Belvedere back out for completion

[sxarnold]

Had to pull the car from my long term shop when they went out of business on short notice. Hard to find creative builders that also understand basic finance. The new guy actually worked on the original tear-down when it arrived from TX and he's spent the last five years building cars at other shops and honing his craft. He's young, aggressive, motivated (young son) and financial conservative. He opened a small one car shop, squeaky clean, and will only work on one car at a time until it's completed so i'm giving him a shot as his first build. He's committed to the car being completed before the end of the year. Finger's crossed.

 

[69roadr]

Nice, I'm curious what else you will be doing with the car. Chassis mods, rebuild that hemi? etc...

 

[sxarnold]

69roadr- I've tried to be true to the original car but it is a tribute. Swapped the 8 3/4 for a date code Dana 60 w/ 3.54 as I didn't trust the motor to destroy it which is a pro rebuilt 426 hemi '66 block putting out 508HP/498 ft/lb on the dyno with undersized carbs. Rebuilt A833 with Hurst linkage and shifter. Ran across a former old school Mid-Ohio 426 hemi racer that passed away and a buddy was selling the "garage" for the wife so much of this build is repurposed NASCAR race used parts. True cowl intake as you can see in the pictures matched up to a real race used air cleaner. Will be running a magnesium single 4bbl intake with dated NASCAR NOS carb, so as-raced, but I do have a dual carb bathtub intake set up as an option. Running race used NASCAR hemi long tube headers exiting ahead of the tires but adding waste gates so I can run it through mufflers when needed. Yes, it will be street driven.
Front suspension is upgraded stock with shocks moved due to the engine bay roll cage. Dated rebuilt Bendix large discs in the front, manual steering, gages are SW date code correct but we're running a single piece of aluminum across the dash. Rear fenders are flared with triangle wedges in the wheel wells per the real car with no tubbing, running Goodyear Blue Streak 8.00x15 with 10" tread width all around. As the real car, it's a '66 body with '67 GTX grille and lights. Basically, it's a mix and match Franken-car just like the original but as it cannot be the original, we made some executive decisions.