The Bronze Brick a Very Unusual 9C1

[vanrah]

Greetings Guys; Well I sure enjoy corresponding with you guys a bunch & my for sale post wasn't keeping that path open any longer as it doesn't show on the home page any more. So in my quest to just jaw bone in general about my car or yours requires a new type of thread. Or if I can help with a question about my car or yours, this will be where I'll hang out. And I will be repeating myself some for those that have read all or much of my FS post, I apologize in advance. I would like to Thank the people that made & keep this site up & running.
The 35 + year history of the automobile previously known as the Brown Brick. One of the things I do best now is “Take up space & use up time”. So that being said lets start with the build sheet & the oldest picture. Snapped in August of 79, check out the cop center only hub caps & no trim around the rim slots. This was in all likely hood the second or third fastest – best handling car of the day (1979). That sure isn't say'in much is it! The L-48 & L-82 in the Vette were more powerful & that's all I can think of. Ford, Chrysler had nothing that I remember with a better power to weight ratio? Bob Jr.

 

[kustomkyle]

What was the original engine exactly?

 

[vanrah]

Click on the build sheet, I ordered the LM 1 (JOKE) 350 inch police engine. Same one you could get in a wagon or with the high altitude package if you checked the correct box. It was the worse SBC I ever owned and only got 13 to 17 MPG. Thanks for ask'in, Bob Jr.

 

[kustomkyle]

Click on the build sheet, I ordered the LM 1 (JOKE) 350 inch police engine. Same one you could get in a wagon or with the high altitude package if you checked the correct box. It was the worse SBC I ever owned and only got 13 to 17 MPG. Thanks for ask'in, Bob Jr.

Sounds like that would be the 170hp version? I drive a later D-body (full size) besides the Regal, and it has the 180hp 350. Really isn't bad at all, since the torque rating is right at 300ft/lb, but then again TBI and a 4 speed auto probably help quite a bit in the power and economy departments. I think the little things GM did at the time to get as much out of the smogged engines was sort of neat. But in reality, someone can build a hot rod small block now that can run cleaner, be more efficient and produce 2-3 times the power all on 87 octane now.

 

[vanrah]

Good Morning kustomkyle & all; I got the window sticker filed away safe & I'm too lazy to dig it out. But I'm pretty sure that you are correct about the HP # & I had forgotten the torque output. I ordered it with posi traction, so when new it would only chirp the rear tires. Then I put the first set of after market tires 215/60-15's (Pirelli cn36) on & it had more traction than power. I've been working on that problem ever since. And that created a new problem, NO traction on the street even with DOT drag radials at 45-50 MPH, they spin. I'm now full time driver for my dad (92 soon) as he quit driving last week. Later Bob Jr.

 

[vanrah]

Greetings Guys; In life you meet people and make new friends, some are helpful and others. At the time a very good buddy owned a plating facility. Thanks to Mike (who has a big heart) I have some chrome under the hood. If it don't go chrome it! He ground the flashing off the GM brackets & put a very nice coating on them. We also painted the Hooker (mid to cat) headers per VHT directions, you need a BIG oven. So after all that prep work the paint stayed on 3 years instead of 2. We did them again, same result. Mike was doing some anodizing, I had just purchased the Western 10 spoke wheels. If you have ever had or have polished aluminum wheels, usually once is enough! Anyway we dyed them bronze then anodized them. That didn't work out on the first attempt. So we striped them & I polished the machined rim finish smooth. Re dye & re anodize & 35 years later they still look pretty good (not perfect). After all this work (?) the car is still a Slug. Ok I put a modestly profiled cam, Performer intake & quicker curve in the distributor with the headers & true duals. Lesson learned don't bother trying to soup up an OE Stock 8.5 compression engine. Yes it was quicker than most (all OE stock) cars of the day. I raced a kid with a 85 SS Monte, he though it was fast, for a can of soda. And he didn't want to pay off (maybe he knew he would be buying), I had to embarrass him in front his friends to get my soda. It was a sad time for performance cars. Seldom finding a street contest. Times had changed, previous to 1971 you would get challenged at stop lights everyday. And now the traffic density is just too high most of the time, but the young guys got factory hot rods again. Bob Jr.
PS: Note the finned aluminum drum & Wilwood aluminum caliper, mass is not our friend.

 

[vanrah]

Greetings; I got a head of myself, 83 recession took my job (Parker Pen) gone. So to keep from going nuts (nuttier), knowing that my car is a joke. Comparing to the cars I had in the 60's something serious will have to be done. But with no job the new engine will take a while. Note if I haven't bored you to death, over on the Chicago Holden Connection I'm posting Holden's Hot Rods. The path goes back to 1961 when the affliction was strengthened within me. That's another story! A co worker had purchased a early 70's wagon with a 400 sb, he wanted the transmission & other stuff and offered me the engine if I helped. Reflecting I bought the pizza & beer too. So I started by porting the heads, as I had done it for a living 15 years earlier. You can't spend money while your grinding & it takes a LOT of time. A year & a half later I got a job, went back to drafting. Not many guys were building 406 inch sb's yet & off the shelf pistons were few & far between. TRW was a common name, available, but way heavy & not inexpensive at the time. Plus to balance the engine would require mallory metal. $100 per oz & I could need 2 ozs or more? Keep in mind that I'm discarding OE cast pistons & adding .030” diameter to the cylinders. Forged pistons are denser (stronger) hence heaver. Had I put that engine together it would have been OK, but. So the machinist – builder recommended custom pistons from JE, the lightest forged units with shortened pin bosses, even less weight. We also ordered the shorter tapper wall tool steel pins. In the mean time I had ground all the excess flashing off the rod beams, most of the weight pads & equalized both ends (balanced). I had acquired 11 rods 5.7” out of some truck engines (higher nickel content). Of course re-sized the big end with new bolts, add oil hole & honed small end for floating pins. The JE pistons & pins are perfectly equal right out of the box, rods are lightened & equalized. We weigh the stuff and send the crank out to be balanced. So the balance guy calls back 3 times, he won't balance it, the bob weight #'s are wrong, TOO light. His comment “ these bob weight #'s are less than a stock 350, they got to be wrong for a 406 incher”? The machinist assures him that those #'s are correct, balance the damn thing! Now that I'm no longer a kid that wants to over cam everything (been their done that) I error ed to the soft side with a after market version of the 327 inch 350 HP cam. 454” lift, 222 degrees @ .050”. And yes it was not as much cam single as the engine could of used, it was done at 5800-5900 RPM. Maybe 370 HP with around 400 + Lbs of torque. So early in 1985 I replaced the OE 350 inch LM-1 joke with some real TORQUE. Bob Jr.
Ps: Piston picture is 10 years later 1995 when I had them coated.

 

[vanrah]

Greetings Guys; One of our fellow members (Quinn) was so kind to e-mail me this, so I just had to share it. I sent you an e-mail, but may of screwed it up (computer challenged) Thanks again Quinn.
Bob, Here's a small treasure for your Brown Brick documentation. It's a Car and Driver review of the 9C1 police package.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/1979-Chevrolet- ... 34&vxp=mtr

My reply "Ask yourself this question, “ how many guys knew that you could order this thing with 2 doors”? Let alone that it even existed? After reading this issue & those particular pages more times than I could ever count. I ordered the Brick shortly there after, March 1st if memory serves. OK Guys I got the inventory updated & my guesstimate last spring was very close, so I'll be posting an up date over on the for sale thread soon. That forces me to go into the file & add the past 18 months of receipts to other 34 years of receipts. And If I remember I'll pull out the window sticker & add it to the book. The book doesn't have any receipts in it, just information about the car & the hundreds of parts. Let me ask you guys this question, "how many new PPV's have you seen NOT being driven by cops of fire cheifs?" I only know of ONE (he lives North of Madison) & he traveled to the South East to get it. He had found a dealership down their that had ordered it (red) for the fire chief & the city didn't take it for some reason. The dealership had sat on it for a year & a half, was paying interest on it and could NOT sell it to the public. But finely GM relented and let the dealership sell it. 9C1's are hard to get new. Bob Jr.

 

[vanrah]

Greetings; Since it would have been costly & unbalance the car (Big Block) I knew that attaining the power levels of the late 60's would be tough to achieve. At this time 1984-5 my reference point (established during the late 60's) of a hi performance car was a 3500 Lbs or less, Big Block with 11 to 1 +++ compression, a solid lifter cam & rectangle port heads. Who among us can afford an aluminum big block then or now? So my unstated goal was to be quicker than any new factory car and that was easy to attain. One of my best buddies purchased a new 1987 Buick Turbo “T” Type for his wife! Yes it was quick for the day, and keep in mind it was bone stock. It was 1988-89 before many guys started modifying them (Buick turbos) and super rare if you came across someone that had got into the computer. That didn't really happen until the late 90's, so generally speaking most Buick (even hot-rodded) weren't really that quick until every hot rodder got a lap top computer (you pick a date). My 406 was a serious hot rod for the day (1985-94), I don't remember anyone out accelerating me from a stop light. Even a distance friend with a new 4 cam vette didn't want to test it against the Bronze Brick. I think it would have been a close race if he had tak'in up challenge. At the close of summer 1994 I had put 28,000 miles on this package, the valve springs were tired. I was making the best money I had ever made. So I told the wife the valve springs were shot & I needed new heads, I didn't mention that you could buy springs separately! Now I can get serious. Next I will get into the 2nd 406" I built during 1994-5. I'll be copying some of that info from the for sale post. By the way I just up-dated & lowered the price. Bob Jr.
PS: These heads are coming soon. Note the port work, previous to 5 axis machining, now readily available.

 

[Blake442]

Love the car, but put the chrome bumpers back on.