[The Stickman]

Since my thread as well as everyone elses went bye bye I am going to repost it.

Well I thought it would be a neat idea to make one thread to show off all the mods I either have done or will do. That way eveyone can see the progression and how it went from point A to point B and so on. It started off with me buying this 1984 Oldsmobile Custom Cruiser.

It was pretty much stock with the exception of the wide deep dish red wheels and 255/60/15's all around including an identical spare. And the matt black paint and dark tinted windows. It had like 67,000 miles on it when I got it. The First thing I did was to add this radio.

It's a nice touch screen unit that has a full screen and can play DVD's. I also added this back up camera.

It allows me to see behind this big beast. And it is totally hidden. The next thing I added was this hidden antenna.

I did this because the one in the fender was broken off and I like the hidden look.

 

[The Stickman]

The next thing I did was to add this repro Olds "Batwing" aircleaner. It is a really nice piece but is kinda heavy. But it does look great, and fits the character of the car.

The next thing I did was to pick up an aluminum radiator with 2 electric fans out of an LT-1 Caprice.

The engine compartment went from this.

To this

In my opinion it looks so much cleaner without that big ugly radiator shroud. I will be replacing the aluminum homemade brackets with a nice fiberglass cover to go over the top of the radiator. To control the fans I added this nice little controller that allows me to dial in what temp I want the fans to kick in at.

While I was replacing the radiator I drill some holes on the bottom of the radiator support to mount my heatsink style transmisssion cooler. I have to say that it is a very nice piece. It's well made and looks great.

Some have said they don't work well. But I have to say that after installing it my transmission problems that I would get after the car warmed up pretty much went away. I do think it is cooling much better and therefore helping my transmission work better.

 

[The Stickman]

Well here is an update. Some of you may know I am in the middle of an engine swap. Well the 350 is in. It's still not finished but it's in and taking shape. Here's some pics of it.

Now I was hoping to use the stock exhaust system till I could more easily afford the true dual system. But when yanking the engine I had to cut that stupid crossover tube out. So that forced me to have to go the true dual route. That means I needed a transmission crossmember that would allow duals. I looked high and low for a double hump crossmember, but could not find one. So I made one. Ok, ok my wife made one. I had a piece of scrap U channel laying around so I had her cut a piece out and weld the piece in. Well I have to say my wife does great work. Take a look for yourselves.

 

[The Stickman]

Here is another update. I finally had a day where my head didn't hurt and wasn't foggy. Maybe the new meds are working. I only did a little bit so that maybe tomorrow won't be so bad and I can get more done. What I got done was adding all the wire braided fuel hoses and fittings. I had to make a hose from the fuel pump to the fuel pressure regulator. And then I made one from the fuel pressure regulator to the carb. I got a little worried as the hose didn't quite want to bend enogh to go from the pressure regulator to the carb. So I made the hose a bit longer than I wanted. I think it all looks rather sharp.

 

[The Stickman]

Here is a mild update. I received my wheels today. They are 18X9 Boss series 304'swheels and they look great. In the next 2 weeks or so there should be even more updates as parts arrive. This car will be very different by spring.

 

[The Stickman]

Well I finally got some steering wheels for us and installed them today. I took off the old goofy looking plastic one and put on a leather one from a Fiero. It has the nice contoured grips and is so comfy. Yes I know It hasd the Fiero horn cap. I will be trying to fix that in the future. It's also a little dirty. I will need to take some cleaner to it.

 

[The Stickman]

Well parts have been arriving pretty often lately. I now have a TransGo 200-4R HD2 shift kit for my 200-4R transmission. It will give me either full manual control up or down thru the gears for 1st,2nd, and 3rd gears. Or I can stick in in OD and let it do all the work.

Today I recieved my new shifter. It is made by Brian Kilduff and is one sweet piece. His shifters are made to order so you can't go wrong here.

 

[The Stickman]

Now if I am going to run a floor shifter I have to replace the bench seat with a set of bucket seats. And I had a few options. I could have found some comfy buckets so it would be similar to what the bench feels like. Or I have a bunch of Fiero seats I could have had recovered. But since this car handles great as is and will only get better to the point I may want to do some track days with it I felt that something closer to a competition seat should be in order. So I found these off of Ebay and it so happens they were fairly local so it saved me some cash. I really like the look. Wait till you see what I do with them.

 

[The Stickman]

Well more parts have been recieved for my build(s). I found two distributors off of Craigslist. The first one was a Mallory Uni-Lite vacuum advance distributor. It is used but looks ok. I paid $100 and the guy threw in the MSD wires and Blaster 2 coil.

The second distributor was a brand new in the box MSD Pro Billet unit. This I got for $175 which I thought was a steal. So much so I didn't even try to haggle.

Now why 2 distributors? Well the MSD distributor must be used with an MSD box. Now I have a used 7AL-2 unit. BUT it happens to be a 4 cylinder only part. So I am trying to find out what I need to do to send it back along with this coil to have rebuild at a fraction of the cost of new.

Note the coil has an aluminum heat sink around it. This will not only look cool but I have yet to see one on another car. So I can't use the MSD distributor until I have a box and coil to use with it. So I can use the Mallory until all that get's figured out. I hope to have the Mallory in this weekend depending on the weather. It should improve my spark and timing. The Mallory has to be a vast improvement over the tired old HEI unit. And once I have all the parts I need to use the MSD distributor the Mallory can go in the wife's car providing we find an Olds engine for her's soon.

 

[The Stickman]

Ok the wife and I worked all day on getting the old bench seats out and the new buckets in. We had to(ok ok she had to)custom make the brackets as there was nothing to use. I did get sliders with the seats but needed a way to mount the seats and sliders to the floor. We ended up making some nice brackets using nothing more than scraps we had laying around. We did use the outer studs that the bench seat was orginally mounted to. We only got one front seat done but the other one should be a piece of cake now that the first one is done. And the wife did take a good bit of time getting the welder back to where she wanted it as it has been sitting for a long time. Anyway here are the pics. Let me know what you think.

 

[The Stickman]

Ok bucket seats day 2. My car is becoming more and more like my vision of a high performance touring car like i want. We worked on getting the drivers seat perfect and making brackets for the passenger seat. It took most of the day(well started at 1pm) but now I have both front seats mounted, and I can work on the backs. Here are the newest piccs of both installed. BTW there should be alot of updates this week as I plan on lowering the front end and will be getting my wheel spacers and poly bushings for the front end.

 

[The Stickman]

Well I have been slacking off with the updates so I will try to get up to date in the next few days as I will have more after that with a new radiator and intake, as well as a rebuilt trans with shift kit after it's rebuilt.

So here's what you have missed. I rebuilt the front suspension with Energy Suspension bushings and I took the Eibach springs out of the front and put the F41 RPO code springs back in. First I took a half coil off and it brought it down to the level of the Eibachs and I wanted more of a drop. SO I hacked off a whole nother coil. That might have been more extreme then I had originally wanted. But the looks and ride are perfect. So I got way lucky. Here's some picks.

Here's how I want the rear to be with some help from a friend.

Here are some coilover brackets that my wife made. Problem is I have 2 pair of Coilovers that are too long so we have to figure a way to find the extra space for them.

 

[The Stickman]

Well I promised more updates and here they are. Here are some body mods I did with the bumpers. First the front bumpers are tucked in. The one bumper shock was partially collapsed so I collapsed it all the way. Now to collapse the other one I had to drill a hole in it. Then I stripped the bumper down and painted it black.

Then onto the rear bumper. I stripped it down and painted it black like the front. I took it off the mounts and put it against the body and it looks great. But I have to figure out the mounts to get it right but here is how I want it to like

 

[The Stickman]

Here is the rear suspension mods I have done. These are my Metco Billet Aluminum LCA's. I really like these arms. They are very nice quality pieces.

They allowed me to mount a sedan swaybar on may wagon until I can get a set of much bigger wagon bars.

Here are the arms mounted without the swaybar mounted.

Here it is with the swaybar mounted.

ANd here is a pic showing the twist in it.

 

[The Stickman]

Ok I bought a new Edebrock High rise Performer intake part #7111. I bought it cause the old Performer is warped to hell and I need to fix the leak problem. ALthough I think it might be a problem with the head because the cast iron intake leaked at the EGR crossover too. But then again I didn't read the turkey try gasket directions either time i did it until after the last one that said to use gasket sealer around the ports. Never had to do this on any other car. So hopefully this will seal right and I can get all the performance outa my engine that I should. Here are so some pics comapring the 2 Performer intakes.

You can clearly see the new intake is about 2 inches taller than the old one.
Here is it mounted and with the carb on it.

Now it did represent a big problem. The base plate for the batwing aircleaner is flat so it sits up off the carb. Thankfully I had an old HUGE aircleaner that had a drop down base that is the same size. So I swapped one for the other(will need some trimming) and low and behold I can close my hood.

 

[The Stickman]

Well I got my transmission back from the rebuilder after the front seal went. I figured I might as well get the shiftkit put in and have the whole trans rebuilt. I also figured while the trans was out to replace the LT-1 radiator with an all aluminum one and to replace the Edelbrock Intake that was warped with another better one. The Intake was easy and I covered that in a previous post. The radiator was a bit more involved. I could not use the LT-1 radiators fans and since I had to shell out big dough for the trans rebuild I couldn't get new fans which can cost a good penny. So I bought 2 junkyard fans and made my own mounts. I think it came out very well.

 

[The Stickman]

Very short update. I got the trans cooler on. I will actually be running two The cylinder heatsink one plus this Perma Cool one with the fan on it. I think this one wll not only help keep the trans temp down. Not sure it was high to begin with but now that the trans is built up I don't want to take any chances. But it should also help with keeping the engine temps down due to the extra fan. I also got some work done to the fan shroud for on top of the radiator. But it's not quite finished.

 

[The Stickman]

Ok here is the top shroud I made for the new radiator. It needs to be polished but it looks pretty good I think. I may need to move the fans a bit closer to the rad but I'm not sure at this point.

 

[The Stickman]

FINALLY!!!!! I have all 4 seats in and mounted. Finally. And I have to say it makes the interior look great. I still need to put new carpet in and fix the headliner as well as other things but the seats and the way they are in the car really look cool. It has a theater style arrangement.

 

[The Stickman]

Ok time for a tiny update as I haven't done much. But I did a very simple cheap mod that I thought I should pass on. I thought the rear sat a touch higher than I liked and someone here on the forum let me in on a secret, Thanx Squeek . Seems G-Body rear springs work in a B-Body and lower it quite nicely. It gave me anoth inch drop over my Eibachs. Not only that but it slightly softened up the ride on the front suspension. I thought they would be too weak to hold the rear up and not bounce. But it worked quite nicely. Still have to see how it corners but the ride seems great.