Hemmings Classic Car magazine sent their photographer out to photograph my 2+2 for an upcoming feature. It takes up to a year to appear, apparently. I've never had a car photographed for a magazine before... there's a lot of
Move it left. Move it back. Turn the wheel to the right. Turn the lights on. Back up. Repeat this for four hours!
Interesting experience though. And it never overheated and it started up all 50 times or so it needed to!
Here's a quick iPhone photo I took during the shoot - I'm not allowed to post any of the good ones until the feature has run.
Score one for Canadian Pontiacs! I haven't seen many others featured.
Used to subscribe but found I never had time to read it even though I enjoyed it. If that makes sense.
But will pick up this issue, let us know when it hits the news stands.
It's actually for their magazines (not sure if it's for Hemmings Classic Car or Hemmings Muscle Machine), but it's not in the big classified ad book, it's the glossy magazine. One of the few things I still subscribe to (I don't need another article on how to degree a cam on a smallblock, or, heaven forbid another "Paint your car in your garage" article).
Awesome.....Both Hemmings magazines are at the TOP of the stack for quality.....I used to subscribe to BOTH.....but dropped Classic Cars because the content was not always of interest to me.....
Will be good to see a Canadian Pontiac featured PROPERLY....in a US magazine...
What wheels are shown in the pic? Are they 15x8 rally's- front and back? Or maybe 15x7 up front?
What tire size front and back?
Are those Coker Silvertown redlines? I've read about a BF Goodrich radial T/A redline (not Silvertown) That are apparently higher quality but they are very expensive. I just love the look of your wheels and tires and I'd like to have the same look on my 67 someday. That's why I'm interested. I also think the hood tach looks great. And the colour. And..... I could go on.
We did all of the final back-and-forth, did the little "Owner's View" blurb and all of that last week, so my understanding is it'll be appearing shortly (whatever that means in magazine time!).
On the wheels and tires, I believe it's 15x7 up front and 15x8 rallys in the back. The rear tires are 275-60-15, and the fronts are more like 255s. They're Yokohama Avid S/T redline radials, which are "blank" with no branding or sizing on the outside.
I got a chance to pre-read the article and it's good - no weird Canadian references as you so often find when a US author writes about Canada (no maple syrup, hoser, winter, or other references). He writes/talks at length about the car, not much else!
-- Edited by davepl on Tuesday 21st of March 2017 12:15:12 PM
Thanks for the info on the wheels and tires. That stance is awesome. Are you happy with the Yokohamas? Looks like trim rings are the same for 15x7 and 15x8? I can't wait for the feature article to come out. What a great looking car.
Thanks for the info on the wheels and tires. That stance is awesome. Are you happy with the Yokohamas? Looks like trim rings are the same for 15x7 and 15x8? I can't wait for the feature article to come out. What a great looking car.
John
Thanks! Yes, I'm happy with the Yokohamas, they've been a good tire. Not as much traction as the BFG drag radials I had on before the restoration, of course, but that's not to be expected.
I think the Corvette rallys (the rear 15x8) -should- have a rounded, deeper trim ring. But since that wouldn't match the front, I'm running the 15x7 ring on front and back.
Since you are so accommodating, I'm going to keep the questions coming! It looks like you went with a painted non stock aluminum intake manifold. What other improvements did you make under the hood? I think those are stock exhaust manifolds so I'm curious how you have that engine set up. I think I will stick with a factory correct intake and exhaust manifolds but go with some internal upgrades when I do my engine. That's the nice thing about being in the planning stage I guess. I can ask all the questions I want, make all the changes I want and it doesn't cost me anything. But I do now have a pretty good idea of how I'm going to proceed. And that car of yours is probably the best example of what I want to achieve. It's probably my favourite of all of the feature cars.
Thanks for the kind words! Not sure which engine photo you looked at; in the initial build I had an aluminum intake (painted orange with the bowtie branding ground off) that comes with the ZZ502 block and is port-matched to it. A couple of years later I decided I wanted a more original appearance including the factory intake, so I found a 1969 Impala SS and got a bunch of original parts off of that, so it now has the right date-coded intake and all of that.
The factory intake and exhaust manifolds really choke the motor off - I bet it's an easy 150 horsepower reduction. Remember these motors were dyno-rated with open headers and so on, so the 390 rating is more like 275 net, if that. I started out at 508hp and it's more like 325 as-installed I bet.
I also went to the factory air cleaner with the snorkel and so on - that also came off the Impala because it was a four-speed car and therefore lacked the heat stove. That took a while to find, I guess there just weren't make four-speed Impalas either!
If I buy and restore the convertible L36/M20 ragtop I might take a few more liberties with this one, like headers and the aluminum intake manifold again. But until then I'll keep it stock appearing so that I always have one in "original" format.
Yup, some of those 60's big "hot" engines were pretty tame by modern standards! Typical bone stock bigblock is putting 225 to maybe 250 horse to the tires. I've chassis dyno'd several cars over the years. I had a 69 base engine automatic GTO that put 240 to the tires, a 70 Chevelle SS 396 (402) automatic put 225 to the tires and a 428 HO 4 speed GP I owned in the 90's was putting out a healthy 265. By comparison I had a 2005 300C SRT that put 360 to the tires and a 2002 Z06 was at 365. So imagine some of these 650-700 horse engines today must be putting 550-600 to the tires.
However those 60's muscle cars were very strong as compared to plain cars of the day... 69 leMans 350 2bbl was 145 horse to the tires even with optional dual exhaust so imagine a typical 283-307 small block 2bbl with single exhaust was probably 110-120. We tested a 66 Parisienne with the chevy 6 (don't recall if it was a 250 or smaller) and a powerglide was about 80.
Hi Dave. John again. Thanks for that info above. I didn't realize you had a 502 under the hood in the picture I was looking at. I've been giving a fair amount of thought as to how to best get power out of my 427 while keeping it looking entirely stock on the outside. From what I've read, if you design the engine with factory manifolds in mind and the proper camshaft choice, you don't have to give up a ton of power. Of course if you design the car with a radical camshaft and big port big flowing heads and then put stock manifold on it there will be a big difference and loss of power compared to what it might put up with headers and an improved intake manifold. I spoke to a reputable engine builder a while back who told me with the right internals and some work to the stock heads and maybe some port matching to the manifolds and that kind of thing, that he guessed he could achieve about 440 horse power to the flywheel. That wouldn't be a bad kick in the pants. But this has been something I've been throwing around in my mind for some time. I knew a fellow who had a stroked 409 in a 1963 impala. That engine put out something like 565 hp in a similar amount of torque. It was such a blast to drive that I've often thought it might be fun to put the correct engine aside and put a 496 with headers and intake in my car instead. But I keep coming back to the original look. And of course an increase in power would mean I'd have to make some changes to the transmission as well. So I keep coming back to the stock luck and trying to determine where the sweet spot is. Thanks for your information and also for your comments too John in Montreal!
1956 Pontiac Pathfinder 2dr sedan, 496 - dyno'd 545 hp, stick shift, 4.11 posi - Hot Rod
Looking forward to seeing it!