Project: Royal Bird Building a 474 cid Pontiac

What would you do if somebody said, find me a classic muscle car, keep the timeless looks, but give it the most modern horse power it can handle on the street.

Well, that's our challenge on today's horse power. And it all begins with this 1969 Pontiac Firebird.

And what a challenge when the folks at Royal Purple issued it. Well, Mike and I said, bring it on especially since they're paying.

But why start with a firebird? You might ask.

Well, the answer is why not

back in the mid mid 60 s when the Beatles were invading America,

a pony war was being waged on its streets

first with a Mustang in 1964.

Then the Chevrolet Camaro in 67

and last but not least the Pontiac Firebird just five months later the same year.

Sure.

It used the same chassis and many body parts as its cousin the Camaro,

but with its split grill beet hood and GTO style taillights, this bird had a distinctive look of its own

and the biggest difference was under the hood with five engine options

including the 400 V8 making 325 horses.

The Firebirds story hit a major milestone with the advent of the Trans Am in 1969

and there were many more milestones to come.

Despite the end of production in 2001,

the Firebird Legacy lives on

as a platform for power that continues to make it a winner on the street.

And at the finish line

after a long search, we found this California bird for a pretty good price with hardly any rust. Now, we also hired a professional inspector to go out and take a look at it, which is pretty important too.

You want to start out with the best foundation you can afford that way. You'll spend a lot less time and money turning into a show worth a pavement pound.

Of course, any car this o is gonna need a lot of help in here. So we're going to bring the interior back to the original look while modernizing everything from the suspension to the drive tray.

Then what to do about this? Tired 03 50

in keeping with our name, we want the most horsepower in here as we can plan on the pavement. So our first step, a trip to the home of the Gurus of Pontiac Power,

whether it's a high performance part or a complete engine assembly, it's all about Pontiacs here at this family business. And according to the young man in charge, the trend now is to build a ride that's somewhere between a show car and an all out racer,

uh, all around car. I guess you'd call it. They want it to handle, they want to be able to drive it on the street. They want to take it to the drag strip and run it.

Now, check out the foundation for our 60 nines power package. A lightweight all aluminum block now offered by Butler

in partnership with All pontiac.com.

And while we're here, we'll get an eagle rotating assembly after the crank shaft gets fully balanced, the whole assembly gets blue printed a

process, the butlers and system

and we don't do an engine without it. We don't offer that as a, a service. That's the only way we'll assemble an engine, whether it be um street engine for the driver,

um or for a 2800 horsepower race engine.

What we're doing here is checking our main bearing clearance, which is part of the blueprinting process to make sure our tolerances are exactly where they need to be.

We're gonna install our A RP fasteners

torque the mains down to 100 ft pounds

and then we'll use a dial board gate to check our clearances.

You wanna pull them down into the recess evenly,

get both sides snugged up

and then go to the final torch.

You wanna make sure you get plenty of a RP Molly Loe between the bolt head and the washer to overcome the friction point.

So when the bolt tightens, you get the proper torque on it.

Right now, I'm gonna make the crank shaft.

I'm checking to see if it's the proper size

and it is.

So now I'm gonna clamp the mic

in this little mic holder.

We're going to set the dial board gauge to the exact diameter of the crank shaft.

I

want to check the

clearance

vertically. I'm also gonna check it diagonally to make sure that the main cap is centered on the block.

As you can see the gauge is reading about 2.5 1000 which is right where we want it to be,

that one's about 27,

24,

gonna check every cylinder to make sure that it has

about 5000 clearance

to check the rod clearances. Rodney bikes, the crank journals

installs bearings in both the connecting rods and caps, then tightens them to 65 ft pounds before again using the gauge to see how they match up. A rod clearance is

27

which is 2007 10th, almost 8/10

which is good for a rod.

Finally, a quick check to ensure we've got just enough in play on the crank and this part of the blueprinting process is done.

That's good.

We had Edelbrock

send a set of bare performer R PM heads to butler to get them ported and port match to the intake

here, Rodney is honing the valve guides for proper clearance

before cutting the seats to match their three angle valve job all designed for better.

Finally, a set of comp cams, Beehive springs are installed for rock solid reliability. Valve train harmonics are uh

just detrimental to engine performance wise and durability both

and that's what these valve strings do. A great, great job of taking care of. Another feature of the Beehive style valve spring

is the use of a small retainer which is much less weight again, much easier on the valve spring promotes longer valve train life.

Next, it's our turn in the horsepower shop as we finish building a potent Pontiac for our 1969 firebird.

Hey, welcome back to horse power and our newest project, the 69 Firebird that we're turning into a high performance show and go ride for Royal Purple.

Now, in case you just joined us, we've teamed up with Butler performance to build an all aluminum 474 cubic inch motor for the Pontiac and it all starts with this block. Now, since the crank clearances have all been checked, we can drop in our rotating assembly that is after I installed this two piece in seal from bop engineering.

After looping the bearings and crank journals, we can drop in the crank shaft,

then install displayed main caps

with a RP boats using some of their Molly Loe.

There are three settings for torque here to deal with

95 on these inside studs. 85 on the outer displayed bolts and 115 on these larger in bolts.

Now, we can assemble the Eagle rods and Ross pistons. Now, the rods are forged 4340 H beam. They're about 100 g lighter than stock and longer to reduce stress at high revs

the pistons. Well, they're lighter than stock also by 200 g. They have deep valve pockets so we can run any cam shaft.

And here's a tip for you by deering the piston right here, which is a hot spot. You greatly reduce the risk of detonation.

The rod and piston is held together with this wrist pin

which is secured by double spiral locks.

Next, we can install our total seal ring sets which have already been filed, fit for proper ring gap.

And finally, with the bearings in place,

we can send the pistons home in the cylinders

and torque the caps to 63 ft pounds.

The cam shaft we're using that. Our 474 Pontiac is a hydraulic roller from comp for plenty of power with no maintenance. Now, it's a split pattern

with 573 on the intake, 594 on the exhaust side.

That may seem like a lot of lift for a street cam, but shouldn't be any problem considering the rest of the valve train we're using specially those Beehive springs that Dave installed earlier.

Our timing changes, a double roller from butler performance with a bronze bushing to reduce friction on the billet cam gear.

Now comes with a nine keyway crank sprocket for plenty of timing adjustment,

advanced or retarded.

Now, it's important to move the cam forward away from the cam plug

while you tap this thing in place.

Greening, the cam is a fairly complicated process of checking and moving if needed, the intake lobe center line

that helps dictate the torque curve of the engine.

After finding the center line and doing some math, we check our number against the one on the cam card.

We're off by a few degrees, so we'll correct it by advancing the cam gear one key way.

Now, here's something pretty cool. GM. No longer makes the original timing cover for the Pontiac. So Am's performance now makes a die cast of the original, which is a big hit for the engine builders and restoration guys

always use an I CS on your bolts that are screwing into aluminum blocks.

And before we move on to the oiling system, here's a big little detail. A lot of machine shops even overlook

this internal oil galley plug here has to be installed before the outer plugs.

Otherwise you'll have no oil pressure and have to remove the engine or trans to fix it.

We're planning on making about 550 horsepower with this motor. So a high volume oil pump is a necessity. We're using this one for milling which flows at about 60 P si but thanks to some shimming back at butler's and now flows 70 which is more than enough.

We've already installed this Midon

oil pan that has a seven quart capacity thanks to the side kick out, which also gives a good ground clearance. And we're also using one of the matching pickups. And the last thing for the oiling system

is this oil pump shaft, which we'll install. When we turn the motor over. Later on,

we now some freeze plugs and since our blocks made of aluminum, which can expand,

we're gonna go with some of these screw in aluminum freeze plugs that were developed by Butler and all Pontiac. That way, we reduce the chance of a leak that we could get from a traditional press in plug.

Right now, time for our sponsors to get in a plug or two. We'll be back to attack the top end of our Firebird motor though, after the break.

Hey, thanks for sticking with us. We're today in the shop. We're building a replacement for this Firebirds tire o basically stock 350

well, we're well on our way to building an all aluminum 474 cubic inch motor that ought to easily make 550 horse power. In fact, now we're ready for the Edelbrock Pontiac performer heads.

Now earlier on, we had them ported at Butler performance before they got a stout set of Comp Beehive springs.

By the way, these heads have valves that measure in at 211 on the intake side 166 on the exhaust inside an 87 cc combustion chamber.

That'll give us a 10 to 1 compression ratio on good old 91 octane pump gas.

We're sealing the heads to the block with a set of these comic gaskets. Now, these things are as strong as copper without the notorious water leaks.

But

for the rest of the valve train, we're using these hydraulic roller lifters,

high tech push rods

and roller rockers also from comp cams to do things right though, make sure to blow out the rollers to free up any debris.

Make sure to lube them with plenty of assembly lube before installing them,

then drop in the push rods

and install the rockers which have a 1.65 ratio

to adjust the valves. We're going a quarter turn past the zero lash.

The lifters we're using are taller than stock. So the stock Valley pan won't clear.

So we got this one from Butler Performance that's been CNC machine and rolled with the right curvature to clear.

It also has a location for the stock P CV valve. If you need it.

Our intake manifold is also an

Neal Brock up a former RPM that's been polished and port match for maximum air flow before we drop it in though, we also got some gaskets that have been port matched to prevent any possible air obstruction.

Well, next comes the car. It's an

Nero Thunder Series A vs that flows 800 CFM

that A BS stands for adjustable valve secondaries.

This one's got electric choke plus the best thing is it's a direct bolton for our intake manifold.

Well, red, it, let's drop on these aluminum valve covers have been specially designed to clear the Pontiac brake booster and AC unit.

Remember the oil pump shaft we didn't install earlier. Well, now's the time right before the distributor,

we're using this pro billet distributor from MS D. Now we've already changed the curve to reach full advance at around 2600 RPM.

And we've changed the distributor gear from steel to this polymer one that will hold up during those higher RPM. S

this harmonic balancer we're using comes from pioneer and it comes with timing marks, unlike the stock Pontiac balancers

for the water pump, we're using this one. We got from

Midon

along with this backing plate we got from Ames's performance. Now, this thing is made of stainless steel, unlike the original, which is prone to corrosion

before we install it. These sleeves work with the pump set up to create pressure to circulate water through the engine.

Hard to believe it. But we are almost finished putting together this uh shiny and potent Pontiac engine. You know, I'm kind of proud after all the Fords and Chevys, there's been a lot to learn, put together to the same.

All that's left is the accessory drive. We'll bolt that up and fill you in on our future plans for that 69 bird right after the break

next week, a history making edition of horsepower when we take on the dirt slinging heart pounding world of modified circle track racing,

join us as we start to build up on our own. I MC A style race car joining one of America's fastest growing motor sports.

Just kidding. But here's what really happened so far on horsepower. Today,

we got a blue printed and machine aluminum block from Butler performance. Finished it up here with a forged eagle crank, installed a cop cams valve train

and turned to Edelbrock for the heads, the performer intake and 800 CFM car.

The last thing to go on is this March accessory drive which will help us mount our alternator, power steering pump and ac compressor. Now the bracket tree is made out of true billet. So it'll help complement our all aluminum set up and we're using this reliable serpentine belt that'll reduce drag on our accessories and free up some extra horsepower.

March makes these for a variety of GM applications as well as Fords and M parts. Best of all they come with under dry pulleys which results in improved cooling by speeding up the water flow

to cap off our 474. How about this cool chrome air cleaner from Barry Grant? We showed you recently

before we can drop the new motor in for the old one, we'll strip out everything under the car, we'll strip out the interior

and continue our upgrades until we have ourselves a classic modified muscle machine that's dedicated to pounding pavement, no trailer queens coming out of this shot

horsepower TV S hot parts. A look at the latest performance innovations from the automotive aftermarket.

We're all about Pontiacs on today's show and here's a high performance head from pontiac.com for serious race ready power. It's called the Tiger head and it's made to work with aftermarket blocks like the ones from butler.

You can get them in the stock location, exhaust port or a raise port version.

And they come bare

with guides and seats or fully assembled with manly components and the Jessel shaft rocker system,

either way you go, you get 400 plus CFM flow right out of the box with prices starting at 2400 bucks.

Oh, I know it's supposed to go in the crank case, but I was just seeing how much motor oil this new disposable pad from Mr gasket would contain. And

so far about a half quart,

they call these things fluid zaps and therefore any kind of leaks or spills from antifreeze to break fluid.

They have this polypropylene backing that prevents hot or cold liquids from leaking or melting through. And of course, when you're done,

just wad it up, throw it away and your shop floor stays clean.

Well, it's about time for us to clean up the tools and put them away. We'll be back with more horsepower next week and hope you are too.