1979 Trans Am - 25 years in a garage

[Crispy]

tell her its not staying and will save you money.

I would suggest getting a couple of mechanically inclined friends and a couple cases of beer, and making a weekend project out of stripping the car, so it's not around long. The downside to that, is it sorta ends up looking like you're running a chop shop, lol.

The biggest problem is a just bought a 1965 Skylark and the transport truck is coming tomorrow. Otherwise I'd have a bird with a true LS1 donor for a swap. If I can come up with the cash within a couple of weeks I'll see if its around. She knows I can make money off it. Hell she'd probably want to take the better parts off that car and put it on our 99.

I could have that bird stripped down and out by the end of this weekend. My neighbors already know me as the car guy. With the Skylark it'll be #6 in the fleet. The neighbors are cool about it though thankfully. I try to be considerate. Plus all my cars are registered and insured so anyone who does have a problem can lick my brown sweaty balls.

Pics of the Skylark coming soon...and another build thread...

 

[Rusty Nail]

Plus all my cars are registered and insured so anyone who does have a problem can lick my brown sweaty balls.

Dude. You set off the jukebox...

So suck on my balls!

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[Crispy]

Dude. You set off the jukebox...

So suck on my balls!

xc_hide_links_from_guests_guests_error_hide_media

Love South Park on so many levels lol

 

[Boonie]

I had a 79 in hs with the 400/4spd. wish I had kept it. rebuilt the engine, had the quadrajet tuned, it was pretty quick. po had cut the shaker open and replaced the back plate with a screen, so it would actually suck in cool air. miss that car a lot.

 

[Crispy]

Well I took the time over the Independence Day extended weekend to tackle the engine.

First step was pressure washing the gunk off it. I have to say it looked pretty good after the pressure wash. I was tempted to leave it unpainted.

After the wash the teardown started and I only found 2 things that were questionable. One being a "Timing OK Stand F" stamp on the valve cover and the second being Fel-pro style head gaskets. Whatever, hopefully its good haha because I'm not decking the block or heads.

All but 3 exhaust manifolds came out easily. Those three broke in the head and I didnt even bother with them, took them to my mechanic and he extracted them and cleaned out the threads.

While he had the heads I pulled the existing cam and lifters out to replace with a Lunati Bracket master cam/lifter kit. Its a 220/220 @ .50 112 lsa cam so it should give me a nice mid-upper range pull and choppy idle. I want this thing to sound mean, if I wanted a street performer that olds 403 woulda been canned for something that can make power and still leave money in my bank account. The stock lifters didnt want to come out from the top with a magnet so I dropped the oil pan, flipped the block over and drove them out with a couple of long socket extensions and a hammer. I also installed a Cloyes timing gear set.

Speaking of the oil pan...OLD.HARD.GASKET! That took a few hours to get all of the gasket material off of the pan and block. My drill batteries would die faster than I wanted and I'm not dogging my drill at all but this was the most abuse I ever put it through. I used a wire wheel for the job. I'm going to be pickup a cupped wire wheel that I can stick on my grinder for a bit better performance. Man that sucked!

For weight savings I got a GMB aluminum water pump and an Edelbrock Performer intake. Man, that Edelbrock is a ton lighter than the stock manifold. I realized that the Edelbrock manifold has a bunch of threaded ports for random goodies that I will not be using for a while so I ran over to the hardware store and got some brass NPT plugs. I couldve ordered the Edelbrock kit for $18.50 plus shipping but I can be impatient sometimes.


After everything was assembled I sprayed it with some Dupont Engine Enamel and sat back to admire my work. This week I'll be picking up some fuel line and vacuum hose and start routing that stuff. I ordered a rebuilt carb since I ran the numbers on the carb that came with the engine and it comes back as a 1977 Cadillac with Cali emissions. The carb that came on the car is also a bit rough and beyond my ability to clean and rebuild.

I'm hoping to have the engine/trans back in the car by the end of the month and the car at least moving under its own power. After that, its on to the brake system and new tires.

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[Crispy]

Sorry, double post.

37 lashings for the brown man!

 

[4WDKC]

Well I took the time over the Independence Day extended weekend to tackle the engine.

First step was pressure washing the gunk off it. I have to say it looked pretty good after the pressure wash. I was tempted to leave it unpainted.

After the wash the teardown started and I only found 2 things that were questionable. One being a "Timing OK Stand F" stamp on the valve cover and the second being Fel-pro style head gaskets. Whatever, hopefully its good haha because I'm not decking the block or heads.

All but 3 exhaust manifolds came out easily. Those three broke in the head and I didnt even bother with them, took them to my mechanic and he extracted them and cleaned out the threads.

While he had the heads I pulled the existing cam and lifters out to replace with a Lunati Bracket master cam/lifter kit. Its a 220/220 @ .50 112 lsa cam so it should give me a nice mid-upper range pull and choppy idle. I want this thing to sound mean, if I wanted a street performer that olds 403 woulda been canned for something that can make power and still leave money in my bank account. The stock lifters didnt want to come out from the top with a magnet so I dropped the oil pan, flipped the block over and drove them out with a couple of long socket extensions and a hammer. I also installed a Cloyes timing gear set.

Speaking of the oil pan...OLD.HARD.GASKET! That took a few hours to get all of the gasket material off of the pan and block. My drill batteries would die faster than I wanted and I'm not dogging my drill at all but this was the most abuse I ever put it through. I used a wire wheel for the job. I'm going to be pickup a cupped wire wheel that I can stick on my grinder for a bit better performance. Man that sucked!

For weight savings I got a GMB aluminum water pump and an Edelbrock Performer intake. Man, that Edelbrock is a ton lighter than the stock manifold. I realized that the Edelbrock manifold has a bunch of threaded ports for random goodies that I will not be using for a while so I ran over to the hardware store and got some brass NPT plugs. I couldve ordered the Edelbrock kit for $18.50 plus shipping but I can be impatient sometimes.


After everything was assembled I sprayed it with some Dupont Engine Enamel and sat back to admire my work. This week I'll be picking up some fuel line and vacuum hose and start routing that stuff. I ordered a rebuilt carb since I ran the numbers on the carb that came with the engine and it comes back as a 1977 Cadillac with Cali emissions. The carb that came on the car is also a bit rough and beyond my ability to clean and rebuild.

I'm hoping to have the engine/trans back in the car by the end of the month and the car at least moving under its own power. After that, its on to the brake system and new tires.

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isnt that cam low duration for a 400 cube motor? I have 234/244 in my 406

 

[Crispy]

isnt that cam low duration for a 400 cube motor? I have 234/244 in my 406

It is, but the stock olds cam is like 190/200 so its nice bump compared to stock. I didnt want to get too wild because then I'd want to get aluminum heads, raise the compression a bit, etc.

 

[Swims350]

nice work I wanna hear that cam run.

I wonder will it work with stock pushrods and rockers?

Also what's wrong with fel pro head gaskets? I run em and like em or you just mean it shows someone has been into it before?

I know mine had been because my crank was turned .010 both rods and mains.

I ask this crap because I hope to do about the same, lopey cam, basically stock other stuff, aftermarket intake if I can get one cheap, paint stock rebuild etc.

 

[CSFJ]

Looks good. I guess I never realized that Pontiac painted the Olds engine in their blue when they were using them.

 

[DoubleDingo]

Looks good. I guess I never realized that Pontiac painted the Olds engine in their blue when they were using them.

That's the same blue on the engine in Pop's '68 LeMans. And it did clean up very nicely! All engine clean-up should turn out like that.

 

[Crispy]

nice work I wanna hear that cam run.

I wonder will it work with stock pushrods and rockers?

Also what's wrong with fel pro head gaskets? I run em and like em or you just mean it shows someone has been into it before?

I know mine had been because my crank was turned .010 both rods and mains.

I ask this crap because I hope to do about the same, lopey cam, basically stock other stuff, aftermarket intake if I can get one cheap, paint stock rebuild etc.

Thanks, I'm excited to get it started. I'll make sure to take a video.

The pushrods feel just as tight as they did with the stock cam. This cam isnt a high lift so stock springs should be ok as well as pushrods and rockers.

Nothing wrong at all with Fel-Pro. I just meant that someone has been in there before since it wasnt an OEM head gasket.

Looks good. I guess I never realized that Pontiac painted the Olds engine in their blue when they were using them.

It wasnt quite Pontiac blue but they were indeed blue from the factory. Its the closest match around to the stock paint without getting crazy and mixing up your own. Part number is DE1608 if anyone cares for it.

That's the same blue on the engine in Pop's '68 LeMans. And it did clean up very nicely! All engine clean-up should turn out like that.

Thanks, I had to walk away a few times to make sure I didnt do anything hasty lol.

 

[Swims350]

I figured so, just some ppl have their own likes and dislikes figured I'd ask.

It's kind of like the old fram filter thing, most hate them and say they are junk, we ran em for years never had any problems. I wanted to make sure I wasn't missin anything.

I also agree on the cam, I just hear the olds guy s on fb forums all the time going on about adjustable valvetrain and what not and most seem to say when I asked if you stayed under .500 lift then shouldn't really need it, but to check pushrod length.

I want a rumpity rump cam, but I'm not looking to dump alot into valvetrain if the rest is mostly stock. I'd rather do that if I were like doing flat tops and or like ported and polished as well as shaved like big olds heads or doing aftermarket ones.

 

[bucket]

Looks good. I guess I never realized that Pontiac painted the Olds engine in their blue when they were using them.

I thought all GM engines were painted blue starting in '77 since they all started sharing. I've always known it as "GM Corporate Blue".

 

[Swims350]

I thought all GM engines were painted blue starting in '77 since they all started sharing. I've always known it as "GM Corporate Blue".

that is exacrtly what I thought as well

 

[CSFJ]

I thought all GM engines were painted blue starting in '77 since they all started sharing. I've always known it as "GM Corporate Blue".

I wasn't sure if that was the corp blue or not. It's been a couple decades since I've seen a block that still wore it's original color. Now that you mention though, Pontiac had a light metallic blue, didn't they?