57 Pontiac "Zero Fox"

[tRustyK5]

Continuing with exhaust. Passenger side collector extension was super simple and the exit is as close to identical to the driver's side as anyone could ask for.



You can see the difference in header angle. Not sure why they're built that way, but that's the way Hooker makes em.

Then I figure I'd try to get the miserable side of the street exhaust done.







And all tacked up...



All I have left is an exhaust hanger near the muffler, then the passenger side.

I think with the car on the ground you won't hardly see the exhaust, which was my goal.

 

[76zimmer]

Dam dude, that looks great.
Do you have concerns about the header tubes/flange @ the head flexing? And are the exhaust pipes mounted to frame?
I have my sidepipes mounted to the frame, which helps support the long sidemount headers, and my engine is on hard poly mounts, it flexes a wee bit, but not much.

 

[tRustyK5]

The engine is on poly mounts, so flex should be less than average. The pipes won't be hard mounted to the frame rather just a single exhaust hanger at the rear. This should allow for some movement without breakage. I might put a hanger at the front of the pipes so there isn't all the weight hanging off the header itself though. I have no hangers here at the moment, but there are some real good spots to work with under there. Once it's all sorted the floor and frame will get cleaned up and splashed.

 

[76zimmer]

Yeah, I just think its a lot of weight and vibration hanging on those 3/8 bolts in aluminum.
Mine are old iron heads that Im sure have had their holes used a time or two through the last 55 years, and they're holding up good.

 

[folkenheath]

Been reading, and thinking back to my personal experience with a Detroit and a manual trans, as well as my experience with various cars and trucks with spools or Lincoln Lockers. I'm sticking with the Detroit. I do think having tire pressure exactly the same side to side will be critical though. I could see if a fella was off a little, that after 1320 feet under WOT there might be some tension built up by the time you got to the big end.

This isn't a trailer queen, it will see plenty of street miles as well as the Drag and Drive events. I think for my application it's the right choice.

At the drag strip you should be checking the tire pressure before every single pass, it should be dead even regardless of the differential used, I have to even them out quite frequently in the staging lanes.

I took the limited slip out of my street car 15 years ago, been running a spool every since, not going back. The Detroit is staying in the truck, I like that and don't have any issues with it at all on the street or the highway, but I wouldn't take it down the quarter mile at full speed, maybe the 1/8 mile. It acts fine, but it only takes once at speed.

Your car is turning out awesome Rene, I really like it, I am so excited to see it running and you having fun in it.

I do believe 90% of Detroit complaints stem from the 14b generation, thus the soft lock variant. IIRC, the Detroit was engineered for ford in the 9” drag pack cars in the early 60s

I actually prefer the soft locker in the 14BFF, it is much softer engagement/disengagement than the locker my friend had in his D44 and another in a D60, those were clunking and banging quite a bit. I barely notice the locker in my 14BFF on the street, but I still wouldn't go over 100 MPH on asphalt with it.

 

[tRustyK5]

I threw a tire on the rear and decided the exhaust turnout needed to be shortened up, so both sides came off, and the 45 degree turnout was shortened up 2.5" and re-welded. At the same time I added an exhaust hanger at the rear on both sides. Then it was time to dive head first back into shit work and clean and paint the underside outboard of the frame and the outboard side of the frame. I found one small area of rust that I'm just going to not look at right now ( ) but overall it's super solid under there.

I'm tired and sore, tomorrow or the day after I'll snap a couple of pics and bolt up the exhaust for good.

Next up is battery relocate in the trunk and get electrical patched into the car. No promises, but I could possibly be firing this up for the first time next weekend. It'll depend on how much I can get done during the week...

 

[tRustyK5]

So my new rubbers arrived!

165-80 R 15 front runners
275-60 R 15 street tires



Technically a trailer tire, but speed rated for 118 mph so I'm going with it.

Rears are sacrificial mostly...





Got a start on the trunk mounted battery etc.



I wanted the cables exiting the box on the other side, there just wasn't any room to do so.

Taylor cut-off switch...



next up is a dedicated clean up session, then get back into wiring and electrical.

 

[max 02]

The front skinny’s are awesome!

Yeah the rears hopefully won’t last long.

 

[76zimmer]

Do you have spares?
What size front wheels?
Should be a great look!

 

[tRustyK5]

I just have the four tires right now. For Drag Week I will have a set of Drag Radials for the rear, and if they fit in the trunk that would be ideal.

Front wheels are 25.5" tall, and the rim is 4.5" wide. They should be fine for street or track and importantly tough enough for whatever the street driving part throws at us.

 

[76zimmer]

Man, I’ve had shit luck with trailer tires, but usually at much more weight than you’ll be pushing down the road.

 

[tRustyK5]

They'll allow me to get the car sorted at the very least...we'll have a better opinion of them after putting some road miles on em. If they're crap, at least they weren't expensive.

 

[tRustyK5]

Making some progress

It's a lot louder in person...I'd say the mufflers are more visual than functional. Sounds like freedom to me!!

 

[76zimmer]

Man thats huge Rene’
Congrats man!

 

[ZooMad75]

FOX YEAH!

 

[Capt Ron]

Way cool, that has gotta feel good after all the work/time you have put into this car.

 

[max 02]

Three Tits!!!

 

[folkenheath]

Awesome progress Rene!

 

[bix]

Wow, that’s an incredible thing to see. I love that car, so glad it stayed with you.

 

[tRustyK5]

Got it timed today, 34-35 all in. Runs a little smoother, but still has a hell of a chop to it. Definitely running on all 8, just a fair amount of overlap and idle speed is a bit low at the moment. Need to get a tach hooked up so I can dial in the idle speed other than by ear then work on mixture. I don't think it's terribly far off. Currently working on modding the core support for the Cold Case rad I have here. Was originally bought for my 66 Fury, should be good for the 389. Fit is close but not drop in...and the lower hose outlet on the rad is on the wrong side, so something custom will be needed there. Once it has a cooling system I can spend some time on tuning without worrying. Right now I don't want to run it for very long at a time.

Also gotta figure out an alternator and mount/belt etc.

acm is gonna laugh, but Hagerty emailed me asking for pics. Not sure what they're gonna make of "in progress" pics...I guess we'll see.

For posterity (or hilarity) these are the four pics Hagerty wanted.