Plastic Fantastic 76 Corvette

[SuperBuickGuy]

potato camera for the blur again
stock clearance

new wheel clearance

rear stock

rear new


I know this sounds really dumb but I'm going to cut and widen the front fenders to put larger tires on it. The bright side is I know how to do this so it'll only cost me time and materials. right now, it's about 1/2" outside the fender on the stock side and 1" on the new side. With the changes I'm going to make the control arms, I'll have about 1/2 of that solved but I want 315 front tires, not 275. Bright side is I'll 'fix' the paint flaws the painter did when I do this and resolve a couple other paint issues... thankfully it's black and really easy to match

[SuperBuickGuy]

Tires... I can't do it. I keep trying to convince myself to either go square or go with the slicks as a rear tire - all to get a 200tw tire. I'm sorry, but 10% more contact patch should easily equal any 'better' traction I get from the smaller, narrower tire.
... the comparison
the left is what's on the car now

now a 325 v. 345..... while I know what I just said above there is a 200tw tire from continental, problem is the rear is a 345 not 325.

not bad until you realize that where it doesn't really fit would be nearly impossible to make a decent-looking flare

I hate to say it but either I'm going with a right size tire and the wider front (which is where most of the problem lay) in a 340 or so tw.... but now that that's out there - talk me out of it....

in other news, rear, adjustable sway bar from UMI

and new Hotchkis for the front...


and new gears... 3.91s (not 3.73 as previously reported).... I know, I know, I wasn't thrilled with them in the 06 GTO I had, but I think this is different because bigger tire, more hp and lighter car. At this point, 2000 rpm in 5th gear is 85 mph.... and I'm frying the clutch taking off from a standing start.... bonus is big smoke shows.




and adding a cooler to the rear diff


what is wrong with me? (rhetorical, sit down FGZ)... I won't spend the dollars to toss the lunchbox lockers out of my FJ40 but will spend it to upgrade to a geared limited slip in the C3?

[SuperBuickGuy]

So I'm tired of relying on people to do ring and pinion swaps for me. Now is an optimal time to learn



mark the caps



get caps off



spend rest of night looking for pry bars... moving is SO much fun....


*and in case any of you are silly enough to follow my instructions, this is, if I count all of the ones I've done in my life... is the first. I did try once before but I couldn't get the gears to give a good pattern. Turns out I did it right but the case was junk.... anyway, there's the warning

[SuperBuickGuy]

it's out



A screwdriver in the hole and a couple hits of the pinion flange with a dead blow and out it came

wow is that a lot of clutch debris.....

[rickpaw]

I did SCCA track nights at PIR back in 2020 with my 67 Firebird, when I was still living there. Great times.

Nice work with the vette. I followed you over at ih8mud as well on the work on your 40

[SuperBuickGuy]

​Time for plan C

87k mile from a private seller. What a neat guy - 2 C2s, 1 C3, 1 C5, a 70 Chevelle (blown, of course), a Shelby Daytona (plastic), and on an on.... had a nice 4 hour drive (google, are you on crack? 6 hours?).... what was weird is it's like Google didn't want me to see the city center of Lewiston Idaho - it directed me everywhere but through the center of town.... other then that, it was a nice day for a drive...​

[SuperBuickGuy]

Originally Posted by rickpaw

I did SCCA track nights at PIR back in 2020 with my 67 Firebird, when I was still living there. Great times.

Nice work with the vette. I followed you over at ih8mud as well on the work on your 40

Now that moving is done, I can spend a lot more time racing.... might even go this weekend up to Spokane...

[SuperBuickGuy]

and onward
step one, remove rack

step two, install adapters

step three, realize you're missing o-rings

step four through six.... look for o-rings, give up, order o-rings online..
step seven admire hole

and least they look pretty there on the bench

[SuperBuickGuy]

Originally Posted by rickpaw

I did SCCA track nights at PIR back in 2020 with my 67 Firebird, when I was still living there. Great times.

Nice work with the vette. I followed you over at ih8mud as well on the work on your 40

I used to live in Oregon City - I've walked PIR countless times during the April swap meet.... was fun to do the track at speed both on track night and at Optima.

It floors me when someone comments about the builds I do somewhere else but its main blog - especially because while I can conceptualize the idea that people have look at my '40 more then 295,000 times; It still surprises me that people recognize it in other places besides Mud.

what is fun about my '40 is that this winter it'll be wheeling where I bought my first '40 30 years ago.... and where I gained my love of snow wheeling.

[WSSix]

As for the rear flare, why not just flare down to the side pipe and no more? It's race car, who cares if the flare looks great going around the side pipe. Just make it functional is my thought.

Good luck with the ring and pinion setup. For me, it's a very time consuming affair. I'm not experienced enough to make large changes.