Update on my rusty firebird

[67rstbkt]

A few more:

[KPC67]

Good progress

[Tuske427]

Awesome!

[FETorino]

Great build.

Back in 1980 to 92 I had a 69 FB. Love the Poncho powerplant HO racing used to build some great 400ci stump pullers back in the day. I didn't see in your thread is it a 400 or a 455?

[67rstbkt]

Originally Posted by FETorino

Great build.

Back in 1980 to 92 I had a 69 FB. Love the Poncho powerplant HO racing used to build some great 400ci stump pullers back in the day. I didn't see in your thread is it a 400 or a 455?

Thanks for the comments

To answer your question, it's a 400 stroked to 461. I used a forged rotating assembly and 87cc Edelbrock heads with some mild porting. I also switched out the springs and running a Tomahawk solid cam @ about .525 lift

[FETorino]

Originally Posted by 67rstbkt

Thanks for the comments

To answer your question, it's a 400 stroked to 461. I used a forged rotating assembly and 87cc Edelbrock heads with some mild porting. I also switched out the springs and running a Tomahawk solid cam @ about .525 lift

Sounds really nice. I had 400ci, stock iron heads with a good valve job and bowl work, a crane copy of the RAIV cam with the 1.65 ratio steel rockers (grooved rocker balls comes to mind), a set of off the shelf hooker headers, recurved HEI out of a 76 and a holley street dominator intake and recalibrated quadrajet. With a munncie, 4.33 and 255 gatorbacks it was an exciting ride.

Yours will be better in every way. I can't wait to see the finished project.

[waynieZ]

Looking Good.

[67rstbkt]

Thanks for the comments

I've been working on the gap between the bumper and front-end. I know that from the factory, this gap was pretty large. I'm trying to get a uniform and closer gap here. Right now if you look from the top down, the gap is tighter towards the center of the hood and wider as it goes out to the fenders. Can anyone offer any tips or advice on getting this as close and as uniform as possible?

I've also been thinking of buying a new fiberglass bumper. My reasoning here is that it may be easier to work with and fit the fiberglass bumper. If I keep the metal bumper, I was planning on painting it body color anyway, so the fiberglass would work out in my plans. Any thoughts on this or experience with the fiberglass bumpers for this car? I found a company named UP22 that sells them. Anyone deal with them?
Thanks

[Tuske427]

Originally Posted by 67rstbkt

Thanks for the comments

I've been working on the gap between the bumper and front-end. I know that from the factory, this gap was pretty large. I'm trying to get a uniform and closer gap here. Right now if you look from the top down, the gap is tighter towards the center of the hood and wider as it goes out to the fenders. Can anyone offer any tips or advice on getting this as close and as uniform as possible?

I've also been thinking of buying a new fiberglass bumper. My reasoning here is that it may be easier to work with and fit the fiberglass bumper. If I keep the metal bumper, I was planning on painting it body color anyway, so the fiberglass would work out in my plans. Any thoughts on this or experience with the fiberglass bumpers for this car? I found a company named UP22 that sells them. Anyone deal with them?
Thanks

Please keep me/ us posted on the front bumper update. I too will eventually be dealing with this same issue, so I'd like to see what you find out. Thanks!

[67rstbkt]

Originally Posted by Tuske427

Please keep me/ us posted on the front bumper update. I too will eventually be dealing with this same issue, so I'd like to see what you find out. Thanks!

I worked on it some more this past weekend and got it much closer. I had to tweak my bumper a little, basically just bent in the outsides a little. I don't think this is the original bumper because there are no holes in it for the pontiac emblem. From what I can tell, the 400 cars had this on the bumper. Also, who knows what happened to this bumper over the years.

Currently, the gaps are much more consistent. The only issue is that the gap is a little closer towards the middle (center of the hood) and gets slightly larger as it gets towards the fenders. I'm still trying to decide if I can live with it. I'll try and take some pictures this weekend.