79 Cutlass Wagon G-machine build

[Longroof79]

I've heard of doing the S10 hub swap, but most folks said try to steer clear because of cost of the hubs. If you can find a cheap wrecking yard set it's probably a great idea. I opted for the way I am mostly planning for cheap repairs in the future.

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I agree, they aren't cheap when you can find them. Perhaps the modified G-body spindles using the F-body parts is the way to go. I like what I see.

 

[85Frankencar]

First off, thank you for this thread - I wish my wagon looked that good in high school! (had a 88 buick Electra estate wagon w/wood grain panels...I miss that car..) lol - awesome thread, can't wait to see more - this is one of the coolest wagons I've ever seen - love what you've done with it!
Question -

azwagon- You have to have the stock G-body rotor milled down to a hub, i.e. have the area that the brake pad contacts the rotor cut off so all that is left is a hub with the studs and bearings. Hope that makes sense. The F-body rotor is a drop off rather than bolt on style so after you have a hub from your factory rotor it slips right on. Caution, this swap typically only works with 17" or larger wheels. The pre '98 12" f-body rotors and B body or second gen Camaro calipers and spindles will allow for 15" + wheels and is great idea, but you need those spendy off set control arms to compensate for the extra spindle height and they're outta my budget.

I'll try to track down a link to the LS1 brake upgrade in the next coupla days.

I saw the link you had posted, thanks for that, too - since you have the 16" GTA wheels, which rotors are you running? I'm looking to eventually do a brake swap (on the cheap as well) & recently got a set of GTA wheels myself, but I don't want to have to get another set of wheels to do it - did you manage to get the 12" rotors on, or are yours from the previous gen F-body? Sorry, I couldn't really follow how you had done it....

 

[SRD art]

I'm still working on buying all the parts for the car, so currently I have the stock G-body rotors. I had to use a 3/4" spacer and extended studs to get the right offset with the GTA "rear" wheels bolted on the front. Sould've used bolt on hub centric adapters, the slip on spacers aren't exactly centered and cause some vibration while driving I believe.

I seem to remember a thread out there about using GTA wheels with the LS1 F-body rotors but can't remember the results. Try googling "GTA Wheels S10 g-body 12" LS1 brake swap". Somewhere you'll come across it. I think the thinner forged wheels like GTA 16's will fit, where as some of the cast 16's won't. The problem is the rotor hitting the inner step in the wheel. If you use the Vette caliper then it's 17+ only. With the 90's Caprice/ LT1 Camaro caliper/rotors on B-body or 2nd gen F-body "tall" spindles you can use 15" wheels!

I've heard of a lot of LS1 F-body drag cars having to use a spacer/adapter to push the wheel out away from the caliper to clear 15" skinnies up front.

Hope this helps...

 

[85Frankencar]

Thanks for the reply - I've done a lot of research on it, but kind of came down to doing the S10 swap...I know there's a great thread on the LS1 swap on Turbobuicks.com, I though you were running the LS1 brakes w/the GTA wheels. The guy I bought them from had the b-body spindle swap w/ the taller spindles. I'll keep checking up on this one!

 

[SRD art]

Took my 2 boys up to the mountains camping a couple weeks ago. We drove through a few small towns on the way and I came across this little gem, an old Sinclair gas station. Pretty cool find- I love old gas stations and diners, and we had a great time camping.

 

[SRD art]

My goal is to be able to eventually get the car into the 140mph club. I've been wanting to upgrade my 85 speedo to something more accurate to the car's abilities and I recently scored this from Ebay, just under $17 dollars including shipping, new and never used! You guys remember Mallory selling gauges back in the 80s and 90s?

It's old and had a little surface rust on the back side, but it's perfect and brand new inside. I will be incorporating it into the factory gauge layout to make it look factory stock.

 

[SRD art]

I went to the local track's open track day this past Wednesday to try out the new rear sway bar and get one last set of runs in before I tear into the suspension and change things around.

Unfortunately I had two problems with the car, the alternator quit charging on the way to the track and for some reason the right front caliper was grabbing harder than the left. You'll see in both videos how that caused the right front wheel to lock up and slide under hard braking. Got kinda scary at one point on the road course. I have a flat spot on the right front tire now, kinda sucks but at least I planned on upgrading to 17s in the near future.

After the 406 broke a valve spring I yanked it and slipped the factory 305 back in so I could keep the car drivable while I build the 406. I put in a mild Crane 266 cam (.440 lift) and all the intake and exhaust accessories from the 406. Here's a shot of the engine as it is now.

The motor runs great and lays down 21 mpg with a TH350 (no overdrive) but my guess is that the stock 140 hp is prolly only up to 170-180. Backed by factory 2.41 gears you can see it's lengthy acceleration on the track and I am so looking forward to the torquey TPI 406 I'm putting together! The cones on the course are to keep the newbies and stock handling cars from going too fast. Kinda lame but it keeps everyone safe.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QTx6MJpiIc4

Because the alternator went south I decided to head over to the autocross course where the lines are usually short rather than having to keep asking for jump starts in the road course line. I got in line and the officials decided to take about 10 minutes to discuss something while we all waited in line. I kept the motor running and the electric fan and such were running the battery down. Finally after they started racing us again and I was on deck the battery was low enough that the fan quit working and the car started to heat up. It was at 240 degrees when it was my turn so knowing this would probably be my only run I went all out. Because I wasn't familiar with the course and I was stressed about the run I saw the cones in the background of the first hard turn and got disorientated. Completely blew the run but it was fun. I spent the rest of the evening fiddling with the alternator and found a wire in the harness that came loose from the connection. Got it repaired and headed home.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7r63fAbSKPo&NR=1


Despite the problems, I had a good time and felt a definite improvement in stability with the sway bar outback.

 

[SRD art]

I'm back in school and I finally have some updates on the wagon project. Mostly been project planning and price shopping over the summer and just before school started I was informed I was awarded a full tuition scholarship for the 2011-2012 year. Hard work and straight A's finally pays off! That fortunately freed up a little extra $ I can slide towards the car.

Biggest project news over the summer was landing a 5.3 from a 2006 4x4 truck with just over 40,000 miles on it. A friend of a friend set the deal up and I'm getting it for $500 for the motor, accessories, computer, and wiring harness. To keep costs down I have to pull the motor out of the truck, but that's a good thing so I can see how everything hooks up and make sure I get all the parts I need. I don't have it home yet but will be posting photos when I do.

The truck intake manifolds are just plain hideous, so keeping it under a cover is critical. I'm not a big fan of the truck engine covers, they're just a bit bulky and look like they belong on a truck, so I considered making one. I got on the web to see if anyone else has done a custom cover when I ran across a photo the 2010 Camaro SS cover. It really caught my eye as it's a little different than the average LSX cover and the color scheme fit my car perfectly. I'm not a fan of the center runner bumps, but otherwise I liked it. I checked ebay and scored a nice used one with mounting bracket for only $42.00 shipped. I'm considering a custom insert for the center portion with rounded "tubes" rather than the squared off ones and will shave the Chevrolet script and add on Oldsmobile script instead.

Here's a shot of the cover and a mock up of it on my small block minus the carb to see what it will look like. Man that engine bay needs a face lift! Coming soon...

 

[SRD art]

Over the summer I took a couple opportunities to raid the local junkyard for a few parts. Unfortunately useable old car parts around here are rare so I have to get a little creative.

One of my favorite scores-

Part of next semester's chassis class is narrowing rears. The 7.5" is a weak link in the G-body cars and for a long time I had planned on a late model disc Mustang 8.8". After considering the near bullet proof 31 spline large bearing 9" and the fact that I can swap centers to change gear ratios I decided to grab one of those and use it as a narrow guinea pig. A trac loc center is a real bonus, so I checked every Ford truck rear axle tag in the yard on two different occasions. The second time I found a 78 4x4 Bronco that was missing the tag so I turned the drum on one side and with a big grin I watched the other side move in the same direction. Out of about 40-50 trucks I checked this was the only one with a track loc, so after an hour and a half of wrenching on rusted bolts I had it in the back of the wagon. Because the tag is missing and I haven't cracked it open yet I don't know what gears are in it, but I found most of the trucks had 3.50's and that'll be perfect for autocross. I also have a set of 2.75 gears I will be transplanting into another center for daily driving. I will be keeping my TH350 so the highway gears will help get the fuel mileage up there without overdrive. A third center with 4.10s would be nice for the drag strip, but that's on the back burner for now.

I suppose for a 5.3 that I will be setting up for somewhere around 400 hp at the flywheel a 9" is a bit overkill but the potential of a 5.3 with a pair of hairdryers on the exhaust is pretty intriguing. That'll have to wait until after I graduate but is on the future plans. By then I should be able to afford a larger cube motor too so hp options are wide open, no pun intended, lol!

 

[SRD art]

Here's another great score. Through my research I found that 82-90 something Camaros have a direct swap sway bar with G-bodys. There are currently two Camaros of that vintage in the yard so I checked both. One Camaro's bar was smaller than the wagon's stock 1" bar. The other was a '90 RS with a V8, and when I looked under it again the big grin spread wide as It had a 36mm (1 3/8") bar on it. Score for $15! I can probably order a larger aftermarket bar but I'd rather use this one for now and spend the cost savings elsewhere. I also grabbed some firewall to radiator support bars from a '75 El Camino (long ones in the photo) and from an '84 Regal I grabbed the radiator opening support bars (thin ones in the photo). I also grabbed a power steering cooler from a '96 Caddy.