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FBIRD69's 1969 Firebird

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Project V6 Firebird (lots of pics)


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Well, I'll post an update on the car. Some of you know I'd found a piece of the timing chain tensioner while replacing the oil pan gasket. While doing a double roller, I decided to install a better cam from WOT-Tech since I was just two-bolts away from that...

During the install, I screwed up on the measurements on the piston to valve clearance. I am going to have to pay the price for my mistake and have taken a serious blow to my confidence in any further engine work.

Tore it down to inspect the damage and took it to Total Engine Service to see if they can fix my screw up and replace the broken/mangled bits. They'll do some machining/balancing while they're at it and assemble it. This should address some of the things that nagged at me after the original build.

Luckily, the pushrods bent on the intake side, but one valve did break off. I lucked out again as the valve stem broke nicely, flipped and embedded itself flat into the piston.

Dropped it off on Aug 18th, 3-4 weeks of downtime and then a frantic reinstall because I'm still in school.

What started it all:
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WOT-Tech Thumper cam.
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Dead plug.
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But...Where'd the valve go!?
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Now Kiss.
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  • 9 months later...

Picking up this wee beastie here in a few days!


 


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Pulled it apart to get blasted and powdercoated, then installing fresh gears with an Auburn Road Race/Auto-x posi and Yukon axles with a few other fun things.


Scraped a few pounds of dirt/oil/coolant sludge off the axle before I started spraying it down.  Will be nice to have a clean underside on this car...


 


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Yeah, been busy with work, school and other things.

T-56 has a Stage II build now, CTS-V brake upgrade is about to happen as well.

 

Turbo stuff is shelved for awhile, I'll get back to it later after the shock of having to do the rebuild is over...

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Turbo was in the plans before the engine dropped a valve. I'm trying to sell off the 67mm turbo I had initially planned on running. I'm refocusing to more advanced suspension/chassis stuff right now for track duty.

I will probably go twins later on, but that'll have to wait a little while.

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  • 3 weeks later...

One more piece of the puzzle just arrived today!

Just waiting on some parts that were lagging on my watts link and plan to assemble the rear end at the end of this week.

I've searched around for different collectors that would meet what I was looking for to work with my upcoming changes to my exhaust setup. I found a guy on ebay that cut me a reasonable deal on a set of 3-1 merge collectors that had a venturi extension to try and keep velocity up. These were done by Mike Davis in California and knew exactly what I wanted from giving him some specs and a basic explanation.

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  • 4 weeks later...

Little more time today, was mostly making things clean by making other things dirty. Cleaned up years of grime baked into the power steering rack as well as installed a few "upgrades."

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First on the list is a set of boxed swaybar brackets by Blainefab. These help take care of deflection and bent brackets caused by big swaybars and sticky tires + high g cornering.

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Second is a small piece, but it is a solid bushing for the steering rack. This is actually for Corvettes from Doug Rippie, but it fits our rack as well. This eliminates some slop from the rack, but in all likelihood it is a placebo effect until I get some hoosier slicks on the car.

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Hope to get the trans mated to the engine tomorrow and get it all ready to go back in the car if I'm lucky.

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Wow, lots of space to work there - that's awesome! Doing anything to those wells while you have everything dropped?


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