The 1969 Firebird Is Back & Gets a Body Make-Over

The bird's back for more of our rectification project. Plus a heads up street car showdown where an outlaw races toward revenge.

Hey, welcome again to the horsepower shop. So you remember our 69 Firebird project car we introduced a few weeks ago, right?

Well, here it is. Uh just about everything but the original frame and body that is a

few weeks ago, Mike tore into it, literally stripping out all the interior and exterior pieces. Plus he removed everything remotely related to that tired old stock 350 engine.

There was also a problem we had to address before sending the bird off to the paint shop

and that was a trunk full of rust in the pan area.

After cutting out the problem area with a buzz saw, I used a new pan from year one to cut out a new trunk floor.

Then I tacked it into place before filling it with more weld. Then the Pontiac was ready for paint.

A little body shop in rural Tennessee is the home of hillbilly graphics where Gary Lambert and his team transformed. Timeless muscle cars

that often come in looking like this.

If the concourse beauties like this

on any given day, Gary's shop has classics waiting for new life like this Chevelle Ss

or this 57 T bird that's been in one family for 40 years. A lot of good memories in this car and

it's gonna be up to us to

make the car match the memories.

Meanwhile, our Firebirds been fully prepped primed and ready for paint.

Finally, they mix the new line of PB G vibrant silver paint and start spraying on several layers before it's clear coating.

The hood graphics are Gary's specialty and he's got a good concept to make this car stand out from the crowd.

What we're gonna do

is we're gonna start off with a dominant purple

and then they'll kindly ghost into

some silvery looking checkers

where the car will actually look like it's moving set and still.

Now the engine bay has even got a nice new coat of black paint. So that 474 motor is gonna look great sitting in there

the hood. Well, Gary is still working on the graphics for it and we'll get it back soon. Meanwhile, you gotta love that new PPG silver paint color. I'm telling you, I think this was a great choice for our classic 69 Firebird, don't you? Oh, yeah. And the next thing we're gonna do is make this Firebird look just

as good on bottom as it does on top. Check this out. It's called lizard skin ceramic insulation. Now, while it was developed back in the late nineties for street rotters, it's now being used on all types of vehicles to help protect and seal the surfaces. Plus it'll greatly reduce road noise and heat transfer inside the car. The best part, if you have a small compressor at home, you can do this in your garage or driveway.

We first need to complete stripping it out by removing the stocker in.

Then we can use paper and tape to protect the areas we don't want to cover.

Then after making sure all the surfaces are clean and dry,

we're ready to mix the lizard skin until it's nice and smooth.

You can use an attachable cup or in our case, run a hose directly from the spray gun to the bucket.

Now you're ready to spray it on about 6 to 8 inches from the surface. Now, in some cases, you might want to use two coats

and as you can see, there's virtually no overspray.

Now, that's a pretty cool concept. And while it dries pretty quickly, you

wanna give it about 24 hours in case you're gonna do any sanding or refinishing. Meanwhile, it's a good thing. We got four buckets of that stuff because we're far from finished.

You see, now it's time to add some heat and noise protection to the interior like they never gave these cars back in 69.

By the way, the guns nozzle, it's adjustable from 60 to 100 P si,

the more pressure, the finer the spray pattern.

Finally, we finish up by covering the trunk area, which is going to look a lot better than brand new.

Well, this coat dries, we're gonna take a real short break. Meanwhile, when we come back, we'll move those parts from the floor to the firebird. Don't you go away?

Man. This thing turned out nice, didn't it?

Yeah. I thought lizard had green skin though.

Hey, we're back. And so is the Firebird after a gorgeous paint job and lizard skin inside and underneath. Now it's time to bolt up some parts starting out back. Of course. Now, I guess we could have rebuilt this stock rear end, but no way is it gonna

handle the torque of that new Pontiac engine we built?

What we are gonna use is this Curry crate nine rear end. It's based on the old Ford nine inch, but with all new components

and it's got the correct GM bracket welded on. Now, we ordered ours with a 390 gear ratio to help that Firebird launch pretty hard out of the hole

before we install it though. We're gonna bolt up a pair of hots

lease springs that come with these isolators on top and bottom

and we'll hold them in place with the original brackets. Now up front, we're using stock rubber bushings for a quiet ride

and some of their heavy duty shackles with polyurethane bushings out back

to prevent deflections.

Here. Again, we're using some of the old stock pieces like these original front spring breaks

with the rear end finally bolted in. We're also using our stock shock mounts to install our new Billstein gas shocks.

We decided to order our crate

and rear end with larger 31 supply and

a

but to make everything work, we had to have the flashes machine here and the inside of our 13 inch rotor hats to make everything fit.

Hey, here's something pretty cool that bear brakes offers. It's a slotted two piece caliber bracket that doubles as a retainer for the axle to keep it solidly inside the rear end housing.

Now, with our Bear rotors seated in place, we're ready for the calibers and they're a single piston design with the built in E brake assembly.

Well, next up something that's a little new for us and definitely new for that firebird since it didn't come from the factory with a rear sway bar.

We got that one from Hotchkiss

along with this installation kit that we're gonna need to make sure we install everything properly.

It mounts to the rear end in this location. Now, what it'll do is eliminate any body roll away from the axle and it'll keep the inside tire planted during hard cornering.

After greasing the bushings slide them onto the sway bar and attach the bracket,

then attach the dog bone and links to the inside of the sway bar with the supply hardware,

attach the frame bracket to the other end of the end link,

then loosely mount the sway bar to the rear end with the supplied U bolts and raise the end link and bracket to the bottom of the car

and mark your holes.

Then using the reinforcement plates from the kit

mark can drill two more holes to the inside.

Of

course, you have to go inside the car to install these reinforcement plates which requires removing the back seat. These things are especially important because they keep the body from bending or cracking during extreme force

finally tighten down the brackets

and the sway bar installation is complete and I gotta say this is one fine looking rear inside up. Now with our brake lines run, we're just about done under here. With one exception, we gotta have a fuel supply for that big Pontiac Motor Virus.

Obviously, we're not cutting any corners with making our Pontiac semi show quality and that includes this direct replacement tank from Rick's Hot Rod Shop. Now, this thing is hand crafted from high grade stainless and all the seams have been tig welded. Plus it comes with the high flow air motive fuel pump and pre filter. Now, in case you ever need to change the filter or service the pump, it comes with this panel for easy access

man. This thing looks really good, too bad. It's gonna get beat up underneath the car. It's almost too pretty. Now. It even comes with stainless straps and hardware to make the installation really simple.

Yeah, with this, we're definitely done out back and we'll get busy on the front of the Firebird.

Well, you guessed it right after the break.

Hey, welcome back to today's round of rectification on this 69 Firebird here, a project we're handling for the guys at Royal Purple, of course. And

in case you just joined us, what do you say? We rode the recap. We sent the bland blue birds with the good old boys at hillbilly graphics. We first thoroughly prepped it

before we were spraying it with a brand new line of PPG silver paint.

Then owner Gary Lambert got busy giving the hood some graphics a lot of purple. Of course,

back in the shop, Mike and I used a lizard skin process to coat the undercarriage

the car's interior and even the truck,

we loaded a new curry crate nine rear end with Hotchkiss

leaf springs before voting them under the car

and we added a bear brake rotor and caliper setup

for stability. We've

fed up a rear sway bar

and finally slammed in a new fuel tank from Rick's Hot Rod.

Now it's time to install some new pieces to the front end starting with springs and shocks. Now, the springs are 3 to 4 inches shorter than the originals and that will give us the ride height we're looking for. They've also got larger coils to give us a stiffer spring rate.

The shocks. Well, they're built by Bill Stein to Hotchkiss

specs,

we are reusing the stock a arms and spindles since they're in pretty good shape. No sense, throwing money at new parts when you don't need them. But we are adding a new shorter bump stop

to compensate for that lower ride hike,

sway bar can go in next. And this new one also comes from Hotchkis.

It's quite a bit stronger

and thicker than the stock. When we remove

next, the new bear brakes starting with the caliper bracket. Now, we're also using 13 inch rotors up front. They use this aluminum bearing hub. Now, this thing is gonna make change in the rotors a lot easier and less expensive.

We're also using 13 inch cross drilled and slotted rotors up front

along with four piston calipers for better clamping force.

The last couple of steps for today are to install our brake lines

followed by the proportioning valve. Now, we're mounting ours right here on the driver's side frame rail to give the driver easier access to it rather than it being mounted underneath the hood. Now, what it does is allow you to change brake bias from the front to the rear.

Well, no doubt today, we've come a long way toward making this bird a cool show and go street machine,

not a frame off, but maybe the closest thing to it. Now,

next time you see it, we'll fill that hole with our monster 474 after the break time for heads up racing where a desperate outlaw is out to kill the competition on his way to a championship.

You know, you got to love NSC A drag racing. These events attract real world grassroots racers guys who race everything from sinister six second Pro Streeters

to those cool and classy nostalgia cars

like the ones in pro

nostalgia

heads

up all power class that attracts the likes of Charlie Westcott s mid eight monster called the War.

It's a camo covered coa

that's won about every battle of the Corte

NSC a season

and this is just one of several glasses of fast cars with the racing's heads up and the competition

and down

t

and behind every car. There's a story like the father's son team here in hopes of a first elusive win and series title in outlaw pro street.

Veteran racer. Camp Stanley turned the wheel of his supercharged Camaro over to his son John in 2004.

Now working as his crew chief, he heads a team that's very much a competitive family.

The crew guys with the exception of Jimmy all grew up with John, they all grew up in the neighborhood, they stayed at my house when they were all kids and they've all graduated into great young men.

He does all the tune

ups.

He's the brains behind the whole operation, you know, without him, the gears wouldn't turn.

There's only one thing missing a first place performance and a national outlaw championship

in seven years. I have never won one of these races.

We have been into the final about 85 bazillion times, but I have never won one for years. This outlaw class was ruled by the almost unbeatable mark

d'antoni.

Well, second place is the first loser. I look at it. We've been in over a dozen finals

and something seemed to go wrong and we just couldn't get the win

this weekend though. Fate could quickly change

d'antoni's out of the series this year and a strong showing during the finals of a Saturday makeup race could cinch a title

but again, bad luck bites the Stanley team

when their tourney breaks during an elimination run against Dave Earhart.

After intense thrashing in the pits, the broken transit out

and old spare is in and John's barely ready for the first round of the second weekend race.

If we win the first round, the championship will be assured

and then we'll just go on from there and hopefully we can win this one.

Something won't fall off the car again.

This time, John runs a 658 to cinch that ever elusive first championship.

Thank you all for coming. Bringing us great, great luck. I appreciate it.

Knocked the sprag

out of the transmission in the link

between rounds. We swapped out transmission, put our reliable four speed back in. It

went out and one a 658 to 16. Next round John slide off the line but manages to chase down his opponent to stay in the hunt for that first taste of victory.

There you go.

Needless to say stuff happens in drag racing, whether it's a surprise nitrous fire

or even a wheel breaking off during a launch

or in the Stanley's case

on the way to the finals.

Was it a belt?

Well, surely by now, the seven year curse is haunting the state.

Got any advice for this kid,

kill her,

get her done

and get her done. He does with a whole shot at a 667 at 209 miles an hour. Finally, the big win and it is almost worth the win.

It's been a long hard road. It took us seven years to win a race in this organization

and we won a championship and a race all on the same day. It's been a while

better than this. Finally finally won a race,

all part of my team.

You get it back here, Jimmy,

my girlfriend, Tracy, Tommy Scotty Axel, my dad.

You know, everybody

makes me feel proud as any proud papa could ever be.

Hey, don't you wish you could troubleshoot problems in your engine without tearing it apart.

Well, in some cases, you can, with one of these pro vision fiber optic tools,

it uses a high resolution lens with a light on the end of the tube

and allows you to see objects

as close as three quarters of an inch away.

You can even use a video camera with it if you want to.

Now, with this obedient sleeve over the tube, well,

the tube stays in place so you free up a hand to do some work.

If you see yourself working with one of these provisions, gonna have to free up about 450 bucks from your bank account.

There's a ton of bolt ons for the hot new Mustang GT

and here's one we found that'll feed a lot more air to the 4.6 L V8.

It's an air intake system from Air aid that uses modular ventura technology

and the heat isolated high flow air filter to generate an extra 18 horsepower without the use of an aftermarket programmer. Now, of course, with electronic tuning, it'll help complement aftermarket cylinder heads cam shafts and exhaust for even more horsepower. The best part, it won't raid your wallet with a price at just under 300 bucks.

Well, that's it for hot parts and the show we're getting our butts out of here.