Grandpa, The More Door Driver & Auto Crosser

[SRD art]

Hey everyone I'm at it again. Some of you that have been around for a bit know about my Pumkinator 1979 Cutlass station wagon, build in my signature below. A LOT has happened to that car between the drop off of the build thread and now, I'll cover that and pick up on the build thread as I get back to it later in the year. In a nutshell it's gravitating more towards street driven autocross wagon race car than as it was as my daily driver.

Working at Speedtech Performance put me in a position to really learn a lot about suspension and making a car handle. Seeing F & A bodies regularly at work made me really want to see the G-bodies follow suit. After working there for 5 years I felt it was time for me to finally get back to pursue my dream of being self employed so I quit and ramped up my side business of Street Rod Designs to full time status. Things have been great so far, I'm way busier than I expected, but unfortunately that put all of my projects and garage time on hold for a couple years. I've been getting the itch real bad simply to have an old G-body as a daily driver so I bought Bruiserville, a 1986 Pontiac Bonneville, for $500. I rescued it from a local demo derby classifieds ad, and thought that was going to be the one. Realistically tho' it's really worn out and in need of a total complete rebuild. Build thread coming soon when I get going on it.

 

[SRD art]

Bruiserville and the hunt for an interior led me to Grandpa. I recently came across a for sale ad on Marketplace from a fellow in a city about an hour and a half drive from me for this 1984 Cutlass 4 door. I thought it would make a great parts car for both my wagon and Bruiserville, so I headed north to pick it up. Upon seeing it I thought, "Man, I can't hack this thing up! All it needs is a little lovin's and this could be a fantastic daily driver." These pics were taken where it's been sitting for 3 years since an accident with a fence in the snow. Click for a larger view.

All my builds seem to snowball outta control so for once I found something I could probably fix and have on the road in 4-6 weeks instead of 4-6 years, lol. Since Pumkinator will be pretty hardcore, as the younger crowd might call it "Stage 3", Bruiserville is now shifted to the temporary back burner to be built up as a "Stage 2" street/ autocross car. Since I need to replace some suspension parts anyway that leaves Grandpa to be the perfect "Stage 1" build- a great daily cruiser with several more basic and "less expensive" upgrades to improve driving performance, bringing it into the entry level Pro Touring G-body realm.

When I first built Pumk, I kinda skipped stage one and went straight to stage 2 anyway, so I'm really excited to illustrate how the parts I'm adding will affect handling over the stock set up. Along with that, since I built Pumk and then getting involved in several Facebook G-body groups I've been asked a lot of questions about suspension. One that keeps reoccurring is, "How do I make my car handle better without spending $4,000?". I've put together a list of items for this build that's perfect for those "I'm just getting my feet wet." guys and will be doing a step by build thread here to refer them to. A lot of this may be second nature for many on this forum, so like Pumkinator's build thread I'll try to make it as interesting as possible for following along.

 

[SRD art]

First thing I do for any build is draw it. I gotta work out the vision, and seeing it on my computer desktop or as a print on the wall keeps me focused and motivated. Incorporated is some left over parts from other projects of mine, I'll go into detail as the build rolls along.

I'm using fenders, a hood and front header from 3 different cars so I really need to paint this to make it look like semi normal. Since this is a quickie and cheapie build, I'm going to do the Q & C method I used on Pumk and rattle can it. If you take your time and use common automotive paint techniques this can actually be a decent, semi temporary and super cheap route to go. Rustoleum will provide the paint in shades of satin moss green and semi-gloss black. I will likely stick with this paint scheme later on but using 1979 Code 44, GM Medium Green Poly and black. I haven't decided yet if I'll stick with a satin or gloss sheen for the black. I like the contrast and added design element of two different sheens, but then I also like cruising at night and seeing the reflection of lights and such in the hood, I think that's kind cool.

 

[SRD art]

Next step in the build is to assess the damage and wear on the car:

• Besdies a few small dings the body is pretty straight other than it obviously needs a complete front clip. I think the fenders and aluminum hood can be worked, but to be quicker I'm borrowing parts off other cars for now. I I'm also borrowing a front header so I'll need one for this car. I like the 2-headlight noses, either wagon or coupe, so if any of you has one they want to part with let me know!
• Structural crash damage appears to be nothing more than a bent wheel and left lower control arm, ... as far as I can tell so far. I plan to replace the entire front suspension just to be safe. Frame rails look OK at first inspection, the alignment rack will tell the truth later on. The bumper and header look like they took most of the fence fight.
• Interior is near perfect, like seriously. The back seat looks like it was hardly ever used. Front seat and panels have some sun fading but are in great shape otherwise. More on this when I get to it.
• Drivetrain is a 307 Olds backed by a Th200 and 2.14 rear gears. Can you get any more Grandpa than that? They key here is that it has (almost acceptable) 80's V8 torque, and currently has only 75,048 original miles on it. It starts right up every time, the choke actually works, it's all stock/unhacked, still holds 40 lbs of oil pressure at idle even when warmed up to temp, and besides a very slight misfire at idle it runs great! At this point as painful as it is I'm going to refrain from performance parts right now and just do an oil change, basic tune up, add a performance muffler for a better tone, and a K&N filter I have on the shelf for a little better breathing. Surprising for me I'll cruise like a grandpa and drive it stock for a while.

Click the pics for a larger view.

 

[SRD art]

Next step was put together a parts list. A lot of these parts I already have, I'll indicate throughout the thread what I bought new.

Phase 1:

Suspension-
Both sides stock upper and lower control arms from a solid donor car
Poly bushings & bumpers
Tall upper and lower ball joints
Tie rod ends, aluminum adjuster sleeves, centerlink and idler arm
Moog front 5662 springs
Eibach rear drop springs
Bilstein shocks
34 mm 3rd Gen Camaro front sway bar
F-41 G-body rear sway bar

Engine-
Tune up stuff
14x4 K&N filter
Remove the cat, it's apparently at least partially plugged (no emissions testing where I live)
Replace the grandpa muffler with a Flowmaster Hushpower II

Wheels and tires-
Daily- 16x8 GTA wheels with BFG Sport Comp 255-50-16s
Race- 17x9.5 MBs with Falken 615 275-40-17s

Interior-
Stereo upgrade, details coming soon
5 pt harness on the driver's side and harness belt hoop bar

Body and quick and cheap paint

Phase 2: (Again I already have most of this but it won't happen until after Pumkinator is back on the track)

Chevy Vortec crate 350
ZZ4 Cam
Edelbrock Performer RPM intake
650 Holley
Headers
3" single exhaust
Warmed over 2004R trans
Aftermarket 7.5 posi center and likely 3.42 gears
A real paint job

There may be more I'll add along the way but that's the plan for the most part.

 

[SRD art]

This whole car thing for me is all about having fun. For each of my project cars I have a name and a mascot. To follow suit my very first purchase for Grandpa was it's mascot. I love Grandpa Carl's expression and it fits perfectly for the demeanor of this grandpa car-L.

I plan to debut the car at the Good Guys in Salt Lake City, UT in May 2021, where I'll be autocrossing it to see how well just the basic suspension upgrades fare. Should be a good time. More coming soon!

Here's my Funko POP mascots for Pumkinator, Bruiserville and Grandpa, lol.

 

[SRD art]

I've got almost all the parts in for the car now, all the way down to some cool Dr. Oldsmobile stickers. I'll show everything with the cost as I go along.

I'm working on a rendering of a client's 1st gen Camaro build today, like what I draw for a majority of my clients it's a Pro Touring build. I had a funny thought while drawing the wheels- I'm pretty sure I'm going to build the entire Grandpa car for less than the cost of 1 Forgeline wheel. If I count the couple of new parts I stole from the bins for my other future projects, plus if I count the used parts from other projects I'm recyling onto this car, such as the GTA wheels and BFG tires converted as though I bought them new, I think the entire build might be just barely more than 2 Forgeline wheels, LOL. I think being cheap, er, thrifty, and seeing how low of a budget I can build a car on and still keep up with $50K+ builds in coolness factor as well as handling performance is almost more fun than racing itself.

Here's Norman's '67 Camaro rendering. It'll be a pretty wicked ride when it's done. ...

 

[Tony1968]

Love this idea!!!! I'm in

 

[SRD art]

Drag racing initial test flight!

Last evening my son Roman and I took out Bruiser and Grandpa to the old abandoned small airport in our town for some drag race action. Despite being an oil burning factory Bruiserville has some decent torque and can do mean burnouts or donuts with ease. Grandpa can't break the tire loose in a standing burnout and can barely spin the tire in a donut situation. I was piloting Grandpa but my money was on Bruiser laying it down. We ran two runs. I let Roman do the countdown so he had the jump advantage. First run Grandpa caught and passed Bruiser in 1st gear. I had between 2-3 car lengths by the end of the 1/4. 2nd run Bruiser was smoking worse than it has ever before and choked off the line, (I think the timing chain has some gnarly wear, timing is all over the place) so I stopped to let him get it going again. He nailed the throttle and got by me a car length but by the top of 1st gear I was out front and pulling away. In the end the low mileage 307 backed by 2.14 gears is faster than the worn out 305 with 2.41 gears. Needless to say we both had a blast racing each other,

The sad news? Sea Level Altitude corrected G-tech time for Grandpa was 19.47 @ 69.5 mph (20.02 actual). That's like almost blisteringly fast. Pumkinator's original 305 in stock form ran actual 18.70s at RMR raceway in Salt Lake City at 4500 ft altitude, near 1.5 full seconds faster. Point is this 307 is SLOW! ... like a grandpa with a walker slow, lol. I plan to do a tune up, advance the timing, K&N filter and open up exhaust flow a bit. Either way for now it's not going to win any drag races, unless it's against another worn out G-body or maybe someone on a bicycle.

For more This Vs. That shenanigans check out Hoonigan's Youtube channel "This Vs, That" series.

 

[GuysMonteSS]

Drag racing initial test flight!

View attachment 171732

Last evening my son Roman and I took out Bruiser and Grandpa to the old abandoned small airport in our town for some drag race action. Despite being an oil burning factory Bruiserville has some decent torque and can do mean burnouts or donuts with ease. Grandpa can't break the tire loose in a standing burnout and can barely spin the tire in a donut situation. I was piloting Grandpa but my money was on Bruiser laying it down. We ran two runs. I let Roman do the countdown so he had the jump advantage. First run Grandpa caught and passed Bruiser in 1st gear. I had between 2-3 car lengths by the end of the 1/4. 2nd run Bruiser was smoking worse than it has ever before and choked off the line, (I think the timing chain has some gnarly wear, timing is all over the place) so I stopped to let him get it going again. He nailed the throttle and got by me a car length but by the top of 1st gear I was out front and pulling away. In the end the low mileage 307 backed by 2.14 gears is faster than the worn out 305 with 2.41 gears. Needless to say we both had a blast racing each other,

The sad news? Sea Level Altitude corrected G-tech time for Grandpa was 19.47 @ 69.5 mph (20.02 actual). That's like almost blisteringly fast. Pumkinator's original 305 in stock form ran actual 18.70s at RMR raceway in Salt Lake City at 4500 ft latitude, near 1.5 full seconds faster. Point is this 307 is SLOW! ... like a grandpa with a walker slow, lol. I plan to do a tune up, advance the timing, K&N filter and open up exhaust flow a bit. Either way for now it's not going to win any drag races, unless it's against another worn out G-body or maybe someone on a bicycle.

For more This Vs. That shenanigans check out Hoonigan's Youtube channel "This Vs, That" series.

I bet that a gear change would make a huge difference in bottom end punch.
Guy