Pontiac LeMans-Stroker Build-Up

Muscle cars. Lemons

project held an ugly secret

but it doesn't scare Lou yes, he can build engines

and yes, they run

it's time for another muscle car and it's time for me to clean up the mess we made. Last week, usually I can pick the projects that we do. But this week, the project made that decision for me.

Last week, we pulled a frame out from under our 67 lemons straighten it up with some heat and pulleys

added some bracing

boxed in the rails, filled in all the unnecessary holes, then sanded it down.

That was a lot of time and effort and we're not gonna push that frame aside and let the rust reclaim it.

So today Brent's finishing it off with some primer and chassis paint.

Another reason to continue with it, we've got the rear end, the transmission, the disc brake conversion, we've even got the wheels and tires. But the butter on your biscuit,

we've got everything we need to stroke out that tire. 326

it was less than 50,000 miles on this rather unappreciated engine. Take a look at this. It looked like it could be trashed.

But surprisingly, it was salvageable.

So we needed to find a shop familiar with Pontiac engines. Who else than butler performance in Lawrenceburg, Tennessee.

The best shops in our industry

grew from a passion

and that's what makes the butlers, one of the top engine builders in the country horsepower 69 Firebird project was powered by a butler of all Pontiac designs. Aluminum 474.

It had the power to throw you in the trunk. So having them handle, the machine work was an easy choice.

Some fire

speed, blasting

a

spin in the tumbler

and the bath made this old block look new again.

Then it was time for prep, pre

fit

and mic everything to make sure it's right before assembling

all this would be a waste of time without some high flowing heads. And since no one makes them for the 326

butler came through again by hogging out our stock ones. You've got to love these guys.

But before we go any further, you've probably noticed that we don't have a clean room to build engines in.

So my first tip for the day and after a full career in the navy, I figured I'm qualified to show you this. You wanna fan it out so you can get as much coverage as you can. Two swipes each side dunk it

and that'll give us our dust free environment that we need to build our engine. And if you do it at home.

The ladies think it's sexy.

Too bad. The block wasn't that easy to clean. It's been decked and painted original Pontiac blue and see this, it's called casting flash

and there was plenty of it in here as well. They ground it all out for better oil flow.

Unlike your Chevys, one of your Pontiac oil galley plugs is hidden behind this freeze out plug. You want to have them both removed in order to clean the block properly. And if your machine shop doesn't know that

you may want to find another one.

Something else that's unique about the Pontiac. There's only one place to grind to make room for your stroke. A crank. Now, this eagle crank will add a half inch stroke to your 326 through 400. That's because they share the same blocks just different bore sizes. Now, for you, younger guys who don't know what stroke in an engine means, listen up you older guys tell me how the class went.

An engine is based on the maximum amount of fuel and air mixture. The cylinders can hold rated by cubic inches,

the more cubic inches, the more power

you can increase that amount by boring out the cylinders or make the piston travel deeper in the cylinder with the longer stroke of the crank. Hence the name Stroker, less machine work less money and it will add more to those torque numbers

with the upper bearings and seal in place

let's move on to prove that theory.

Pontiac uses these dow pins to locate the main caps. It also prevents you from putting them on backwards on some engines. That is possible.

We're not giving torch specs

because every engine is different.

But keep in mind, it's important to work from the center out.

These Eagle H beam Chevy style rods are longer than stock Pontiacs, longer rods mean more torque

ross custom made these pistons with a dish for 9.5 to 1 compression ratio needed to run pump gas.

We're ready for the heads and look at what we got. This is the result of their porting and polishing.

They outfitted the head for screwing studs and the appropriate springs for our hydraulic roller cam

gasket matched our exhaust ports,

gave us bigger intake valves and cleaned up the chambers.

These heads will outflow any factory GTO head any day.

Mr Gasket makes an entire kit for this engine.

Tor

down the heads. Follow the same principle inside out

earlier, we slid in a hydraulic cam with increased lift from comp cams.

Now we'll follow it up with their roller lifters

and rockers.

This engine will be sucking more air than the stock manifold could ever give. So butler's custom tray along with Edelbrock P 65 replica manifold and two of their 500 CFM performance series EFM carburetors will feed it well

to light it up. Mallory makes this electronic 57 series breaker list distributor.

The gear is special order from butler performance for this combination.

Our goal was not to show you how to assemble an engine. Everybody's got their own method on that.

I wanted you to see our parts combination of bullet 326 into a powerful 375. Now there'll be a complete build list on the website. But after the break, the dyno is going to tell us how well we did our homework.

We're back ready for this thing, man. Oh, yeah, bring it on in and Mike's giving up his afternoon nap to give me a hand,

the engines together with no real surprises. Here's what's in the former 326

an eagle crank with a half inch stroke, their longer h beam rods,

Ross custom pistons for 9.5 to 1 compression.

Original heads were hogged out by the butler boys hydraulic valve train from comp cams and Edelbrock took care of all the intake

after a 40 minute break in

retorting the heads. Watch that throttle.

I'm ready to see if the spirits of the chief are gonna shine on us.

First pass

357 horses with some in cartooning. We'll hit that predicted 400 mark,

but that's not all at

2500. We're making 362 ft pounds of torque

ir on there.

So you

get the boat moving right for the street. It'd be perfect, man. We, I mean it's perfect cost a little under five grand

or about 12 bucks of horsepower. Not bad while this cools down.

Here's what Brent got done.

The first coat was an etching primer. Really the only thing to use on freshly ground steel

followed by two coats of high gloss, industrial enamel from auto body color.

This is plenty tough for the protection that we need

and at least half the cost and time of base coat clear coat applications for those high end jobs,

we're gonna put the frame back together starting with these polyurethane bushings from prone.

Now, if this was a concourse restoration, I'd be losing major points for this.

But these will last forever giving a firmer ride by tightening everything up. Unlike the original rubber, which allows for some movement,

you could use a hammer for all of this, but it would take some time and you'll probably end up with one arm looking like Popeye's. If your neighbor has an armor press, bring back his tools and make up with them

in case you missed it. Last week. We boxed in the original orange for strength

and raised the caps to lower the ride height

without losing that stock appearance

with the inner shaft grease. A little more will help get them in place.

It's a more points reduction on the concourse, but well worth it. Stainless steel brakes offers a complete disc brake conversion for the bee body that bo is on a racing application.

This is all the stuff for the front. We haven't even unpacked the rear yet.

These spindles are really close duplicates of the originals.

They're modified for more brake options, but without screwing up your steering geometry,

these steering parts are stock.

We got them from around the corner at o'reilly's except for the steering arm, a little touch up is all it needed.

Even stock parts are fun to put on

back to the Brinks.

The hubs are bolted to the rotors in case you need something besides these venting and slider 13 inches,

the four oversized pistons and the aluminum calibers will keep you from calling your insurance agent.

And these top loading pads are just like the big boys at the track.

They even threw in some braided line to hook things up.

Now, this is as far as we can go on our front end for right now because our brake booster and mass cylinder hang on a nonexisting firewall. We do have the stuff to finish up the rear end though.

These trailing arms are stand still and they have a tendency to flex. Boxing them will take care of that.

This 12 volt rear end for Moser

comes with a Detroit true track

and these bolts will allow me to lock down the carrier bearing caps, reducing gear and bearing flex.

Most G MA s are held in place with

clips

but these 31 spline axles are held in place with these 49 inch housing ends using retainer plates to hold them in.

So if you blow your ring and pinion, your axles won't become projectiles.

The rear brake smart conversion kit use 11 inch rotors and these caliber pistons rotate as they come out, applying even pressure to the pads when braking. Plus they don't recoil. As far

later on in the show, I'll install the rear end, finish up the chassis and if we're lucky, we're gonna drop in the engine in tranny.

Back in the early sixties, the Impala was no slouch between the year 61 and 65 Chevy was stuffing a certain whe engine between the fenders, even if you weren't a gearhead. Then

you still heard about it on the radio

this week's muscle car flashback. The Impala Super Sport 409

before the Camaro and Mustang power was spelled with three words 409.

When Chevy debuted the legendary engine back in 61 American Muscle equaled big cars with big displacement

in 62. Chevy improved on the 409 with a new set of heads. A more aggressive cam two Carter A F Bs and then you had a 409409.

63 was the peak year. It was busting out a whopping 425 horsepower

with solid lifters,

dual cars.

One of the cars that had this powerhouse dropped in. It was Bobby Ginn. 63 Impala Ss

less than 17,000 of these super sports rolled off A G MS assembly line that year. Throw a convertible top on it. You got one hard to find Impala,

a special interior and exterior trim package including full wheel covers with three blade spinners tack on the steering column served as a warning to all would be challengers.

Oh, yeah. Don't forget that four speed manual transmission

and a

Posi rear end. It's no wonder those boys from the beach sang about it so much with the chrome grill and bumper, four headlights, body lines that screened Chevrolet

and taillights that looked like they were out of this world style points were no problem for this set of wheels and in case you missed all that, Chevy wasn't shy with the badging drop in a spacious interior and you've got a car fit for a Sunday stroll or a Saturday night at the track.

Bobby's dad picked up this impaler in 81 for $5500.

The car was disassembled and sat for the next 20 years.

Then in 2001, Bobby took the car home in trailer loads. It's uh was quite a task. It was a good challenge.

Uh I like a good challenge

and uh this was a, this was a good one,

late nights and long weekends paid off as this turnkey beauty hit the road for the first time in over 25 years.

By the mid sixties, the impala was wildly popular as a full size car. If you ever catch a glance of one of these family sedans on the street. Don't let the size fool you

because this baby ain't hauling groceries.

The 409 was replaced by the 396 which was later bought out to make the infamous 427 which led the way

for the monstrous 454.

Earlier in the show, public performance took our 326 and turned it into a 375 back at the shop, we assembled it and ran it on

a dyno.

The frame was painted, the front suspension was installed, axles went in the rear end and disc brakes all the way around.

The frame is just about ready to go on the ground. Our original trailing arms are good to go. It's time to install the rear

with it lined up and the upper trailing arms on

I can now put in my stock springs

and then attach the lower trailing arm from the axles to the chassis.

I need to order my wheels. So we went to trucks and borrow theirs from their S

10-K.

They were done with them.

These will work till we get ours.

This flywheel is part of the DW series clutch setup from Zoom.

It uses a dual disc that works as a 12 type engagement.

Basically, it acts as one whether you're taking it easy or slamming the gears. This floater cage has a friction ring. It's been cryogenically treated to help resist the warpage. It's what they do. They heat it up real hot, then they throw it in a vat of liquid nitrogen making the steel stronger

the cool thing.

The disc, the mark pressure plate and flywheel side to avoid any confusion. During installation,

this hydraulic throw up bearing is from a cloud.

So there's no linkage adjustment.

This lake with scatter shield is boom proof. If the clutch blows, I won't be counting my toes backing up. The Stroker is a Richmond super T 10 4 speed.

That's the easiest way to install an engine and it's going to stay there. The finished body will be reassembled around it.

Our lower front end was brought down a little bit by the weight of the engine.

The rest of the car will finish it off. We put stock springs in the rear for now when it's all complete, we can order

the correct ones to level it out.

We've done a whole diapers load of work this time

and it's always nice to take something that's 40 years old and make it look like a baby again except

this baby's been

genetically improved later.