I knew that was the car you were going to show. That is Steve's car, Briz on this forum. It is a very beautifully done "If Buick made a GSX Rivera." I personally think Steve did a great job both inside and out. His car drives beautifully. I know because he let me drive it.
that's Britz's Riv, will let him tell you about it. No to your question but this one is done like it should have been.
I would like to do the same to my Wildcat! If it turns out half as good as Briz's car I would be happy. I thought I'd catch a lot of flak from purists if I cut my hood, but I'm in the clear now!
PS... it does really great posi burnouts! I know because 3 different ones are on the street in front of my house from the last Buick Get Together back in March. Steve's middle name is burnout!
Now that I've seen how well the GS scoops look with the center Chrome trim (My Cat has the same trim) That's what i will go for. Have to let the 550 Hp. engine that Jim is preparing for me breath ! So anybody that knows the whereabouts of a GS big block air cleaner assy and a roached GS hood for parts, let me know!!! Haven't seen anything repro.
I laughed as soon as I read the thread title. Thats an old picture taken at Windamier Florida car show 6-8 years ago.I didnt take it. It was the first rendition of the GS hood on the Riv. Once I had it completed I quickly found out that the air cleaner I wanted to use would not work. Made several mods to the air cleaner over the next few years but was never really happy with the job. Bought one of Craigs A body cowl hood skins and adapted it to the Riviera. In some ways I like the flat hood better however the cowl works like it should. Still have the flat hood and it could be purchased.
I like both versions, but prefer the flat look. What was the issue with the air filter housing? Was there a gap or line up issue? were you using the factory 455 Gs air cleaner assembly?
I like the look of both. The cowl lines flow very well with the lines of the grille/surround. Both are a work of art.
The factory assembly was 2" to high for the hood to close. Top of the air cleaner hit the hood and the plastics was way to high to clear the seal plates. First thing I did was to cut the bottom out and make it a drop base. That gave me enough to close the hood however the plastics hit the alt and top of the dist. So I cut 1" out of the bottoms and then used JBweld to put it back together. That worked ok for awhile but there was still issues with the body of the air cleaner binding on the throttle linkage. After I dropped in the new engine with the B4B things got worse and I had to remove the plastics from the body and attach them to the seal plates hanging under the hood and have that mate up to a open element assembly when closed. That did work fine just never really liked the look.
There will be a B4B as part of the engine build,so that already looks like a problem. I didn't expect a 2 " difference between the stock Riv air filter housing and the GS type. I would imagine the underhood dimensions and layout would be pretty similar between a 68 Riv and Wildcat except you got the updated A/C unit. I like your last attempt before you went cowl!
I am going to translate picture speak from the picture below ... Are you coming to me, or are you going to make me come to you? Because, there's gonna be some whoopa$$!
I was thinking of putting a SP1 intake on my engine with a 2" carb spacer to lift up my Star Wars air cleaner, getting a spare hood and cutting a hole in it and going for a shaker kinda look. I don't think anyone has done it yet? Any thoughts on this??
Take your air filter off, close the hood and lay it on the hood. Perhaps too high, but you would get an idea if you could live with it. See how common a spare hood is.
I imagined and tried to draw the Boattail X years ago-almost exactly like that, especially the rear wing bisecting the ‘tail’. That’s perfect. Patrick
