During the winter slumber, we are reviewing the tasks that we want to accomplish for the summer to come. We have a new rear end, a heavy duty sway bar for the rear end, and also a new transmission to install before we can take it for a spin. One those have been installed, I will not baby that engine so much. I have been gentle because it is a new engine and also the transmission and rear end are weak for the power. Next summer will be exciting for new videos and more pictures.

My father sent me an e-mail telling me that he found a rear end for $200. Here is his message. "
I just bought a used 1994 squad rear end , posi with disc brakes and frame , control arms etc....200$$$ , I measured everything and it should fit, we will have hook up brake lines and I don`t know how the brakes are going to work....oh well!!! , I just put her to bed last nite also at home, she takes up alot of room!!!...later"

I think this says it all. We were thinking about getting a 9 inch rear end but this one is much cheaper and also ready to go. We will not have to do any additional work besides hooking everything up.

I got a call from my dad the other day. He was telling me that he was getting a new rack for alignment and was getting rid of his old one. His old rack consisted of a drive on hoiste and a seperate computer station. He sent word out to ther shops seeing if they would be interested in a drive on hoist and rack and the only person that responded back was a transmission shop guy. He came to my father's shop to review the hoist and said I will take it for the price that you are asking for, $1000.00. Then dad got into his wheeling and dealing mode and said to the guy, "All I want from you is a 700R4 transmission, 2200 rpm stall converter, 4 gears, and a manual/automatic shifting." The manual/automatic shifting allows the user to either have it in automatic mode or if they plan to race, shift it manual style.

Dad told him that it does not have to be done right away, but he would like it before the next summer. This will grant the guy plenty of time to do a great job on a transmission that will need to be beaten and also just driven.

All now that is left is a Ford rear-end and disc brakes and the drive trane will be complete.

It is hard to keep the tires from spinning and also being able to take off relatively quickly. Since the rear-end is still stock, the one tire will spin at a seconds notice, but I thought dad did a great job keeping it together and not spinning it out.

The idle was adjusted to something a little higher. This way we can avoid fouling out the plugs. We were just about to go into McDonalds for some breakfast when I thought about video taping the car as a 360 view. We are going to slowly see some changes in the future on this car. We are looking at a 9 inch rear end and to add on top of that, going to put on rear disk breaks. You won't find to many caprices in that year with disk breaks on the back.

The caprice was seeming a little rolly around corners and just plan driving. So Dad went and picked up some shocks. These shocks allow for a stiffer stance and also a better feel of the road. For all of you caprice lovers out there, these might be the next best things for your car. Suspension is everything when it comes to a performance car and the caprices are known for there rolly-polly drive...they were built for comfort and it will take a lot to make it performance.

Here is a picture of the shocks that were placed on the car.

I started out gentle but you can tell that the car was spinning the tires because the tire finally hooked up and had a little squeak and then I slowly gave it more gas. The raod was a little bit damp so I was trying to keep the car from spinning.

I also tried to keep the car under 75mph because the cops were out that day and we didn't want to chance it.

I had to be careful with the gas because with the road a little wet the car had no problem spinning the tires. This is a short video of us driving. There is another video of us on the highway passing a semi truck while trying to obey the speed limits.

Here is how the engine was tuned for the 400 plus horsepower.

Engine was bored 30 over.
The heads were ported and polished
525 camshaft
Holley 650 Spread Bore Carburetor
Stock Exhaust Manifold
Edlebrock Performance Manifold (matched to the engine)
Mallory Performance Electronic Ignition
Dual 2 1/2" Xlerator Performance Mufflers
Stainless Steel Exhaust Tips

The transmission and rear-end are the next to be worked on. I will be posting specs on the tranny soon.

My father just bought a new race car. It is a 1966 chevelle with a 358 in the engine compartment. The cool thing about this car is the fact that it is a replica of a car that Smokey Yunick built. Will have to go to my father's site to read more about the history, click here.

Here is a short video that I was able to take shortly after I video taped my caprice.

The same day that I came up to see family, dad and I went to the gym and we took the car too. I did some 360 degree walk around and one video behind the wheel. If you are going to watch these, you must have your bass turned up so you can hear the engine properly. The cylinders on a 454 are not small so the sound is quite low.

Last time I was up to see my family, dad told me that the engine kept over heating. His thoughts were because of the radiator that he had just put in. He didn't think it was quite right for this engine so he replaced it was an aluminum radiator built to cool down a 1000hp engine ($650).

Needless to say, the radiator did the trick and the car has zero faults in it.

The car does have some weak points but those will be getting replaced. 1) The transmission is a 350 turbo which will not hold up to the engine if you give it to much. The transmission will be replaced with a 700R4 with a manual shift. 2) The rear-end is still stock and not built for 400hp. 3) The rims and tires are old and not wide enough. The width on the rim is determinate to the max with that the car can handle on all four locations. We want to be able to service this thing with some ease and not be replacing rear tires every so often. These are later topics to talk about.

Years have gone by that I have not driven the car. I came up to see my family and get an oil change for my mini van when I realized that the caprice was sitting out back of my dad's shop (Olson Auto Service Inc.). I asked dad about it but he was kind of quiet on the matter and I also noticed that his Bronco was missing. It turns out that he traded the Bronco for work and a new engine for the car. The engine is a 454 putting out over 400hp. Apparently someone built it for a street car and ran out of money. We have always wanted a big engine to replace the 4.3L, and now we have it.

After a couple of months went by, dad informed me that the engine and exhaust have been installed and he let me hear that thing on my cell phone. You can see what I mean by listening and watching this video.

The car wouldn't be as good unless it had some tunes to go with it. Now, knowing that we were going to install a very sophisticated interior, I held off from going to far but I did have some 9" x 6s" installed and a little better than stock bass system so the music can be better quality.

One thing you have to learn about this project and my father and I. We are very patient people who will do what they say, but it might take some time after other things are complete. The finished interior will have a very nice sound system and very comfortable seats. More to come on the interior at a later date.

After the stereo was updated a little bit I then left to go to college and during that time, the car only saw me on the summer weekends. At the end of my college career, I did not drive the car much at all and it sat for a couple of years without any attention.

While it was at the auto body shop (Devine Auto, Eau Claire, WI), we were allowed to come in and take a look at the progress that was going on.

The next day after I got the car back, we were going to a car show and in this picture you can see my Dad's 1930 Model A and also our red boat with a 454 big block.



The car doesn't quite look done though. We decided to get the bumpers powder coated black to really finish it off. All of the trim around the windows are all black and since we didn't want any chrome on it besides it's future rims the bumpers had to be black.

We drove the caprice to my dad's shop (Olson Auto Service Inc.) where I started to take it apart. I needed to remove the front two fenders and both of the doors.

Here is a picture of the car before I took it apart. Don't you just love that color green....right.

Here I took off the front bumper, fenders, hood, and doors. I also removed the stickers, rear bumper and lights so they wouldn't have to when they start stripping down the color.


This car was out of my hands for little over one month, I was going nuts.