DoctorLarry

After much new information from Mike and Harry Quackenboss about the Adams project cars, I resumed trying to replicate the original as closely as possible. I added the kick panel portions of the firewall and scratch built the oil tank, oil cooler, remote oil filter unit and radiator puke tank. I put in the braided lines and fittings. Front suspension is in and I added the front shocks and braces to the frame. I built heim ends for the front sway bar but it was too close to the engine so I have to re-do the bar, which mounts on top (rather than bottom) of the frame. Mounted the differential oil cooler and pump. I found a resin low back racing seat like the original. The real car had a snap on fabric cover for the seat and I found some similar looking craft ribbon to make that out of. Bracket for the seat mount and harness mount is in as well as a small switch bracket on the floor. I found a fire extinguisher and made the straps that hold it in. Harry said that it used a truck arm rear suspension because NASCAR required it. He actually called Herb Adams to verify! (big thanks for that one!) Now it needs fuel and brake lines, calipers and rotors and detailing the engine. The car is hard to replicate because everything was painted black! I am scratch building an intake (already made the valley pan) and I found a resin Holley Dominator. Modified the block for the dry sump lines (Thanks again Mike and Harry) and so I am getting close. radiator is ready to go in as well (I had to modify the core support to get it right). I feel like Dave Van here-I don't want to think how much this has cost but it sure is fun to replicate such a beautiful car. At least if I screw the body up I can always make more of those...

Another question relating to all three cars: The Gray Ghost ran Minilites on it in all of the photos of the car. I assume that they never used anything different on it. Photos of the Minter Firebird show it with Motor Wheel Spyders on it. Some of the Petersen photos of the Grand Am appear to show it running Spyder wheels on it. Did that happen or is it just the way the photos look? The photos of it sitting still show the 5 hole Nascar type wheels but the motion photos look different to me. If you blow this up the wheels look a lot like Motor Wheel.

Hopefully this has not been an exercise in answering repeated questions from pestering students.....

Do you know if they used a Watts linkage or Panhard bar to control side movement?

Thanks, Harry. I was going with the 4 link but now I can do it more accurately! I That was where I started before I saw the Petersen archive photos and read all of your comments. I can finish my chassis up now. Thanks again-we have really put you out for a couple of models! Larry

Harry-any thoughts come to mind on the Grand Am rear suspension?

Great. Thanks, Harry! LB

Check out the parallel Team Associates Grand Am thread on the NASCAR board-Mike has posted the modified rear suspension photo that shows the modified mounts on the rear axle for camber changes.

If you look at this, neither the upper or lower control arm mounting positions have been altered. The upper arms are steel tubing with spherical rod ends but the lowers are stock with a stock sway bar and mounted in the stock locations. The team must have altered the geometry later to improve handling. With the altered lower mounts I doubt the stock sway bar would have fit anymore so they must have ditched it.

That nails it! Thanks, Mike. Harry-did the Grand Am use the same rear suspension setup as the Ghost? Mike has some really good shots of it and if Herb Adams used the same basic architecture I will have all I need to finish. Thanks, guys!

Good description of the pump on the SD 455 block, but no pictures of the outlet location: https://www.hemmings.com/magazine/mus/2008/08/The-Guts-Inside-the-Glory/1676887.html

is that near the oil filter? Is that the orange on the left side of the picture?

I found the hotrod.com article and saw pictures of the rear of the block area where the drive gears were for the pump. I just wondered whether the pump was visible from the outside of the engine or not. Now I know! Thanks, Harry.

Mike and Harry: Would you think that they used a similar dry sump pan on the 73 Grand Am? I can see the oil tank mounted in the same area on the grand Am as well as the remote cooler up front and dual remote filters. Any idea which side the dry sump pump would be on? I don't see a Gilmer belt on the engine photos on the Grand Am that would indicate a separate dry sump pump.

Went through the Petersen archives and pulled out a bunch of close ups. Revised the chassis around the stock frame (Revell 66 GTO). The frame is slightly different that the 73-77 cars so I had to shorten it 3 mm. Built the cage just like the pictures using one of my own resin firewalls and dashboards. Dash is pretty simple. Gauge bezels are thin slices of plastic tubing so I can Molotow chrome the rings and decal the faces. This is really a simpler build because it is pretty stock. I can see oil tank, cooler and remote filters but cannot see a dry sump pump or pan lines so that is still up in the air as well as rear suspension details.My Chassis Engineering book is supposed to be here shortly so maybe some ideas from that.

I sent him a Facebook message. He posts sometimes on a FireAm page for enthusiasts so we shall see.

I found a copy of Herb Adams' book "Chassis Engineering" on EBAY and ordered it. The reviews were mixed but it might have some insights on how he would set up a chassis. One reviewer complained it was too simplistic and another said it spent too much time on oval track cars so maybe for my purposes it will give me some insights. I did some web searches for Matt Adams and VSE and it seems there is not much out there. He may have closed up shop or just not have much of a web presence.

If you look closely at the Gray Ghost rear end, as you correctly note, the upper control arm points are lowered (they normally attach to "ears" cast into the diff housing) and the upper control arms are now adjustable tube creations. If you look closely at the lower mounts you also see that they are lowered by pieces of angle welded to the old mounts. You can still see where the old lower arms mounted. Also, as you note, they boxed the lower arms for strength (which GM did on later models) but on the close up you showed earlier evidently the shocks were off the car. This photo shows them mounting in nearly the same place as stock-probably to the lower mounts. The insight is always appreciated!

Looking at the top photo I posted of the rear seat area, the two plates bolted to the floor pan may have been reinforcements for something. Did the Gray Ghost have rear shocks on it? I can't see it on any pictures.

Here is a chassis picture that looks similar to the one above:

One less thing to build, then..

Looking at the top photo I posted of the rear seat area, the two plates bolted to the floor pan may have been reinforcements for something in the rear suspension. They are in front of the rear axle so unlikely they are for a sway bar. On the A body platforms, sway bars mounted to the lower control arms in stock configuration. In the Grey Ghost Tempest, it mounts more like a 78-81 Camaro rear bar with the post mounts and the bar behind the differential. I think I will scratch build something and add the lines for the rear differential cooler. I'll use the rear suspension from either the Cutlass floor pan I'm using or from a 66 GTO. The Revell 66 GTO has very detailed suspension components. I'll need to find some rear disc calipers and rotors but I think I have a junk 67 Corvette I bought for parts somewhere. The rest of the front suspension is from the Cutlass. I will have to flip the sway bar over and fab up front frame rails and shock mounts but this is really easy to build because it is so stock! I used part of the roll cage from a NASCAR Buick Regal and scratch built the rest along with a resin firewall that I made for my Grand Ams. I ordered some resin Holley Dominators and have an intake that closely matches the one on the car. PPP wheels, Monogram 1/24 tires (larger size) and my own body and I'm almost there on parts. It also has a non-NASCAR seat so I ordered a resin Don Hardy race seat which matches pretty well. This could be the most expensive modeling project I've ever done...

Thanks for the shots-those really help. Adams was quoted in Motor Trend something to the effect of "everybody else just buys stuff from Holman Moody and they all do the same thing. We don't think you need to do that and we think we can use factory parts" so your photos show that. A very rough idea of what he said, obviously and since he was a suspension engineer I believe he could back it up. The Motor Trend article mentioned that they lost brakes in the race because the chrome wheels flexed more than they thought and ground the bleeder screw off a rear caliper-which was from a stock Corvette so they were using stock parts as much as possible. I just wonder if he used a rear say bar on the Grand Am. The one on the Tempest did not mount in the stock locations and would be invisible from the rear of the car.

Photos courtesy of the Petersen Archives. Thanks to Swede 70 for the link as it has a ton of archival stuff.

I've been mining these archives and am still amazed at the "stockness" of this car. The only thing lacking is a detail shot of the rear suspension. There appear to be some sort of traction bars on the lower control arms and there are some reinforcing plates bolted to the rear seat area but it does not look like truck arms. Also can't see a Panhard bar or Watts linkage in the back to control side-to-side motion. I also can't tell whether it has a nine inch Ford rear or a GM rear so I will wing it on those details. The rest of the car has a ton of remarkably detailed pictures so I should be able to replicate it pretty faithfully.