Ha ha, I like that popcorn emoji! After posting a question about my 86 Bonneville project someone asked me to give an update on Pumkinator and I noticed the thread was locked. No surprise, It's been years since I've made any updates to anything, lol. I've been active with some of the "quicky" post FB G-body groups but do miss the conversation here on the forums. Lack of a lot of spare time has limited that a lot. My kids are growing, the 5 of them now range from 6 to 22 and I've been trying to spend much of my spare time with them. Probably the biggest update in my personal life has been that after 5 years with them I left Speedtech Performance about 2.5 years ago to work for myself full-time doing my project renderings and hot rod design gig, Street Rod Designs. For the first 1.5+ years it was usually up to 60 hour weeks to get things really rolling but I'm finally working out things so that I have more time to play with the projects. I've also been putting off the car builds as I've been focusing toy funds on collecting some shop equip to fab some of my own parts.
Pumkinator Catch up- My 406 SBC broke pretty catastrophically about 5 years ago. It had over 100K miles since I had rebuilt it but still held 45 lbs of oil pressure at idle and didn't burn any oil but a valve didn't want to stay in place one day when I was drag racing it and #7 piston exploded and the rod punched through the cylinder which also broke the crank in half and the block cracked near the #3 main cap. This happened 2 weeks after I replaced the 2.41 7.5 rear with a GN 8.5 rear with a 3.42 posi, a real bummer that I didn't get to enjoy the new rear very much. Prior to this with the factory 2.41 rear and with a stock TH350 & converter it ran 14.60s at 100 mph @ 3000 ft altitude. Just swapping the rear dropped it to 13.90 at 101, equal to ~ 13.60 @ sea level. It weighs 3700 with me in it and the cam was a fairly mild Comp XE 268 with factory 400 heads and 9:1 compression so I figured it was respectable enough. My street / strip Nova had been collecting dust for many years since I got into autoX with Pumk, so I decided it was time to rob it's engine for Pumk and sell the roller. The engine only has about 50 miles of around town driving plus some hard 1st and 2nd pulls since I last freshened it up so using it in Pumk was an easy and free cost decision. When it had 11:1 compression my 3100 lb Nova ran mid 11s on just the motor. I bumped up compression when I last went through it but other than that it's basically the same engine I first built in 1992. I got the engine installed in the wagon with only wiring and fuel system left to do, but then I got to thinking and plans for a total car upgrade started snowballing. I started collecting parts and equipment, then changed jobs as mentioned above and so the car's been dormant for a while. Here's where it's at right now, much of below got installed after this build thread stalled out so there aren't photos of it in the build thread.
Engine:
.030 400 SBC, 5.7 rods, 12.5:1 pistons
'92 World Products Sportsman II heads with full race port work, 2.02/ 1.60 valves, Erson roller rockers
Custom Erson flat tappet solid cam, .562/.562 lift, 260/262 dur @ .050
Vic Jr intake and although the pic in the thread shows a shiny Summit 750 carb I have a Holley 850 dbbl pumper for it
Hooker headers, 3" exhaust and Dynomax race bullets
Trans:
TH350 with a 3000 Hughes HD converter
Suspension: (new parts not mentioned previously in this build thread)
Front: Speedtech Performance Front upper and lower arms, 1/2" tall ball joints top and bottom
Speedtech front 1 5/16" sway bar
Viking Crusader autoX valved double adjustable coilovers, 700 lb front springs
Factory spindles modded for the brakes
Rear: Speedtech "Articulink" lower rear control arms, Spohn adjustable upper arms
Viking coilovers, 300 lb springs, no sway bar out back
'86 turbo Regal factory 3.42 posi 8.5 rear
Brakes:
98-02 Fbody 12" up front
Drum out back
Coming with next round of upgrades:
Going back to my SPC front upper arms so I can get more caster and better geometry/ more tuning ability
Custom lower arms (more details coming)
Speedway modular spindles with the steering arms flipped for more Ackermann (unless something better and still affordable pops up)
Bumpsteer kit
9" Ford rear with 3.50 gears for autoX and around town driving, 4.10 with a spool for drag racing.
Custom rear suspension (more coming soon)
13" front brakes with 4 piston Brembos
12" rear discs with 4 piston Wilwoods
I'll likely swap to a different steering box, thinking to pull out the 12:1 AGR box and replace it with a 14:1 box and a 2:1 ratio quickener
Serious diet, the car weighs 3550 without me but I set a goal to hit 3000 lbs. I know that's a bit of a lofty goal, so if I hit lower than 3200 I'll be plenty happy.
To get it that light I have a fiberglass hood, will be removing the crash bars in the doors, picked up light weight front race seats, have removed the rear seat assembly (it weighs 70 lbs!), replacing the glass from the rear doors, rear windows and hatch with lexan, lighten up the tailgate and remove the cargo area floor. The parts car I just bought has a perfect dash so if I get real ambitious I might use it to make a mold for a Cutlass fiberglass dash... maybe, ... if I get real ambitious. If someone made fiberglass fenders I'd do that too, but nothing so far that I've found.
For the interior I'm also swapping to all aftermarket white face gauges and will be making custom interior panels.
For the exterior I picked up a Harwood Malibu front bumper/ air dam. I don't like the popular smooth bumper one much, so I bought the one that looks like a factory bumper. It's only 3" air dam compared to the other one at 5" so I'm going to drop it 2" and add a splitter at the bottom. I'm going to re-do the fender vents to allow them to flow a lot more air, create brake cooling ducts for both front and rear, swap to flush mount plastic outer door handles, lightweight race style mirrors, custom side marker lights, lightweight headlights, LED taillights and front turn signals and finally a functional rear wing will create some down force.
As mentioned above I'm on 18x10.5" wheels now with 315-30 BFG Rival S' all around. I plan to get a second set of front wheels and will grab a pair of 285-30-18s for Good Guys events where 285 front tire is max for general autocross and the 315s up front would put me into the Pro class. My driving skill probably isn't quite up to that class just yet.
I've got a lot of work to do, and will post it all here once I get started. This should by start this summer. Before I can get to all that I have my '77 Suburban project clogging up the garage. My Nova was my daily driver for a while there so Pumk should be "streetable" with this engine, and I plan to drive it around town a couple times a week and to cruise night. But since all the tracks I'll visit are hours of driving away I will be using the Burban to tow it. Right now it's a 3/4 ton but I bought a complete 1/2 ton chassis which is getting a z'd front frame and all the typical stuff to do about 8-9" drop from where it sits now. It'll roll on 275-45s on 20x10 wheels. It's also getting some cool subtle body mods, and I'm rebuilding the 454 .030 to be a 468 designed for around 600-620 hp and 650 ft lbs. I don't know if it's appropriate but I can post a build thread for that here too if you guys are interested.
That's about it for Pumk for the next round of upgrades. After Pumk's done I will dive head first into a Pro Touring rebuild of the Bonneville, and I still have a 2nd 79 Cutlass wagon waiting for a rebuild, which as plans for it have also snowballed will be a little insane if I can pull it off. 🤪😎
Sweet truck! Soon enough for
