Gearing Swap

Changing the rear end - Son (red shirt) measures backlash on new Richmond 4.11 gears (changed from 3.55 factory set-up). Lucky me, son's friend (left) has pole barn and hoist. We never got back to the track this summer with the new gearing, but on the chasis dyno we tested very close to running out of motor with M-21, and the cam signing off at 6,000.

Inside the trunk

Painting inside the trunk - Putting on the splatter paint. Later the son talks me into hiding a few amplifiers in here to power the speakers he wanted.

Interior Resto

During the resto - After the underbody and frame work, suspension, motor, body and paint finished, we moved into the interior. Wiring was done, and we're getting ready to install weather stripping.

Back from second build-up and dyno session

Son (far left) and friends help get 'er out of the pick-up. Can't wait to get it back in the car!

Wake up the neighborhood

Toga People at the dyno session! True story: My gorgeous 396 and heders on the dyno at the shop, run to 4 inch pipe and out the wall to the outside - unmuffled ... the shop is in an industrial part of town, but there's a local bar 1/4 mile away and was having a Toga party ... these guys heard the full-pulls in the bar (10:00 pm) and ran down to see the session .. they were pretty loaded :)

Dyno Days

After full resto and driving it for one summer we pulled the motor during Michigan winter, found scarred main and rod-end bearings, had it blue printed, balanced, bored, new cam, and new pistons, and then dyno'd. We were also pulling oil through the Perfromer RPM manifold and threw on new Eddie gasket. Here's son fiddling after break-in on the dyno. We're making 400 HP with this set-up and Lunati cam we have in it now. It's running about 10.1 compression.

Motor

The business end of things :). ... and about 13 months into the resto. We'd just painted it and set the carb on for pics. Orginal everything, factory rods, pistons, steel crank, heads, but we set aside other original parts and swapped the cam, manifold, headers ('course), carb and HEI. Getting ready to drop it in. Son's hairy knee on the far left - couldn't have done it without him :