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Pontiac of the Month

FBIRD69's 1969 Firebird

2024 March
of the Month

AaronGTR

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Everything posted by AaronGTR

  1. Damn.... that sucks! If I had my way she'd never drive again. RIP Lemans.
  2. Nice. Glad to see it's still kickin' and you're still working on it! It's looking good. On the topic of Azteks (lol)... my friend used to have one and he loved it. I still think it's an ugly car, and there is probably better stuff out now, but at the time it came out it had some pretty cool features and for a family vehicle it was actually very useful. He loved how much storage space it had and how easy it was to clean everything. Useful when you have a bunch of messy kids like him. hehe
  3. The torrent has a multi-link rear suspension where as the cobalt has a torsion beam. Most likely it has coil-over-strut construction instead of the separate spring and shock like the cobalt, so he probably wouldn't be able to do that. That's a cool idea though. Never thought about doing something like that before to a car.
  4. Shouldn't be any trash on them from the road. Street tires aren't sticky enough to carry much. If the pit area has dirt/gravel then you might pick something up. Most common though is picking up rubber marbles from driving behind the burn out box. Those will make you spin more for sure. If you can avoid it, try not to drive in the lanes behind the burnout box and go around if you can. If there is not a good way to do that, go through the water box into the burn out area and just do a short spin to scrub the tires. DO NOT spin them long enough to make smoke! Street tires and even drag radials have too hard a rubber compound. They are made to work at lower temps. Heating them up until they smoke actually burns the rubber and releases compounds that just make them oily and actually hurts your traction. The only time you should ever do a burn out is with full slicks. Otherwise a short spin to scrub the tires will do.
  5. Yeah, it said on the little slip of paper that came with them that they needed to have a finish of 50 RA or better. Didn't say anything about requiring them to be decked, nor did it on his store or on the 60v6 forum anywhere. I specifically told the machine shop to check the heads to make sure they were flat since the old head gaskets failed, and I told them I was going to use MLS gaskets and needed a finish of at least 50 RA. The shop I used has the best reputation I could find in my area, and I would have to assume they should know what they are doing. They've done some major builds and used that type of gasket before. If the heads needed decking they should have been able to tell me. Guy in the office told me they were good and OK to use with the gaskets... so either he lied or he forgot to actually have his machinist check that. Either way, they both screwed up IMO and now I'm stuck going back to stock head gaskets because I don't have a second car anymore and I can't send these heads out for more machine work. Anything else I do to the car, I have to be able to finish in a weekend now. I could have done it the first time and been done with it if I had gotten the correct information. Instead I'm tearing my engine apart again, at extra cost and labor to me.
  6. So it turns out they are insisting the stock heads are not smooth enough or flat enough, even though my machine shop said they were ok, and that those head gaskets won't seal properly unless I get the heads milled. Unfortunately I don't have another car to drive so I can't take the heads off and send them out again. I can only do what I can get done in a weekend, which is take them off and switch back to stock head gaskets. So it looks like I won't have MLS gaskets and will have to worry about blowing the head gaskets again if I'm not careful enough. Not happy about the whole situation. They should have told me that was required in the first place... both the machine shop AND the seller. Anyway, here's something else I was working on last weekend. I wrapped the fuel rails in heat reflective foil and covered the supply and return lines in heat reflective tubing. Both from DEI. The gold foil reflects 80% of radiant heat and is good to 850 degrees. I can put my fingers on it when the engine is hot and the fuel rail is only warm. Hopefully that will drop the temp of the fuel a few degrees and help cool the air charge better and help reduce KR.
  7. Very nice! You can definitely tell that car was taken care of. Paint looks great, engine bay looks clean. It would definitely make a nice daily driver.
  8. These aren't Cometic's, but yeah... I have a thread open on 60degreev6.com about the problem. So far I haven't heard from anyone having problems with either kind. Everyone is saying things like "did I check the surface finish" and "you need to mill the heads" blah blah blah... I guess no one bothered to read my first post where I told them the engine shop that did my machine work told me the surfaces where ok and the heads where flat and didn't need milling. lol Besides that milling would up my compression which I don't want on a boosted car. They are also telling me I need to take the gaskets apart and spray them with some kind of copper spray... no idea why. I'm getting kinda pissed off about the whole situation though. If that was required shouldn't it have said so in the directions? Nope... all it said was it needed a surface finish of 50 RA or better, so I would assume then that they should be bolt on and go.
  9. Nope. They are the same on both sides. I think I'm gonna do a compression test this weekend and see if I find anything, but I'm leaning towards replacing the head gaskets too. I don't know if there was some kind of design flaw with them or what. Of course if I do change them, then the question is do I pay the extra cash and wait for a set of Cometic MLS gaskets and hope that they don't have any problems? Or I do go the cheap route with OEM gaskets that I know will seal up good, but might blow out again in the future?
  10. Still waiting for word on the SC. Might be another week or two. In the mean time I've been working on some other stuff. I got the vacuum check valves I am going to be using to modify my PCV system. I'm going to make it go back to the intake manifold in order to bypass the supercharger and not get all that oily mess in there. I'm still trouble shooting some other strange issues though. I can't decide if one of my head gaskets is leaking or if there's something else going on. I've got these streaks going down my engine block and something that looks and feels like oil dripping off my A/C compressor and starter. Seems like it's very slowly seeping out from between the block and head. I've looked everywhere else and had the upper manifold off and can't see it anywhere else. It's only on that front edge. Very strange since only coolant goes through the gasket. They are MLS gaskets from Gaskets To Go who did a group buy through the old 60v6.com store back in the day before Cometic would make them for us. The only possible thing I can think of is maybe they aren't sealed well along the edge of heads and oil could be getting between the layers at the edge of the gasket and leaking around? The heads have oil drain back holes from the top part by the rockers where the oil would pour down over that edge and into the lifter galley. I just can't imagine why it wouldn't be sealed so tight that oil couldn't get in there, and why it would only be leaking from the front edge of the front bank. It's not seeping out the sides of the gaskets or on the rear bank from what I can see. I'm stumped. The other problem that's nagging me is occasional white smoke out the exhaust. It only happens at idle in gear or parked, but not all the time. Doesn't matter if the engine is hot or cold. I can be out driving and sitting at a light and look in my mirror and see wisps of smoke rising behind the car, take off and it goes away, get to another light and see nothing. Get home and get out and look and see nothing coming out the exhaust, but sometimes I do. The coolant and oil levels aren't going down fast enough (if at all) to tell me what I'm burning. Can't decide if it's another problem with that head gasket, or some problem with the piston rings not sealing well sometimes when the engine isn't loaded. It's really got me worried though. I don't want to have to tear the engine apart again to replace the head gaskets, and I can't afford to pull it again if it's a problem with the rings. I did everything the manufacturer recommend though with the rings so I have no idea what could be wrong. I guess at this point this engine just has me paranoid.
  11. Yeah, so the latest is... I sent the supercharger out to get rebuilt. They said they could fix the scratches in the case but the rotors were too bad a shape and would need to be replaced, so they had to tack on extra for a new core. Brings the total up to $1173 for the complete SC rebuild. OUCH! A bit more than I wanted to pay, but yeah... hopefully it will be worth it, and it will last a long time. I did a little more porting work on the UIM and the inlet/outlet casting for the SC, and I also made some modifications to my oil catch can since it wasn't working properly. It wasn't designed properly to begin with. Currently re-engineering the PCV system so that it will still work, but not go through the SC so it doesn't get gunked up with oil residue again. It's going to involve rerouting it to the UIM, adding a vent, and a couple check valves to make it all work. Thinking about adding a second catch can for a dual setup to maximize filtration, but we'll see how it goes with one first. More pics when the SC gets back.
  12. lol, I have no idea. I haven't added it up yet. Many many hours. As for the money, I have the receipts but haven't totaled them up yet. Probably gonna wait until the SC is done since that is going to cost another $800 or so.
  13. Yeah, that blue is hot! I always liked the mat black Sti Impreza that Sport Compact Car had as a project car back in the day too. It's owned by someone at Modified magazine now and they turned it into another project car. The old paint job was nasty, so they had the whole car wrapped in mat white vinyl. Looked absolutely sick!
  14. Nothing current. Here is one from the dyno session in March. I changed a bunch of stuff during the rebuild though. Replaced all the red wire loom and re-routed some stuff. Changed some of the vacuum and PCV lines. Made a bracket for the 2bar MAP. Little stuff like that. I'll take new pics once the SC gets back.
  15. Cleaned up heads with new valves etc. Back on the block. HUGE pile of parts I had before it went back together. lol It's doing ok. Got a few hundred miles to go breaking it in on conventional oil before I switch back to synthetic. The total displacement is now 209 CI or 3.42 L, so I should pick up a little torque. In the mean time the supercharger drive bearings were squeaking constantly now, and I noticed signs of wear on the rotor tips, so I took it out and am running NA with a temporary intake. Took the blower apart and found scouring in the rotor bores, so I did a light porting on the casing and put it back together and sent it to a place called Embree Machine to get rebuilt. They are going to replace the bearings and seals, and also machine the rotors/casing for clearance, then coat the rotors with a low friction coating and the rotor bores with a thermal barrier coating. All this is supposed to tighten rotor to case tolerance and reduce friction and heat transfer to the air charge to increase efficiency. Hoping for a 20hp gain with the same 2.2" pulley.
  16. Here are a few more pics. New piston pressed onto the rod. Freshly honed cylinder. Stock versus sealed power lifter internals, with LS springs on bottom. Fresh repaint on the engine block. The shop hot tanked it after machining and took all the old paint off. Then they put in all new freeze plugs, galley plugs, and oil pressure bypass. Bottom end all assembled and test fitting the crank scrapper. Top side with the ARP studs back in and new MLS gaskets, before the head went on.
  17. So, I haven't been on here in a while. Lots been going on in life and with the car. In the last 5 months I went to the dyno, then went to the track and blew both head gaskets on the second run ([email protected] btw) and had to be towed home. I did a major engine overhaul, and in the middle of that I had to move AND go through a settlement for an old work injury. Yeah, I was really busy. So anyway... Here's the down low on the engine overhaul. Both head gaskets blew on the middle cylinders (3&4) into the lifter valley. Had coolant pouring out the exhaust, in the oil pan, up in the heads, through the PCV lines into the intake and through the supercharger and the intake manifolds. It was a mess. During the tear down process I also found a pushrod with the ball worn down to a cone right into the lifter cup! Also found wear on the roller faces of the lifters. Then I found piston #2 wasn't coming up to proper deck height so the entire engine had to come out and go to Engine Lab of Tampa for a tear down and inspection. Ended up being a bent rod. I took the front cover off before I sent it in and took the cam out, and also found the cam bearings where shot, as well as my oil pump drive gear. The billet cam had worn the teeth down half way, so there was probably oil full of steel particles getting pumped through my engine. The gears inside the oil pump and the cover plate where also worn beyond spec. And finally, the shop found that my piston to wall clearance was above the max spec. That would lead to loss of power and excessive oil burning, so I decided to have them over bore and hone the block by .04" (1mm over). I also had them check the cam bore to make sure it was straight, then replace the cam bearings with teflon coated SBC cam bearings from WOT-tech. While I was at it I had them check the heads to make sure they were flat and the valve guides were still good. They said everything held a vacuum and was good, so I decided to get the lighter 3500 valves and have them do a 3 angle valve job, and also machined the spring pockets down .10" to lower the seat pressure with the LS6 springs and allow for more coil spacing at higher lift in the future, then they re-assembled the heads for me with new valve seals and re-used my springs/titanium retainers/locks. After I got it back from them I put the engine together myself, with an occasional hand from Mac and David (big thanks to them, and to David for letting me borrow his engine stand and ring compressor). Here's a complete run down of the new parts. -Sealed Power .04" over pistons -Perfect Circle (Mahle) .04" rings -one new rebuilt OEM connecting rod -Cleavite tri-metal crank and rod bearings -SBC teflon coated cam bearings -Ishihara/Johnson crank scrapper -Melling oil pump (w/shimmed pressure bypass spring) -all new Sealed Power lifters -LS lifter springs upgrade -MLS .07" head gaskets -new Sealed Power OEM replacement cam, stock specs but solid core instead of hollow -new OEM timing chain -new OEM oil pump drive assembly -3500 valves -Corteco premium teflon rear main seal -flow matched 42 lb/hr Lucas injectors I re-used the ARP head studs I already had, and took out the aluminum roller rockers and went back to stock rockers for now. This allowed me to remove the heat treated pushrods (since one was junk anyway) and guide plates. It also made the re-install a lot easier since I didn't have to adjust floating rockers one valve at a time, as well as less noise and no worries about reliability. I had a previous set of stronger chromoly pushrods in stock length that I swapped back in. I put the top end together using the premium fel-pro gasket set with the rubber/metal LIM gaskets. While I was waiting for the engine to get back I also made some changes to my oil and trans coolers. I added a -6AN 185 T-stat between the trans and cooler, and a -10AN T-stat after the remote oil filter adapter. The oil stat is set up with a plug in the cooler return port and a return line to the engine, then a supply line to the cooler and return line from the cooler hooks into a Y fitting on the return line to the engine. Not having the oil cooler return go through the T-stat avoids false temps from messing with the T-stat operation. Hopefully this setup will help control the oil temps when it gets cold outside to keep the oil viscosity correct. I'm going to be obsessive about proper lubrication with this engine. lol Between that and the higher oil pressure from the new pump I think I should be good. Only other thing I could do would be to add a remote oil accumulator like those from Canton Racing. That would pre-lube the engine on cold starts and avoid oil starvation during cornering at track days. I might add one eventually, but no money for it right now.
  18. Most of those paint jobs aren't actually flat guys. The finish is called Matte. It can definitely look sexy as hell... but it's a PITA to keep clean and any little spot of anything that you don't clean off the paint right away will ruin the paint, since there is no clear coat. It's also expensive to have done right. I don't remember which one it is (M3 maybe?) but there is a BMW you can get Matte finish paint as an option on but it's like very expensive. You can get a Matte vinyl wrap for a lot less though. That's def the way I would go. If it starts getting damaged and looks bad or if you just get tired of it, peel it off!
  19. Yep, it's time to do the dance. My friend Mac came and took some pics and video for me. Gotta say thanks for that, since I no longer have access to a video camera. This vid is of the 317 run I believe. The sound cut out for a bit on the 319 run, and the mic was definitely past the clipping point on the run with the cutout open. First couple pulls it was cutting out early for some reason. Ended up being a top speed limiter in place with the gear selector in 3. No idea why it was set to that, since it didn't do that last time I dyno'd, but I changed it and it then pulled all the way to 6400rpm. First pull iirc was in the 315whp range, 292 ft/lbs torque. Dropped the commanded AFR from 12.2 down to 11.8 and pulled a bit of timing at the top where I was getting 2-3 degrees of KR. Went up to 319 and 295. AFR's weren't going down so I stopped adding fuel. Was still getting some KR so took out a bit more timing, and got 317 and same torque at 295. Made the last run with the exhaust cutout open and got 320whp and 300 ft/lbs. ! Might have been a tiny bit more if I was using the timing map from the 319 run, not sure. But at least I know the cutout open is good for about 3whp and 5ft/lbs when I'm running at the track. That is versus pushing it through the high flow cat and rest of the exhaust. In my scans I hit 11.6:1 AFR at one point in the middle of my rpm band, but by 6000rpm it was back to 12.2 and all the way up to 12.6:1 at redline. Injector pulse width hit 21ms at 5600rpm and stayed there all the way to 6400. I think that's pretty solid evidence the 36lb GTP injectors are maxed now. They are only good for about 300whp tops. 320whp is about 390 at the crank. According to the math on RC engineerings site, six 36lb injectors at 60psi fuel pressure and running a BSFC of 0.55 will only make 390hp running at 85% duty cycle. Definitely maxed for a pintle style injector. I need disc types again, and bigger flow rate. I should have held on to the Lucas 42lb injectors I had! Also I noticed intake temps were nice and cool at the start of the runs... it was 64 degrees and 26% humidity today (awesome!).... but got up in the 90's by the end of the pull. I've seen 100 on an 80 degree day. Pretty evident this car needs either an intercooler or alcohol injection now. Timing at redline was 14-16 degrees depending on what the knock sensor was doing. I'm not going to be able to add timing back until I can cool that air charge off. I'd like to get some bigger injectors and go with a methanol/water injection kit from either snow performance or devils own, since they both offer progressive injection controllers that can be activated at a set boost point. And I'd get the added fuel and octane from the alcohol at higher boost levels without having to resort to such low commanded AFR's all the time (which kills my O2 sensor faster). So that's the eventual plan. Money's short though so it's going to have to wait. Plus I'm moving soon and don't know if I'll even have a place at home to work on the car myself after I move, so it might be a while before that happens. For now, I want to head to the track in a couple weeks and see if I can get some new times. Been three years since I ran and I might not be able to again for a while. Going to throw a few gallons of 100 octane in the tank and see if that will help the last 2 degrees of KR I can't get rid of. Then I'll probably drop back to a 2.5" pulley again for now to save gas and wear and tear on the SC, until I have the $ for some of the mods I'd like to do.
  20. I've been to the corvette museum and the plant twice. The 'rents have three vette's so it kinda is a family thing. Never been to the bowling green drag strip though, and never been to this event. Biggest Pontiac specific event I've been to is Pontiac Nationals in Norwalk Ohio, which is pretty big by itself. I don't think I'll be able to make this one though. Funds are gonna be tight this year, and it's a long drive.
  21. Depends on when it ends up being, and if I'm able to make it... but I would definitely make an effort.
  22. LOVE... that dark gray color! I would definitely get the dual post mirrors and paint them to match. And if it were me personally I would change the wheels for something gold (maybe with a polished lip). That would look so sick with that color! But anyway, the car looks great already. Nice work!
  23. Hmm... don't care for the gray around the grills. Stands out too much, like the painted face on a clown. Other than that, everything looks awesome though. The matching blue on the wheels is a nice touch. Anyway, welcome to the forums and hope you enjoy it here.
  24. Nice find! I'd definitely change the wheels as well though. Never was a fan of that style. Some black wheels would look sweet on that for sure!
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