SpeedRacer

The Northstar is a great engine but the highest stock HP engine in any Caddy is 300 with 295 lb ft of torque. No way that pushed any 4,200 pound car to a 14 second 1/4 mile! There are conversion kits to drop it in a Fiero and the President of our club has one. It's actually a Ferrari 308 kit car on a Fiero chassis so it ends up looking pretty exotic with the Northstar in it. He says it makes for a nice conversion and very streetable. The engine is about the size of an SBC so it probably could be done. Since I've seen them in rods (even saw one with a GMC blower! ) you must be able to get trans adapters, etc. Be sure to post pictures if you do it.

I saw this in the latest issue of Kit Car magazine and thought a few of you might be interested - Pete?. http://www.ez-efi.com/ It looks like a great simple and self-contained electronic fuel injection system.

The 240Z dash will NOT interchange with the 260 - 280 dash. The steering column is mounted in a different location and the whole center section is different especially where it meets up with the HVAC system. I had to use a 260 type dash metal skeleton (the stuff under the vinyl and padding) to get my GTO type dash in my 1971 240 Z. I had to make a lot of modifications to the skeleton to get it to fit including moving the steering column. If you are good at sheet metal fabrication and welding you might, just might be able to get it to fit. Of course you would have to put a new cover on it after you were done.

It's not as efficient, but you could always user a pusher type fan and install it in front of the radiator.

Alan Grove has alternator brackets that work with heads that don't have holes in them. He makes something like 37 different brackets for a SBC.

FYI - there is a partially built Alpha 1 GTO listed on eBay http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rd=1&item=2477623433&category=7251

I would definitely contact Tom at Scorpion Z Cars http://www.scorpionzcars.com/ as I think he has the best looking kit. Sorry, I usually don't do this but I have heard only bad things about AZ Z Car and would never do business with them. How you build it is up to you and your taste. I tend to like them closer to stock because the GTO has such a classic (and classy!) look as you can tell from my car Either way you are going to love the result.

StreetSleeper - I think you are going to have to take it apart to find out. My SBC book and two other web sites agree with Mortec. http://www.thedirtforum.com/castings.htm and http://www.4willyb.com/ I'd put money on it that your 3970010 engine is a 350 out of a truck. I say that only because 3970010 truck engines are very common (plus it has a cast iron intake and 2BBL.) and 3970010 327 Vette motors are quite rare.

I hope you find that somebody changed the intake/carb because GM never made a 2BBL Corvette engine.

Depending on the trans you use it also helps you to get the shifter up through the floor and console in the stock position. Like you, I have a 327 SBC with a T-5 but in a 1971 240Z. I located the engine back 3/4 of an inch so the shifter now comes up in the stock location. However, I did not use an HEI. Because of my Tri-Power setup I went with the small MSD billet distributor.

Welcome to HybridZ VanillaSky! You'll find a few GTO Z owners here. I have traded emails with Tom and it looks like he builds a fine car. Sometime I would like to see one in person. I like the trunk kit he has come up with. If my car wasn’t already finished I would definitely add the trunk kit to my car. Also, based on some of the stuff he has available I would guess he has been working with Jim Simpson. http://www.simpsondesign.net/index.htm Jim used to build the GTO (he called it a Rhino) when he owned Blue Ray Engineering. Jim is a great guy and also builds some very high quality parts.

They are called side curtains and they are a bit of a pain. Can't lock them, they leak both air and water, restrict airflow, etc. BTW, not all original GTO's had side curtains. BTW, you might want to check out this site. http://www.maranello.cc/All.Ferraris/ http://www.cardomain.com/member_pages/view_page.pl?page_id=236622

I don't even have a radio - the only thing stereo is the exhaust!

Here's mine.

There used to be a couple of Daytona Cobra coupe kits available for Z cars. One if them was called a Nalle GT http://www.zparts.com/indexes/inprogress.html

It would be great if it was a 302!!!! Tim240Z is right and here is the place where you can find casting numbers http://www.mortec.com/castnum.htm

Why don't you just buy a real roll bar?

The GM "Piston Slap" problem is all over the news and internet with the government looking into it and the lawyers starting class action suits. Although it's for later trucks (1999 and up) when they changed the piston design. I'd suggest you do some searching and reading.

Sorry to hear about your TT. I had a '90 NA and '94 TT and loved both cars but the TT was my favorite. The four wheel steering helped the thing to corner like it was on rails! Without a doubt one of the most exciting and best cars I ever owned but I traded it in on an NSX. Anyway, you might want to consider a crate engine. http://www.paceparts.com They even have a factory warranty! LS1 is a great engine but did you ever consider a 383 SBC or ZZ4, (I'd say ZZ430 but they are really rare)?

One of my Chrysler buddies sent this to me and I thought some of you might find it interesting. " DEFINITION OF ACCELERATION " One Top Fuel dragster 500 cubic inch Hemi engine makes more horsepower than the first 4 rows of stock cars at the Daytona 500. Under full throttle, a dragster engine consumes 1-1/2 gallons of nitro methane per second; a fully loaded 747 consumes jet fuel at the same rate with 25% less energy being produced. A stock Dodge Hemi V8 engine cannot produce enough power to drive the dragster's supercharger. With 3,000 CFM of air being rammed in by the supercharger on overdrive, the fuel mixture is compressed into a near-solid form before ignition. Cylinders run on the verge of hydraulic lock at full throttle. At the stoichiometric (stoichiometry: methodology and technology by which quantities of reactants and products in chemical reactions are determined) 1.7:1 air/fuel mixture for nitro methane, the flame front temperature measures 7,050 deg F. Nitro methane burns yellow. The spectacular white flame seen above the stacks at night is raw burning hydrogen, dissociated from atmospheric water vapor by the searing exhaust gases. Dual magnetos supply 44 amps to each spark plug. This is the output of an arc welder in each cylinder. Spark plug electrodes are totally consumed during a pass. After halfway, the engine is dieseling from compression, plus the glow of exhaust valves at 1,400 degrees F. The engine can only be shut down by cutting the fuel flow. If spark momentarily fails early in the run, unburned nitro builds up in the affected cylinders and then explodes with sufficient force to blow cylinder heads off the block in pieces or split the block in half. In order to exceed 300 mph in 4.5 seconds, dragsters must accelerate an average of over 4G's. In order to reach 200 mph (well before half-track), > the launch acceleration approaches 8G's. Dragsters reach over 300 miles per hour before you have completed reading this sentence. Top Fuel engines turn approximately 540 revolutions from light to light! Including the burnout, the engine must only survive 900 revolutions under load. The redline is actually quite high at 9,500 rpm. Assuming all the equipment is paid off, the crew worked for free, and for once NOTHING BLOWS UP, each run costs an estimated $1,000.00 per second. The current Top Fuel dragster elapsed time record is 4.441 seconds for the quarter mile (10/05/03, Tony Schumacher). The top speed record is 333.00 mph. (533 km/h) as measured over the last 66' of the run (09/28/03 Doug Kalitta). Putting all of this into perspective: You are driving the average $140,000 Lingenfelter "twin- turbo" powered Corvette Z06. Over a mile up the road, a Top Fuel dragster is staged and ready to launch down a quarter mile strip as you pass. You have the advantage of a flying start. You run the 'Vette hard up through the gears and blast across the starting line and past the dragster at an honest 200 mph. The 'tree' goes green for both of you at that moment. The dragster launches and starts after you. You keep your foot down hard, but you hear an incredibly brutal whine that sears your eardrums and within 3 seconds, the dragster catches and passes you. He beats you to the finish line, a quarter mile away from where you just passed him. Think about it, from a standing start, the dragster had spotted you 200 mph and not only caught, but nearly blasted you off the road when he passed you within a mere 1,320 foot long race course. ..and that my friends, is ACCELERATION !

I think they are "spinners" if that's all they really do.... spin as the wheel goes around. They are "Knock-Offs" if they really hold the wheel on the car like the Cobra example or mine http://www.cardomain.com/member_pages/view_page.pl?page_id=236622 They come with a heavy lead hammer for installation. BTW, my knock-off wire wheels are from Dayton Wheel http://www.daytonwheel.com/home.htm

ecp48 - It’s actually quite durable. You are re-dying the fabric similar to what the manufacture did when they originally made it. Black is an easy color so you shouldn't have much of a problem.

Here's an old trick from the used car reconditioning guys. Pick up some RIT dye in black (powder or liquid). Walmart and hardware stores usually carry it. Add all of it to a bucket of warm water along with a good carpet shampoo. Get yourself a good stiff brush and (wearing gloves!!!!) scrub the carpet really well. Let it dry and it will look like new again.

I’ll go with Grumpy on this one since I use TrickFlow aluminum heads on my 327 and love them. http://www.cardomain.com/member_pages/view_page.pl?page_id=236622 I used their 23 degree heads and the old 365HP 327 cam which uses solid lifters. Trickflow listed them as having 64cc chambers. Yes, you need to use hard washer under the bolts because you will gall the aluminum. On cast iron heads the hard washers help to even out the torque so it's a good idea to use them with all heads. You don't have to buy a set because Trickflow supplied them with the heads. I did not have to change anything else - head bolts, pushrods, valve covers, intake manifold, etc. http://www.trickflow.com/product/prfeature_index.htm

Hey John - I think you have a few pictures of my car mixed in there! http://www.cardomain.com/member_pages/view_page.pl?page_id=236622 What gives as I thought you were selling it.