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Pontiac V8 Books
Read It Before You Cut It — Books for Pontiac V8s
A good Pontiac book earns its place on the bench, not the coffee table. The titles here are the ones our own customers keep going back to — step-by-step engine work, a restoration guide, and the history that explains why any of this matters.
Butler carries Rocky Rotella's rebuild and max-performance Pontiac V-8 books, Don Keefe's 1964-1974 GTO restoration guide, the Arnie Beswick story from CarTech, and the last copies of Pete McCarthy's Pontiac Musclecar Performance.
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1. Building and rebuilding the Pontiac V8
These two are the working books. If you are only buying one, buy the one that matches what you are actually about to do.
| How to Re-Build Pontiac V-8s, updated, by Rocky Rotella | a step-by-step book with over 400 color photos and tip sections throughout. This is the one for a first-time builder putting an engine together properly, start to finish. |
| How to Build Max-Performance Pontiac V-8s, updated, by Rocky Rotella | the next book up. It reviews the critical components in detail, gives honest advice on modifying them for power and durability, assesses the aftermarket parts on offer and what they really bring, and walks through completed high-performance buildups with the results. If you are chasing a number rather than a rebuild, this is the one. |
2. Restoration and history
The other side of the hobby — getting the car right, and knowing where the reputation came from.
| How To Restore Your 1964-1974 Pontiac GTO, by Don Keefe | the restoration reference for the GTO years, for the work that happens once the engine is out of the way. |
| Arnie "the Farmer" Beswick | 184 pages, 8.5 by 11, paperback, with 258 color and 193 black and white photos from CarTech. Hot Rod called Beswick the consummate underdog; he bought his first Pontiac in 1960 and never looked back, and the book covers Mr. B's Passionate Poncho, Mystery Tornado, Star of the Circuit I and II, Tameless Tiger and the Super Judge. |
| Pontiac Musclecar Performance, by Pete McCarthy | no longer being produced. What is on the shelf is what is left. |
If you are standing at the start of a build with a bare block on the stand, the rebuild book pays for itself the first time it stops you from doing something twice.
Not sure what your Pontiac needs?
Email our tech team at tech@butlerperformance.com. Tell us your engine, heads, car, and power goal, and we will put the parts together as one combination that works.