Ordered a set of Budnik wheels from Jay Swain. 18x8 front, and 18x9 rear. G10 wheels in brushed finish.

http://i616.photobucket.com/albums/t...ps0ba1cca2.jpg

Very Nice!

Thanks.

Nice project. I like the new wheel choice.

Thanks.

Very nice wheels. Are the 9"s going to tuck in the rear?

Based on my measurements, it should. We'll see. With a 10" wide tire, I'll have 1.5" to the inner tub, and 0.5" to the quarter lip.

New wheels arrived
 

4 boxes arrived from UPS (well 3 in the picture-the 4th one is at the car)

http://i616.photobucket.com/albums/t...ps141c03f8.jpg

Rear wheel mocked up. Looks like I have a bit too much BS. A 1/4 spacer will fix that. Will have to wait and see if there will be any issues with rubbing. Tires are at the local Discount Tire (Nitto NT-05s). Hoping to have the tires mounted tomorrow.

http://i616.photobucket.com/albums/t...ps99c12e2c.jpg

Wheels look great. Too bad about the B/S at least its to the inside so you can fix it with a spacer.

Thx. I rather have too much bs than not enough.

Great looking wheel! Looking forward to pics with the tires mounted.

Nice progress
 

I enjoyed reading through your journey as I identified with several aspects. For one, after many years of "thinking about" restoring, I'm finally at a point where I can dedicate time and resources towards it. In addition, I also live in Vancouver, Washington and can certainly appreciate your comments about escaping the rain for drier and warmer climates.
The welding was also impressive as you hadn't had any previous experience, but jumped in with the realization that this would save money in the long run. I'd like to think I could take the same approach, maybe even rent the equipment.
I in the process of locating an early 70's 2nd generation firebird to restore and hope I have half as much success as you had with your '67.

Welcome to the website, Empty. Be sure to make a post in the into section telling us about yourself.

Car looks great, Tu. I really like your wheel choice. Good luck with it.

Thanks for you kind words.

Thanks. Dropped the wheels off at Discount Tires and they mounted a short valve stem to check caliper clearance, as the valve stem is located behind the spokes. I ended up ordering flush mount valve stems, as the regular stems won't clear the calipers. :G-Dub:

Anyone here has any experience with flush mount valve stem?

I found out the hard way with my old 66 Cutlass. Maiden voyage had 2 flat tires in a block of driving. Luckily no damage and short stems fixed mine. I have never used the flush mounts but they look like a PITA.

My wheels saga continues. After 2 hrs at Discount Tire yesterday waiting for them to mount/balance tires (promised 1 hr wait), they called me into the shop and said the tire mounting machine put a couple of scuff marks on the rim of one of the wheels. They offered to have it refinish or send it back to Budnik but it will take at least a week. They ended up refunded the cost of one tire in lieu of refinishing the wheel.

Got the wheels mounted on the car, and this morning 2 of the tires were flat. :hairpullout: Aired them up to 32 psi, and 2 hrs later they were down to 15 psi. Back to DT again. Suck part is I'm out of town to Austin for most of the week, so it won't get taken care off until I get back.:bang:

Tu, figured out what the leak was? Flush valve steams? Looking forward to the pics of the new shoes on the bird.

good luck with the valve stem issue man. Enjoyed reading about your build, i like it, its clean.

Well, my saga with the wheels/tires came to an end. Got the wheels/tires back from DT. They dunked the wheels in water to test for leaks, not sure how clean the water was but the wheels were covered in water spots/stains. I spent about 1 hr trying to clean the stains off the 2 wheels while trying not to mess up the brushed finish. Got most of it off, but some are stained on and visible. Called up DT and gave the manager an earful, he blamed Budnik. I called him out for being careless.:bigun2:

I coated the wheels with opti-coat. Probably just have them refinished down the road. :G-Dub:

Some pics

http://i616.photobucket.com/albums/t...ps42c11af4.jpg

http://i616.photobucket.com/albums/t...ps85fe5763.jpg

Next up, brake upgrade. C6 Z51 brakes enroute from Tobin @ Kore3.

Dude! Those look great! What backspacing did you go with? Also, what tire sizes are your running. Car looks awesome....:thumbsup:

Those Budniks sure look good on there,they make some really nice wheels.Car looks great:thumbsup:

Thanks. Fronts are 5" BS (18x8). Rears ae 5.375" BS (18x9). Tires are Nitto NT05 245/40/18 fronts and 275/35/18 rears.

Thanks. They sure make some nice wheels. Although I'm not too fond of how they have the valve stem mounted behind the spokes though.

Stock 10 bolt rear?

YEs, stock BOP rear.

Yesterday afternoon went to private BBQ/car show south of Houston with the guys from the local firebird club and snapped some pictures.

http://i616.photobucket.com/albums/t...ps92b3846e.jpg

http://i616.photobucket.com/albums/t...ps58140b58.jpg

http://i616.photobucket.com/albums/t...psd0ab6566.jpg

http://i616.photobucket.com/albums/t...ps6f4bc707.jpg

Got lots of compliments on the new wheels from the fellow Firebird owners.

And rightfully so, the car looks great. :thumbsup:

WOW!!! The wheels look killer on there. I also like the HO stripe, when did that magically appear on there?

Thanks Rob. The stripe has been there since day one, I put it on right after car got painted. Here's a picture of it after I put it on. Should have gotten the stripe in white.

http://i616.photobucket.com/albums/t...n/P1010855.jpg

Tu, as several others have said . . . I like those Budniks!

Thanks Casey. Can't wait to see your Camaro finished.

Some stuff from Kore3. :ups: C6 z51 calipers/brackets/billet hubs/ARP studs. A tad disappointed to see the calipers are plain aluminum, not the ones with the dark grey finish and Kore3 logo. Called Tobin up and he said they stopped adding the logos awhile back. Kind of bummed. Guess I'll just paint the calipers.

http://i616.photobucket.com/albums/t...ps9e225f15.jpg

DBA 4000 T3 Z51 rotors. Ordered them from autoanything with 20% off. These things are huge.

http://i616.photobucket.com/albums/t...pseeb5bde9.jpg
http://i616.photobucket.com/albums/t...pscd373e8e.jpg

I'm out of town this weekend, so hopefully will have these installed next weekend. After that the LS1 brakes on there will be up for sale.

wow looks great. Happy we made that deal work for ya. :D

Car is looking great and those brakes are NICE!

William

Thanks Jay. Really like how the wheels turn out.

Thanks William.

Oh I love the Firebirds. This car is awesome!

David

Quick update-installed the Kore3 brakes. Everything went perfectly, although I had to shim the brackets as the rotor was not parallel to the caliper bracket on the pass side, and was not centered on the driver side.

My 4 yo helping me with "daddy's fast car"

http://i616.photobucket.com/albums/t...ps975fc6d1.jpg

Once we got into the heavy dirty work, I handed her a roll of masking tape and told her to work on the car. This was the result.

http://i616.photobucket.com/albums/t...ps537e9bde.jpg

Pulled the old brake off, cleaned up the spindle and installed Kore3's bracket/hub.

http://i616.photobucket.com/albums/t...ps00c14565.jpg

http://i616.photobucket.com/albums/t...psf27b56ca.jpg

http://i616.photobucket.com/albums/t...ps70b73377.jpg

Completed pass side.

http://i616.photobucket.com/albums/t...ps19ab3ec2.jpg

Put the wheel back on to check for clearances. The rotor fills up the wheel nicely.

http://i616.photobucket.com/albums/t...psc92b035c.jpg

Repeat for the DS. Now I just need to bleed the brakes, bed in the rotors and I should be good to go.

very nice

Looking great Tu!!! That Kore3 stuff is quality.

I'll take blue tape over chauk or finger paint any day! : )

Thanks guys. Took her out for a test run and bed in the pads. Took her up to 60 mph, and slowed down to 20 mph. Did that a few times, with some cool down periods in between. The new brakes work much very well, with much better feel.:thumbsup:

The girls came out with their box of markers and wanted to decorate my car. You should have seen my face. I gave them the blue tapes and told them to decorate the blue tapes. Worked out nice. Kept them busy for awhile.

Tu, hi! The ARP wheel studs you used, will they work on a stock drum hub? Happen to have teh part number and where did you order them from? Thanks!!

Gui

Those are screw in ARP studs. Got them from Tobin as part of the package. I tossed the package, but I'm sure you can find them on Summit.

If you use the correct tap, I'm pretty sure you can use them on the stock hubs.