'67 Firebird CAM Build

Cash Davidson · **Posted:** Sat Sep 27, 2014 10:14 am

Mainly posting to keep myself motivated:

I bought the car for $300 with most of the interior disassembled, not running and a bent sub-frame (being a kid, I didn't know this til after I started working on it). I may have over paid. :lol:

I spent the summer prior to my Senior year putting the car together, getting it running and swapping the sub-frame. Here's how it looked when I was a senior in HS:

Two summers later, I decided "How hard could it be to paint a car?" Here's a skinny, dumb 19yr old painting his car outdoors, one panel at a time.

Excited to be working on it again. :sing:

JamesMilko · **Posted:** Sat Sep 27, 2014 12:54 pm

Man, I wish I was that motivated when I was in HS. I was lucky if I kept the chain on my bike greased.

DickRasmussen · **Posted:** Sat Sep 27, 2014 1:15 pm

FYI Speedway Motors is seriously involved with the Pro Touring, Good Guys, etc. autocross stuff and had their big rig plus a Nova driven by Robbie Unser at the Cam Challenge during the Pro Solo Finale. It appears they have lots of stuff for that vintage Camaros that probably would be relevant to Camaros. The Nova that Robbie Unser drove was not even close to "stock". Lots of really neat suspension stuff, especially in front. I'll post some pictures later.

As an aside my stock 2012 Mustang was also driven in the CAM challenge by Lorien Feighner. It and Lorien got literally drafted by the SCCA event chairman to fill out the field. Her husband, Dave, drove their ESP Mustang on borrowed BIG BFG's.

Lorien had never autocrossed an automatic and only had 4 practice course runs in my car prior to qualifying in the dry on Sunday morning. It was wet when she ran in the Challenge later. In fact she spun literally right in front of the corner I was working during the challenge and hit cones that I later got to clean the marks off from.

http://scca.cdn.racersites.com/prod/ass ... lifing.pdf

http://scca.cdn.racersites.com/prod/ass ... LLENGE.pdf

Cash Davidson · **Posted:** Sat Sep 27, 2014 2:34 pm

@James: Yeah, the less successful I was with girls, the more I worked on my car. Clearly, I worked on my car ALOT! :lol:

@Dick: Yeah, I've been lurking the Pro-Touring and Lateral-G forums for quite awhile. Speedway & GG's has really spurred the interest in Autocross in that crowd. I think that's a good thing!

Inventory:

I was pleased to find the engine turns over quite nice by hand. Although after the first rotation, I stopped and for 5min you could hear "tink, tink" as the valves snapped closed. Little sticky I guess. :oops:

After a few more rotations it seems to have stopped.

I scraping about 2lbs of mud wasps and crap off the bottom of the car. Here's what we have:

Factory traction bars! A rare option I believe was only available in '67.

Big rear sway bar with poly bushings. Also note, battery in the trunk.

Solid subframe bushings.

Muncie close-ratio M21.

Hurst Super Shifter.

Big front sway bar with poly bushings. Also, front OEM springs are shaved by 3/4 coil.

Adjustable spherical end links on FSB.

I've also got a fair amount of parts on the shelf I've been collecting. :wink:

Next job is to drop the drive shaft and tranny in preparation of pulling the motor.

Cash

Steven Carter · **Posted:** Sat Sep 27, 2014 4:28 pm

PB Blaster
Kroil
POR-15 metal prep and coating (or similar)

Thanks for ths pics! Keep motivated...the end result will be pretty cool, for sure!

DickRasmussen · **Posted:** Sat Sep 27, 2014 5:23 pm

A selection of CAM pictures from our camera to give Cash some more incentive. Robbie Unser said that he had never autocrossed before, let alone Pro Solo. The wet during the Cam Challenge caught him out. The Hertz Shelby is owned by an SCCA member who lives in Lincoln and normally autocrosses a Shelby GT. Someone mentioned that the Hertz car is very close to Street class legal.

Also I think the Cobra IS AN ORIGINAL OWNER COBRA (retired Ford exec I think)

Cash Davidson · **Posted:** Fri Oct 10, 2014 4:38 pm

Arthur McDonald wrote:

Cash Davidson wrote:

Since Art and Rodney predict it will be three years before we see this car at an autocross......
I think Art & Rodney are wrong. :sing:

I stand by my prediction, but I think it would be cool if you had it road-worthy & autocross-worthy in time for the 50th anniversary of the Firebird's introduction. I think that gives you until January 2017

I'd like to point out that Road-Worthy and AutoX-Worthy are two entirely different things. :mrgreen:

I've been puttering in the evenings - mostly accessing the situation. Spoiler alert: It ain't good.

Pulled the motor:

Got it on the stand:

Stripped enough covers off to get a look inside. Then performed a leak-down test. Sorry for the flash, but as you can see, the needles are pointed at each other - 20over80! :thumbsdown:

For those that don't know, that's really, really bad. And that is one of the better cylinders.

I'll need some time to regroup and figure out my next move. :cryin:

DickRasmussen · **Posted:** Fri Oct 10, 2014 4:47 pm

Regarding the leak down test: I thought that the engine is supposed to be at operating temperature with oil in all the "normal" locations, etc. I'm not sure you have "valid" leakdown numbers but I am sure that you need to either teardown/rebuild this engine or buy a crate replacement. :lol:

My idea of "restoring" an old Pony car is . . . buy a new one. :lol:

Cash Davidson · **Posted:** Fri Oct 10, 2014 4:58 pm

DickRasmussen wrote:

Regarding the leak down test: I thought that the engine is supposed to be at operating temperature with oil in all the "normal" locations, etc. I'm not sure you have "valid" leakdown numbers but I am sure that you need to either teardown/rebuild this engine or buy a crate replacement. :lol:

My idea of "restoring" an old Pony car is . . . buy a new one. :lol:

Yes, ideally the engine should be warm. I put fresh oil in it and primed it with an electric drill, put a little oil in the spark plug holes and turned it over several times. I wouldn't expect 10% leakdown like a fresh motor at operating temperature, but I wouldn't expect 80% leakdown either.

I have two 400ci blocks I'm checking over. :thumbsup:

JasonWatts · **Posted:** Sat Oct 11, 2014 12:06 am

CAM allows pretty much anything right? Why not drop one of those new fancy gm lt (i think thats what their going back to) engines in it and and call it done :evil:

Chad Culbertson · **Posted:** Sat Oct 11, 2014 11:08 pm

JasonWatts wrote:

CAM allows pretty much anything right? Why not drop one of those new fancy gm lt (i think thats what their going back to) engines in it and and call it done :evil:

LT1 is what the new Vette has. However I think one of these would look real nice in there.

http://www.jegs.com/p/Chevrolet-Perform ... 5/10002/-1

Les Davis · **Joined:** Fri Aug 29, 2003 2:04 pm **Posts:** 2059

Chad Culbertson wrote:

JasonWatts wrote:

CAM allows pretty much anything right? Why not drop one of those new fancy gm lt (i think thats what their going back to) engines in it and and call it done :evil:

LT1 is what the new Vette has. However I think one of these would look real nice in there.

http://www.jegs.com/p/Chevrolet-Perform ... 5/10002/-1

Winnar! My thoughts precisely.

MikeWhitney · **Joined:** Wed Aug 20, 2003 9:15 pm **Posts:** 4724

Cash Davidson wrote:

DickRasmussen wrote:

Regarding the leak down test: I thought that the engine is supposed to be at operating temperature with oil in all the "normal" locations, etc. I'm not sure you have "valid" leakdown numbers but I am sure that you need to either teardown/rebuild this engine or buy a crate replacement. :lol:

My idea of "restoring" an old Pony car is . . . buy a new one. :lol:

Yes, ideally the engine should be warm. I put fresh oil in it and primed it with an electric drill, put a little oil in the spark plug holes and turned it over several times. I wouldn't expect 10% leakdown like a fresh motor at operating temperature, but I wouldn't expect 80% leakdown either.

I have two 400ci blocks I'm checking over. :thumbsup:

After sitting so long I wouldn't be too worried about the leakdown until you know where it's leaking. Good chances are that it's just crusty valves. Pull the heads and see what's up with the block, then decide what to do.

Cash Davidson · **Posted:** Tue Oct 14, 2014 12:08 pm

MikeWhitney wrote:

After sitting so long I wouldn't be too worried about the leakdown until you know where it's leaking. Good chances are that it's just crusty valves. Pull the heads and see what's up with the block, then decide what to do.

Rings are stuck in the piston grooves. Valves are sealing quite well - surprisingly.

Vincent Keene · **Posted:** Tue Oct 14, 2014 1:20 pm

Cash Davidson wrote:

I'll need some time to regroup and figure out my next move. :cryin:

What's there to figure out? That motor is junk so insert an LS and keep going.

THSCC Forums

'67 Firebird CAM Build

Who is online