On this bonus episode of HOT ROD Unlimited
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MotorTranscript
00:00 It's Finnegan and Freiburger and you are expecting roadkill right now.
00:08 Sorry, you're not going to get it.
00:10 We suck.
00:11 What happened?
00:12 Well, instead, we're actually going to give them some good stuff.
00:17 Remember the '66 Buick we dragged out of a backyard in Arizona where it had been parked
00:20 for 33 years and we drove it home?
00:22 Well, now we're going to hop the thing up a little bit, turn it into a daily driver,
00:26 so check this out.
00:27 We're going to turn the thing on the autocross with all-new Classic Performance product suspension.
00:43 So about two weeks ago, Freiburger calls me up and says he wants to test a car at El Toro.
00:47 So I say, "Yeah, okay, let's do it."
00:49 He pulls up in this and I'm like, "You're kidding, right?"
00:54 If you follow Hot Rod Unlimited, you might know the story of this '66 Buick.
00:57 We dragged it out of the desert where it was parked, neglected for 33 years.
01:02 We got it running and drove it home from Phoenix to LA.
01:05 But now, I'm going to live up to my promise to thrash on it here at El Toro Marine Base
01:10 where we're going to run the autocross, the slalom, and do some brake testing.
01:23 The really amazing thing about this car is how little it needed after being just buried
01:28 for three decades.
01:30 As a matter of fact, it ran so good that we decided to just turn it into a competent daily
01:35 driver.
01:36 That involved boiling out the fuel system and we put a new radiator in it, spark plug,
01:40 spark plug wires.
01:41 But the big deal is the suspension was clapped out.
01:44 And so now, we've gone through it front to back, all with parts from a company called
01:48 CPP.
01:49 Well, here in the Hot Rod shop, I just got done updating the chassis on this '66 Buick
01:54 Convertible Special.
01:56 We took all the stock suspension parts off the car that were rusty and worn out.
02:01 You know, just kind of outdated and replaced them all with classic performance products.
02:05 Tubular control arms, we've got the lower and upper control arms here.
02:09 We've got their drop spindles.
02:10 It's a two-inch drop spindle with a stock height spring.
02:14 We have 11-inch disc brakes that replace the old worn out drum brakes.
02:19 We have a heavy-duty inch and an eighth sway bar for the front, as well as all new steering
02:24 components, tie rod ends, this billet adjuster sleeve, center link, pitman arm, power steering
02:31 box, and even a rag joint.
02:33 So the front suspension of this thing is all dialed, all new, ready to go, and should work
02:37 well.
02:38 Here in the back, we took out all the stock suspension, the stamped steel trailing arms
02:42 with the worn out bushings, which is pretty typical with a car this age, and replaced
02:46 them with classic performance products.
02:48 Here we have these heavy-duty upper and lower control arms for the rear.
02:53 They're tubular instead of stamped steel, which makes them a lot more heavy-duty, and
02:56 they even have these tie-in brackets to tie in the suspension with the rest of the chassis
03:00 in the car to help stiffen things up.
03:03 We have a heavy-duty sway bar for the rear, as well as drop coil springs to lower the
03:07 ride height, as well as new shocks.
03:09 So the back of this thing should handle just as well as the front.
03:12 With all that suspension and brake work, obviously we also needed wheels and tires, and Treadsource.com
03:17 hooked us up with these Falcon Azenis tires, which are like incredible racy overkill for
03:23 this pile, but we're good with that.
03:25 And it's also got Wheel Vintique's Steelies on it.
03:28 They're 17x8 and 17x9.5, and I really dig this powder coating that we had done at MB
03:33 in Orange County, California.
03:35 But now we're going to go thrash on it, right there at the autocross.
03:38 Let's go.
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05:01 Not that the car is really, really fast.
05:03 It was just way better than it should be, considering how it looks.
05:06 I couldn't believe how flat it was and how much it stuck.
05:10 A lot of that is the tires.
05:11 If it had a posse in it, we'd be somebody.
05:13 It was actually spinning the tires off the corner.
05:16 As a matter of fact, we outran a late model Mustang.
05:19 It was stock and it had some like 400 tread wear tires.
05:22 These are 200.
05:24 It ran 114 at the autocross and we were at a 113.2.
05:30 Man, that was fun.
05:31 When Nick and I were going around in the car together, we were just laughing our asses
05:35 off.
05:36 Now, we're going to get back with Nick and head over to the slalom and the brake test.
05:41 To my surprise, we take the car through the slalom course and it handles great.
05:55 It went through at 6.34 seconds, which is equivalent to 45 miles an hour.
06:00 That equates to just a little bit worse than a brand new Camaro.
06:07 After the slalom, we brake tested the car and it stopped in 166 feet, which again, looking
06:12 at the car, you would think it would be a lot worse, but this car stopped great.
06:19 So now that I'm convinced that Freiburger really wasn't trying to kill me because the
06:22 car does handle well and it stops well, I think we've had enough.
06:26 You know, I tell people we're going to leave this car just the way it is and they stare
06:30 at you like you just set their dog on fire.
06:32 But that's what's cool about it actually is people not getting it.
06:36 But for me, this thing is a reliable and now really fun daily driver.
06:40 And so it's done.
06:42 Off to the next project.
06:43 [00:03:50] [silence] [00:04:00]
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07:24 (explosion)