The Car Wizard Dave McAllister hard at work on the 1967 GTO that Mary and I will be driving in the Great Race 2015.
Ben Franklin was known to say: “By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.” Or his more commonly known, “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.” This is true in many aspects of life and business and it also applies to our participation in the Great Race (Here are the pictures we promised yesterday). I often get asked what it takes to get a car ready to drive in the Great Race. The answer is, a lot. Right now, we’re doing everything that can be done to improve the reliability and or safety of the cars that will be entered for the Spirit of Stahls Team. Mary and I will be driving a red 1967 Pontiac GTO Convertible, with a V-8 engine, equipped with a Quadrajet Four Barrel and stainless steel dual exhaust. This is the youngest car that we have ever entered in the Great Race. Since we will be traveling from Kirkwood, Missouri to Santa Monica, California over a 10-day period, along historic Route 66, this car is perfect. We’re excited about it for many reasons, including the fact that it has air-conditioning. So far there’s been about two months of work put into that car by the Car Wizard, also known as Dave McAllister, also known as the Great Race Tech Guy. He’s doing everything from putting stabilizing bars in the rear to doubling up on features that commonly fail in high altitude and hot conditions. This next part is more interesting to car buffs, but here’s a laundry list of what Dave’s been up to so far on the GTO:
- Put in new timing chain
- New front crank seal
- Water pump on all the water hoses for both the radiator and heater system
- New six bladed fan cooling fan with a fan clutch, to get more air going through.
- Thicker core radiator, so that there is more cooling capacity when it gets hot
- Took off intake manifold, blocked out the heat crossover
- Installed electric choke
- New tires
- New brakes and shocks
- New rear sway bars with new ladder bars
- Fuel pressure gauge
- Fuel pressure regulator
- Added right rear view mirror
- Installed two fuel pumps, 2 fuel gauges
- Removed mechanical fuel pump and put in block out plate
- Repacked front wheel bearings
- New alternator, new fan belts
- Put in a vacuum controlled heater shut off valve
- New weather stripping where needed
- This list goes on, but we think you get the idea.
A closer look under the hood.
