G-body Cutlas G-machine

Discussion in 'Station Wagon Projects' started by SRD art, Jun 16, 2011.

  1. SRD art

    SRD art Auto Art Guru

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    Hey guys, just wanted to start a thread of my project. Meet "The Pumkinator", my 1979 Olds Cutlass Cruiser that I picked up about 5 years ago. After a bit of tweaking and wrenching I've been daily driving it as my business hauler since that time, and decided recently it's time for a major overhaulin'. Hope you enjoy, as usual any comments/suggestions land on open ears...

    Here's the car right after purchasing.

    [​IMG]

    Factory Options-
    140 hp 305 Chevy V8
    TH250
    2.41 gears in the 7.5" rear
    Rally gauge pack, no tach
    Olds Rally wheels
    Rear air deflector
    Light Blue vinyl interior
    8-track AM/FM stereo (still works!)

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    The car ran terrible, had absolutely no power despite the 305 had been rebuilt about 36,000 miles prior. The previous owner's wife bumping a truck in the snow sealed it's fate, and for $300 I drove it home.

    First order of business after getting it home was pull out the G-tech. A whopping 21.79 @ 59 mph! The 0-60 time didn't even have a chance to register! :sick:

    Checked the timing and found it WAAAAAAY retarded, in every sense of the word. Bumped it up and magically I felt some ponies again. Checked the carb and saw that the factory Q-jet's choke had been paper-clip wired open. Noticed in the process of doing that they blocked the secondaries from opening! :doh: Fixed that and with no other changes, the second G-tech run yielded an 18.67 at 74 mph. This is at 4500ft altitude up here in the Rockies, so I figured this was good enough to drive for the time being.

    Next on the list was new front end to pass our state's safety inspection. After a few days of searching I found a '78 Cutlass Cruiser in a farmer's field just a few miles from my place. Body was rusty, interior was hammered, but it had a transplanted Chevy 350/TH350 and a good front nose section. The guy told me they quit driving it because the trans was slipping. "How much you want for it?" I asked, "Oh... I'll take $75." Wasn't long before it was on a tow dolly on the way home. I Installed a battery and some gas in the carb and it fired right up! Ran o.k. but was clearly a high mile motor. Pulled and sold it, kept the trans as a core, and yanked the front clip and every other usable part off it before hauling it to the wrecking yard. Got a bunch of parts and made $300 cash off it, not a bad deal.

    [​IMG]
     
  2. SRD art

    SRD art Auto Art Guru

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    After a couple months the TH250 started having issues so next in order was a new trans and some hp upgrades. I picked up a decent used TH350 from a friend and pulled a small block 406 from storage that I used to have in my Suburban. It had about 60,000 miles on the rebuild-

    Stock 400 bottom end with ARP rod bolts
    .030 8.7:1 eutectic pistons
    Factory 400 smogger heads
    Crane 266 cam, lifters, springs
    Ebrock Performer and 750 Q-jet.

    I swapped the cam for a Comp XE268 and the Performer for a Proform air gap dual plane intake and painted it GM corporate blue before slipping it and the TH350 with a stock converter into the engine bay.

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    Not a tremendous hp killer but it made decent torque and was a great daily driver motor. I installed it with Hedman shorty headers and a 3" single exhaust through a Flowmaster 40 series. On the dyno it made a little bit disappointing 221 hp and 282 ft lbs. The a/f ratio was pretty rich at the time and I think the altitude, low compression and junk heads were limiting it quite a bit.



    Taking it to the track it ran pretty consistent 15.70's at 87mph. Consistent enough for me to win first place in points for the year in the Club Racing Series street tire class at Rocky Mountain Raceway. Overall our Utah Muscle Car Association club took 2nd place in street tire class. (Way to go boys!) My 60ft times were 2.4s, limited by the grandpa gears and stock converter. I've learned to live with it as it puts down 21 mpg highway without overdrive, but that's all changing soon.
     
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  3. chevygod

    chevygod Well-Known Member

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    Cool, love G-body cars. Need to dig thru my parts and see if I have any bits for it.

    Tom
     
  4. MotoMike

    MotoMike Well-Known Member

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    Very resourceful! Welcome to the forum. :Welcome:
     
  5. SRD art

    SRD art Auto Art Guru

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    After about a year of driving it was developing a bad case of loose front suspension and it was also time for a cosmetic upgrade. I picked up new ball joints, tie rod ends and a 12:1 ratio AGR steering box.

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    I also scored a set of Trans Am GTA wheels off ebay for a great price and after a little rattle can semi-gloss black effort threw on a set of 225-50 and 255-50-16 BFG G-Force Sport tires. Because of the funky F-body offsets, I had to put the rear wheels on the front of the car with a 3/4" spacer and extended studs and the front wheels on the back.

    Photo from the ebay ad.

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    While I was in there I cut the factory springs to get a feel for the look of it lowered, and added a little more rattle can semi-gloss to hide some paint chips on the lower panels and hood. Here's the end result. It's dropped about 3" out back and almost 4" up front.

    [​IMG]

    Last summer I got a taste of road course and autocross when I attended an open track "Wide Open Wednesday" at Miller Motorsports Park in Tooele, UT. I ran the autocross several times and the road course once. Unfortunately part way through the run on the road course unknown to me a valve spring cracked. Luckily the valve got stuck in the guide and it wasn't until I got in the pits at idle the valve let go and tagged a piston. Fortunately I shut it down fast enough that all it did was scuff the carbon on the piston and bent the valve slightly. No major damage to the short block. Whew! Time for a refreshing! That about gets us caught up on the car's history.

    Here are some video links-

    You can see in these how I used some vinyl dye and changed the dash to black from light blue. Also covered the fakie wood grain with brushed aluminum vinyl.

    1st try at the road course. Only got to run one lap because of troubles with the car. First off I had just installed a new Hurst ratchet shifter for the TH350 earlier that day and it wasn't quite adjusted right. You can hear in the video a couple unexpected downshifts into 1st instead of 2nd at curves and a couple times it went from 1st to 3rd. Then the cracked valve spring thing happened. When I get into the pits at the end you can hear a pretty gnarly tapping of the rocker on the stuck valve. While it was idling and I was trying to figure it out the valve dropped but I was able to shut it down before any major damage to the short block. The wind was blowing on the camera so don't turn the sound too high.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZMAOQV3ZDZA

    Next video was my first attempt at autocross. Kind of a wimpy course but a good way to get my feet wet. This was like my 4th or 5th run of the day. This was after pulling the 400 and putting the factory 305 back in with a Crane 266 cam and the rest of the bolt-ons from the 400. It's pretty slow off the line but gets going eventually. ;)

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7TXeM3lGHek

    Next is the same day from outside the car with a no sound digital camera. Woohoo! Look at the rear body roll near the end of the course. Needed a rear sway bar pretty bad at the time.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3RkY8CWtYhU
     
  6. jmt455

    jmt455 Well-Known Member

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    Love it!
    What are your suspension plans?

    Keep the updates coming.
     
  7. SRD art

    SRD art Auto Art Guru

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    Great! Let me know if you have any spare parts laying around, there are a few things I could use. :tiphat:

    I'll be covering suspension in detail in some upcoming posts. In a nutshell here's what I'm shooting for...

    Front- Tubular uper arms, boxed GM lowers. 2" drop spindles and 1" drop 700# springs. Not sure on a sway bar yet. LS1 F-body 12" brake swap. 255-40-17's on 17x9.5 wheels.

    Rear- 9" Ford with boxed control arms and a watts link. 200# lowered springs. Not sure on the sway bar yet. Frame notched and mini-tubbed to fit 315-35-17s on 17x11 wheels.
     
  8. hutch57

    hutch57 New Member

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    This reminds me of when I found mine. It had been under a tree for 8 years with the back seat folded down and beans drying in it (they turned to powder when touched). Seeing as how I am a bit long in the teeth the chevy guages had to go (couldn't see 'em) by the way of a Pontiac Grand Prix dash, I can read these puppies! Easy swap but in 78-79 models you will need Pontiac door panels.
     
    Last edited: Jul 17, 2011
  9. SRD art

    SRD art Auto Art Guru

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    Sounds like quite the find Hutch!

    I should probably intro myself a little here. I've grown up around muscle cars and drag racing and started drawing cars after I read my first "Cartoons" mag around age 12. After some time in automotive retail I got out and put my artistic skills to work and became a graphic designer. When the economy tanked the company I was working for went into the toilet and I found myself along with about 1.7 billion other graphic designers looking for work, a real joke to even get a foot in the door for an interview. At that point I started pushing my side business, Street Rod Designs, to keep $ coming in. In the process of drawing cars of course I've drawn mine. The wagon has gone through 3 different styling changes, but I think I'm finally pretty well sold on the last.

    This first concept quick sketch was a pretty simple idea based on the mid 80's Hurst/Olds Cutlass. 17" Torque Thrusts and a low stance made it shout a bit.

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    After a while of looking at it I felt the wagon needed a look that was a little less overdone and a little more aggressive. I really like this style stripe and a med-dark charcoal grey with some carbon fiber accents. I liked this theme but this stripe seemed like it had been done several times and I felt some flash was missing.

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    During this time of exploring ideas for the wagon I finally gave up on the graphic design gig and felt it was time to get back to my roots and passion for employment. After a lot of research in schools I decided to attend a "Collision Repair, Street Rod Emphasis" program at a Utah Valley University, only about 20 miles from where I live. Turns out the street rod instructor Cris Bogges and his program have been called by many "the best in the west". I talked with him several times before deciding to hit the books again, and had no idea about his reputation until I started asking around. A real down to earth humble guy with mad fabricating skills.

    Since I needed a project to work on at school and the wagon needed a facelift things fell right into place. Ultimately I'd like to work in a shop building killer pro-touring and low-rod style machines so this car is the perfect practice project. Although the grey wagon theme was cool I figured I needed something a little more loud for two reasons- 1. to draw attention to my side business and design skills and 2. to catch the attention of shop owners/ possible employers after graduation. I've always dug the look of old school Mercs and such with a satin sheen but I don't like to see newer cars painted entirely that way. To me it looks a little too much like it isn't finished, just my opinion. Gotta have at least some shiny paint on a nice pro-touring car so I combined the two ideas. I narrowed it down to two colors, new Camaro green and Avalanche orange.

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    After comparing them the orange stuck and the name Pumkinator seemed a natural. In this rendering I kept details fairly simple, I just wanted to compare colors.

    [​IMG]

    This is the base art for the car, more concept sketches coming soon...
     
  10. SRD art

    SRD art Auto Art Guru

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    Hey all, I have a lot to update on my wagon project but for some reason I can only post one post at a time and have to wait for it to be approved or something each time. To make it faster to get caught up here's a link to where I'm at with the car. I'll post a notice each time I update so you guys can click on the link and see what's new... Thanks for your interest!

    http://gbodyforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=25&t=29235
     
  11. SRD art

    SRD art Auto Art Guru

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    Updated today. Finished stripping interior and doors.
     

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