Firing Up a 396 Big Block in a 1970 Camaro RS/SS

Today on muscle car, the guys cinch on all the pretty pretties that make limelight look out of sight.

Watch out or this Cobra Jet might bite you and Tommy decides that he really doesn't need eyebrows.

We started with a tired 1970 Camaro Rs with a sad little 307 small block, a bargain barn paint job

and a mega rad eight style interior.

We went out and found a rusty 402 in a barn, tore it down

sleeved, it, built it up and finished it with an L 78 3 96.

After a little body work, we brought it back to its GM factory color Citrus green.

Then we planted some stripes across the hood and deck

with all new front and rear suspension which replicates what a big block would have been sitting on out of the factory

air correct. Wheels and tires, gnarly four speed

and a light saddle interior that would make an angel sing

limelight is dang close to being finished.

We're gonna get her button down, topped off and fired up. We've got to take care of some exterior trim to a bit of wiring and get that big block fired up before we can do that. So we better get to work and we've got the majority of the parts that still need to go on the car all laid out here in the blanket and they're laid out in the same position that they need to go on the car. Now, that's gonna save us some time from searching around trying to find stuff as we go. Now, every part that we're not reusing is an accurate reproduction from year one.

We decided to reuse the grill bezel because it was one of the pieces that held up pretty well over time,

advanced plating made it look brand new again.

Despite the SS package, most of the trim options are Rs Camaro style.

These are the pieces that define the look of the car. There's a certain feeling of satisfaction that goes along with the final few components getting put in place.

Not to mention the anticipation that comes from being so close to being able to drive it.

It takes a lot of man hours to turn an amused water steel back into a rolling piece of Detroit Muscle.

Oh yeah,

that's the money right there.

Better than gravy and biscuits

and that mirror is nice but the reflection is awesome.

It can be pretty difficult separating the details from the Rs package and what's supposed to come from the SS package. This car originally rolled off the assembly line with Rs badging on the fender, but it's supposed to have the ss badging. We needed to come up with the correct SS emblems. So we gave you wanna call.

Now it's time to put emblems back in your car. There's a few different ways to do it. You can go to an old assembly manual and take it from there. You can find pictures of original cars and hope that they're correct or you can find an original fender or panel

and build a pattern off of that.

Now, the tape, I usually run along a body line like this because that's a given, you know where that is from there, you can start just make a little crease or mark with your fingernail or pin or whatever where the edge of the fender is

where your body lines are

and where the front edge of the fender is.

Now that you know where your parameters are, where are your edges are?

You can go back and start marking your centers.

Now, this is a 350 card, not a 396 but at the very least the SS elements will be in the correct position

and then you got a pattern that you know is correct.

Doesn't get any more accurate than that.

Still to go working out the Camaro Kings and pulling an all nighter to bring a big block to life. It makes no damn sense.

Hey guys. Welcome back. Project Limelight is mere moments away from firing up for its first time. But that means we're working on the final details, which usually takes up a lot of time.

But that's how it is. When you come into the homeless direction of a build like this, you gotta track little things down like wiring gremlins and beat them out of your car. Then we can top off the fluids, check for leaks and hopefully fire this dude up.

So nice working on older cars like this. You can actually reach all the bolts.

I want a bell housing bolt right now. Looking at how the P CV valves are routed.

Uh, is the positive cable supposed to go under that motor mount or above it? Because I'm thinking it's supposed to go under it.

I figured,

I

really don't know what that is.

Yeah, it sure seems to fit awful nice running it that way.

Ouch.

I'm popping in a couple of new U joints. We decided to go ahead and reuse the stock dry chef.

We had to swap out the front yoke for the larger big block version.

Now it's also a good time to double check your fluids

empty.

There ain't much worse than getting a couple miles down the road and realizing that you ain't got no gear

in that rear end.

I tell you, uh, weekend wears out there that drive late model, whatever fill in the blank during the week. Keep in mind that the early transmissions here

don't use a TF transmission fluid.

This is back when the

machining process and these things were about as rough as the people that shifted them

and they need 90 weight gear oil. Not a TF. So don't put a TF in a MS,

you will destroy it, stick your finger in there. And the level should be just below

that thread

and it's right there.

So we got it.

I like to add a dab of loctite thread sealer just for insurance

guys. Remember when you're starting a brand new motor, do your best to pre fill the oil filter

because by doing this, that will help prevent a dry start.

It's a lot easier on the engine.

Another mistake that a lot of guys make is once you get this thing cinched down to where that seal is just kissed in the bottom of the block, don't turn it on. There are another two or three turns, you'll never get it off. All it needs is about a quarter of a turn

and that's it.

Ok.

Go

up, down, up,

ok. Down.

That's what you're watching for right there. So there's a little bubbles coming out, you crack it open,

watch for any bubbles

and there wasn't a single bubble in there

that means that you got it.

It's always a good idea to use break in oil when you first fire a new motor.

Now it's time to get her to move under her own power.

And you can see

we have here.

There's a whole lot of work to do

straight ahead. Ford wasn't messing around when they built this big block Mustang and the guys do some troubleshooting on limelight's 396 power plant.

Today's flashback, a 1968 Mustang 428 Cobra Jet

Mustang, the original America's favorite sports car with three new models. Norman flipped for the new Mustang fast back

in 1967 Ford introduced the first big block in the Mustang with a 390 V8

but it never quite had the performance that fans were looking for.

When legendary Ford dealer Bob Tasca dropped a race tune 428 in his 67

he shaved a full second off his quarter mile time.

Hot rod profiled it

and Ford was flooded with mail begging for a 428 in a stock mustang. Now it's true. You could get a Ford

28 in a Shelby Mustang, but it would cost you nearly five grand way out of the price range for most guys.

When the Ford team wiped out the competition with a set of 428 powered Mustangs at the 68 Winter nationals. The blue oval brass knew what they had to do

on April 1st. 1968. The Mustang 428 to

Jet was born

Hot Rod. Declared it get this the fastest running pure stock in the history

of

starting with a standard 428 big car engine Ford outfitted it with larger valve heads and the intake off of a 427

plus stronger connecting rods and a nodular iron crank shad.

The ram air scoop sat on top of a vacuum actuated butterfly valve with fed air into the 735 CFM poly

pour barrel rated to just 300

135 horsepower. The reality was closer to 410

CJ S came standard with beefed up front shock towers and rolled on F 70 by 14 polyglot.

They also got the GT treatment, fog lamps, wheel covers, dual chip exhaust and ac stripe.

There were no cover badges to be found though only the unique hood stripe and scoop made it stand out from the other pony.

Well, it certainly stood out to Keith ST

who was just 19 at the time.

Local legend Dick Hoffman was racing the car for a Ford dealer on the strips near Nashville.

I was into drag racing in 1968 and I saw this car run on the track and I knew the

gentleman that, that built it and drove it and then the people who owned it

and uh I

just drove by the dealership one night and the car was sitting in the showroom floor and I said I gotta have it. I got

it at it ever since the price tag was around 3900 bucks. But that included some extra race components like an aluminum intake doug headers, a set of 4, 11 gears and a sun tag

since it was made to race, there was no radio clock console or fold down

rear

seat.

He got a best quarter mile time of 1285 at 100 and eight miles an hour on street tires.

After a while though family life took over and the car sat in his garage for over 20 years

when his son needed a car to drive. Keith got the bug to restore it.

It's now back to its original race set up and has won so many awards. It's now retired

but it won't be going quiet.

Were you

after the break? Me, man,

me make fire.

You're watching muscle car for a DVD copy of this episode. Just go to Power Block tv.com and order your copy for just 595 plus shipping and handling. Start your own muscle car collection delivered right to your door from the power block.

We're having a little engine trouble.

Um Don't know if it's vacuum leak or distributor problem or may possibly even carburetor.

Ok.

Go ahead.

That

b it,

let's go again. Let's go again.

Weird.

This little behind the scenes. Look,

doesn't always go smooth.

We were here late last night trying to get this thing tuned and it wasn't working out at all and it's just one of those crazy kind of little deals. Can't quite figure it out.

La's got an attitude

she's making us work for it.

Yeah,

I'm just gonna put the fuel in it

that way. I know.

I wonder. Mat,

do you buy diesel?

Oh, ok. This truck,

he

set the range

warning. These guys are joking. Do not put diesel in your

car.

You will make it very sad.

This is about the part where somebody usually says, hey, y'all watch this,

guess the timing's off. And so are my eyebrows,

flames coming out of the carburetor. Mean that your intake valve is open in a cylinder when it gets sparked

your ignition system and rotating assembly are plumb out of whack

using a time and light, you can tell how many degrees advanced or retarded your engine is timed. Rotating the distributor changes the point at which the plug fires.

It's timing.

All engines have a sweet spot for initial timing. L 78 s were happiest at around 4 to 6 degrees advanced

on

this

thing

that much

because you bring it down to where it's supposed to be.

It won't even run.

Your problem can also be aggravated by other small issues like having a miss tune carburetor.

He just letting this idle it down a little bit. Now,

I'm starting to hear the

clo a little bit

double checking your specs never hurts

tuna with the

hot

auto speed for this 1

700 actually looking up to actually see the correct tune or the time and spec on it

says it

says it four degrees before

your front pressure, we checked that last night. It's supposed to be,

we're sitting about 5.5 and that's within

this kind of fix can be real tricky. Sometimes you don't know if you need to be adjusting the car or the distributor.

As long as you keep making a little bit of progress at a time,

then, you know, you're headed in the right direction.

We're also dealing with a lot of components that can change the requirements of the motor by small amounts. A little here and a little there can add up pretty fast

trying to figure out where this dude is going to be happy.

But we copied this thing as close as we could off of the L 78

at the end of the day.

Original LSE

eight parts, they need it to come by.

It starts too good

timing. Ain't that far off,

way back, back, back, back back.

You can't ask for it to start no better than that.

We looked hot and heavy trying to find the right air cleaner, but the best we could come up with was a Z 28 version.

And really when you get down to it, that's the name of the game when you're doing a resto job.

Now, guys, we know that we could have spent literally years tracking down every single little correct part for this car, man. We wanted to build it and drive it and besides, you can always swap out the incorrect parts for the correct ones as you find them. If you have any questions about today's show, you can check it all out Power Block tv.com. The next time you see this ride, we'll be riding in it at the good guy show. But we're all out of time for this week. So until next week y'all keep it between the digits. Hey, I'm driving. No, I'm driving. No, no, I'll let you drive. But I'm driving this thing. Flip you for it.

Flip me nothing.