[xkeots]

Originally Posted by Nicks67GTO

Got my body black anodized aluminum body mounts/install kit in the mail from ABC Performance and my isolaters from SC&C!

Merry Christmas to me!

During this process I learned from ABC Performance that 67' Pontiac's had 2 more body mounts than Chevy, Buick an Olds....this is right...isn't it? I got sold 16 mounts/hardware where C,O&P only use 14.....anyone else heard of that?

yes,

I just got the same. The extra 2 are for the front radiator support to frame. I am getting ready to mount my body to frame but I have a 67 convertible auto.
thanks for pix as my card in my camera wiped out.
Jack

[Nicks67GTO]

The extra mounts are for under the front of the main shell. Chevy, Olds, and Buick only used 1 mount per side, where Pontiac added an extra mount per side.

[xkeots]

Look at the build sheet or the restoration book. The frame page shows 7 mounts on each side, which leaves 2 for the radiator support. I bought new bolts, nuts and all rubber body mounts. There are 16 of each but only 14 squarish body nuts and 2 regular hex nuts. The hex I was told are for the radiator support by supplier.

Jack
67 GTO

[gtospieg]

Are you counting the 2 that go above the rear on the crossmember? Those are usually just rubber bushings with no bolts. There are captured nuts up in the crossmember so that you can bolt them like the rest of the bushings, I did.

[Nicks67GTO]

Well after looking into this a bit on the interwebz...I don't know. I know what the guy from ABC told me and maybe I misunderstood him. Whatever. Don't listen to me for resto advice. I'm just some backyard guy trying to build a hotrod and make heads or tails of a car built 15 years before I was born.

Anyhow... I do know that the ABC kit came with the radiator support bushings and the radiator support hardware originally. Then I had to call back and order 2 extra body bushings, bolts and washers. Where ever the extra ones go as opposed to Buick, Olds and Pontiac I guess I don't know.

I do know this.... iv'e been driving the hell out of my car and the whole rumor about solid body bushings being harsh.... is a myth.

[Nicks67GTO]

Originally Posted by gtospieg

Are you counting the 2 that go above the rear on the crossmember? Those are usually just rubber bushings with no bolts. There are captured nuts up in the crossmember so that you can bolt them like the rest of the bushings, I did.

I did find it strange to find only rubber stubs up there, then to remove them and find cage nuts for bushings baffled me???

[gtospieg]

I figured that adding two extra bolts would only help. It might even stiffen the frame a bit. Mine is a 67 post.

[Satyr1966]

I've changed out the body mounts on two different '66s & they both had bolts there.

[Nicks67GTO]

Ive been enjoying the suspension mods and driving the wheels off the old hunk of tin the last few weeks but now its time to start collecting parts for the next phase.

Its time for new big brakes, 18" wheels and tires. Right now im concentrating on collecting parts for the brakes. After weighing out a lot of different possibilities, dealing with absolute sticker shock on some of the "name brand" kits and talking to Tobin @ Kore3 brakes, I decided to sell my TRSD front kit to a fellow PY member and start colecting parts for a 13.4" 2012 Vette C6-Z51 front brake and a 12" 2002 Camaro "LS1" rear brake with the internal hat parking brake. For all intents and purposes the 2002 Camaro rear is almost the exact same thing as a C5 Vette rear brake but I can do this as a bolt on to my rear axle and its going to basically be dirt cheap. I'm going to have really good modern brakes for a fraction of what a lot of these kits cost.

Ill be sourching most of the front Z51 parts from Tobin@Kore3. The LS1 rears will be ebay takeouts from a junk yard car and the rotors will all be matching Stoptech slotted but ill go over that stuff as parts roll in.

I'll be actuating this all with a Detroit Speed and Engineering "TYPE" of 9" dual diaphragm power brake booster and an aluminum 1" master cylinder. Notice I said type. Its not from DSE. I did some looking and found the part #'s i believe DSE uses and collected parts on my own through Amazon, eBay and Summit and put it together for $175 less than DSE wants for the exact same thing. If youre interested ill show you how!

So let me start with the booster/master combo....

This is a Tuff Stuff 9" dual diaphragm, black powdercoated, power booster, powdercoated mounts and Wilwood adjustable proportioning valve/mount through Summit. On it sits an ACDelco 18M974 aluminum master cylinder with plastic resivoir and screw on cap from a right hand drive 2000 S-10. I got this through Amazon dirt cheap. The pedal clevis/extension comes from Pirate Jack on eBay. This is what Tobin @ Kore3 says will work best with the Z51 Vette/LS1 rear style brakes and pretty much what GM ran from the factory on these cars...and it will bolt right in!

[Nicks67GTO]

My rear brakes came in the mail the other day. When I ordered my Moser 9" I bought the housing with Moser 7900 housing ends. Chevy 12 bolt bolt pattern and the large Ford Torino bearing. That means I could use stock rear drums from a GM car if I wanted. that was the plan from the get go.... but I never ended up doing that. This has worked out well. Tobin @ Kore3 sells a little .105" spacer needed to convert my housing ends to a 7900FM "flush mount" and then you use the Camaro backing plates as your retainers! Sweet. 12" rear discs on the cheap.

Ebay 2002 Camaro rear backing plates, calipers, ebrake cables and brackets. The calipers will be powerwashed, cleaned up and painted with caliper satin black or clear if they look real nice after the scrubbing, then rebuilt for about $20 bucks. The backing plates will need to be sand blsted and painted. That will probably be my project for next week. Pads will be Hawk HPS, rotors will be Stoptech high carbon slotted and rear lines will be Flexcore steel braided and coated from Kore3. Ill be ordering all of that tomorrow.

Heres a pic of the backing plates and calipers as pulled....

[Nicks67GTO]

If you've been keeping up with my thread you'll notice this is the second big brake kit Iv'e gotten for the GTO. I sold the TRSD kit to a fellow PY guy and moved on the these. I think the TRSD kit would have worked well and it was very nice but after some conversations with Tobin and others, I decided this was the right move to make.


Some more brake parts show up the last few days. My front brakes are partially from Kore3.com. I'm sure iv'e said it before but Tobin @ Kore3 is awesome. The guy is a wealth of knowledge, promptly answered every email I sent and at this stage of the game i'm willing to pay a little more for knowledge and top shelf customer service. Its worth every penny.

-So the front brakes are basically 2012 Corvette C6-Z51. The Z51 rotors are a 13.4" diameter and 32mm thick and a step up from the standard 12.7" C6 rotor for just a little more money. I opted for Stoptech slotted rotors. I found that they sell matching LS1 rears and Z51 fronts. This was hard to find. Since Tobin doesn't sell these I google shopped them and then beat Summit racing up on the price like I always do. They price matched and shipped free staying good to their word...and I really beat them up on these.

There are a couple reasons these are hard to match front and rear. First the Z51 is a totally different rotor than the stock C6. Also while the LS1 rear calipers are the same thing as C5/6 and the LS1 rotors have the same dimensions as C5, the LS1 rear e-brake setup is a bit different, so C5 rotors wont work. I also decided to steer away from drilled rotors. According to everyone that's ever tracked a car, a drilled rotor is prone to cracking under lots of stress and are really just a bling thing. Slots are functional and remove gasses.

-The brackets are Tobin's standard C5/C6 bracket.

-The calipers are big ol' twin 40.5mm piston aluminum C6. Though similar in appearance, the C6 are more rigid than the C5. The abutments are Z51 and allow for the extra rotor area.

-I also got Tobins flexcore stainless flex lines for the whole car. They appear to be top notch and the C5/C6 rear lines they sell will work with the LS1 calipers since they are basically the same thing.

-Since I intend to go to the AFX aluminum spindle/hub eventually I didn't want to spend the $300 bucks on Tobin's sweet ass aluminum hubs. I found out that stock drum brake hubs will work as long as they are under 5.95" in diameter. most stockers will need to be turned down though. I bought some brand new ones from CPP for $55 bucks with bearings, caps and hardware. I was pleased to find that they were already at 5.95" in diameter!! After sticking in some American bearings, longer wheel studs and painting them....ill probably have $100 total, saving $200 bucks tward the AFX spindles/hubs/arms later on.

-Brake pads are Hawk HPS {High Performance Street} Recommended by Tobin.

Here's some pics!...










CPP hub fits like a glove!!





Hawk Pads...

[Nicks67GTO]

So some people might ask why I would go through all the trouble of sticking big brakes and 18" wheels/tires on my GTO??? It doesn't look right? Its too modern looking, all bling blah blah blah....

I just read in my Popular Hotrodding today that PHR did a test from 4 wheel stock drum brakes to new CPP big brakes and that their 60-0 distance shortened by almost 100 feet!!! WOW... Almost cutting the distance in half. Even if the distance was half that @ 50 feet its an extreme performance upgrade that might just save your life. Maybe it might save a little kid that runs out in front of you, or save the front of your car if grandma stomps on her brakes for a squirrel. Every Caddy, Prius, Taurus, SUV and Minivan on the road today stops and handles worlds better than anything built in the 60's and I want my car to be better than that. Yes these are worst case scenarios and they can be avoided but this stuff happens.

I really want my car to be a daily driver and not have to worry about these things. It needs to perform flawlessly in bumper to bumper traffic, hence the resto-mod upgrades to my GTO.....anyhow ill step off my pedestal now

[fyrffytr1]

Hey Nick,
That is going to be one heck of a ride! And here's the way I look at it. It's your car and you can do whatever you want to with it. I like what you are doing and thought about doing the same with my car. I have plans to do another car and it will be a resto mod!
Keep up the great work.

[Nicks67GTO]

Originally Posted by fyrffytr1

Hey Nick,
That is going to be one heck of a ride! And here's the way I look at it. It's your car and you can do whatever you want to with it. I like what you are doing and thought about doing the same with my car. I have plans to do another car and it will be a resto mod!
Keep up the great work.

Thanks! I agree, everyone has the right to do with their car as they wish. I guess I was just throwing out some hard numbers for folks to munch on. Call it food for thought. A lot of people, including myself at one point, were against the bigger wheels, new style tires and big brakes on the muscle cars. I always thought it was just a bling thing but in the last few years, as iv'e dug deeper and learned more, it all makes a lot more sense now.

[EdRooney]

Brake parts in the kitchen and on the oak table no less.

Thats one understanding wife.

[arbys]

I think that it all boils down to whether you want a museum piece or a car that very roadworthy. Good calls for brakes and drive ability.

[old66tiger]

And...then there is some of us that just went off the deep end. LOL. My turning point was when I went to a show and I had a couple of guys that starting picking my car apart. They did not see me sitting behind the car and so I let them ramble and I just kept listening. "This isn't correct or that is missing, etc, etc.". It wasn't the first time and it wasn't the last either, but it was the defining moment for me to take my car to the level that I want it. Now, I am planning on pulling the 461 and putting in a much tamer LS3to take the car from a tire roasting terror to a tame cruiser that even my wife will want to drive. Life throws you some curve balls from time to time and you just need to roll with it.

[Nicks67GTO]

Originally Posted by EdRooney

Brake parts in the kitchen and on the oak table no less.

Thats one understanding wife.

Hey now I did the right thing and pulled the table cover off first!!!

This gives me an opportunity to throw a shout out to the wife here even though she will probably never see it.... The wife is top shelf. I hit the jackpot....seriously. Shes completely cool with my musclecar thing and she knows that stuff like me taking pics of parts on the kitchen table is just going to happen. We've also been together since we were 18 so this is the second car build shes seen me do. She's friggen awesome. Here's 2 shots of us. One from our 5 year anniversary year and a half ago and another from about a year ago after she did a Tough Mudder with me in Chicago. Hey she wanted to go... her idea {Tough Mudder is a 12 mile run + 30 mud ridden obstacles on a course for the benefit of the Wounded Warrior Project}...This was tons of fun

[Nicks67GTO]

Originally Posted by arbys

I think that it all boils down to whether you want a museum piece or a car that very roadworthy. Good calls for brakes and drive ability.

Definitely don't want a museum piece...haha. Ive got a 20' paintjob and a backyard GTO that I like to drive. I would get laughed out of a museum.... or even a top end show for that matter.

I fit in with the drive-em crowd!

[Nicks67GTO]

Originally Posted by old66tiger

And...then there is some of us that just went off the deep end. LOL. My turning point was when I went to a show and I had a couple of guys that starting picking my car apart. They did not see me sitting behind the car and so I let them ramble and I just kept listening. "This isn't correct or that is missing, etc, etc.". It wasn't the first time and it wasn't the last either, but it was the defining moment for me to take my car to the level that I want it. Now, I am planning on pulling the 461 and putting in a much tamer LS3to take the car from a tire roasting terror to a tame cruiser that even my wife will want to drive. Life throws you some curve balls from time to time and you just need to roll with it.

Right on Bob. I'm definitely dipping my toe in the deep end at this point. I haven't full on dove in yet though. Ill be swinging up in June like we discussed in the email about that sweet ass 461. I would say If I end up buying it.... i'm officially in the deep end?

I have to say the guys that like to pick cars apart out loud are probably the same asshats that don't even own one and are clueless to what it takes to build one them self. That stuff makes my blood boil. They're probably the same guys that scream at the TV about how bad some NFL football player sucks but have never stepped on the gridiron themselves at any level. I love cars on any and every level from 20 year old built budgetmobiles {been there} to Foose built $200K cars {never will be there}.