favorate previous gen. year

whats everyone favorate years before 73?

i like all of them but favotates are a 69 chevelle ss396 and 1970 chevelle ss 454 LS6 red with black interior and 71 MonteCarlo but needs a crate big block and 500+hp

first 70 chevelle....duh......then 67 SS. Im trying to find a 70 4dr hardtop to build

1972 Monte Carlo



Cort | 35swm | "Mr Monte Carlo"."Mr Road Trip" | pig valve.pacemaker ...RT 66 drive = Sept '09
WRMNshowcase.legos.HO.models.MCs.RTs.CHD = http://www.chevyasylum.com/cort
"Can you make folks feel what you feel inside?" ... David Allen Coe ... 'The Ride'

Favorite previous gen? Any A-body? My top 5 favorites:

1. 70 Chevelle (My 1st car)
2. 65 F85 (Base model Cutlass - ultimate sleeper)
3. 71-72 Cutlass S (not those ugly Supremes!)
4. 70 GSX (Dare to be different - quickest non-COPO A-body)
5. 67 Chevelle (Neighbor had a 10 second one when I was growing up. Had a 396, Muncie 4 speed, & tunnel ram)

Least favorites?

Well I never cared for Pontiac's styling, 69 GTOs weren't bad but have you ever seen a first gen Grand Prix?

I also don't really like the 68-69 Chevelles. The styling is too bland for me.

67 Olds Cutlass/442
67 Chevelle
70 Cutlass
70 Skylark/GS

Not just in that order

40 442

Rago wrote: 69 GTOs weren't bad but have you ever seen a first gen Grand Prix?

ASK AND YEE SHALL RECEIVE YOUR GRAN PRIX I LIKE IT BUT THATS ME

[url=https://servimg.com/view/12689273/172]

All 2nd-gen A bodies look the same, so they're all pretty good looking.
It sounds weird, but I kinda like the Acadian Beaumont myself.

Limey aka Maligoon wrote:

Rago wrote: 69 GTOs weren't bad but have you ever seen a first gen Grand Prix?

ASK AND YEE SHALL RECEIVE YOUR GRAN PRIX I LIKE IT BUT THATS ME

[url=https://servimg.com/view/12689273/172]

damn nice car

Learned to drive in moms 71 GS 455 very cool
1st car 71 elcamino nice
of course the bad biscayne is awsome
had 67 chevelle SS
65 nova v8

What year is that? I thought 71-72s were the first years? This is the one I'm talking about:



The one you posted doesn't look bad, but the one that I posted looks like someone just started throwing spare parts together to make this atrocity.

i think it was a 68 GP from the window tag, maybe a 67 it did have the 8 lug rims if that helps out to determine the year


i still like them as well ................but i like the cars NO ONE else does LOL

The first GP was a 62 (very nice car) that black one withthe 8 lugs is a 68 also a very nice car . They are al very nice until FWD then its hit and miss
mostly miss.

OK... but if the first one was in 62 that means they must have been built on another chassis until ??? That early model looks strikingly similar to an Impala

When did they start using the A-body chassis?

They were built on a shortened full size chassis till 68 then they switched
to the a body in 69. If you get a chance buy the book Glory Days by Jim Wangers.He marketed the GTO and was in the industry in the good old days and talks all about the success of the Grand Prix. Which is now no longer being made do to the dumb asses that run GM today .

I like them all. Especially the '64 and '65 A-body cars. Back in '78 when I was in the service, I had a '65 GTO ragtop. A real beater, but lots of fun. The car was driven out to California from New London, Connecticut by a sub sailor. It was so rusty from the winter road salt back East that the frame had stress corrosion cracks and a hole rusted in the rear bumper. I could open the driver's side door and stand on the door sill and bounce a little...... And literally watch the body flex so badly that I could see the gap in the passenger side door jamb move around! Had dreams of putting a rust free frame under the goat and restoring the body. But before I could do that, the car was tee-boned on the passenger side and totalled.

You can't see the body damage from the wreck in this photo, but here is my ragtop being hauled away to the wreckers.......



I pulled the low mileage '74 400 Pontiac engine and original '65 Muncie 4-speed before junking what was left of the goat and swapped them into a rust free '56 Chevy 2dr sedan body along with a '69 SS 396 Camaro 12-bolt posi rearend. Built up the engine a bit as well. Ran great.

Sub pier, San Diego, 1978.....



On the road leading to the WW II gun emplacements and the old Point Loma lighthouse, 1979......







Happy Motoring,

Harry

thats a time less look for these cars harry my buddy has this one here in town, but do i spy 3 carbs under that one ??

Gotta be the 1962-1965 Chevy II Novas. Great lightweight cars, may look like a box but great cars. I have owned quite an assortment over the years and liked them all. I even had one make a movie debut once (Lakota Woman) my 4-door was in that one, they rented it from me for a month for the shoot.

1964 Chevelle.

Sweet ride, Hydro!

Happy Motoring,

Harry

Laguna Budman wrote:Gotta be the 1962-1965 Chevy II Novas......

The early Chevy IIs are great little cars, Budman. Lots of guys prefer the '66 - '67 body style, but like yourself, I prefer the more square lines of the '62 - '65 deuces best. In the mid-'70s, I had a '63 sport coupe and in the mid-'80s a '63 4dr sedan and a '65 wagon. The '63s were stock. The '65, I grafted and welded the front 3/4 of a '78 Malibu frame into. The Malibu frame went all the way back to the metal plates at the front spring mounts. Fit like a glove. That allowed me to cut back the spring towers, weld 1/8" flat plate in to replace them and swap in a 28" wide 500 Caddy mill. Also gave me better steering, disc brakes and stiffened the unibody structure. As you may imagine, traction was problematic.

Best regards,

Harry

Limey aka Maligoon wrote:thats a time less look for these cars harry my buddy has this one here in town, but do i spy 3 carbs under that one ??

That's a righteous '55 your buddy has there, Limey! The rally wheels really set it off. What's under the hood?

Yeah, hard to believe it was 30 years, two wives, 5 sons and 3 grandkids ago when I souped up the Poncho mill and swapped it into my '56 Chevy. Wonder where the time went.......



I've got a thing for multiple carbs, Limey. This was a hand built setup I pieced together aboard ship in my spare time and I built the car at the auto hobby shop on base when we were in port. Worked out well, though. The '56 evolved over time. The photo below shows the 400 Poncho mill on the hoist just before I dropped it into my '56 Chevy. I kept the 12,000 mile short block stock except for adding a 286 degree Sig Erson hydraulic cam, Isky anti-pump up lifters and double sprocket timing chain. I replaced the smog heads with a set of '69 Pontiac 428 cop car heads. These had smaller chambers to boost compression and the big ports and valves. Installed Erson valve springs matched to cam and located a set of Dorman replacement rocker arm nuts that allowed valves to be adjusted like a Chevy. This engine was a tight fit in the Chevy engine compartment. I scrounged a set of '68 Firebird right hand center dump exhaust manifolds and ran the right hand manifolds on both sides. Most of these had smallish 2" outlets, but I got lucky and found a pair of them with 2-1/4" outlets. Increased to 2-1/2" right after the flange and ran 2-1/2" duals with Dodge hemi mufflers. Note Ansen 'cast steel' safety bellhousing and M-21 Muncie tranny......



The next photo shows the 400 Pontiac engine in the '56 Chevy right after I fired it up for the first time to break in the cam. Initially, I ran the '69 cop car Q-jet and moved the original 3-core heavy duty '56 radiator forward to the '6-cylinder' position to allow for the longer engine and OEM '74 clutch fan. Note OEM Pontiac chrome valve covers and '65 GTO power brake booster and master cylinder......



Tried every trick in the book, but couldn't keep the big Poncho cool. Finally had a huge crossflow radiator built at a radiator shop utilizing Grand Prix side tanks and a 36" wide 4-tube desert cooler core and added a combination of Pontiac and sheetmetal fanshrouding that I built for the Chevy...... Problem solved. Even had to replace the 160 degree thermostat with a hotter 180 degree to get the engine up to operating temperature

The last photo shows the engine after I installed the hand built Holley tri-power induction. I took a 1966 Pontiac tri-power cast-iron intake and adapted a set of new Dodge 440 6-pak carbs. These were the high performance carbs sold over the counter at MOPAR dealers back in the '70s. They were similar to AAR Cuda carbs in that they had the short square fuel bowls and the end carbs were mechanically actuated and had metering plates like the secondaries on double pumper 4bbl carbs. These were totally unlike the vacuum secondary carbs now available from MOPAR and they ran a lot better, too. To adapt them, I found a piece of scrap 1" thick aluminum plate and cut it down on a band saw to size. Then I laid out the holes and drilled the 12 holes that aligned with the Rochester bolt pattern of the manifold. I countersunk these and used stainless steel countersunk machine screws to fasten the plate to the iron intake. Next, I laid out the 12 holes for the wider Holley bolt pattern and drilled and tapped them. Then I laid out the 6 holes for the larger Holley throttle bores and drilled them using progressively larger bits and carefully drilling down through both the aluminum plate and the cast-iron carb mounting flanges below so that there was no mismatch, only smooth throttle bore openings beneath the Holley carbs.

Between the Holley carb base plates and the aluminum plate, I sandwiched 3 Ford 2bbl water heated/cooled carb base plates. I plumbed water from the front of the intake manifold through all 3 and from the last back to the heater core. The passenger side head of the Pontiac engine had a fitting pressed into the back of the head (coolant passage) that had a 90 degree bend and hose connection. I fitted a short piece of heater hose to this and connected it to the remaining heater core connection. This did wonders for drivability and cleaned up the top of the engine as well, eliminating the long run of heater hose that originally ran from the front of the engine all the way back to the firewall.

I adapted the OEM Pontiac mechanical progressive throttle linkage to the Holley carbs. It is painted red and you can make it out in the photos. The air cleaner is hand made. The oval filter element is from a 1970 Datsun 240Z. I made an aluminum base plate with 3 short 'D'-shaped pieces to raise it high enough above the carbs so that it wouldn't block the fuel bowl vents. It is sealed to the carb air inlets using rubber 'O'rings stretched over the 'D'-shaped air horns. The top piece is made from brushed stainless steel.

Ran great and jetting was right on. The only problem I ran into was fuel starvation when I kicked in the secondary (end) carbs. In the photos, you will note that I initially ran the fuel line in thickwall 3/8" OD stainless tubing. What I had to do is to remove that and fab a fuel log similar to those used in the early '60s OEM Ford 406 Holley tri-power setups. I built it from a piece of 1" OD stainless steel pipe. Capped the ends and drilled the front for a stainless 3/8" pipe nipple (supply) and drilled the sides for 3 (3/8") pipe nipples (aligned towards the carbs and connected to the fuel inlets with fuel hose and hose clamps). I welded all 4 pipe nipples in place and made up 2 stainless tabs with 3/8" diameter holes. These held the fuel log in place outboard of the carbs pretty much in line with the restrictive stainless tubing I had removed.

After this was installed, I pulled the gas tank and installed a new 3/8" fuel pickup and sending unit for a '57 Chevy dual 4bbl engine and replaced the original 5/16" fuel line with new 3/8" tubing from the tank to the fuel pump. I retained the OEM Pontiac mechanical fuel pump and along with the larger 3/8" fuel line and the added volume of the fuel log, no more problems with fuel starvation.

Note taller Mickey Thompson aluminum valve covers. These were a tight fit, but they just cleared the GTO power brake booster and firewall mounted battery box in my '56 Chevy......



Of yeah, one last thing. I was running a 3.73 posi rear along with a 2.20 low gear (close ratio gearset) in the Muncie tranny. With the lumpy cam, you'd think that this gearing would be just right. But the big Pontiac mill made so much low end torque that unless you were getting started from a dead stop up an incline or racing, 1st gear was nearly useless and either you took off in 2nd gear on level ground or short-shifted from 1st into 2nd right after taking off. So I swapped in a 3.07 highway gear and that worked out just right. Yes, contrary to all that I've been taught, but the big Poncho loved it even with the cam. Out on the road, if you eased into the throttle, you could run up to 90 MPH on the center 2bbl before the end carbs began to tip in. Top speed was around 138 MPH. Mileage on the open road cruising on level ground at 70 - 75 MPH in high gear was 18.5 MPG.

Happy Motoring,

Harry

That is very interesting and informative, Harry. Thanks for posting. JB

Thanks, JB. Didn't mean to go on for so long, but thought I'd give enough detail so that if anyone wanted to build their own similar tri-power setup, this might give them some ideas. The limiting factor with 3 deuces is usually the intake manifold design. If you take a close look at the aftermarket tri-power intakes available for small block Chevy engines now of days, they have small ports, tight bends in the port runners and don't provide even fuel distribution. The OEM Pontiac intakes were a much better design, though. Both the tri-power and the 4bbl intakes. The OEM cast-iron 4bbl intake performed as well or better than aftermarket aluminum intakes of the era. And the tri-power was even better. I'd put them up against any of the newer intakes available today as well.

The only real drawback was weight. The OEM Pontiac cast-iron intakes were a high rise design and what Edelbrock calls 'air gap' now of days, as if that's new. So they were quite heavy, even with the separate sheetmetal valley cover. Much more so than a cast-iron intake for a Chevy, for instance.

When Edelbrock came out with their new high rise air gap dual 4bbl intake for small block Chevys a while back, I called them to see if they were going to make a similar updated performance oriented tri-power intake. But they had no plans to do so. Probably because they make the Carter AFB clone 4bbl carbs and don't make 2bbl primary and secondary carbs suitable to a tri-power installation. So little incentive for them sales wise, I suppose.

I may pick up one of their new high rise dual quad intakes and modify it to accept tri-power carbs one of these days, though. That would be great fun. And I believe it would put to rest the notion some folks have that a modern 4bbl will always make more power than even a correctly set up and jetted tri-power. If you have the flow and jetting right on the money, the key to unlocking performance is in the manifolding. For if you have a tri-power manifold that provides correct port cross section and flow, gradual bends and carb placement providing a nearly straight shot down the head ports (resulting in better fuel distribution than a single 4bbl intake), a correctly set up tri-power setup will generally pick up around 5% more power on top end over a dialed in single 4bbl setup on the same engine simply through better efficiency.

Happy Motoring,

Harry

I was under the impression that they had a complete Tri Power set up for a Chevy on one of their crate motors and available seperately. Maybe you should check again to see if they have, or will have, one for you. JB