's were not installed right and howled badly and the housing was shortened wrong so there was no support for the c-clip eliminator bearings. This was not easy to fix.

Rebuilt front end suspension (everything was worn out)

Raced the Firebird at Bandimere a number of times this fall. Best time was 14.10 at 97mph (at 5800 ft elevation). This should work out to low 13's at sea level.

What next?

Already have a MSD 6AL ignition and pro-billet distributor I'll be installing shortly.
31" MT sportsmans for the street and 29" Hoosier QuickTime Pro cheater slicks for the strip
Convert to front disc brakes.
New headers (current ones have some dents and rust) and exhaust system (flowmasters) maybe 3" (bigger?)

More distant future:

Big cam
new heads or port and polish
supercharger (?)

If you've made it this far, thanks for reading. This is my story and you can count on many questions as I start getting my hands dirty