[dhaney]

Short story before I get to the drivetrain specs. Originally my wife's 69 Firebird Convertible came from the factory with the HO Six Cylinder engine but some time in it's life someone put a 350 hp, 350 CI generic GM motor in the car. We drove it and enjoyed it like that for a while but it was never very reliable. After paying good money to have the heads rebuilt to only have the bottom end start making noise shortly there after I decided to give the car back its Pontiac heart.

I am not engine builder so I contracted with Pontiac Greg at pontiacengines.net in Longmont Colorado to build a stronger than stock Pontiac 400 CI engine. Here is where the story takes an unexpected turn... Greg calls me back a couple of days later to say he found in his inventory of blocks a 1976 WX Code 455 HO Block and he would build me this for the same price as the 400. So here is the build:

455 +.040" = 464 CI
4 BBL Dual Plane Intake
Holley Street Avenger 850 CFM Carb
Felpro Neoprene Rear Main Seal
Eagle H Beam Rods
8.5 Compression @ 5000'
Ultradyne Custom Ground Cam Shaft
Kauffman D-Port Heads - Mild turn on intake & exhaust
Ferrea valves intake and exhaust
Accel Eletronic Billet MSD Blaster Coil
Hooker long length headers rest of the exhaust still to be determined.

Since this is my wife's car it is matched up to a numbers matching (1969 Firebird) TH400 Trans capable of handling 800 hp and 10 bolt 4.75 posi-traction rear end.
The car also has after market disk brakes all around and as you can see by the picture sports 15" Craegar SS wheels. These where the aftermarket wheels to have in my hs days...
I am not quite done with the install yet a few odds and ends to tie up but the inital fire up is expected within the next month. Depending on cash flow and parts availiblity that is... ;-)

Dan