made some good progress:

got a bunch of little parts and headers cleaned and painted:

















And installed:

 

officially took care of the last of the rust on the car:












I spent some time putting some of the interior & exterior trim back on, too. including the taillights

 

10 sec passes on stock brakes?

Brave man

I dumped them after trapping mid 90's in the 1/8th. Could not slow down enough for the first turn out, had to go to the far end

 

Paint looks good from the pics. Seems you did the prep work right. Hopefully the Summit paint will last.

Quick question, when you are checking PTV, are you using a solid lifter and a checker spring?

 

Come to find out, the Summit paint is Sherwin Williams. Porkchop looked into it, and talked to his paint supplier. Turns out, it's an old formula that SW came out with, but production shops hated it, because the clear dries hard as a rock and is a nightmare to buff out quickly. Porkchop (a 30 year body man) says that material is some of the best, most durable, stuff they ever put out, but they couldn't sell it to production shops, because it was hard to work with...

As far as PTV, on firebird's small block, I have a solid roller camshaft. So, I used the actual parts I am running, and clayed the top of the piston.

This is dad's 428 for his GTO I just painted last night. This has a hydro flat tappet. So, on that, yes I used a solid lifter and checking springs.

Don't use a hydro lifter to check, bad things will happen (ask me how I know...)



As for the small block, it seemed to work out pretty good. (click for vid)

 

Got ALOT done Saturday with dad, porkchop, and our buddy Jeff.

hung the drivers door


I wanted shaved door handles, but then thought it wouldn't be practical, so I just had porkchop paint them... I think it turned out real nice.



while we were hanging panels, Jeff was wet sanding with 1000 & 2000 grit per SW instructions.





we hung the fenders



they needed some porkchop persuasion

 

we got the hood test fitted, went rely easy & fast... Glasstek stuff is nice..





got the light covers on and fitted



while porkchop buffed the car







jeff and porkchop working away

 

after they left... I got my Aerocatches installed.

make sure everything is protected from fiberglass shavings



position the pins and bore through the hood



measure 500 times, then move it and re-measure



cut and drill the hood, and bob's your uncle...

 

Got a lot of little things done this week. Saturday was polish day. I got the wheels and tires cleaned up and mounted and half the car waxed (twice).

It was a great feeling to see the car back on its own rubber for the first time since November.








Sunday I went to dads house to help put the motor in the GTO that will also be going to the show.

 

I took the day off work yesterday to meet up with the door glass guys.



and also got the rest of my door rubber installed. I'm missing some inner door parts, so I need to get them before I can put the door panels back on.

the door panels are the last big job. everything else is little details.

I spent 4 hours in the dentist chair Monday, so I was inspired to install my grill...

the turn signals came from a fellow member on here... from the classifieds.



and spent some time on the valve covers that haven't seen polish since Bush was prez.



almost ready

 

Picked up the hood last night from porkchop, but the center of it where there wasn't the pretty gel coat needed a little help from a rattle can.

 

looks great nice approach to detail

 

 

Got about all finished this weekend. After some final cleaning, it'll be on the trailer for the IX Center Piston Power show!

T-tops got new paint and weather strip:







cleaned got the interior together and detailed:

 

Then it was arts and crafts hour:

 

my name and mascot

 

Mission accomplished....

 

congrats man, she sure has taken a turn for the better

 

Took the ugly bird out for some flogging, and got some before & after shots

 

Very nice!

 

Nice! Hood was a huge improvement

 

You say the paint from summit was sherwin... Does sherwin also make Kirker? Because the summit stuff is Kirker paint..

 

Wow what a transformation! Nice work! Props to you my friend.

 

That´s a Great & Pro Job!! Congrats My friends!!

 

Thanks Everyone! It's been worth the effort!

Summit has two lines of paint. Single Stage (with an optional clear coat) and Base Clear (with a mandatory clear coat). You can tell the difference by looking at the part numbers, the single stage has a 5 character part number, the base/clear has like a 10 character number. Summit reps wont ever say who's it is, but my friends SW rep (who is in the know) said the Base Clear line (which this car is painted with) is an old SW recipe, and the single stage line is Kirker. He went on to say the SW formula they use for this paint is VERY durable, and was marketed as a premium line a number of years ago, but didn't catch on because the clear coat was "too hard" for a production shop to rub out. For a car like this, where your putting in the effort, it's really nice stuff and you wont notice the extra elbow grease. For a production shop, where time is money, they shied away because they didn't want to spend an extra hour rubbing the paint out.

After being at the track a number times this season, and asking around, this build inspired about 3 other people to paint their cars, one being a third gen Camaro... but they all did theirs with the single stage. It came out VERY nice on their cars, but I am glad I went with the base clear... Because this finish is much glossier and shinier, and it allowed us to sand out and fix some goobers that got into the paint from working in the garage.

I am also thrilled to announce I have about 5 chips in the paint

Here's a shot from last Saturday:

 

Someone told me that lemon pledge on the quarter panels would keep the rubber from sticking to them... so I tested the idea.



It worked!

 

Just a little durability update:

The summit paint is holding up really well. the front bumpers is showing some issues, but I believe that was because there is a lot of filler in it, and I bashed the bottom of it on the ramp in the trailer loading it a few times.

I've found lemon pledge is my new best friend. I spray some on the quarter panels when I get to the track, and all the rubber wipes right off. And if there's any on the body, I put a little on, and it lifts the rubber right off the paint.

Don't be afraid of the summit paints.... its the real deal.

 

Thanks for taking the time to document your progress. It is inspirational to me for sure!

 

Your welcome. It's something someone can do themselves, and on a budget.... having someone call you their inspiration is almost as rewarding as the result itself