Featured Ride: Eugene’s 1968 Pontiac Firebird

By

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Sep 9, 2009

When I started this blog I had no idea where it would take me, or how often I would post, however 100 posts came up almost unexpectedly and what better way to celebrate than with a story about a full restoration done by a local car nut?

The builder of this car is like me in a lot of ways he loves, BMX,Transformers, the internet industry, blogging, and fine pieces of American muscle.

Over the course of seven or so years Eugene has worked tirelessly to restore this 1968 Pontiac Firebird to factory show room condition only to put it up for sale after about one year of seat time.

To some putting that much work into a project then selling it so quickly might be a little crazy but for Eugene the art of the build is just as enjoyable as the finished project.

In fact he has already started considering his next project; a 1940s Fleet side Pickup.

If Eugene keeps cranking out cars of this calibre and selling them for such reasonable prices (this car is priced to move at $23,595) than the prospects of all us us being able to one day own a piece of American muscle history just shot up.

The Beginning
Eugene’s story writes out like a novel, and actually did become a book, his fascination with the first gen Firebirds started when he worked at the GM plant and familiarized himself with the parts and service manuals of the 1967-1969 Firebird.

With a new found love and a wealth of knowledge he set forth to build a show room ready First Gen Bird.

He started off with one that was not too rough around the edges…

I'm not even sure you could buy a car with a blue on teal color scheme these days — I'm not even sure you could buy a car with a blue on blue color scheme these days

Motor work

In it’s most powerful form the 68 Firebird came with an inline six rated at 215hp. I learned this reading Eugene’s site dedicated to thsi cars build.

Something else I learned is that motor was designed by John Z Delorean the same person who designed this.

The Motor running after rebuild

Interior Restoration

The interior was a bit of a mish-mash which can be somewhat expected of a car of this vintage.

All of this was addressed by Eugene during the restoration which brought the interior back to it’s intended glory.

Wee bit of a flinstone car, this was properly repaired with new pans on both sides — Wee bit of a flinstone car, this was properly repaired with new floor pans on both sides

The interior colors were restored to factory and an mp3 player was installed in the glove box to keep the original look, note the colored JBLs as well — Interior restored to factory specs and an mp3 player was installed in the glove box to keep the original look, note the colored JBLs as well

You know the turquoise interior isn't all that bad when it matches

Exterior Restoration
The climate in the GTA is terrible for the longevity of cars, they all rust to some degree, thankfully Eugene took the time to have his car repaired properly and not smacked full of bondo.

This fender had cancer and someone tried to slow it down with bondo — This fender had cancer which someone tried to slow it down with Bondo and fiberglass

Exploratory sanding was needed to see if the cancer had spread to other areas — Exploratory sanding was done to see if the cancer had spread to other areas

Painted and badged, I should take a second to note all these photos were taken by Eugene he is talented — Painted and badged, I should take a second to note all these photos were taken by Eugene, talented guy

The finished product

This car turned out beautiful in the end and while it doesn’t have any suspension mods its original stance is one that demands attention and I am sure every car enthusiast would turn their head as this bird flies by.

I’m really honored that Eugene wanted me to do a piece on his car and part of me is sad to see that he is selling it so quickly, however I am really excited to see what he does with his next project.

If you want to read more about the restoration process of this car check out the page Eugene built all about it, My First Gen Bird, all of the pictures in this feature came from there.

If you want to buy this fine machine visit his for sale page at car candy.

Thanks for reading the first 100 and stick around for many more.

Congrats to Pat Cyr For Winning the DMCC Championship

By

DaveT

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Sep 8, 2009

5

An old BMX friend of mine, turned pro drifter, has been destroying the drift scene lately with his crew Drift Posse and his AE86, made it out to the DMCC finals in Quebec where as far as I can tell via facebook Pat continued to dominate the pack as he has all year and take home the DMCC overall championship.

It’s always great to see old friends doing big things so congratulations Pat for not only taking home the championship but inspiring a whole lot of BMX riders to follow in your foot steps *cough*Brad*cough.

Drift Possee Promo

CYRIOUS PRODUCTIONS – THE POSSE RETURNS from Cyrious Productions on Vimeo.

I hope Pat enjoys this much success next year, he deserves it.

Theme Tuesdays: Mazda 3s

By

DaveT

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Sep 8, 2009

4

The concept of theme Tuesdays here on Stance Is Everything is simple, every Tuesday I pick a theme and post a collection of vehicles with that theme that meet the stance criteria (modified suspension that fit the vehicles overall theme). This weeks theme Tuesday topic is: Mazda 3s

Some of you may already know this, but if you don’t, I drive a Mazda 3 and lately I have been wheel shopping. Spending time working on this site and looking at awesome wheels all the time made me realize that I should upgrade my stock rollers.

I wanted to do something unique in regards to wheel choice so I have been browsing a lot of Mazda 3 forums over the past two weeks or so. My mandate was to not copy someone else, and do something unique. While making sure my next wheels fit this criteria I manged to arrange a collection of sweet Mazda 3s for this Tuesday in the process.

Black sedan on work emotions, I love these wheels but they are everywhere

This silver 3 is rocking similar rims as the black one

Rx-8 wheels look really good on 3's almost got a set

Mazda 3 owners are starting to play the one brands trash came as well, STI BBS wheels

Ryan is a member of TM3 and he always has a few tricks up his sleeve for his sedan

Another members speed 3 is done near to the limit

Mazda 3 getting down to business on the track

Eneki RPF-1s are quickly catching on among the tuner scene

Flushed out, female owned, Calgary Mazda 3

Work Meister's are another wheel I considered but I don't have the bank

Spotted on: mazda3forums.com, and torontomazda3.ca

WTF Friday: Curb Eater

By

DaveT

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Sep 4, 2009

0

Going to car meets can sometimes be a mixed bag of experiences, some people are cool and normal, while others can be show offs trying to compensate for god knows what. When testosterone gets flowing and the need to show off bubbles over epic failure ensues, I showed a lot of that in the Street Racing WTF Friday post, but this incident is a little closer to home.

Maxbimmer.com does weekly meets in Woodbridge, near highway 7, and I used to frequent them quite a bit when I had my e30, for the most part these meets are cool and everyone just gathers around to shoot the shit on a nice summers night. However from time to time people bug out and crash their whips, a Corvette ended up on top of a fire hydrant a few years back and this July an e30 tried to drive under a curb.

From what I can piece together from message board accounts is the owner of this black e30 was racing around the parking lot for some reason but didn’t take the time to memorize they lay of the land and plowed right into this island. He hit the brakes at the last moment but it was to little to late and all that did was cause the front end to dip and not go over the curb which in turn tko’d the front end of his car, shame it looked pretty clean.

and thanks to the era we live in we have a video of the car getting hooked up:

This type of stuff brings a bad name to us all so lets keep it on the DL before the cops start kicking us out of any spot we try to chill at.

In site news this has been an amazing week for Stance Is Everything traffic wise, comment wise, and email wise. Kept me really busy to say the least.

I got a serious about of love from the Toronto Subaru Club, for the Hyper Meeting pics and made some connections with a big Hella Flush fan out and Windsor and people in the Hella Flush crew.

This weekend I am going camping so I won’t be covering any events but I have two featured cars in que, most of next weeks Theme Tuesday Cars picked, and Importfest to hit up next weekend.

Not to mention I picked up some new wheels for my current ride that should be on next week for an early fall photo shoot and my stickers are in the mail.

See you Tuesday!

Business Attire

By

DaveT

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Sep 3, 2009

2

There has been a little bit of a buzz going around lately that those of us who love stance and fitment don’t know how to make a car that can perform well on the track as well. This isn’t really true just a lot of us do not need our cars to perform up to track standards as getting to work and back (especially in the GTA) is as far away from a race track as you can get. Today’s cars have setups that look good and perform well on the track, you know, Business attire.

Local e30 on the biggest k-1s I have seen in awhile

A female blogger/tuners auto x set up Miata

For those interested in track setups Hella Functional did a blog recently titled The Importance of ride height which is pretty informative and to the point.

Just remember as long as your stance fits what you need the car to do, keep doing it, and I will probably post it here.

Spotted On: bikeguide.org,maxbimmer.com, and Cars X Girl

Theme Tuesdays: Datsun 510s

By

DaveT

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Sep 1, 2009

5

The concept of theme Tuesdays here on Stance Is Everything is simple, every Tuesday I pick a theme and post a collection of vehicles with that theme that meet the stance criteria (modified suspension that fit the vehicles overall theme). This weeks theme Tuesday topic is: Datsun 510s

My dad hates Datsuns for some reason, but currently drives a Nissan, weird right? Growing up he tried to tell me Datsuns were bad cars but none the less I developed a love for them 350zs at first but as time went on I also became partial to older boxy cars that can be made into killer daily and track machines and the Datusn 510 (or Bluebird) just happens to be one of these cars.

I don't normally like cars that look like this, but I will make an exception today

Porsche rims on a Datsun work for me — 300zx rims on a Datsun work for me

Bluebird badged orange 510 — Nice Orange 510

These cars shares similar traits with e30s now the more I look at them

Blue 510 badge BlueBird — Clean ass Bluebird

Polished lips and orange accents on the rims. I want to see these wheels stopped.

2011 Edit: Captions updated, thank you for the corrections and education Josh and Terry…

Event Coverage: Extreme Invasion

By

DaveT

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Sep 1, 2009

0

The second show I went to this past weekend was Extreme Invasion. Even though the weather was looming all day and hurt the turnout a little bit the show was still decent. The big feature at this show (at least for me) were the SPL (Sound Pressure Level) cars. Prior to this weekend I never got a chance to see one of these contests in person or sit in an SPL car and even though my ears were telling me Monday morning that was a bad idea it was still something I had to experience.

Bagged/Hydraulics
Even though my mini truck dream is apparently over I still have love for bagged vehicles.

This car was on the flyer so I expected it to be there — This car was on the flier so I expected it to be there

Crazy bagged magnum. So Much done to this car

You don't really see GTPs at shows too much let alone bagged ones

One of the cleanest Blazers I have ever seen

The hood was on actuators and went up and down, pretty slick

The interior was also fully done, the 4 or 5 link suspension was really well done too

Imports
I think domestics may have equaled the amount of imports at this show, weird.

If RSX's had more trunk space I would have considered them

The blue lugs to match the Volks lettering was a nice touch

Would you expect this car to be putting down 300 horse?

Nah, me either, I have no idea what was under the hood as it was closed

This 5 is way lower than the last time I saw it

BMWs
The event was sponsored by Bimmersport so some of the maxbimmer.com crew came out to show support

Fabs Horsepower freaks m3 — Fabio's Horsepower freaks m3

Time attack themed gti — Time attack themed GTI

SPL
Probably the most unique part of this show was that they were having an SPL contest during it. It brought out a lot of cars I would not normally see

Lancer getting mic'd up by the Selective Sound crew

This was a promotional vehicle for a local shop, I forget which, the dash was pretty unique.

Exclusive wheel and tires Mazda3 with the new trunk setup

Put the boom in the back so the seats can shake

This truck was way too loud, sitting in it was such a bad idea

This truck won best of show at Battle Of The Car Clubs

I don't even have drinks like these in my bar at home. Hell I don't even have a bar.

Lolz
It’s no secret that I am a big Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles fan but this car was something else.

I have that same Turtle, no lie, at my moms place. It is not original, playa you frontin!

I must say impressive stencil work but I don't approve of what's going down in the trunk

Event Coverage: Hyper Meeting 2009

By

DaveT

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Aug 31, 2009

5

I got a chance to tag along to the Toronto Subaru Clubs Annual charity show and shine BBQ in Mississauga on Saturday with my friend Kev, I always have a good time at charity shows since everyone is friendly and in a great mood. None of that super competitive feel. It also helped that all of the winners were picked by the crowd. The weather looked pretty dodgy aft first but managed to hold out all day. Before I got my current car I was looking at Subaru’s but they were just out of my price range, now I wish I saved up a little more money.

Random
Random venue shots, mostly just the crowd.

I think it was the Subaru Canada head office but I am not sure

Stickers
As always shots of the creative stickers. I am easily amused.

A lot of the cars at the show could make this claim

I never really thought about it before but I bet a lot of tow jockies tow awd cars incorrectly

I'm not really a big pedo bear supporter but lots of people dig them

I am going to try my best to go through all of these pictures by chassis code. My Subaru knowledge is spotty so feel free to let me know if I screwed up in the comments.

BE, BH
Legacy’s

Deep red on gold should be done more often

SF, SG
Foresters

Forresters are seriously underated vehicles

GC, GM, GF
I think these codes apply to 2001 and earlier…

I actually can't really tell what this put it looks like it was put away dirty

I was reading about this wagon hours before the show, nice rebuild

GD
2002 + Impreza’s these are probably the most popular Subaru’s for tuners, my personal favs as well.

Desaturated verion of Subaru's Rally colors

Not sure why I didn't like them they look great now

KTC Crew
The KTC crew is a group of friends that hang out at Krispy Kreme Donuts and Timmies on Thursday nights. I might invade one of the meets one of these days, my car can almost pass for a Subaru.

This many Krispy Kreme dougnuts would make you sick

If the car on the left beats you, you just got spanked by a girl

Other cars
A few stray bullets flew in

I've said it before, Skylines are everywhere now

Pulsars on the other hand are not everywhere

I had a blast at this meet and had a lot of great BBQ to boot, I will be back next year. Thanks to the TSC and all the volunteers for putting it on.

WTF Friday: The mysterious triple threat

By

DaveT

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Aug 28, 2009

1

This week I am going back to the other format of WTF Fridays and asking you, dear reader, what kind of cars these three are. Once I get some stickers made I am going to start giving them out as prizes for correct answers but until then this is just practice.

Red rocket! Red Rocket! That episode of South Park is gross. What's this though?

This truck isn't sold in the North American Market if that helps

This weekend I am probably going to swing by a Subaru BBQ with my homie Kev on Saturday and on Sunday I am actually in the Extreme Invasion Car show with team TorontoMazda3

Featured Ride: Daves 1992 s10 Blazer

By

DaveT

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Aug 28, 2009

6

Have you ever had something you wanted so bad that you kept at it longer than you really should have at the dismay of others?

You invested so much time and heart into it that you didn’t want to let it go no matter how financially stupid it was to keep pushing forward?

Well if you have you can probably relate to the story of my old truck and today’s Featured Ride.

For as long as I can remember I wanted a minitruck, bad. I don’t remember where or when I saw my first s10 Blazer but something about them was just really appealing to me.

However I didn’t realize two things going into purchasing one: older Canadian vehicles are pretty much rotten pieces of garbage, and GM quality from 1992 leave a fair bit to be desired.

After about a four month search I found a Blazer that I thought could work for a decent price and bought it from a shady used car dealership that offered to clean it up for my prior to purchased.

Below is essentially how the vehicle looked upon pick up, but washed.

The picture from the ad, stock height, and 80s stripes. — The fact that the shop didn't even clean it for the ad should have been a tip

I rocked it like this for about two or three months, though I did remove all of the ventshades.

Surprisingly during this time it got stolen. It was recovered about two days later sans my skateboard.

I took this time to get an alarm installed, the rocker panels fixed, and the tints redone.

Suspension

While the truck was stock I pulled together the components I needed to put this truck as far down as I could before having to make the jump to air ride.

I purchased Belltech 3inch springs and 2 inch drop spindles for the front, and 3 inch drop leafs with matching 3 inch drop blocks for the rear.

I also got a Suicidedoors.com notch, and Belltech drop shocks to keep things sort of comfortable.

In all honesty it rode pretty bad and I didn’t care.

Rocked the 5/3 rake for some time. The leaf springs were a pain to change due to rust. — Rocked the 5/3 rake for some time, I had to cut the rear leafs out due to rust.

Got her down to 5/6, removed the stripes and waxed and polished it

I had to notch the frame because of the drop. You can see where the axle used to hit the frame. It still hit after the notch... — You can see where the axle used to hit the frame. It still hit after the notch...

Sticker Removal/Body maintenance
Shortly after completing the suspension I noticed the error of my ways in getting the paint work done at the used car dealership.

Most of the rust was coming back and the clear coat was peeling but if I kept up with the waxing and polishing I could make it look halfway decent while I saved for a respray by Casual Customs.

Pictures from an s10 meet soon after the 5/6 drove there full truck rubbed drive shaft the whole way

Removed the Chevrolet from the tailgate as well, plan was to get a new shaved one eventually — Removed the Chevrolet from the tailgate as well, I had a roll pan ready to be installed during the resto

I got wingless hinges and the BMX LIFE sticker was a birthday gift — I got wingless hinges and gun metal Irocs. The BMX LIFE sticker was a birthday gift

IROCS

The tires that came with the truck were fairly poor and starting to get tumours so I bought a set of painted IROCS with all seasons.

Winter traction was still terrible but they looked pretty good on the truck.

Truck made madwhips.com which I was pretty stoked on. Looks pretty good in this shot — Truck made madwhips.com which I was pretty stoked on, this picture is from there

The system

The system is what really made this vehicle for me, I put a lot of time and thought into making this truck sound as balanced as I could and still be practical(ish) for my uses.

This meant my bike still had to fit in the back, and multiple bikes on occasion.

This is probably what I miss about the truck most as it was the only thing done 100% to my liking.

I spent a long time getting all these components together

I spent a lot of time modifying the center console to hold my ipod and cross overs — I modified the center console to hold my ipod and cross overs

The finsished producted turned up really nice I was quite proud of it and glad the sanding was over — The final product turned out pretty nice

My neighbor did the vinyl and I did the stenciling and paint of the stainless steel pieces

The Beginning of the end

By this point the truck had been giving me a bunch of maintenance issues (brakes didn’t work over 100 km for awhile, intake manifold gasket went, alternator/battery gave up the ghost, exhaust had half fallen off, CAA hit it off the roof of a parking garage, the list goes on and on) and at the urging of my family and friends I had actually put the truck up for sale for awhile because it was becoming a time and money pit.

No one really offered much.

The Break In
The was broken into at the Streetsville Go station (which was not an isolated incident when it comes to go stations) and the system was the only thing to go.

While tearing it out they made a mess of the wiring system and drivers door.

The truck was in really rough shape after the incident and insurance deemed it a total loss.

I got $700 from my insurance and about 200 for the Irocs.

Even though I had everything screwed down pretty well they got it all out

Shot at the junk yard before I took the rims off... sad end to the story

One day I hope to build another dream car but I am not sure it will be a minitruck.

STANCE IS EVERYTHING

STANCE IS EVERYTHING- EST 2009 -

A Japanese Limo Lost In Canada

Rolling Like A G: A Datsun 240Z On 305s

Street Track Life: An E46 M3 With A Turbo Surprise

Spec’d Right: A Perfectly Balanced Silvia S15

Breaking The Mold

Featured Ride: Eugene’s 1968 Pontiac Firebird

Congrats to Pat Cyr For Winning the DMCC Championship

Theme Tuesdays: Mazda 3s

WTF Friday: Curb Eater

Business Attire

Theme Tuesdays: Datsun 510s

Event Coverage: Extreme Invasion

Event Coverage: Hyper Meeting 2009

WTF Friday: The mysterious triple threat

Featured Ride: Daves 1992 s10 Blazer

S.I.E.