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FBIRD69's 1969 Firebird

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On 8/20/2018 at 9:42 AM, Ant said:

Here's my 68 its now got a 468 with Butler ported heads and a T56 magnum 6 speed. My 6 yr old always want " just a little burn out Dad" when we cruise it!!

with all the beautiful cars posted here I'll not be surprised if i don't make the calendar!!!

Ant

2018-05-23 08.10.29.jpg

Beautiful GTO! What color is that and did you upgrades the bottom end of the engine?

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Thanks!! The color is meridian turquoise. I went with a scat crank and eagle rods with upgraded ARP bolts, also used studs on the mains. It runs great and has tons of power like most Pontiacs!!

Ant

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  • 3 weeks later...

I got the Butler 600hp cam, duration is 242 @ .050 intake and 248 exhaust with right at 600 with the 1.65 roller rockers. it runs great i have 28x12 mickey thompson et street drag radials and it blows them off on the street!!

Ant

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Sounds like you have one heck of a set up my friend. Awesome choices and I’m glad you’re loving it! Are you running headers or manifolds and what exhaust do you have tied to that bad boy? Did you go EFI or Carb?

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It's got the biggest primary headers I could get just under 2 inch with a pypes 3 inch exhaust out the back. It's got a quickfuel 950 q series on it right now but I'm waiting for a Baldwin custom carb to show up.  Hoping to get that and a recurved HEI from him by end the end of next week.

 

Ant

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It runs good ,this is my second quickfuel but I'm hoping that the Baldwin one will cure a few issues. Only time will tell though

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I was not that into 68s, I always loved the 65s but as I put this car together in that color with the turquoise interior I love it. Amazing how things grow on us over time!!

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68-69s are my favorite GTO’s. I grew up driving a 68 Le Mans. I’m in the slow process of restoring it but it’s on hold for a while. I let it sit for the last 10 years and just seeing it parked and dirty sparked my need to begin the process recently. I miss that damn car. I put an engine/tranny install on hold after buying a steer bike in 2008 and bought my first home soon after. I’ve owned my Le Mans since 2001 and CANNOT wait to see some progress on it again. I can’t across this forum while looking for info about Butler performance. 

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I've had an been around pontiacs my whole life , Dad worked for a Pontiac dealer as a mechanic in the 70s. Hes had probably 40 65 GTO s over the years. My 2nd car was a 74 GTO factory 4 speed with console and gauges we had original window sticker for the car. I put a 455 with 670 heads in it, needless to say it ran. I sold that when I bought a 65 convertible from my father it had a 428 with SD 455 rods and 69 Ram air IV heads. I did a full frame off restoration on it, it was a 4 speed car with tri power. Another fast car that due to buying a house I had to sell. So when I decided to do another Pontiac it had to be fast so I too turned to Butler they know their stuff for sure. I got this 68 because it was too good of a deal to pass up, and it has turned out great! Drove it yesterday and it sure is fun to drive.

 

Hope you get yours up and running soon. 

Ant

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You were destined to be a Pontiac enthusiast. I was forced to start wrenching on cars with my pops at the young age of 11. I’m thankful because it became a passion quickly. My pops bought and sold so many cars I couldn’t even estimate a count. He’s been a Pontiac lover his entire life. His first car was a 70 Le Mans sport at 16 and he drove Pontiacs his entire life. My first car was my 68. Sooooo many memories my friend. I contacted Butler regarding sending them my 455 block. I may go that route or may just bought the parts from them and build it here. Regardless, I need a tad more space before I begin that task. 

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  • 3 weeks later...

Howdy Kane, that's a nice looking piece you've got there.  I'm interested in your experience with the Quickfuel and the Baldwin you have coming.  By any chance do you have an Air/Fuel meter on the car?   I'm just getting familiar with a new carb on my 69 myself, my first ever experience with a "brand H" carburetor and am in the process of getting the mixtures dialed in over all the different operating regimes.  One of the things I've been struggling with is off-idle and low cruise mixtures.   When I have the idle "dead on", off idle and low cruise are both "pig rich".  

 

Bear

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Bear,

The quick fuel runs great my only issue is at cruise if I get into 6th gear I get a kind of shake if I done shift and raise the rpm it goes away I really think it's in the dist curve. Out of the box the carb has never been rich the plugs look great. I dont have a  air fuel meter, I had one on my comet but i found it to not be that useful I had a quick fuel on that too and my machinist helped me dial it in we changed a couple air bleeds once and it always ran great, though I had that same shake if the rpm were to low. I also had an msd dist in that motor so once i get my stuff from Baldwin I'll know more. My only issue with him is he told me 2 week and that was over 6 weeks ago and I still dont have my stuff. 

 

Ant

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Just a quick update I requested a refund from Baldwin, could not wait any longer. I'm going g to SEMA next week and plan on talking to Holley about their HP multi port EFI system. I'm sure that is the direction I'm going to go.

 

Ant

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I'd be interested to know how your conversation with Holley goes. If you do go that direction, I am want to know how your goat likes multi-port EFI.  

Oh and be sure to share lots of pictures of SEMA with us.

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Yes I added the hideaways and I like the 69 grilled better.

 

Thanks for the kind words

Ant

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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 2 weeks later...

Hello all,

So SEMA was awesome to say the least, i had several conversations with Holley as well as Edelbrock, FAST and FITECH. I have ordered the Holley HP system including their dual-sync Distributor. I thought that i might share a bit of what i learned talking them all and why i went with Holley.

first since i have a pretty healthy motor, it should make around 600hp according to what Butler told me of course the dyno will tell that story when we get to that point, i need a single plane intake and i also wanted sequential multi port injection. to do that you have 2 options Holley or Edelbrock. The edelbrock is a bit cheaper you can but their intake with injectors installed and the ecm complete for about $1700 only thing you need is the correct fuel pump. by far the best deal it even comes with a distributor, and self learns as you drive. the down side is for someone like me who needs to be able to do more tuning and wants to add a few more things which i will get to in a bit. they do have an updated ECM coming out next year that will allow more features as well as some data logging.

fast does have a system that i could use but they have not updated their ECM in a long time so i felt that i wanted something that was current and was going to be supported for a while. as well as them trying to talk me out of sequential injection (so did fitech) they claim its only needed for emisions which is only part of the story. in high HP situations you can empty the fuel rail with the batch fire system since it dumps half the rail at a time as opposed to sequential where it fires each cylinder in the correct firing order, just like all new cars for the last 20years. in my mind there is a reason that every car on the road fires that way, you don't have fuel sprayed and laying in the intake when needed. i remember those old batch fire GM motors they never ran smooth always felt like they had a misfire. anyway for me i want sequential

FITECH just did not seem like a fit to me at all, and i have read a few really bad reviews of their stuff. of course i know that all needs to be taking with a grain of salt.

so back to the Holley, here are some thing you need to know if you want to run their system:

Get the dual sync dist from them, its plug and play and you get the correct cam crank signal to run sequential and full ECM control of timing. that allows you to curve how you need even pull timing out for things like Nitrous.. you can still use an MSD box for the multi spark (which i already have)

it does self learn we will see how close it gets it when i get it up and running, no matter what mine is going on a dyno, i have way to much money in my motor to gamble on it having any issues plus i want to tune for the most power.

you can get any size injector for whatever power level, i am going with the Deatchworks ones i have used them in a customers car they worked great and they gave me a great deal on them. also great guys to deal with, talked to them at sema answered all our questions and gave a a discount too!!!!

you will need a laptop or purchase one of their touch screens, they just released a 12" one at sema that you can configure for you gauges it pretty cool but not needed. with Holley you are able to data log everything and see what the car is doing and make adjustment as needed.

if your running or want to run a newer auto trans like a 4l80E you can get their Dominator system and it will do that an a lot more, my car is and always will be a stick so i did not need to spend the extra for that.

I have decided i want to try running nitrous for the first time so i asked a bunch of questions about that, with the holley system it will control the NOS for you, you can do a dry system so which means (this is all new to me so I thought others might like to know) that you only are spraying the nos into the intake and let the EFI add the fuel. a lot simpler then a wet system where you have an added valve to spray fuel which requires additional regulator and fuel lines to handle that. the Holley will pull the timing back to what you set it to will adjust to your desired A/F ratio and will turn the solenoid on and off based on your TPS setting for throttle, you also set what min rpm for it to turn on and then rpm off.

So after all the talking and reading i did i felt that for me the holley is the most powerful and best way to go, i hope that this helps others to understand some of the basics of theses system, if you have any questions about my post let me know I'll try to clarify them. i also am only sharing my opinion of what i think will work for me each of us has and needs different things so the other systems may work better for you then me and vise versa.

 

I will post some pics from sema when i get to my other PC where they are stored,

 

Ant

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