77 TA 18 year project

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jpakes53:
So I’ve been a long time follower on this forum and have been slowly rebuilding my trans am over the previous 28 years….originally I bought the car when I was 20 and figured I would get it done real quick but between college, marriage, kids and expanding our family business life seemed to always present challenges to delay progress on my project. I found the car in an old guys garage in the next town over and he was a banker who repossessed it from the original owner not long after it was purchased then in 1981 he parked it and it sat there in his garage until I bought it in 2005. I pulled it out and over the next year I got all the mechanicals working and got the engine to run again. I drove it around like that for a few years then tore it apart for the rebuild. I always like the year one cars but have never been a fan of the black and gold that you always see so I decided I would do a version that was black and silver instead. I build engines for a living and knew I wanted that to be a special part of the build and to be streetable but make good power. In today’s world that also meant suspension and brakes to go with it. Anyways I had gotten the car painted and the suspension done and built the engine about 4-7 years ago and then my dad and business partner passed away so it got put on hold again to take care of getting the business situated with me being the sole owner and finishing a few of his projects that he had started. So this winter I have decided it’s sat long enough and that I’m going to finally prioritize my car and getting it done for the spring. So after that long saga the build includes: a donor shell to replace the floors and rear frame rails which also includes going to a fisher ttop roof, dse mini tub kit, lowering leaf springs, tubular upper and lower control arms with Viking coilovers from pro touring fbody, subframe connectors, the black paint with silver graphics which are all painted on from stencils I had made up, I built the engine myself which quickly spiraled out of control as originally I just planned to throw this engine together while I worked on a bigger turbo motor but then I ended up doing 4.5” 490 CI bottom end with Kauffman high ports that I got as raw castings and machined and ported myself and then sent out to have them and the northwind intake polished on the outside the not makes about 685hp and 697 lbft of torque, Doug’s headers I matched that with a tko600 transmission from American Powertrain that I had the internals cryogenicially treated and worked over to give it a rating good up to about 950 lbft of torque, the rear end is still a 10 bolt but was worked over with 3.73 gears, a better position, moser axles with c clip eliminators, wilwood 4 disc brakes with a hydro boost, quick ratio steering box and most recently I bought some year one 17” snowflakes with 275/40/17 tires just so I can get it back on the road until I get the wide rims so I can run bigger tires made. That pretty much sums it up to where it is at. As of today I dropped the engine and trans in today which was a tight fit to say the least but it was a good step to have done. I’ll post some pics from the journey up as well as where it’s at now.

jpakes53:
More pics also not sure why they are upside down but if you click on them they are right side up

jpakes53:
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