Very nice sound, some lope but not overpowering. Just right!

Now, the bad news. The hood Ram Air pan fit perfectly, foam seal and all. Cutting the hood brace took only a few minutes.

Upon attempting to close the hood, however, I discovered that there NO CLEARANCE between the front of the carb pan and the hood pan. They touch at the very front of the carb pan with the hood closed. The rear of the carb pan clears by about 1", which is just about right to compress the foam and make a seal.

Now, I need to figure out how to lower the front of the carb pan by about 1" so there is room for the foam to seal, but no contact between the two pans. I can see that about 3/8" could be removed from the plastic carb pan at the front carb air horn location and about 3/16" off the carb pan at the center carb air horn location. This would give more than 3/8" of clearance at the front of the pan due to the geometery, but I don't know if that would be enough. I'm going to try it. If not successful, I'll cut the top off the carb pan and cut a wedge-shaped section out of it to lower the top of the pan. It will take adhesive and body work to make it look nice, but the end result will be worth the effort.

If any of you have ideas or know of a carb pan that is lower than the one I have, please let me know. Mine is as a plastic carb pan and I suspect they are all the same. When I set it on a table, there is 3 5/8" from the top of the pan to the bottom of the front air horn connection.

Dick, a couple of thoughts.
I was thinking the same as you, cut a wedge and weld it back together. But then I read that your pan is plastic.
This still can be done depending on the type of plastic. If it is a thermoplastic, one you can reshape with heat, that may be an option. How much clearance do you have from the pan to fuel lines/linkages? You could remove the foam seal, install the filters to keep everything in place, make a "U" shaped wood form to press evenly around the pan, then heat the pan (with a heat gun) in the front lower portion. It doesn't look like you have much clearance between the pan and the top of the front carb, so that may not even be an option. It could turn out to be unpleasant to look at too!
If it were me, I'd make a cut the height of the back corner wall just below the radius. Take that cut forward around the front to the opposite back corner. Lower the pan to the level you want overlapping the sections and use a plastic adhesive to glue together. If you can plastic weld, that's an option too. It will probably take some heat to get the two to align well.
You know, it's always something! Makes it all that much more enjoyable once you get to use it.
Good luck,
Terry

I'm hoping I can lower the top of the pan enough just by removing material off the carb connections--center and front only.

I called Ames today and they measured the plastic and metal aftermarket pan height--they're both 3 5/8" like mine, so buying one that will fit is not an option.

I'll try the carb connection method first and report on results. Does it seem reasonable to operate with about 1" of clearance between the hood and carb pans? Or could I get by with less? The stock foam is 1 3/4" thick, so 1" of clearance would compress it less than 2X.

An inch should be fine, until a motor mount lets go!

An inch should be fine, until a motor mount lets go!

No worry there. We have a 8000 lb. proof safety chain tying the front of the engine to the frame with zero slack. The engine cannot move even 1/8".

If that pan was metal I would cut a pie shape piece from back to front and do some welding . I would use tape to keep the lines strait. Mask off so you could scribe a cut line.

Since the pan is plastic I don't have a good suggestion. Is it plastic or fiberglass? I have not heard of a good plastic welder. The eastwood one has not had the best reviews.

Do they make metal pans?

The carb pan is plastic, not fiberglass. Your idea with the wedge is right on, and would work for sure without sacrificing clearance between the top of the carbs and the bottom of the pan. However, since the sides are tapered, there would be a step on the inside and outside. I've heard this type of plastic can be heated and formed quite easily, but I fear if I try that I'll end up with an ugly plastic lump.

Yes, they make metal pans. The plastic one is $130, metal $369. When they're painted black, there is no way to tell if it's metal or plastic.

I'm hoping someone knowledgeable of working with this type of plastic would chime in and give me some ideas.

Tonight, I'm going to cut the bottom carb connections as described earlier. I'll report back on how much clearance this creates.

Did you ever try the idea of flipping the pan around?

We actually tried the fit with the pan turned around, and gave that up because with the foam in place, the hood wouldn't close. I found a picture of a '66 GTO with Ram Air and see that the pan IS SUPPOSED to be on with the low part in front (the pointed end).

I'm going to try the fit again with no foam in place and measure the hood clearance again. We used crumpled up balls of tin foil set on top of the pan to measure clearance. We had about 3/4" in the rear with the pan installed the wrong way and zero in the front. We may be OK with cutting the high end (rear) of the pan "funnels" as discussed above.

Will report on results soon!

I was able to add 1" more clearance for the front of the pan to the hood pan. We had zero. I also cut down the rear carb funnel as lowering the front raised the back.

At this point, no more clearance could be created by modifying the carb "funnels" because if I cut the center carb funnel any more, the diameter will change since it's now cut to the flat portion. Also, there is very little clearance for the choke linkage under the pan.

Since the foam measures 1 3/4" high, and we now have 1" clearance all around the pan, I believe it will now work as intended. Note that the '66 GTO Ram Air pan will work on the First Gen Firebird only if installed "backwards". This is due to much less clearance toward the rear of the hood than the GTO offers.

Will report success or problems as soon as we try it on the car.

Will report

Wow! That upside down problem is irritating. Only on this site do some of my pictures do this. Sorry.

Here's the pan ready to put on. I added drain hoses for the pan like the '69 and later cars had.

I think we'll run the longer drain hose toward the driver's side routed with the wire harness from the alternator.

I just turn off the auto-rotate function on my tablet, works out okay.

We ran into an unexpected glitch with the front alignment. The shop (a very reputable local shop), says GM cars with the stub frame like this '68 have a common problem with the stub drooping due to supporting the weight of the front end for so many years. In our case, on the right side, he says there is a 2 3/4" error in alignment due to this "droop." Yes, that's 2 3/4"! He says he can correct it with hydraulic equipment to bend the frame. We know this car had front right collision damage many years ago which could have bent the frame.

There is a tire rub problem on the right side with the T/A 215-70r15 tires now in place. I've seen other First Gen Firebirds with this size tire and no rub problem.

As you may guess, I'm leery of the diagnosis, but know there is something not right due to the tire rub. The big issue is body panel alignment. We spent a lot of time getting it right, but I'd guess bending the frame to correct the problem would destroy panel alignment.

What are your thoughts? Could the problem be the aftermarket tubular A-arms? Why only on the right side?

How bad was it to do the panel alignment.
Usually if the frame is bent that much there would have to be a crazy amount of shims used and even swimming of the body mounts.
I would get a second opinion or set the car up on stands and level the car side to side and front to back and take measurements.
If it checks out OK Check the springs all around.

I forgot to mention we put new bushings in the four front stub mounting locations before any sheet metal was put on.

Front fender alignment to the doors was not difficult, so I'm leery of frame problems. The question remains--why only is the right side tire rubbing?

The alignment shop was emphatic that "these cars" have problems with drooping of the subframe itself in the arced area where the front suspension is located. He said he could bend this area to correct the problem. But, as I said in the OP, how can this be done without affecting body panel alignment.

Start measuring the sub frame for squareness. But the alignment shop should be able to print out the distance from the center of rear wheel to the center of the front. Would indicate the subframe mis alignment or bent control arms.

This reminds me of my car. I have rub on one side also. I measured my subframe and found one side to be 1/8 off. I also didn't know enough at the time to measure that its square. The front frame horn is bent in on one side (didn't know until I was putting it together). The bumper and hood don't fit right and it drives me nuts. I also run big 235/15 tires so no room for error.

I have considered getting a brand new OEM frame for around $1000 bucks but I would have to go through the panel alignment like you said. But I don't think the panel alignment would be all that bad. Three of the 4 points are all on the firewall piece. If you keep your shims all organized you shouldn't have much problem.

Its all the other crap with changing it out that really make me shudder. gas and brake lines, swap the motor, do the "Guldstrand" mod again, swap the suspension.

I feel for ya it sucks.

The alignment guy says he can fix it. He claims he has fixed Camaros and Novas with the same problem. How he can do this without body panel shift is a mystery to me.

Also, once we get the alignment problem resolved, the body stiffener and traction bars will be installed. We already have Assassin traction bars, but need more info on various body stiffeners. Some bolt on and some are welded.

I've seen how flexible the mounts are that secure the front frame stub. When you jack up the car, the panels move quite a lot.

Anyone on this board have a preference from experience with various styles available?

Wow, what points are you jacking at? I've never seen body panels on my 'birds move when jacking...

Body panels move on all cars when jacking or driving. According to A.O. Smith engineering, a typical full sized GM body flexes up to 4" from one corner to another during normal driving. Yes, that's four inches!

If you jack the Firebird at the rear of the frame stub, the top of the fender-to-door gap widens and the bottom of the gap narrows. Not a lot, but it is enough that the door may hit the fender if opened when jacked up like this.

Same on my GTO--when jacking the frame under center of the door, the front fender-to-door gaps behave like the firebird. The rear of the door gap widens on top, narrows on the bottom.

The movement is minimized on any car if you jack near the front or rear suspension locations.

In anticipation of my '68 being released from paint jail soon I was reading through your assembly post today. I had a similar experience with the rear end being out of kilter. After pulling it all back apart I could find no cause other than the housing had slipped on the polyurethane spring cushions. I wanted to stiffen up the shackle flex so I elected for an aftermarket polyurethane kit. In addition to the shackle bushings, I also installed the spring cushions but left the front spring eyes rubber. Until this build I had always used GM spring cushions and never experienced any problems.
Enclosed photo is what I found upon disassembly so I elected to purchase some of GM's finest as they are still available, part number 3930052 for multi-leaf springs. The aftermarket cushions do not have the molded in metal support for the spring pilot pin like the GM cushions do. I don't know if the aftermarket cushions were the cause or not but after 4 years with the GM cushions the rear end is still located perfectly.
Your problem could be something entirely different. Just something to check. I've never read or heard anything bad about polyurethane spring cushions but mine moved. Nothing else but the cushion was changed in the assembly to fix the problem.
Thanks

Thanks for posting that Dennis. I'm going to check that on our car and will likely find the same thing. Do you think any of the aftermarket poly cushions have metal inserts?

I don't know, my only experience with aftermarket cushions. These were Energy Suspension pieces. I've never had a problem with their other components. I'm wondering if the poly cushions just don't compress as much leaving the pilot pin disengaged?

Thanks

I called Ames and found out their spring pads do not have metal inserts--neither the rubber ones nor the urethane ones.

I think we'll go with urethane ones unless we can find some of the OEM ones. We have to remove the spring "U" bolts anyhow to install the traction bars. I hope we find the same thing Dennis did on his. That's an easy fix for the crooked rear axle.

What is the correct headliner color for a black interior with Solar Red exterior?

Also, which material is correct--Bedford, Impala, perforated, or which?

Thanks

We have most of the problems worked out except for a puzzling one. The front tires, 215-70r15 on Rally II wheels rub on the wheel opening when turning.

The alignment shop said First Gen Firebirds & Camaros have a problem with the subframe collapsing downward due years of supporting the engine, resulting in the wheels tilting inward--negative camber. He said ours is beyond correction by removing alignment shims. He said he could bend the crossmember in the subframe to correct the problem.

I've noticed there are offset a-arm rods to correct this problem.

I'm having trouble seeing how negative camber results in the wheels hitting the fenderwells. Wouldn't this problem move the wheels further away from the fenders?

Wouldn't this depend on where in the wheel wells the tires are hitting? I think we all assume that it is the outer lip because we generally put too large a tire in the wheel wells.

How low is the front of the car? I have 225/70/15 without any problems.

Pretty near stock height. Tire hits at about 10 o'clock on passenger side, 2 o'clock on driver's side.

I need to check rim offset--maybe set out too far?

What about subframe crossmember sag? Alignment shop claims this is common.

Even if you had sag and had to use the offset upper shafts it would put the tires where they should be after an alignment.
How are the body bushings? If those were shot and compressed it would bring the whole subframe up.

We put new bushings between the body and subframe during restoration.

Looking back, I wish we'd have put a new subframe assy. in place of the old one. They are available with disc brakes, tubular A arms, etc. It would have been a lot less work to replace instead of adding disc brakes, new springs, A arms, etc.

Finally put the car in a show yesterday. A lot of attention due to the Ram Air and Tripower. Many questions on whether Firebirds were built with Tripower!

Question on Alternator warning light.---It's on at idle and goes off at about 2000 rpm. Lights normally with key on and engine off. Any clues as to what may be wrong? I've jumpered the field lead and it charges strongly. Also tried new regulator with no change in symptoms.

The 4.11 rear gear ratio is not compatible with our planned usage of the car. Most major shows are several hours from our location in Wisconsin. We will run the car at least once this spring at our local drag strip--Kaukauna.

The rear end is quiet and the posi works great. We're thinking 3.23 would work with the 3500 converter, but allow highway speeds when traveling to shows.

What are your thoughts?

Back in the day ... my buddy had 4.11's and i had 3.3? /w both Safetrack. He did bunny hops in his and he came with me when we drove to Montana for skiing. Mine was fine on highway.

BTW,
I'm putting in tri power in my 65 Pontiac Cat /w 389. Got "boat" loads of room so she will be a sleeper!

Nice Tripower setup! I don't know the altitude where you are in Alberta, but if it's not really high, the accelerator pumps on the end carbs should be in the forward holes to give you a better shot of gas when hitting the end carbs.

So, you think 3.23 would be good?

3.23 should work real nice, if you can find one. (The 2.7x I have is kinda high.)