| Bought new by my dad in
'72, he traded in his red '68 GTO for it. When I was a young kid, my family owned this
Formula, a '62 Bonneville 389, and a '69 Bonneville 428. I only have a couple of
memories of the GTO, but I was only 4 when my dad traded it for the Formula, so you could
say I grew up around Pontiacs. My dad didn't drive this car much after the first few
years, keeping it in the garage and taking it out on sunny days or special occasions, or
to take me to get a burger on a Saturday afternoon. In '84 I turned 16 and got my
driver's license so my dad would occasionally let me take this car out on a date, but most
of the time I had to drive our '81 Citation 4-cyl (yippeee! What a chick-mobile....) I
lusted after that car and would wash and vacuum it for free, just to show my dad how much
I appreciated it, and to have a good excuse to pull it out of the garage and pop the hood.
In late '85 my sister who lived overseas was coming back to the states for six months. She knew I was saving up for a car but hadn't managed to amass more than about $600. She made a deal with me whereby she would loan me $2000 on the condition that any car I bought with it was hers to use while she was here, that it would remain in her name until it was paid off, and that I had to make a minimum of $50 payment each month on it. I dragged my dad along to look at various musclecars, but $2000 didn't buy much of a car even back in '85 (height of musclecar speculation & inflation). After looking at a couple thrashed GTO's, a rusted-out Firebird, a Chevelle with enough water inside it to fill a kiddy pool, and other assorted refuse, my dad couldn't stand it any more and decided to sell me his car. He was planning on getting rid of it in a couple more years anyway and knew how much I loved it. At that time it only had 86,000 miles on it and looked practically showroom fresh. I believe it even had the original hoses & belts still on it! I paid it off in a year and a half and I drove it for 3 years and racked up almost 50,000 miles in that time, taking it everywhere and anywhere. I drove it hard, but it just kept ticking. Finally, one night, I spun it out within 3 blocks of my house and banged up the driver's side fender and door. The fender was a complete loss and had to be replaced, as well as the driver's side wheel. I was only 21 and didn't know anything about restoring cars except that you took them apart, repainted them, and put them back together. It all seemed so simple! I had a decent job and was making okay money, but had no idea how much it would cost or how much work was involved. I did one of the dumbest things I've ever done and tore off the entire front clip, removed the subframe, cleaned it up & painted it, then tore the engine apart. That engine ran fine, I should have left it alone, maybe had a valve job done on it and nothing else. Anyway, shortly after that I lost my job and decided to go back to college and get my degree. The car went into storage in various places for the next ten years (I'd put the subframe and suspension back together, engine block, crank & heads in the trunk). Finally, a little over a year ago I felt good enough about my finances, was finally in a house with a decent garage, and felt I knew enough about what was involved to begin the serious work of rebuilding/restoring this car. I've been working more or less constantly on it since then and should be able to drive it sometime in the next month, though it's really nowhere near done yet. Lots of work to do on the body & paint and the interior, which will have to wait 'til next winter as I can't bear the thought of not driving it this summer. The car was originally a 400-4bbl (of course) with TH400 auto and 3.08 open rearend. Options included hideaway wipers, deluxe interior, AC, power brakes, power steering, deluxe exterior trim, rally gauges, and not much else. It even had the plain-jane 14x7 wheels with "dog-dish" hubcaps. I hesitate to call what I'm doing to it a "restoration" as I'm veering significantly away from stock. The goal is to maintain a stock look, while really beefing up the performance. To that end I've had a set of 15x8 and 15x10 steel wheels fabricated that will retain those original hubcaps & trim rings. I upgraded to '79 TA swaybars (1-1/4" in front and 3/4" rear), '79 TA WS6 rear leaf springs, Vette Brakes & Products (VB&P) two-piece aluminum hubbed brake rotors (clamped by Performance Friction Carbon Metallic brake pads), VB&P upper tubular control arms, boxed stock lower control arms, HO Racing front springs cut 3/4 coil, PST "Polygraphite" control arm, swaybar, and body mount bushings, Global West tubular subframe connectors, and Global West "Del-a-Lum" rear leaf spring shackles & front spring eye mount bushings. Finishing off the suspension are Koni adjustable gas shocks at all four corners. The engine & drivetrain consist of the original '72 400 block crank and rods, fully blueprinted and balanced, bored +.030, and 0" decked. The rods were weight matched, beam polished, shot-peened and honed for oversized lightweight (shh! Don't tell anyone) Big Block Chevy wristpins that were fitted into similarly honed oversized, dished TRW forged pistons. The cam is a Comp Cams custom grind (232 @ .050 duration, .521 lift with 1.65 Harland Sharp roller rockers, 112 degree lobe separation, intake centerline at 111 degrees. Should produce performance similar to a RA-IV cam and I'm also using Rhoads lifters so that I can run the A/C). I'll probably change this cam to something a bit more mild in the next year depending on how it runs. All engine bolts are ARP, including the polished stainless ones on the outside of it. I also ground all the identifying markings off the Edelbrock intake manifold and painted it engine color. I purchased a Ram Air air cleaner and all the necessary pieces to convert the car to the factory Ram Air system. I'm also using a set of '70 #13 heads that I ported myself. They breath into HO Racing Tri-Y headers and a Flowmaster 2.5" mandrel bent exhaust system modified for a Dr. Gas X-style crossover. The carb is an 800 cfm Q-jet modified for my engine and fuel delivery will be handled by the stock 3/8" fuel lines and a Mallory Comp 140 electric pump, filter, & pressure regulator. The pressure regulator will be mounted where the stock fuel pump would go, allowing me to use the stainless-steel replacement stock carb inlet line and keep the "stock at first glance" theme going. Even the alternator is the original unit, but rebuilt with a 105 amp kit. Ignition will be handled by a custom-curved HEI and a Crane HI-6 capacitive discharge box with rev limiter. The tranny is a TH400 out of a station wagon with the extra big clutch pack (5 composite, 5 steel discs). It's been converted to full manual operation (but retaining stock console shifter), is driven by a Coan 2800-3000 stall converter, and is cooled by a Derale tranny cooler with built in 500 CFM electric thermostatically controlled fan. The rearend consists of the original 10-bolt housing with new axles, an Eaton clutch-type posi unit and 3.23 (for now) GM gears. I may switch to 3.73 after I've gotten some long road trips I want to take out of the way - it all depends on the performance I can wring out of it with the 3.23s. The interior will be restored to stock, with the addition of a Kenwood 400 watt stereo system including 6-disc trunk mounted CD changer. No holes will be cut in the stock interior for speakers or anything else and it will all (except the tape deck and EQ) be hidden from view (unless you look in the trunk). I've covered all of the interior sheetmetal surfaces with Dynamat for extra sound-deadening and will install a baffle-board directly behind the rear seat to mount a 10-inch free-air subwoofer and also fully isolate the passenger compartment from the trunk. I'm also adding a factory 8K tach to the rally gauge instrument cluster. Nothing I've done could not be easily returned to stock (except the subframe connectors) and I still have most of the stock pieces except the original intake manifold and dual-snorkel air cleaner. As for the subframe connectors, some work with a torch and an angle grinder would be all that's required to deal with them. The car is almost ready to run. It needs the exhaust system to be installed (have all the pieces, scheduled to go into the shop next weekend) and the wiring harnesses & dash to be reinstalled. Guess I'll also have to put the fenders, windshield, and doors back on it too.... The plan is to do some minor prep work on the body and let Maaco do their worst just so it's all one color and will look okay from 20 feet away for this summer. Next winter a friend of mine who's a pro body-man and very good at it will strip it to bare metal, fix any/all dings & rust spots and give it a show-quality paint job. He says it will take him 3-4 months to do it all, and I can't wait that long right now... Thanks for reading! -Will Baker |