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1967 Firebird Handling Upgrades

Carving new corners in an early Bird

The quickest way between two points is a straight line or, one might say, as the crow flies. It seems that just about every 1st generation Firebird has been set up to do just that—fly straight and fast. Most of these street/strip Birds are set up with the emphasis on strip. Drop in more cubic inches, add some gear to the rear, slap on some traction bars, a pair of slicks, and you've got yourself a potent combination for straight-line performance.

Curves Ahead

Well, we were looking to go in a little different direction—around corners. Given that half the fun is in the journey, we wanted to set up this beautiful Verdoro Green '67 Firebird 400 as a budget-oriented "pro touring" machine. Of course, we want this Bird to fly—so we'll soon add some cubic horsepower—but we also want to have some fun sliding our seats around in the stock buckets as we travel between points.

In recent years we've seen a growing number of Firebird owners looking to set up their cars for more than just straight-line performance. As we began our journey, we quickly found out that there was not a great deal of availability of tuned packages for the early Birds. Availability of upgraded suspension parts had been mostly focused on the lower slung, more balanced 2nd generation Firebirds. Then, up steps John Hotchkis of Hotchkis Performance. They already had a great package for the 2nd generation F-bodies, but they'd taken things one step further with the development of the Hotchkis Total Vehicle System (TVS) for the 1st generation F-body. So we solicited Hotchkis Performance's help in making our Bird fly between two points bounded by curves.

Test Bird

Our subject '67 Verdoro Green Firebird is a numbers-matching 400 car with 83,000 original miles. The car was cosmetically restored in the early '90s and retains its original interior and drivetrain. The car needs a mechanical update, and an improved suspension is critical to building a strong foundation for future upgrades.

We couldn't wait to get started. First we removed the original 14-inch Rally II wheels and their Redline tires. These were replaced by a set of 16x8 American Racing Torq-Thrust wheels mounted with BFGoodrich Comp TA Radial tires. What an improvement just the tires and wheels made, transforming the look of our Bird from highway wimp to warrior.

Suspension Kit

But this was just the start of our handling upgrades. Next was the install of the Hotchkis Total Vehicle System (TVS). This suspension package kit for our '67 Firebird includes tuned sway bars, sport coil springs, competition leaf springs with new shackles and U-bolts. The sport coil springs have an increased spring rate to handle the nose-heavy 1st generation F-Body. The matched rear leaf springs are forward biased to hold the pinion angle, and greatly complement the front springs. A complete hardware package that includes bushings, nut-clips, brackets and end-links is also provided. We also elected to go with the optional Hotchkis Performance shock absorbers. These units are built to Hotchkis' specifications by Bilstein and offer superior dampening. All of these parts are offered as individual components but, as the TVS name implies, the entire collection of components is engineered to work best as a complete system.

With the suspension upgrade now complete, our Bird's new stance just begged for a test drive. We took it for a run through the neighborhood and were amazed at the handling improvements over stock. Now we only have to validate the new suspension, so this Bird will really soar.

To The Track

As a matter of routine, the Hotchkis Performance crew is constantly testing its products. We had previously attended one of these "test days" to get a baseline on our stock '67 suspension. Sporting the factory 14-inch tires and wheels, our run through the 600-foot slalom was better likened to a bathtub on roller skates with the tires squealing (and the owner who wanted to save his Redlines!). The car was hard to keep under control as the rear kept sliding out. We managed a speed of only 38 mph through the 100-foot-spaced cones.

So our next step was to take our Firebird out to California Speedway for another test session. Cruising at 70 mph down the highway gave us the chance to get a good seat-of-the-pants feel for the new suspension. The highway ride is firm and responsive, very comparable to a well set up 4th generation Trans Am.

Upon arrival at the track we met John Hotchkis and Gary Pinkley as they were getting set up to test a Subaru WRX equipped with their Hotchkis TVS package and a Dodge Ram SRT-10 (the Viper-powered truck). The course was a 600-foot slalom with cones spaced every 100 feet, just as our baseline testing. Conditions were not as good as all had hoped for but, given that we would be able to compare to the other test vehicles, John was confident we would be pleased. The hope was to enter the course at about 55 mph and maintain speed throughout.

Our test driver was John himself. After a couple of roundtrip passes to get familiar with the car's performance, he was ready to put our Bird to the test. Would she soar through the cones? Could we go away confident that our newly suspended '67 Firebird could carve a corner, straightening out the curves of our favorite highways?

Well, after making numerous passes and scrubbing off countless miles of rubber from our new tires, John pulled up with a broad grin. He was obviously pleased. The car ran a very respectable 58 mph through the slalom. John was confident that with a quick ratio steering box and our new engine upgrade, he could put the car through at better than 60 mph. "Running a musclecar through at 60 mph is cool," he said.

Now, the next time someone tells us that our journey is much shorter "as a crow flies," we'll happily make the run in our '67 Firebird straightening out every curve along the way.

Editors Note: The fully prepared Subaru WRX ran the same course at 64 mph and the Dodge RAM SRT-10 on 22-inch tires ran at 59 mph.