A Tempest on the Track (Part 4)

To preface my last post in the series, this is not a current build. It is only a dream. No Tempests were harmed in the making of this series.



When I ended yesterday’s post, I promised my next missive would cover mods I would make to the body. Let’s get going with the interior since it’s easy – everything must come out. Okay, not everything – I’d keep the headliner, any good interior vinyl panels, and the dash. Factory carpet with its layer of sound deadening is dead weight, so it’s out to be replaced by clean, painted metal surfaces. Stock seats weigh a ton and are completely incapable of keeping you firmly behind the wheel when pulling a 1G turn so they’re out to be replaced by a couple of lightweight racing buckets. Two instead of one because I’m smart enough to know riding along with a good driver at the helm is great way to improve one’s driving abilities. No back seat since I don’t want any backseat drivers along for the ride, and the racing seats and rollcage I’d install will make getting into the rear nearly impossible. The aforementioned rollcage would have a horizontal bar behind the seats to mount the shoulder belts of two five-point harnesses (driver and passenger).

Finally, I’d want to do something with the exterior. The car must be orange…., or red……, or beige with an orange stripe or two. If you’ve read any of my blog posts right before this series, you’d know I’m struggling with what color to paint my ‘65 LeMans. Picking a color for this car would be just as difficult for me. Maybe I’d just ask the lovely Loriann (my wonderful wife and talented artist) to make the choice for me.

Yesterday I posted a photo-shopped image of Keith Collier’s very nice ’61. I showed it lowered with bigger rims and low-profile tires. Today, I added a front splitter and racing seats to the photo, which I’d also do to the real thing. I’m on the fence regarding a rear spoiler since part of my attraction to the ’61 is the down-sloping rear end. The ’62 with its fins and the ’63 with its more square-ish rear end might get a spoiler though.

So that’s it. A Pontiac that could take on the twisties with plenty of aplomb. Will I ever build it? My previous daily-drivers were Corvairs modified for time trials. I loved them and I miss them, so chances are very good I’ll have a vintage track car again, and it may as well be from the Wide-Track brand.

A Tempest on the Track (Part 3)

Credit for original photo: Thomas A. DeMauro / High Performance Pontiac / Hot Rod
While my first two track-car posts haven’t elicited any comments here, they have sparked some conversation on the Facebook posts I made to drum up readership. Jon Wood replied with the following: “The torque tube wall thickness was increased from .050 to .090 for the 326. The rope shaft and torque tube were used with the SD421 Tempests, and they held up fine. The automatic transmission is pretty sturdy, the 3 spd manual leas so but suitable for a stock 326. The 4 spd manual was not very sturdy.”

So, the ’63 drivetrain is the only one designed to be robust enough for the three-hundred plus foot-pounds of torque the LS1 would output. Would I then opt for the ’63 over my previous choice of a ’61, or would I stick with a ’61 and swap in the beefier torque tube? Since I’m dreaming, I’ll go with the latter.

As promised, I’m moving on the wheels, tires, and suspension with this post. Interestingly, according to Wikipedia, the first-gen Tempests all came with a unique-to-GM "four-on-four-and-a-half" bolt pattern. Fortunately, this is pattern is the same as that found on early Mustangs, so the aftermarket supports it. The stock Tempest could be had with a six-and-a-half inch width if you ordered air conditioning. The stock tire on these was called 6.5X15. This system has gone the way of wide whitewalls, so the modern equivalent is P175/75R15. I’m going to want to keep the same outside diameter (25.3”) since I like the fit in the wheelwell and the speedometer will still be accurate. I’ll go a little wider than stock (7”) and much larger in diameter (17” - shorter sidewall for good handling). With a fender massaging and the right offset, I’m figuring I can get away with 205/50R17 tires. It’s a popular size with plenty of high performance options out there.

On to the suspension. The front end is pretty straightforward sixties’ GM with unequal length a-arms. I’d put in stiffer springs that lower the front a couple inches, bolt on performance shocks, and fit a beefy sway bar. The rear, however, is a bit trickier. The trailing arm suspension was only offered on two American cars, the first-gen Tempest and first-gen Corvair. The design is basically the same as that used on VW Beetles and, with much success, on early Porsche. GM improved the scheme in the Corvair for 1964 by installing a transverse leaf spring and softening the coils at each wheel. What this did was tie the left and right side wheels somewhat together to minimize the tuck-in that could take place under adverse cornering conditions. There’s a lot written out there about the Corvair suspension, but suffice it to say the transverse spring is an improvement, and I’d implement on my Tempest somehow. The rear end would also be lowered with the overall spring stiffness (coils plus transverse leaf) being higher than stock.

I’ll finish up my dream build in the next post where I’ll address body modifications.

A Tempest on the Track (Part 2)

Continuing yesterday’s dream, I’ll now pick which Tempest from the first three years I’d have and follow up with how I’d make it track-worthy.


Credit: Thomas A. DeMauro / High Performance Pontiac / Hot Rod

To me all three years of the first-gen Tempest (also known as GM’s Y-platform) have attractive styling details, but I’d prefer a ’61 for a few reasons: the split grill, the ribs down the center of the hood; the side “swoop”; the lack of rear fender fins; and it’s from my birth year. Honestly, though, I’d try to find the most rust-free example from any of the years.

On to the modifications. At the end of the last post, I shared that the stock manual drivetrain will handle the 352 foot-pounds that the 326 V8 was rated for. I also mentioned the ideal 50/50 weight distribution of the car, however, that was with the base 196 cubic inch Trophy 4. Bumping up to the V8 brought with it an additional 260 pounds (roughly 650 pounds versus 390 pounds) all on top of the front wheels. So I need a lightweight engine that puts out around 350 ft-lbs. Lo-and-behold the LS1 engine weighs roughly 390 pounds, and, depending on what vehicle it came in, puts out anywhere between 335 and 365 ft-lbs. So an LS1 it is. Hopefully, a bellhousing adapter and a custom coupler to mate the crankshaft to the torque shaft don’t add too much weight. I’m going to have to use the torque shaft as-is, so the engine mounting location may have to change, but this can be accommodated with the required custom engine mounts.



Okay, the GO has been dealt with; let’s turn our attention to the STOP. From what I’ve seen in photos and read on the web, Pontiac used Corvair-style car half-shafts to spin the rear wheels. The small nine inch diameter drums only accommodated one and three-quarter inch wide shoes. An upgrade the Corvair folks make to their first-gen cars is to convert to truck half-shafts and drums. This gives a two inch increase in brake shoe diameter and a quarter inch more width. I’m not sure if this is an option for the Tempest. With the swing axle rear suspension (more on this later), I’m very limited on swapping in disc brakes. There is a Corvair guy that’s making rear disc setups for the Corvair car, and the images I’ve seen of the Tempest brake setup look a LOT like a Corvairs, so maybe this is the way to go. The fronts should easily accept a disc brake swap, so I’m not worried about that. Stock wheels would not fit over the calipers, but the stock stamped steel wheels were going to be swapped out for something larger and lighter anyway. I’ll address that in my next post.

The other end of the braking system is the master cylinder. Back in the day, you could only get a single reservoir master cylinder. I’ve done the easy conversion from single to dual on Corvairs, so I’d do the same on the Tempest. Regarding power brakes, I don’t think it was available. The same was true for the Corvair, so I’m not surprised. The light weight wouldn’t really necessitate the added braking pressure.

That’s enough for today. The next post, where I talk about suspension and wheel changes, may not appear until Monday.

I’d love some feedback on what I’m dreaming about here, so feel free to comment.

A Tempest on the Track (Part 1)

Wow; nearly two hundred reads of my last post in roughly twenty-four hours; and one of my recent posts is up to 500 views. I am humbled. With that in mind, A few someones are finding my missives interesting, so I’ll try to be more verbose – i.e. more posts. What to write about? Here’s a diversion - building a race-ready Pontiac. Not a NASCAR high banks runner or a quarter-mile burner, but a nimble Poncho for road-course track-days and autocrosses.

My previous car life had me immersed in all things Corvair. This included restoring one with each of my four daughters. Also, since they were considered a poor man’s Porsche, I took advantage of their inherent good handling and built a ’62 two-door sedan into a hot daily-driver for me that was a blast in the curves with cut off front springs, front anti-roll bar, relocated battery, and a custom exhaust. I sold that car and proceeded to turn a plain Jane ’68 two-door hardtop into something track-worthy with the same sort of modifications. This car was a little more challenging since it started life with an automatic transmission, so I had to swap in all the bits necessary to make it a manual. When I decided it was finally time to turn my attention to the LeMans, I sold all the drivable Corvairs to focus on only one old car.

Since the ’61-’63 Tempest is much like the Corvairs with a transaxle in the rear, an available four-speed manual transmission (starting in ’62), four-wheel independent suspension, uni-body construction, 50/50 weight distribution, and only 3000 pounds in curb weight, it would be a great platform for a corner-carver.

What I wouldn’t want to build is a car that was constantly breaking. I’m thinking the week link would the drivetrain, specifically the torque shaft and transaxle. I love this photo I found on HotRod Magazine’s website. It shows the independent rear end, the transmission directly in front of the differential , and the infamous rope drive bringing torque to the trans from the front-mounted engine. The most powerful engine you could get in an early Tempest was the 1963 326 cubic-inch V8 rated at 352 ft-lbs of torque. This was quite a bump up from the 235 ft-lbs. from the 215 V8 available in the 1962’s. I read that GM did not bother beefing up the transaxle or torque shaft for the 50% increase. Hmmm.

I’ll continue this "drive"train of thought tomorrow.

Sprucing Up The Place

Some of my favorite videos on YouTube are quite polished with nice music, fancy editing effects, and appealing graphics. As I’ve promoted before, I’ve been posting videos of my LeMans restoration for quite a while. My productions have the music (and I’ll try to mix it up) and some basic editing, but poor graphics. I decided to step up my game with a nicer image and font for the intro and ending.

I’ve always loved the formal look of the LeMans script, so I wanted to use that. Unfortunately, I could not find any font in my PC’s library that matched exactly. Instead I decided to just use a photo of the script in place. I don’t have any good pictures of my car with the script in place, but, after some hunting on the web, I managed to find a decent photo of a dark blue 1965 LeMans. The resolution was high enough that I could zoom in on the rear of the quarter-panel and get something usable. I cropped the photo and did some playing in Photoshop. The image at the top of the blog is what I came up with.

On to other accomplishments. I got the engine running and the transmission turning the rear wheels in my Episode 14 video. The front of the car is now without bodywork and hood and fender removal process is covered in Episode 15. Episode 16 shows how I repaired the front wiring harness where a thoughtless rodent dined upon insulation and conductors. In my last blog post, I wrote about rearranging the garage, and Episode 17 gives before and after views. Finally, yesterday I uploaded Episode 18 where I’m working on applying filler to a door and working on the front fenders.



The fender work included removing all the clips, and rubber bumpers, wire brushing the inside surface of the passenger fender, bumping out a couple dings in the same fender followed by cleaning and then brushing on a coat of Rustoleum Rusty Metal Primer.





I’m whittling away at these projects, but getting all the bodywork refinished is going to take me years at this rate, hence the new tagline to my blog, “Lessons in patience …”

In the color race, Go Mango is currently in the lead.

More Room

I thought that getting the LeMans running would solve my workspace issue. I would just start up the car, drive it out into the driveway, throw a tarp over it, and have the entire space (minus all the garage stuff - workbenches, tool chest, spare engine, etc.) to strip paint, hammer dents, prime panels, and work on one of the family's daily-drivers when required. I've changed my mind. I don't want the LeMans outside, and I think I can make it work.

Through the magic of AutoCAD, I can show the current floorplan versus the proposed one.



The LeMans will be on wheel dollies, so when I need the welder, I can move the car around and get to it. But since the car is so rust-free, the only welder usage I think I have ahead of me is pulling out a few dents. My hope is to implement this rearrangement Friday evening.

Speaking of bodywork, it's looks like this coming Saturday will be warm enough for me to open up the doors and get out the paint stripper. Sunday will be cold again, but I'm hoping that the heaters will get the garage up to temp so I can lay down some epoxy primer over the bare metal (after extinguishing the kerosene flames first).

Last weekend I went hunting for LeMans documentation I knew I had from back in the day. My hunt was successful, so part of episode 16 of my YouTube video series includes sharing the stuff I got from Pontiac Historic Services. Links to PDF files of the different literature follow:

• PHS Cover Letter 
• Build Card and Decoding 
• AMA Tempest Specs 
• The Tempest Line Story 
• The Tempest Engineering Story 
• Storage Suggestions

By the way, the arrow is currently pointing at Atomic Orange Candy for the LeMans exterior.

How'd I Do?

It's VERY sad that it took me so very long to get to all the items on my to-do list dated nearly two months old, but here's how it went (original list in italics slightly reodered for clarity). Much of the following activities are available for your viewing pleasure on Youtube.

Episode 11 of 1965 LeMans Restoration
Episode 12 of 1965 LeMans Restoration
Episode 13 of 1965 LeMans Restoration

Interior:

• Bolt down the driver's seat. Done without drama.
  
• Bolt the column support to the underside of the dash. I couldn't find the support, so I just tightened the rope holding the column in place - very sketchy, but it's not permanent.

Brakes:

• Check the  fluid level in the master cylinder. A little low, so I topped it off with Synthetic DOT 3.
  
• Inspect the lines. As I slid around the underside of the car, I noticed some of the metal lines looked new-ish, while others were probably original. All the rubber hoses were changed out when I was working on the car back in 2003. At some point, I'll replace the original ones with new, but for now they aren't leaking so they'll do.
  
• Do a hard, harder, HARDER test on the brake pedal. To check for a weak spot in the system, I jammed the pedal and, happily, it did not yield.
  
• Check the parking brake. Liberal amounts of WD-40 loosened up all the e-brake bits, and it now works smoothly and effectively.
  

Fuel:

• Come up with a temporary, gravity-feed gas tank so I can bypass the existing fuel lines and tank. Instead of going with something temporary, I attacked the stock fuel system. I replaced most of the rubber hoses adding a third fuel filter between the tank and the pump, blew out the supply and return metal lines, checked the state of the fuel tank (just a bit of old gas), dumped in about three gallons of 93 octane, and called it good.
  
• Install the rebuilt carburetor. The original Carter with it's compliment of new soft parts was bolted to the intake manifold and the fuel, vacuum, and hot air (for the choke) lines were all mated.

Spark:

• Find the ignition key. For those that don't know, I've had twelve Corvairs pass through my life. About half were parted out since they were rusty beyond saving. Needless to say, I've accumulated quite a few Briggs & Stratton ignition and trunk keys.It only took about five minutes to find a key that worked, so I was good-to-go.
  
  
• Clean the points and re-set. Carefully, so as not to lose them, I removed the two screws holding the points in place. After which I noticed I could've just loosened them and the points would have been removable. A quick rub of the contact surfaces with some fine sandpaper, and they were put back into their distributor home. The gap, rather the dwell, was set using the dwell-meter while cranking the engine with the plugs removed. This required me to finally break down and spend the twenty dollars on a used battery from my favorite pick-a-part.
  
• Clean the spark plugs and check gap. All the plugs were dirty, but not bad, so a quick trip to the wire wheel followed by a gapping at the manual's 0.035 inch and they were ready for re-installation, but I left them out initially so I could spin the engine without compression. This would, hopefully, get the oil pumped onto all the lube-loving surfaces. The plugs were eventually screwed into place and the leads were popped into place.
  
• Check the plug leads for damage. They all looked fine, so were reused.
  
• Clean and install the rotor and cap. They both looked brand new, so I just reinstalled.  Here's where I hit a little hiccup. I thought I had the cap properly seated when I twisted the hold-downs, but I was wrong - it ever so slightly askew. The following fifteen minutes of frustration finally ended with me discovering that this had been the cause of the intermittent spark. Once the the cap was seated properly, lo and behold the engine started right up.
  

So the engine runs without any scary noises or smoky emissions and the brakes brake without drama, and, with the car up on four jackstands, I was able to confirm the transmission goes into gear and will spin the rear wheels both frontwards and back. The car is now mobile.

Back to the smoky emissions, I will admit a faux pas. The non-functioning, disconnected A/C compressor hangs off the passenger front of the engine blocking easy access to the number two spark plug hole. While I was struggling to reinstall said plug, I decided to remove the compressor. Only three (or four) bolts, so it was easy to get it out of the way. In my haste to get the last plug in so I could try to fire up the engine, I didn't realize that two of the bolts were head bolts (DUH!), so the initial running of the engine wasn't without a little exhaust gas puffing from the front. Once I discovered my foolishness, I reinstalled just the bracket and torqued the two big bolts to 95 foot-pounds. I didn't re-start the engine after that, but I'm confident (actually hopeful) that I didn't cause a head gasket failure.

I have been out to the garage one time since that eventful weekend of engine startup. I returned to bodywork mixing up a few batches of Bondo and applying them to the passenger door that I

This weekend the lovely Loriann will be away with her church youth on a winter retreat, so I'll be stocking up on kerosene and Bondo to finish the bodywork on the passenger door and starting on the next body panel (a fender perhaps, or I might go big and do the hood).