Project Franken Riviera -64 Riviera T-type-

[CTX-SLPR]

Hello Lateral-G,

Since I'm over here watching some other Riviera builds I should probably bring mine over as well. It's off the beaten path and I've been doing it for awhile so bear with me as I catch y'all up.

I'll start with the basic premise. I'm a Riviera guy after getting a '70 in college that I made a ton of rookie hot rodder mistakes on, spent too much money on the wrong things, but over all just loved the car. Owning a second generation got me exposed to the first generation so while I did own a '65 Grand Sport briefly it was beyond my ability to restore so I sold it and waited for a nice 64 or 65 to become available. I finally got my '64 in late 2006 and promptly did enough work to take it on two Hot Rod Power Tours, the last of which the water pump exploded (literally I had to pull pieces of the impeller disc out of the timing cover water passages with pliers) and that was really the functional end of the nailhead since I wasn't going to pay to rebuild it when I'd been slowly building a quasi-custom Buick Turbo6 in the garage to swap in eventually.

The car is a fairly high option '64 Riviera, it doesn't have the rear arm rest, 4 note horn, cruise, or auratronic eye headlight dimmer but it has power vent windows, the deluxe level interior, and a rear defroster which is kinda rare. It also came factory with a 3.23 posi which is nice. The engine is an '84 4.1L V6 block (3.965in vs. 3.800in bore on the 3.8L's) with a forged 3.4in crank, forged stock length rods, and custom Diamond forged pistons. Up top is a set of ported Champion CNC ported iron heads, T&D roller rockers, Comp 212/212 roller cam, and I ran out of money before I could afford a matching CNC intake so that's just a slightly customized stocker off of an '86 T-type. I'll go over what I did custom on the engine to both make it fit and to eliminate some weak spots in the classic Buick V6 design. Behind it I have a 4L80E and it's all controlled by a modified L67 (that's a Series II Supercharged 3800 Buick V6) EFI system where I hacked the transmission control like is common on the 4L60E to 4L80E control scheme by inverting the B solenoid output with a 5 pin relay.

I've got plans to update the car inside and out but life (most of that time I was active duty Air Force and I have a wife and two kids) and budget has made it a slow process. The goal is a car that doesn't keep someone from putting it back to stock if I need to sell it but still makes a strong attempt at driving like a much newer car. Particually taking advantage of 50+ years of suspension and tire improvements as well as various comfort features like heated seats, auto climate control, and the like.

Here's some pictures from when I bought it. I'm having some hard drive trouble currently so I can't get to most of my build pictures so I'll catch up over the next few days.