Hey guys, what would be the best way to smooth out the firewall. is it better to weld in some patches over the a/c and heater box holes and then smooth out with fillers or weld in a larger piece of metal that covers a large portion of the firewall. Any advice would really help out.
thanks

My take on this is that it depends on how far you want to take it. If you want it REALLY smoothed, with nothing there but a throttle cable, and a booster/master, then one large piece is definitely the best. If you are just looking to jazz it up a little, weld in some patches, bump out a few indentations, smooth it over, and call it good. I thought about smoothing my 70, but I think I'm going to just clean it up a bit. Right now the front clip is off, and motor out so I'm undecided. If you are leaning towards totally smoothing it, keep in mind you won't want anything on the firewall. (Read PITA)
Best of luck!

Need more info on your plans for the car.

If you are doing any sort of aftermarket A/C then that's different than if you delete everything including the heater because it's only a track car. But if it's a driver, you'll likely need or want at least a heater/defrost.

Thinking about going with a piece of stainless to cover most of the firewall myself. The things that slowed me down was the driver's side on the 69 sure has a lot of factory "indentations" and curves.

However, I did see one or two people successfully put a one or two piece stainless firewall on top of factory metal. The one major obstacle is the wiper motor.

Again, if you don't need windshield wipers because it's only a track car and it gets trailered everywhere, that may not be a problem.

The solution I seen was that just the area around the wiper motor was left out of the stainless so that the stainless formed all around the wiper motor. It actually looked pretty good to me.

A polished stainless piece is what I have plans for at this time.

I am just hoping that a big block with an HEI distributor will fit in without having to cut and form an indentation into the firewall.

Steve

I used a piece of stainless cut to size. I made a cardboard pattern first then went to cutting turned out pretty good. There a couple pics on my site under photos/engine bay.

Yes, stainless is nice (I used to have it on the firewall too) but nothing under the hood matched and polishing it was a pain in the butt. So, the second time I went with aluminum and painted it to match my newly painted inner fender wells. I think it is much nicer. View my web site for pics.
Russ' 71 Chevelle (http://imrussman.tripod.com)