Restoration Gone Awry - 1970 Pontiac GTO

EngineA Pontiac-bodied car should be powered by a Pontiac. Hamly had the Pontiac 400ci engine bored 0.04" over stock and that's where anything resembling original factory power ends. The 8.5:1 compression heads with 101cc combustion chambers are stuffed by a P600B ProCharger Supercharger. A Holley Commander 950 engine management system instructs the custom fuel rail and injectors incorporated into a heavily modified Holley Torker II aluminum intake manifold. Comp Cams built Hamly a custom ground bumpstick with spark timed by an MSD crank trigger and March accessory drive. Power is transferred to the rear wheels via a Turbo 400 transmission with a 2,800rpm stall converter and a set of Richmond 3.90 gears.

Charles Hamly bought this '70 GTO in 1985 and it served as his daily driver for about seven years. With everyday use and almost 30 years of service, the car was starting to become difficult to maintain. In '92 he decided to restore it to its original grandeur, but halfway through Hamly realized he wasn't simply replacing old parts, he was upgrading them to modern standards with a lean toward high performance. It took him over six years to get the driveline and exterior into the shape they're in today, and he spent another year and a half setting up the audio and visual components.

Tech:Wheels & Suspension:Front: Hotchkis upper control arms, Baer spindles, Fat Man lower control arms, Koni adjustable shocks with HO Racing springs and sway bar. Rear: Global West control arms, Koni adjustable shocks, HO Racing springs and rear sway bar.

Front: One-off Boyd Coddington billet aluminum wheels 18" x 8.5". Rear: One-off Boyd Coddington 20" x 10" with 4" offset

Brakes: Baer Trac brake system, Baer calipersTires: Front: Yokohama AVS Sport 235/40/18 Rear: Yokohama AVS Sport 275/30/20

ExhaustThis GTO had to have a crazy sound system to compete with the incredible thunder that escapes from the lightly baffled Flowmaster 3" inlet and outlet mufflers with Jet-Hot coated mandrel-bent pipes.

Kick Panel Speakers/Door SpeakersSupplying the front stage, a pair of Boston Acoustics Pro 4.5 separates are mounted in sealed fiberglass kick panel enclosures painted to match the exterior of the car, while a pair of Boston Acoustics 6.5LF midbass drivers fill the doors.

SubwooferAs a retired pro installer, Hamly had two decades of experience to draw from when creating the car's audio and visual accoutrements. "I wanted to build an enclosure that would prove to people that any woofers could be used in a set of three," Hamly says. He built a 2.5ft3 enclosure to house three Boston Acoustics Pro 12.5 4-ohm woofers wired in parallel.

AmplificationWith signal divided up by a PPI FRX-322 crossover, a chromed 100 watt x 4 PPI PC4800 amplifier supplies power to the front kick panels and midbass door drivers. The other amp is an 800-watt PPI PC1800 that runs the woofers. It receives its signal via the lowpass outputs of the head unit. The trunk was designed to match the interior and the amps are mounted in a fiberglass panel painted like the body.