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I've been wanting to get the old girl back on the road/ track for a while now and I've finally made some progress. I had planned on tearing into her on thanksgiving week but couldn't because of the darn WuFlu. The car is at my dads so I couldn't go over there while I had the sickness. Overall the WuFlu was pretty easy on me, headaches, congestion and some body aches along with the strangest symptom of losing my taste and smell (they came back though). I was cleared of my ailment by the county health dept. this weekend and promptly got to work on the Omega but I'll start with a bit of history on the car for everyone.
My dad and I started building the car around '99 to be my high school car. We bought it as a roller for $600 IIRC, sadly I don't have any pictures from back then other than a couple of it at the track after we got it running. After we brought the car home we stripped the interior, cleaned out all the mouse droppings and nests, repainted all the interior panels. We found some bucket seats in a ford car of some sort, they looked a lot like mustang buckets and got them reupholstered along with the rear seat. We cut the entire trunk floor out not because it was rusted but to mini-tub it and install subframe connectors and rear frame rails. My dad welded in a 6 pt roll bar and and bought a Currie narrowed 9" for the rear. We had a TH350 rebuilt and got a torque converter from a friend. We rebuilt a 4 bolt main SBC with flat top pistons, moderate flat tappet circle track cam, Edelbrock Victor Jr heads and super victor intake along with Holley 750. The carb didn't fit under the hood so we put a harwood scoop on it to make some room. After we got it on the ground my dad was unhappy with how wide the front wheels sat and bought a set of fat man fab narrow tube control arms. We were able to stuff a 13.50 tire in the back with skinny fronts on a Centerline Convo Pro wheels. We got the car running and ran the Summit series races for a couple seasons at our Local track (Famoso raceway). After I went off to college the car mostly sat around my dad driving it from time to time and we got it out for the March Meets at Famoso one more time while I was in college. After that it spent a lot more time in the garage until I took it for its final cruise that killed the poor little TH350, second gear died in some manner and it got parked in the back yard. That brings us to this weekend when we pulled the rotten car cover off of it.
This weekend we pulled the exhaust, driveshaft, passenger side header, radiator, and accessories off the front of the engine. Next weekend we'll pull the trans and maybe the engine (I'm splitting time spent between the car and remodeling my house). We're going to put it back together with a powerglide and a brake. The engine is slated to get rebuilt as a 383 with about 12.5:1, solid roller cam, and run on E85. I'm hoping the cylinders look good after sitting this long but they may need to be cleaned up at the machine shop, we'll have to see as we get it taken apart. Thanks for joining my build thread, I'll keep posting more pictures as we make more progress on the car.
My dad and I started building the car around '99 to be my high school car. We bought it as a roller for $600 IIRC, sadly I don't have any pictures from back then other than a couple of it at the track after we got it running. After we brought the car home we stripped the interior, cleaned out all the mouse droppings and nests, repainted all the interior panels. We found some bucket seats in a ford car of some sort, they looked a lot like mustang buckets and got them reupholstered along with the rear seat. We cut the entire trunk floor out not because it was rusted but to mini-tub it and install subframe connectors and rear frame rails. My dad welded in a 6 pt roll bar and and bought a Currie narrowed 9" for the rear. We had a TH350 rebuilt and got a torque converter from a friend. We rebuilt a 4 bolt main SBC with flat top pistons, moderate flat tappet circle track cam, Edelbrock Victor Jr heads and super victor intake along with Holley 750. The carb didn't fit under the hood so we put a harwood scoop on it to make some room. After we got it on the ground my dad was unhappy with how wide the front wheels sat and bought a set of fat man fab narrow tube control arms. We were able to stuff a 13.50 tire in the back with skinny fronts on a Centerline Convo Pro wheels. We got the car running and ran the Summit series races for a couple seasons at our Local track (Famoso raceway). After I went off to college the car mostly sat around my dad driving it from time to time and we got it out for the March Meets at Famoso one more time while I was in college. After that it spent a lot more time in the garage until I took it for its final cruise that killed the poor little TH350, second gear died in some manner and it got parked in the back yard. That brings us to this weekend when we pulled the rotten car cover off of it.
This weekend we pulled the exhaust, driveshaft, passenger side header, radiator, and accessories off the front of the engine. Next weekend we'll pull the trans and maybe the engine (I'm splitting time spent between the car and remodeling my house). We're going to put it back together with a powerglide and a brake. The engine is slated to get rebuilt as a 383 with about 12.5:1, solid roller cam, and run on E85. I'm hoping the cylinders look good after sitting this long but they may need to be cleaned up at the machine shop, we'll have to see as we get it taken apart. Thanks for joining my build thread, I'll keep posting more pictures as we make more progress on the car.
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