A Muscle Car in the Air

Hey, welcome to the horsepower shop. Looks like you and the 71 goat got here just in time.

We like anything that's old and fast in here and well, this Proud Pontiac sure fits the bill. Yeah, this one has it all plus a little more. A friend of ours found it a couple of years ago and it's the only one made with red paint on the outside, tan interior on the inside and a tan top that's now been changed over to white.

I guess that's why it was the only one

with a 300 horse, 400 cubic inch motor under the hood. The GTO is known for plenty of speed

but with a weak coil over suspension under the body

not known for cutting corners. That's why we think that air ride can make a big difference. Now, granted, there's still skeptics out there who think that

air bags are only for slamming show cars down to the ground.

But we've been to several test sessions where professional circle track drivers were made believers after driving stock and air ride equipped cars back to back on a real road court.

Really amazing that uh the corner, the stability

and the control you had with a car. Well, since a ride is worth 1000 words, I just made a test drive to see how the stock GTO handles out on the open road

and it only took a few quick lane changes to fill the body roll. Wow. This old goat handles and drives really well for a car that's over 37 years old. But now we're going to take it to a private drive and really test it on some sharper corners

even at fairly slow speeds, cutting corners in this old car was a little tricky and the steering response was sloppy at best.

This GTO also has stock brakes, drums in the back, disc brakes up front.

How well do they bring this goat to a halt?

Lots of room for improvement here too.

Well, here's how we plan to give that old GTO, a new age suspension.

It's a street challenge package from air ride that includes upper and lower strong arms,

9100 rolling sleeve bags with double adjustable shocks

and a muscle bar, rear way bar.

Now, all this goes up front, more strong arms, upper and lower,

double adjustable shock waves and a sway bar for the front. Now, we also ordered these drop spindles from fat man fabrications that are actually two inches taller for better camera game.

But the car up on the left, we need to remove the front wheels

followed by the shocks,

then the sway bar

springs,

then the spindle

and finally the front control arms.

And with this upper, out of the way, we can start putting on the new stuff, beginning with this lower strong arm.

Now, here's a cool feature of both it and the upper at ball joints with corrected angles. So there won't be binding at a lower right height.

We're only going to both these down loosely for now, we'll tighten them down when the whole system's in place.

Hey, before moving on to the shock wave, here's one of the most important steps in the installation

and that's clear in the spring cup on the frame. Otherwise you'd have metal rubbing on this rubber air spring

after cutting away the metal, be sure to smooth out the edges

and apply some paint to prevent rust.

Well, now we can install an air fitting on the shock wave

and with an airline attached both the air spring in place

with the adjustable knobs facing outward.

This upper strong arm comes with an additional caster for better handling.

And after it's installed, we can both up the spindle,

obviously handling and steering, go hand in hand. Now, the GTO came from the factory with a 17 to 1 steering ratio.

So we picked up this box from Mabel manufacturing that'll change that to 12 to 1.

Now that means fewer turns, lock to lock and more responsive handling when hitting the corners. Now, the box comes ready to bolt in even includes a new rag joint.

After removing the stock steering box,

we can install the new rag joint,

attach the box to the frame rail,

hook up the power steering lines.

And with that done, we can bolt up the new sway bar

and the end links to complete the front suspension.

Hey, we'll show you how to fine tune the shockwave air springs. Once we get the level pro compressor system installed and before we move on to the rear suspension, we've got a little plan to make this GTO stop as well as it goes. So make sure you stick with us.

Welcome back to horsepower where this classy 71 GTO is getting a new age air ride suspension.

In fact, Mike and I just finished up front here.

Well, almost that is as you see, we got another upgrade that's gonna help bring this old goat to a halt.

This super light brake kit from Wildwood is designed as a complete assembly for non A BS front spinal applications. Now, you don't have to be a brake expert to see how this 13 inch vined rotor is going to stop

and cool better than this small diameter oe

we bolted ours up to this lightweight hat

that's designed to work with this forg billet aluminum hub.

Now, the calipers are a six piston design with staggered sizes and that's all about applying pressure in a way that adds life to the pads. Oh, by the way, our kit comes with these Polymatrix pads that are pretty well known for resistance to fading.

We'll get started by installing this caliper mounting bracket to the spindle using lock tide on the boat.

Well, next with a hat safety wired to the rotor and this hub installed with a seal, we can slip the assembly over the spindle.

Then with this inter bearing cone packed with grease, we could slide it into place before we tighten everything down.

But now we can bolt up our caliber to the bracket we just installed.

Here's something cool the pads installed by removing a screw and sleeve from the middle

and dropping the pad in from the top.

Now, with the fitting installed on the back of the caliper, we can run a braided line from it

over to the stock brake line.

I just got done removing the stock suspension which includes a sway bar, upper and lower control arms spring shocks, brake assemblies, not to mention the actual shafts. Now, we're going to get the upgrade started with these new strong arm upper control arms. Now, they're obviously a lot stronger in the factories and they've been designed to correct the drive line angle even at the lower ride height.

Next, the lower arms.

And after uniquely extending the airbags,

we can put them into place and install them using top and bottom retainer plates.

Then the double adjustable rear shocks

followed by the muscle bar, rear sway bar

for a rear brake upgrade. We're gonna use another W wood kit and this was specially designed for rear drum conversions. First thing to go on is this bracket kit with a built in parking brake assembly

and it goes right on the axle flange

using the factory bolts.

Then we can slide the axle back in.

The. Next thing to go on is the caliber bracket and supplies spacer. Then with a hat bolted on, we can install the new rotor which like up front is 13 inches in diameter. The calibers out back are a four piston billet super light

that use metallic composite smart pads.

Next, we can attach the hard brake line to the caliber.

The final link in this break up grade is this new aluminum tandem master cylinder. Now, it's an upgrade over the factory piece with a larger 1.12 board diameter and it's less than half the weight bolts up in the stock location.

Well, with the brakes handle, we can move on to fishing up our air ride suspicious set up with in our case, a pair of these compressors

three gallon air tank. Of course, the controller and we stepped up to get one of these level pro leveling systems that includes a combination of ride height sensors and voltage based air pressure sensors. Now the advantage of these is the fact that you'll get quicker response for faster, more accurate presets. Well, Now, we can just slip this board into the trunk,

hook up the electrical and airlines

and install the right height sensors which both to the control arm and the frame rail.

Now, the object is to have the movement of this arm here correspond with the travel of suspension. So we maximize our sensors resolution.

Well, now that we got our air ride kit installed, all we gotta do is tune it, swap out our wheels and tires and take this thing back on the road for another test.

Hey, welcome back to horsepower suspension and break up great on this cool old Pontiac

in case you just plopped down in front of the set. Here's the short version of what we've done so far,

we installed an air I technologies strong arm suspension kit to replace the stock coil over set up

along with new spindles from fat man fabrications.

We also bolted up a shorter turning ratio steering box for naval gears.

And while we were at it updated the braking system with front

and rear super light kits from will wood.

Finally, we gave our compressor and tank a home in the trunk and installed a level pro system with sensors at all four corners.

Well, now here's the heads up on how to adjust these shocks with adjusters for compression and rebound. Now that makes for 256 possible combinations. But

thanks to Air Ride's experience, we know this

one click on the compression

three on the rebound is a good place to start out. Back up front. It's three and eight, then you drive the car around and adjust it to suit your driving style before we show you how to set the ride height. Feast your eyes on the new wheel and tire combo. We picked out to enhance the stance and improve the appearance.

They're polished aluminum wheels from intro 18 by eight up front wrapped in 2 45 40 BF Goodrich G Force K Ds

in the rear. We've got 18 by 9.5

wrapped in BFG 275 forties

with the car back down on the ground. Let's see if we can set our ride height using this little controller. Now, each corner is independently controlled here. You have presets for all the way down,

all the way up and

ride height is right in the middle. Well, let's say we want to set our ride height.

We let all the air out until the bags are deflated,

then come up about three inches for starters.

And if we like that ride height and want to preset it

just push the button in, wait about six seconds till it starts flashing

and then

we're good to go

finally back on the road for a follow up seat of the pants test.

You couldn't have done this before.

No, no way.

I

also couldn't take these country road curves like this before. This Pontiac's no road racer, but for an old muscle car, it's about the closest thing to it

and the car feels solid. Brakes are good. Steering's good. Let's go see how she stops.

Give

up big time.

All right, Mr Galley. What's your seat of the pants analysis? I don't have any complaints. Steering is a lot tighter. The brakes, they obviously work really well. And the air ride. I'm a true believer through and through.

Yeah, everything's great except one thing. What's that?

How did you do that

match?

Yeah, this is more like it.

This thing is even more fun with the top down.

Hey, welcome back to the horsepower shop.

Well, you buy performance parts for your street machine.

You wanna know how much you expect to pay and how much performance you can expect. But do you ever stop and think about what goes into the design, manufacture and testing of those parts? So they live up to their claims. Well, case in point this popular muffler that claims to offer great performance and great American muscle car sound back in the 19 seventies, California gear head, Ray Plu

created a breakthrough in exhaust technology.

It was a butt ugly welded contraption with internal chambers and wings, but it made power.

We came from a small barn out in Kenwood.

We didn't have really a lot going on. We had a solution to a problem

and guys started picking it up for the street cars.

The Flowmaster solution was a radical design. You have to understand it's a sound actuated device. It is not a regular muffler

inside the first chamber expands the exhaust, low pressure vacuum is created in the second chamber where delta's reflect and cancel sound before merging into a third chamber which prevents atmospheric pressure from getting back into the buffle.

The result is more power and a deep exhaust sound.

They're built with sheets of 16 gauge aluminized steel cut to length,

then embossed with the Flowmaster logo.

Hydraulic vendors shape the case before it's tacked into an oval

steel tubing for inlets and outlets are cut and flared for various applications.

Then they're welded to inflates at stations programmed to rotate and weld

next state code and part numbers are p

cases move to sophisticated robot cells where the delta flow inserts are installed.

What we do is we install all the internal baffles on the A BB cell here

and it stops them from bottom to top.

Then robotic big welders to stitches, weld the internals inside the case

cases are fitted with in caps and tact.

The vertical seam is also welded here

in caps are welded with a fixture that elevates the part and rotates it at a constant speed.

Well, after inspection, mufflers are hydraulically resized to correct inside dimensions.

Then they're painted

cured and packaged

now at the R and D center. Kevin mcclelland uses an Eddy Current dyno for design and validation.

Dean Hall's eight second Corbel

super Gasser with a 548 big block

makes more horsepower with a flow master than with no muffler at all.

This team builds mule motors fabricates prototype exhaust pieces

and reforms dyno

Chests in a specially designed dyno Cell.

We had a purpose in mind and that was to be able to run full exhaust systems just the way they were installed on the vehicle.

Today. They tested an oe style dual exhaust system with 2.5 inch compression bent pipe typical of what most muffler shops install.

The

dyno engine is a typical pump gas, 350 small block with a car mild cam and headers.

It baselined at 394 horses at 5700 RPM

and 405 ft pounds of torque at 4300 RPM.

Then they bolted on the new low profile super 44

s with 2.5 inch man

bent pipe.

After rewarming the engine oil and water to the previous levels,

they made three runs throwing out the highest and lowest results.

The mean run produced a bolt on worth an extra 19 horsepower and 13 ft pounds of torque.

Not bad for a butt ugly welded contraption

that was conceived in a barn 25 years ago, we had a product

that did what we said it would do

and out of that,

it just exploded.

If you're planning on running a nitrous system on your street strip ride, you don't wanna overlook one of the most important components of the kit.

That's the bracket that holds the bottle.

This billet bracket from muscle car accessories has show quality detail. A trick latching system that makes bottle changing easy and special pads here that help prevent scratching the bottle.

Now, they're available in several colors, clear, black, blue or red like this price.

Well, they start at about 100 5 bucks.

Here's something pretty cool to get your hands on. If you plan on changing your transmission using a floor jack, it's a trans jack from shade tree products that easily adapts to any two ton floor jack. It rocks back and forth for ease of removal of your transmission has slip resistant pads, so it doesn't move around and even comes with chain and extra hardware to lock it into place. Now it's low profile requires no adjustments and the best part it's inexpensive and only 7995.

Well, here's something that might ignite your interest. Excel has put its race winning wire core into a smaller plug wire measuring only five millimeters in diameter. Now, these are the same maximum energy cores in a smaller package.

In fact, these are lighter in weight, easy to hide and you can route them in places that larger wires just won't go.

Well, you might go for the price about 75 a set.

We'll be all set to bring you another edition of horsepower next week back with one of our favorite projects come join us.