Got the ladder bars all done (just need paint) and I fitted them to the rearend mounts.



I have to place the assembly under the car toworrow and make up some temporary front ladder mounts so I can roll the car out. Probably going to place it in a swap meet for people to see and advertise Pontiac Heaven this Saturday. Then put it in the car show area of Pontiac Heaven next week. I've ordered the twin intercoolers and the Shotgun scoop, and the Tunnel Ram is coming. I picked up a second 750 to convert to blow thru. I've also decided to convert to E85. The first blow thru 750 will go in April and th esecond will go for the blow thru/E85 conversion later. I have to see if my headers are done getting modified. Mark L

Got the rearend in with temporary front bar mounts. I'm going to sell some stuff at a swap this weekend and I'm going to put the Cat on display as advertising for Pontiac Heaven, the following week. Got it on the ground so I took a couple of pics.



I did a slight trim of the front fender where it hung down so low too. I like the look of the Cragars on the front now. I also temporarliy mounted the turbos just to see where they would fit.




I got the twin intercoolers to so maybe with time tomorrow I can try a temporary mounting of them also.

Mark L

Dang, that car has more springs on the front axle than my Blazer does on the REAR axle.

Ha, no want for springs on this thing. As far as I know they are the spring rates for a '57 chevy pick up front end. That is what the axle is from. I hope they turn out to be a good rate. That would save having to buy new and installing them. Mark L

Hey guys. Pretty slow so I thought I'd update a little. Got my car to Pontiac Heaven show over the previous weekend. Lots of great comments, a few head shakes (both up and down and a few back and forth, heh), won a plaque for favorite project of the show. Saturday was 91 and hot, Sunday was 75 but the sun was intense and there was 40 MPH gust that upset the racing every now and again. But over all a great weekend. Monday morning I woke up not feeling well. (Sorry for the graphics but) I started having things coming out of parts of my body that I didn't even know were there. You know in "Alien" when the thing rips out of the guys chest. It woud have felt better if it had riped out of my chest. At one point I passed out, dumped over into the bath tub smacking the tub spout on a 45 degree angle, with my face, and ending up butt up and face down in the tub. On a sidenote, if you're gunna hurt yourself, passing out first is the way to go man, you don't feel a thing and I'll never fear a tub spout in the future, heh. My wife heard the crash and found me face down and out. Took her 45 seconds before I responded. So after that every episode she was with me in the bathroom. A second time she said after wretching I just sat stright up staring at the wall, she said I was totally unresponsive for another 45 seconds before I blinked. That did it, I was going to the hospital. Went at 8:00 pm and left for home at 2:30 am. A bunch of tests, blood samples and a bag of fluid. That was Monday the 2nd and I'm still battling it. Whatever it was it was nasty. OK enough about me.
I got a call from Paul Carter down in Tucson and they are about ready to final assemble the motor. I had asked him to look into seeing if the piston dish would accomodate CV-1 valve locations or if they had to be cut while it was still apart. The pistons now will accomodate any head except them, and I thought if I should ever want to change heads, the added valve notches would at least give me the option. I may never use them but at least they would then be a bolt on option should I want to. He thinks the dish would cover the valve notch area and notching would then not be neccessary. He'* still checking but I felt good about that. So I may have the motor done and home soon.
I also made my decision on a transmission. It'* not optimum for a turbo motor but it is a hell of a lot more fun. With Aron'* help (he bought and is building my old Trans Am) he located an early Dearborn 3 speed toploader transmission. He hepled me get it and it is resting comfortably in my garage. Found a BOP lakewood blow proof bellhousing at the Pontiac Heaven swap meet with the block plate. I feel that the original Pontiac trans being a 3 speed, will work the motor better than a 4 speed. One less shift to do (and or miss, LOL), wider gear ratios, and these things are indestructable. Now I just need a strong clutch and to build a shifter mount and add a shifter. I'm excited about the trans. I think I'm going to use/find an old V-gate type shifter (either Mr Gasket or Hurst) and adapt it to 3 speed use. I know some of the critics of the shifter used on the street was the added complexity of down shifting with the pull up etc to get it down into the 1st/2nd range, but with using the 3 speed I will only need to drop one time, I'll build a solid gate lock out so I don't mistakenly push it up into reverse (the 1st gear on a 4 speed shifter). I think it will work fine.
Now the bad news. When I bought the heads the seller said that he thought they'd be Ok to use as is but could use a rebuild. So I planned to do that. Bolt them on and rebuild them the next off season. But we found that who ever machined/assembled them used too narrow of a valve seat insert which allowed a little too much aluminum between the valve seats instead of butting the inserts together more and the heat of the motor and possibly using nitrous, created a hot spot and probably low grade detonation and degraded the aluminum. So to correct that I will have to go ahead and do the rebuild first. I'll go to 1.77 valves from the 1.66 and the wider seats will correct that problem. And the guides and everything will be all solid and blueprinted to spec. It'* a good thing to do, just had not expected it right away.
I still have to get to the guy that built the rearend for the car and get the axles ordered and in. Then I can permanently install the rearend and ladder bars.
So that'* kind of it in a nut shell. More odds and ends to do also but my fingers are wore out. MArk L

Received my polished Wenzler T Ram bottom today. Now I can mock it all up to show where I'm going with my induction system. I do not have the turbos mocked up but they will be just ahead and to the sides of the motor, feeding into the intercoolers, and from the intercoolers piped up and into the blower scoop. The scoop will be closed up and pressurized to feed the twin 750'*. The twin blow off valves will be on either the the piping between the intercoolers and the scoop or I might build them right off of the blower scoop. Anywho, this will be the basic intake system with changes as they are needed during the build. Oh, and I'm diggin' the polished Tunnel Ram, Thank you Geoff Sotak for the manifold.







I also started to build my steering assembly. Tore the steering column apart to take the column shifter bulge out of the collar. Still a ways to go on that yet. Mark L

I made the front inlet plates that will get welded in, and the holes for the 3 inch inlet piping that will get welded in too.

(Kind of looks like Wallee, LOL).

The inlet pipes will have to be the last thing I weld in, in case something changes during the final fitting of everything. Would be a pain in the pattoot to undo.
I also cut out the scoop bottom plate but I can't do the final carb hole openings until I get the Wenzler cast top and I locate the carbs.

That will determine where the scoop sets in relation to the firewall cutout. Slow but showing progress. Mark L

I have in-laws coming so I set up all of the turbo equipment for mockup today. The pic shows approx locations of the turbos, the intercoolers, the return tank for the intercooler water between the coolers (the pump is located under the tank), and the intercooler heat exchanger across the front. And the scoop with the inlet pipe showing where it will go.








Not sure you can make out the equipment thru the grill but that is what you will see looking at the front of the car. Mark L

Hey guys. Been laying low because of heat. At least I'm not alone with that anymore. The whole country is burning up. But I've been doing a few minutes here and few there so I did get one thing accomplished. I finally tackled and mostly completed my entire steering system.

I finally tore the steering column apart and made it into a floor column by eliminating the shift handle and the cast in bump on the collar. Filled and filed/sanded the hole shut and painted it black. I bought an old style rubber rimed steering wheel from a guy that got it on a '64 Goat so it went on with a few mods but now it works fine. I also removed the rag flange on the end and replaced it with a steering 36-3/4 universal joint. The old column bearing at the motor end was shot so I took it out. A good friend mentioned that the front wheel bearings were 3/4 inch and the outer race fits inside the steering column outer shell so I replaced the original bearing with one of the old front wheel bearings.

If you look back at the column support I found out the Pontiac cast rod big end is almost the same diameter as the steering column so I'm going to cut up the original support that I made and make the rod a bolt on to the support. In the pic the rod is not bolted closed all the way. But it will once I get it into it'* final resting placed. Then I located the steering box, cut out a steel mount from 1/4 inch steel, located the holes, welded it to the frame and bolted on the box. I bought 5/8th rod ends a while ago so all I had to do was buy the rods from Speedway. The tie rod came the right length but the cross steer rod was a length that they did not have as standard. Instead of buying a custom length rod at more than double the price, I bought one rod the longest that they make them, cut it for length and retapped it. I bought the extra long rod because the price was the same for a shorter one and now I have a 17 inch piece of rod that I can use somewhere else if I need it. Long story short (yeah right). I got all the rods the right length, bolted them all on plus the universals for the steering column end and the steering box, and set the steering shaft in there loose. Did a preliminary alignment on the right front tire and set the cross steer rod to length and bolted that all solid. Using clamps I made the right front tire so it could not move. Put on the tie rod and did a preliminary alignment to the left front tire. Then adjusted the steering box in exact center, adjusted the steering column/wheel to dead center and welded the steering shaft into the universals. Badda bing badda boom. I have a working steering system. Oh, and yes, it even steers in the right direction, LOL.


The nice thing is. I used the original tie rod arms and placement so the Ackerman stays factory. And the cross steer rod is almost level.
Not sure what the next target is but there'* lots of stuff to do. Mark L

Wow! Connecting rods holding the column is a nice touch! Love that body style.