dmatthews
Dave's not here
I could kick myself for saying that, but then I'd fall down!
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D
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I had two cars before I got my license. 69 Firebird Convertible 350 2 barrel, bright orange with white top and interior, and, 69 GTO Convertible, Ram Air IV 400. 500 Ram Air IV's made that year, only 13 went into GTO convertibles. 390 posi rear end, automatic transmission. You could be going 45mph on the highway behind some slow poke, you better pull all the way out in the passing lane before you nailed it because from 45mph it would burn rubber when it downshifted into passing gear. BEAST motor.
2 years later, I briefly had a 74 Trans Am with the 455SD in it, the highest powered low compression engine GM had. (Yes, Dad was a Pontiac dealer)
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Birdsofprey
All Birds that Fly.
SD-455 The Private Stock of Pontiac!
Tucson Thump
Mint Heavy Relic
My official high school self envy. I tried to get a 69 Z-28 but father would have none of it.
High school legend! I recall one day, sitting in class, that the Olds dealer's step-son was accelerating past the high school in a new W-30 442, trying to impress a girl he was dating. Two passes, a squeal and a loud crash and three metal trash cans later he was a joke.
D
Deleted member 5962
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When I got out of college, the longest I had owned any car was 6 months. So while some were envious (and some were jealous. Yeah, you know how high school is...) but as cool as it could be, it was NOT cool to have cars you loved taken from you with almost no notice. LOL. My dad would take a cool car in trade, buy it for me, let me drive it for a few months and then sell it for a profit. To the point, that when I asked for a Pioneer Super Tuner radio, power amps and speakers for Christmas, he bought me an under dash unit so that I could easily move it form car to car. No kidding. And, told me to build myself some cabs for the speakers because he didn’t want me installing the radio and speakers and then someone coming along to buy it and we’d have to remove it all.
I had that super tuner, two power amps, and two pairs or 6x9 speakers, both in cabs, and could move it from Firebird to GTO or whatever was next, in about 5 minutes.
I miss having a rockin’ car stereo. It’s almost impossible to do these days on new cars to have a quality head unit in there that produces quality sound without losing your a$$. My last vehicle, I had an ok system with converters off the stock head unit, a digital amp, replacement speakers and a sub. It was ok, way better than stock, but not the quality sound you could get from those older units. So while I love having all my music at my fingertips on my phone and have that all running through the car stereo, I do miss that old school system that just sounded awesome. I had a full size suv with full range dual 15’s and some amps, graphic eq, that sounded ferocious. Not even for the volume anymore, just great sound.
Tucson Thump
Mint Heavy Relic
The thing I've always missed is the wonderful "wrrr" gear sound from the manual transmission in the muscle cars, as well as the sound of solid lifter cams and the exhaust.
D
Deleted member 5962
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Back in the conversion van days that we were just talking about last week, one of the big things was putting home speakers in the back of a conversion van. One of my friends had 4 JBL 3 way speakers with 12” woofers, 6” midranges and 3” tweeters and had a 4 channel “surround sound converter”. He’d take it out to road parties, and soon had to get a second battery to power his system while we were there. He was also the one that made the road parties start to get raided by the cops because people would hear his stereo from a mile away and call the sheriff!
D
Deleted member 5962
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All mine were automatics. The GTO had solid lifters and a dual exhaust with some upgraded mufflers. I idled pretty smoothly though, for a big cam car. The Ram Air IV came out of the factory with an 850cfm double pumper and an aluminum high rise intake. You could pick up 25-30hp by blocking the crossover in the intake manifold. Mine had that done, an aftermarket cam that was just slightly bigger than stock and the dyna flow mufflers.
The engine was factory rated at 335 hp, which was a joke. Only 20 more than the Ram Air III was rated and it had numerous upgrades over the III. One magazine said that it was rated about 100hp low for insurance purposes, and that they dyno’d one that had 438hp. With the few little mods mine had, it was probably running real close to 500. Not bad for a first car.
Oh, and it handled like a big old car, and stopped like a train. Rocket motor. soft suspension, weak brakes. Almost the complete opposite of my Camaro.
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Tucson Thump
Mint Heavy Relic
And those "state of the art" Goodyear Polyglas tires could never hook up like the modern compounds do.All mine were automatics. The GTO had solid lifters and a dual exhaust with some upgraded mufflers. I idled pretty smoothly though, for a big cam car. The Ram Air IV came out of the factory with an 850cfm double pumper and an aluminum high rise intake. You could pick up 25-30hp by blocking the crossover in the intake manifold. Mine had that done, an aftermarket came that was just slightly bigger than stock and the dyna flow mufflers.
The engine was factory rated at 335 hp, which was a joke. Only 20 more than the Ram Air III was rated and it had numerous upgrades over the III. One magazine said that it was rated about 100hp low for insurance purposes, and that they dyno’d one that had 438hp. With the few little mods mine had, it was probably running real close to 500. Not bad for a first car.
D
Deleted member 5962
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There were bias ply tires! No radials back then. And I had a pair of steel studded "snow tires" for the Firebird.
I remember the Firebird was considered a "good" handling car for a non-exotic at the time. There are two curves that we used to take, one at 55 and one at 45 IF your car was capable and most weren't. The 45 one I took at 70 in my wifes 4wd truck last week, and the 55 one I've taken at 65 in the truck... while pulling my 30 foot camper. The Camaro would probably take both of them at 160.
Mmmmm...BIG cams...potato..potato...potato THAT was cool!!
