"Project Counterfeit" rebuild

[Spartan7]

After working on my project for almost 2 years now, I figured it's time for a build thread. All I have to go off of is pictures and memory, so I'm probably forgetting a lot of things I did.

So, two years ago I wrecked my 97 T/A on the freeway. Got cut off, lost control, slid sideways into a few sign posts. One of the signs didn't break off very clean, and tore a nice path of destruction across the floorpan.

In it's former glory when I bought it.

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Aaaand the carnage. Very disheartening to see it like that.

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The driver fender, door, and quarter were destroyed. The floorpan was pushed in on the driver side, windshield cracked, bumper torn, and my muffler smashed in. But it still started and puttered around. I was able to pull it into the garage, where it sat for a while. It was my DD too, I had to drive a rental for a couple weeks while I looked for another car.

[Spartan7]

I ended up buying myself an 01 Silverado 2500HD. It had pretty much everything I wanted, except for the miles being a little high. But I got it for a great deal. And it came with the full tow package, so I could haul around my new paperweight. :jest:

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The T/A sat for another month while I decided what to do. I almost parted the whole thing out and swore myself off F-bodies, but I'm glad I didn't go that route. I ended up finding another car, a 99 Firebird. It was the same color, T-tops and 5 speed (pretty rare for a V6). The engine had a blown head gasket, and it had sat in a field for 3 months. I paid $800 for it, figuring I could sell the rebuilt T5, interior, tail lights, and T-tops for that much. It even came with the sought-after T-top shades!

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What a mess...

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The original plan was to sell off the parts, and cannibalize body panels off it to fix my T/A. That plan faded quick when I pulled the carpet and saw just how destroyed the body was on the T/A. So plan #2 was to swap EVERYTHING over to the 99 subframe. I told myself, it'll be a fun project! Let me just say this now, I wish I had just bought a damn LT1 car and swapped my drivetrain over. Oh well!

[Spartan7]

The very first thing I did was find a buyer for the cloth seats in the Firebird. With them gone, I started tearing the interior of both cars apart. I got a storage unit for all the big stuff coming off the T/A, like body panels and interior. Taking the dash off was the worst part.

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Fun times...

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Weight reduction a little too far...

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The Firebird dash was actually in better shape than mine, so I kept it. It had a couple small cracks starting to form, which I repaired with an Eastwood dash repair kit. I also replaced two of the broken dash vents.

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Cleaning out the interior of the Firebird was a HUGE pain in the ass. It was filthy and stunk. And on top of that, I found a few old spider nests in it, gross. I cleaned out the whole thing with soap and water. The great thing about Texas cars is no rust to deal with. I meticulously cleaned the floor and firewall, because I had plans to put sound deadening all over.

While I waited for the sound deadening to show up (ordered up some Raamat), I tore everything I could out of the engine bay. And I mean tore.

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More to come...

[popo8]

:thumbup:

MEMBER @ LTXtech.com

[Spartan7]

The first body panels I swapped over were the T/A hatch/spoiler and rear bumper, which made the ass end look tons better to me. I decided to swap back to the LT1 tail lights, because I personally like them better. And let me tell you, installing and aligning a hatch by yourself is no fun. Note the tiny little V6 exhaust pipe sticking out. lol

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My Raamat came in, so I started on the firewall. No pictures, but I cleaned up and started reinstalling everything. Got the whole mess of LT1 wiring into the car, as well as the dash and steering column. Already starting to look like a car again. The nice thing about the V6 car being a manual was I didn't even have to cut the holes for the MC or shifter.

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[CamaroZGuy]

so, you are rebuilding your car in the V6 chassis?

[Spartan7]

so, you are rebuilding your car in the V6 chassis?

Yep, I used the V6 chassis and just swapped everything over. It was more difficult than I thought, there are a few 98-02 differences that make things more difficult that you'll see further on.

[Spartan7]

I remember at this point I got a nasty-gram from my apartment office for working on my car, so I moved it somewhere they couldn't see it and focused on tearing down the wrecked 97. Complete disassembly of the front end only took a few hours. After a couple long days of work, I had almost everything but the engine out.

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You can see the plastic front bumper/headlight bracket is broken. Finding a good intact used one of these proved harder than I thought. Also the HF cherry picker I picked up in anticipation of engine swaps, yay.

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[Spartan7]

Bueller? Just got back from business, so I've got more time back home to actually update this. I also changed the title, since the first one might have been slightly confusing.

The engines came out uneventfully. I forgot to take a picture of the engine sitting on the k-member, but you get the point. By the way, doing this in a tiny little garage sucks!

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The big pile of parts I get to put back in later, oh boy.

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And the ugly duckling, the V6 engine. This thing was such a huge piece of crap that I ended up selling it for $20 just to get it out of the way.

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[popo8]

Make it happen!

MEMBER @ LTXtech.com

[nateleduc]

LETS GET THIS PARTY STARTED!

[nateleduc]

LETS GET THIS PARTY STARTED!!!

I think I'd jump into traffic if I ever wrecked my bird.

[Spartan7]

Make it happen!

Working on it!


I think I'd jump into traffic if I ever wrecked my bird.

I know how you feel, I was so ashamed when it happened I didn't tell anyone for weeks. But it did give me a chance to semi-restore the car the way I always wanted.

[Spartan7]

Since everything was stripped out of the engine bay, I figured it was a perfect time to paint the engine bay. But I had never painted, so I kept putting it off. In the mean time, I got the LT1 k-member swapped over to the Firebird. The first of many new parts went on the car. Moog upper and lower ball joints and tie rod ends, and Bilstein HD shocks. And since all 98-02's have the same brakes, I got "LS1" brakes free with the car.

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I ended up using the LT1 brake lines since they were longer, but had to bend the mounting tabs down to give enough slack for turning lock-to-lock. I transferred over the LS1 knuckles, calipers, and rotors from the V6 k-member. Hawk HPS pads went into the calipers, and I had the rotors resurfaced later on.

As some of you may know, our lower ball joints are a huge PITA to get installed. So I removed the lower A-arms and took them to a shop to have the ball joints pressed in, did the uppers myself. I had marked the nuts so I could get the alignment close to what it was, and counted the turns for the tie rod ends.

Of course, the stock shock nuts were rusted on, ended up cutting them in half with an angle grinder.

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[Spartan7]

I don't have many pictures of it because I did it at night to avoid getting in trouble, but I swapped the LT1 rear end into the Firebird. It already had 3.73's in it, so I decided to take the LS1 rear brakes off the Firebird rear and swap them over the the LT1 rear. I swapped over the backing plates and axles, since I read that the LS1 axles are slightly longer. Moved over the calipers and brake lines also.

While the axle was out, I removed the LS1 plastic fuel tank and swapped in the LT1 metal tank. I could have kept the plastic tank and modified the fuel lines, but that was more of a hassle than I wanted to deal with. I also already had a Walbro pump in the LT1 tank. Doing a gas tank by yourself sucks.

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[Ugod02010]

Do ya have any of the front end stuff from the 99 ya wanna sell I am trying to do a swap I have a 95 formula I kinda wanna do the newer formula swap. Or t/a stuff

[Spartan7]

Sorry, all that stuff is long gone. The driver fender and bumper were already ruined, and I sold or junked a lot of the other parts because they were taking up room. About the only thing I have left is a complete headlight assembly.

[Spartan7]

While pushing the Firebird into the garage one night, I made the mistake of not watching where it was going and damaged the rear bumper on the cherry picker. :doh: But I got lucky and found someone on LS1tech who was changing his T/A into a Firebird. Same color too! So I even-traded him the rear bumper and low-rise hatch off the Firebird for his T/A bumper. It already had the CETA mod done to it and was completely damage-free. I was instantly sold on the CETA mod, can't believe I didn't do it sooner.

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I picked up a replacement driver side fender from the junkyard, since the original one was damaged beyond repair. The replacement never fit that well, and I ended up replacing it much later, but more on that later. These horrible shots were done at night, when most of my work on the car was done back then. I got the LT1 hood and fenders on, and aligned the door panels. Aligning doors is a huge pain when you're by yourself.

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[Spartan7]

I looked locally for a painter to do the engine bay. Finding one with a busy schedule and a busy schedule of my own, I just never got around to towing the car to his place so he could do it. I put it off in favor of working on the interior. I started laying down the Raamat sound deadening on the floor, which isn't as easy as it looks. Those edges are sharp. :shiner: I also finished laying out the body wiring harness.

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I had also ordered a Stock Interiors carpet, however I was not happy with the fitment. I sold it and just decided to clean and reuse the old carpet. I spent many hours hand cleaning it with Folex (which works great!) and it came out much better than how it was. The huge stain under the passenger rear seat bucket did not want to come out, looks like a previous owner spilled some coke or something in there. But it would be covered by the seat bucket, so I didn't care much.

Before:

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Just after a good vacuuming:

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After a long process of cleaning with Folex. You wouldn't believe all the dirt and grit that came out, the carpet even felt so much softer afterwards:

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Some of the padding stunk from getting wet, so I hacked it off the carpet and tossed it. I replaced it with the good quality jute that came with the Stock Interiors carpet.

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And installed. Much better!

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[Spartan7]

I had gotten another job in Houston, so I was moving soon. Because of that, I had to get rid of the T/A. I finished completely stripping every last bit It was very sad to see it in this state, but it had to go. I ended up selling the chassis for $50 and had it hauled away by a scrap company.

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[QC97Z]

:( You're right, it is sad to see it in that state.
However...bigger and better things await! I'm loving your build so far - it's much different that most. Most of us are working on one car, and only usually doing drivetrain stuff and some electronic goodies - not usually tearing out NEARLY as much as you did.
Subscribed!

[popo8]

I had gotten another job in Houston, so I was moving soon. Because of that, I had to get rid of the T/A. I finished completely stripping every last bit It was very sad to see it in this state, but it had to go. I ended up selling the chassis for $50 and had it hauled away by a scrap company.

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thats the one u wrecked... not the project.... right?

MEMBER @ LTXtech.com

[QC97Z]

^ In the last pic you can see the driver's side floor pan crunched in toward the center of the car. Definitely the wrecked T/A body.

[Spartan7]

:( You're right, it is sad to see it in that state.
However...bigger and better things await! I'm loving your build so far - it's much different that most. Most of us are working on one car, and only usually doing drivetrain stuff and some electronic goodies - not usually tearing out NEARLY as much as you did.
Subscribed!

Thanks for the support! I definitely learned a lot by doing this, mainly that it was far more work than I had planned.

Popo, that one is the wrecked car. Like said, you can just make out the damaged floorpan in one of the pictures. There was far more damage than I was prepared to have repaired, and I live in an apartment so it's kind of hard to undertake a project like that.

[Spartan7]

One of the last things I did before leaving Austin was to have the headliner redone. The old one was tearing around the t-top lip. I found a small shop that did it for less than $70, and even used the same padded fabric as GM. They did a really good job, I was surprised.

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I put down some sound deadening over the speaker holes in the sail panel. I was tempted to deaden the whole sail panel area, but it felt pretty solid using the knuckle rap test. I got the sail panels cleaned up and installed, leaving the speaker grills off for speaker install later. The rear seat was also tossed back into place.

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One of the sun visors that came with the Firebird was in excellent condition, which was good because the T/A ones were as trashed as the old headliner. Out of sheer luck, I managed to snag the other one out of a junkyard car, same color, in near perfect shape.

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[Spartan7]

The last thing I did before moving to Houston was to slap all the body panels back on, just so I wouldn't have to toss them in the moving truck. This was the first time it started to look like an actual car. While I looked for an apartment in Houston, the car sat in storage for a while.

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My fancy tap job is covering up the torn bumper so it doesn't fall apart any more. Also notice how the hood is sitting too high. This is because the 98-02 hood bump stop brackets are different and sit way too high with LT1 panels on. The fix for this was to cut off the brackets and have LT1 brackets welded on.

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These are the brackets that need to be replaced, if anyone ever plans on doing this swap themselves.

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[Spartan7]

So, is anyone actually reading through this? Feel like I'm talking to myself lol. Anyway, now for the good stuff. :D

I found an awesome Houston shop to paint the engine bay. The first thing I said when I saw it was "Damn."

Before:

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After. What a difference!

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And here's the LT1 hood bump stop brackets they welded on. Now the hood will sit right, hooray.

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[Blackbird96WS6]

I'm reading through it as you update, keep posting pics man! That engine bay paint job looks amazing! Nothing better than that "brand spankin new" look. :cheers:

[ZOHAN]

Damn! that silver looks great!!! Csnt wait till I get mine painted. Its sitting there ready and waiting.

Making you silky smooth...

[Spartan7]

Thanks guys. I'm glad I had the patience to actually get it done rather than just slapping it back together.

So the very first thing I did was drill some holes in my brand new paint lol. I probably should have done this before, but oh well. I picked up one of those nice Speed Inc fuel line relocation kits, so I drilled the holes behind the shock tower and installed some grommets. The third hole is for the EVAP line.

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I also ground a small hole here to relocate the hood latch cable.

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Before tossing the old wiring harness back into the car, I took the time to scrub all the dirt and grime off the plastic loom. I also retaped a lot of the connectors for a cleaner look, because a lot of the old stuff was starting to peel off.

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[JCzNova]

Thanks guys. I'm glad I had the patience to actually get it done rather than just slapping it back together.

So the very first thing I did was drill some holes in my brand new paint lol. I probably should have done this before, but oh well. I picked up one of those nice Speed Inc fuel line relocation kits, so I drilled the holes behind the shock tower and installed some grommets. The third hole is for the EVAP line.

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I also ground a small hole here to relocate the hood latch cable.

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Before tossing the old wiring harness back into the car, I took the time to scrub all the dirt and grime off the plastic loom. I also retaped a lot of the connectors for a cleaner look, because a lot of the old stuff was starting to peel off.

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Rome wasn't built in a day is something I was told when working on my build thread. That paint is looking good. You have some full car pics of it yet?

[ginoz28]

Lookin good :thumbup:

I need to get mine in the garage and do the same.

Sent from my EVO using Tapatalk 2

[Spartan7]

Rome wasn't built in a day is something I was told when working on my build thread. That paint is looking good. You have some full car pics of it yet?

Oh I know, I'm just passing the two year mark with this thing lol. It's actually almost done, I'm just sorting through tons of pics I took along the way.


Lookin good :thumbup:

I need to get mine in the garage and do the same.

Thanks! I figured it was as good a time as any to clean up the engine bay and engine.

[Spartan7]

Thus began the slow process of cleaning stuff up and installing it. I got the brake booster cleaned up (wish I had repainted it first) and installed, along with the engine bay harness and clutch hydraulics. You can barely see the McLeod MC I have under the brake booster, very happy with that thing!

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And here's the second big obstacle the 98-02 cars have in this swap. The floor bracing is slightly different. The later cars have their transmission crossmember mounted further toward the rear than LT1 cars. And since I reused the LT1 fuel lines, this stupid bracket is in the way.

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Rather than cut a big notch out, I chose to leave most of its connection points in place and cut a small access hole for the fuel/brake lines.

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After that, I just slipped the lines through. The worst part was getting the brake line through without kinking it too bad.

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[JCzNova]

Subscribed!

[dstrick8]

Very thorough build! It looks awesome. I just got my car painted, the only thing I didn't get painted was the engine bay. About what did you pay to have that done?

[Fastbird]

I do like where this is going. Really good solid work you're doing.

[Spartan7]

Very thorough build! It looks awesome. I just got my car painted, the only thing I didn't get painted was the engine bay. About what did you pay to have that done?

I paid $900. That included having the new hood bump stop brackets welded on, welding up a few holes on the strut towers, two base coats of factory Sebring Silver (Dupont paint) and clear. They also painted a couple of the body brackets seperate. It's a little higher than other places might do it for, but the shop is very reputable and does a lot of high end Vettes. I'm actually planning on having them paint the entire car very soon.


I do like where this is going. Really good solid work you're doing.

Thanks! I figured since it's not my DD anymore and everyone was out anyways, I might as well put it back together right.

[Spartan7]

Speaking of the body brackets, here they are. They came out very nice.

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Next in went the Speed Inc fuel line relocation kit. I picked the black nylon ones because black looks awesome with silver. I later attached them to the subframe under the wheel well with some zip tie brackets, I might have a pic of that somewhere.

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I went ahead and installed the heater hoses, since it's near impossible to get that bolt in with the engine installed.

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I also slapped the passenger fender back on, which suffered no damage. It's a horrible picture because of the cramped working space I had, but there it is. Working in an apartment parking spot sucks! Luckily, this new apartment's management is very accepting of me working on the cars like this, so I was able to get much more done.

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[FastVert]

Keep the pics and updates coming, it's reminds me of my build - I think I'm going to do mine again! Here are some pics - I did a very similar thing except I didn't switch bodies :)228382283922840228412284222843These are various stages of the build - the first one was stock with a new set of wheels. So I feel ya working in a confined space!

[FastVert]

I experimented with painting and did the engine bay myself - I built a little tent and sprayed it in my driveway / garage. It didn't turn out to bad but when you get close you can tell it was done by a beginner oh and I put new wheels on it since - see sig. Hopefully you'll feel a little motivation - I'm reading your write up and happy someone else has done this.

[FastVert]

I did the fuel lines like you did as well - I like the black braid vs. the stainless steel braid.

[Spartan7]

I probably could have rattle canned it myself, but I'm not broke by any means, so I figured I'd just have it done professionally. Plus I've heard that metallic silver is a hard color to paint. Yours came out very nice though. It's been other build threads and pictures like yours that have kept me going to actually finish mine.:thumbsup:

[Spartan7]

There were just a few more things to finish up before turning my attention to the engine. I was also waiting on parts for it. So I took some time to clean a lot of the grime and crap off the stock K-member.

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One more thing I had to deal with that this car doesn't have is the bracket for the charcoal canister. 99-02 cars have theirs mounted on top of the plastic gas tank, which I yanked out. Luckily I had the foresight to take the bracket off the 97 car before it went to the scrap heap, so it was just a matter of using some self-tapping screws to hold it in place. I don't have a welder or even know how to, or that would have been a better route.

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Something else I learned was different is the e-brake handle. I remember when driving my brother's 99 Z28, that his e-brake handle went nearly vertical and had a very loose feeling to it. Now I know why. You can see the difference here, LT1 on the top. The spring is missing because I tried swapping it to the V6 handle to stiffen it up, which it did not. The difference is mostly in the cam plate. Something else I didn't like was the V6 handle was plastic, where my LT1 handle was leather.

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Because the handles are different, the intermediate cable is also different. That was swapped out too.

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And the result? An e-brake handle with a much firmer feel to it. I did need to adjust the LS1 e-brake in the rear because of the rotors, but it now works much better than it did.

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[FastVert]

I probably could have rattle canned it myself, but I'm not broke by any means, so I figured I'd just have it done professionally. Plus I've heard that metallic silver is a hard color to paint. Yours came out very nice though. It's been other build threads and pictures like yours that have kept me going to actually finish mine.:thumbsup:
I used a gun on mine (detail gun from HF), not can's and thanks - but white is one of the easier colors to spray.

[thunderkyss]

How did you get your fuel tank in?

I haven't touched my car in a few months, pulled out an old tank, can't figure how to get the new one in without cutting the filler neck.

[Spartan7]

How did you get your fuel tank in?

Well, it was much easier with the rear end completely out lol. But I've done it with the rear end in. It sucks, but it's doable. You need to drop the rear end as low as you can possibly get it without damaging anything. Unbolt the rear brake line bracket from the body so the brake line droops with the rear end, that way you don't have to disconnect and bleed them later. Then it's just a matter of angling the tank the right way so the filler neck finally slides in.

The LS1 plastic tanks have a flexible rubber filler neck, I wish ours had that. The tank practically fell out on its own as soon as the straps were off.

[Spartan7]

With the engine bay and body all ready for the engine to drop in, I started the teardown. This is about the only picture I have of the old setup, a very stock look with a not-so-stock valvetrain.

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Engine mods before removal:

Stock short block, less than 100k on it
LE2 ported 374 casting heads
Cam from Lloyd; 222/230 112 LSA, he specced it for me to pass smog when I lived in CA
LE ported intake
BBK 58mm throttle body
Racetronix 37# injectors
GM LS7 lifters
Trickflow chromoly pushrods
GM guideplates
Comp Pro Mag 1.6 roller rockers
ARP head bolts, rocker studs, perma-locks, and camshaft sprocket bolts

The engine was completely stripped of all parts, sans heads. I wanted to freshen everything up with new gaskets and give it a good cleaning, so it matched the nice clean engine bay. I can't believe I didn't take a pic of it stripped down though.

[Spartan7]

Since I was no longer in CA and this would no longer be my daily driver, I felt a bigger cam was in order to take better advantage of the heads. I had Lloyd spec me out another, and this is what came in the mail.

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I also decided to have the ported intake powdercoated semi-gloss black. I think it's going to look awesome under the hood.

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[FastVert]

Your cam is very similar to mine! I PowderCoated my intake, accessory bracket and timing cover with Silver Vein - I like the black and I'm thinking about redoing mine now LOL.

[QC97Z]

Lookin great man! Keep it up!

[DIZMANGA]

Keep the pics and updates coming, it's reminds me of my build - I think I'm going to do mine again! Here are some pics - I did a very similar thing except I didn't switch bodies :)228382283922840228412284222843These are various stages of the build - the first one was stock with a new set of wheels. So I feel ya working in a confined space!

How did you get that bird on the flight line!?! LOL! I was an AM on legacies back in the day. VFC-12 in Oceana.

[FastVert]

How did you get that bird on the flight line!?! LOL! I was an AM on legacies back in the day. VFC-12 in Oceana. I use to be an Air Traffic Controller - As Facility Supervisor I could go anywhere so long as I had a radio to communicate with the tower. That was taken at NAVSTA Mayport FL.

[Spartan7]

I keep getting distracted and forget to update this lol.

With the engine torn down, I could actually clean up some things. There was so much dirt and grime on the timing cover, I couldn't possibly put it back on and be happy with myself. Some good scrubbing and brake cleaner works wonders.

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I was also planning on an electric water pump, so the WP drive hole needed to be plugged. I went with the tried and true method of a quarter and JB weld. :whistle:

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Brand new seals, I took no chances with reassembly of this thing.

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And before that cover went back on, something else had to come out. The old cam.

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The stock cam bearings were still in good shape.

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And in with the new. :D

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[Spartan7]

After the cam, on went the timing chain. It had been replaced maybe 20k miles ago, so I felt no reason to do it again (old picture, because the WP drive is still in there, but you get the point).

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Something else I wanted to upgrade while everything was apart was the oil pump bypass spring. I picked up a GM white spring and installed it into the old housing. There was nothing wrong with the oil pump, so why mess with success? I did however pack the gears full of assembly lube to aid in oil pump priming, then torqued everything back to spec.

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After pulling off the oil pan and making a huge mess (I had forgotten that I never drained the oil :doh:), I cleaned it up really good of all the old grime, replaced the gasket, and torqued everything back up.

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While I was in there, for the hell of it, I replaced the pilot bushing and rear main seal. The bushing gave me hell coming out, but luckily I didn't nick the crank or anything.

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The RMS is the Fel-Pro PTFE one, and went in incredibly easy. The old one wasn't leaking, but why chance that?

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[popo8]

Keep up the great work man...and great documentation with pics.

[Spartan7]

Thanks Popo, I'm glad I took all the pictures I did.

With the cam and oil pump in, the lifters and oil pump drive could go back in. I cleaned out the lifter valley really well and torqued everything to spec. The trash bag was to keep things out of the lifter valley while I worked on other stuff.

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Before putting more parts back on, I decided to clean up the block and heads really well. Simple Green works pretty well for the block, and brake cleaner works good on the aluminum heads.

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I also cleaned up the opti and coil. The opti worked good before removal, but I took the opportunity to crack it open anyway and clean up anything inside. I used a GM base with Mitsubishi sensor, and MSD cap and rotor. Loctite went on the rotor screws. Something I noticed with the cap off is that the MSD cap has ridges on the underside that were making contact with the rotor and wearing grooves into it. So I took my dremel to the ridges and shaved them down.

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Another preventative maintenance thing I decided to do was the valve seals. I had bought the LE2 heads slightly used and was a little suspecting of burning oil, so it couldn't hurt. And I'm incredibly glad I did, because I found a valve seal completely missing! :face_shocked:

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With the new seals and springs back on the valves, I rechecked my pushrod length with the new cam. The wipe pattern was too favorable on the exhaust side, so I found the correct size needed with my checker tool and ordered some Trickflow chromoly 7.10's. While waiting on those, I put the rockers back on loose.

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And on goes the flwheel. There weren't many miles on it since I bought it as a reman piece, and the hotspots weren't too bad.

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[QC97Z]

Looking sweet - I am looking forward to this part of my build...

[Spartan7]

Thanks! I think cleaning up and working on the engine was one of the more enjoyable parts of the build.

I haven't forgotten about this thread, just been out of town again and busy with work. There is still much more to come with the build.

[Spartan7]

I'm finally back in town and have some time off, so it's definitely time to update this.

With all the work in the lifter valley done (besides new pushrods), I started slapping on the intake.

24083

On go the Fel-Pro gaskets.

24085

The gaskets covered a slim part of the ports, mostly around the upper part. I didn't want to obstruct any flow so I shaved them down a bit with the trusty dremel.

24084

I laid down a nice bead of copper RTV...

24086

Then bolted down that nice powdercoated intake. I also closed off the front with my nice clean opti and crank hub. It's finally starting to look more like an engine.

24082

[ZOHAN]

Looking good man! You're making faster progress than me!

Making you silky smooth...

[Spartan7]

Thanks! All this was actually done a while ago, I'm just now getting to sorting through all the pictures. I've been seriously neglecting the car recently.

[Spartan7]

The old fuel rails had definitely seen better days.

24111

24112

I disassembled them and started to polish them up. I probably should have started with coarser paper to get the deep scratches out, but they still came out much better than before.
24113

24114

On went the throttle body (BBK 58mm), stock balancer, and the fuel rails.

24115

24110

[Spartan7]

The new pushrods came in. The old ones were only .05 too long, but the rocker swipe pattern was off enough to make me uncomfortable enough to spend the money on new ones. Might as well build it right.

24147

Much better.

24148

Lash was finished up with the new pushrods. Since I no longer needed to turn the flywheel by hand anymore, on went the clutch. It's a RAM Powergrip with less than 5k on it, looks almost new. I'm still very happy with this clutch for street driving.

24149

24150

Next up was the electric water pump. I used the old pump housing I had.

24151

Off comes the cover, and you can see the impeller. The cover has an o-ring on it, I can't remember if the EWP I ordered came with a replacement. I don't think it did, but the original was still in good shape.

24152

Tap the impeller shaft out from the front out the back! I spent nearly 10 minutes trying to pound it out from the back to the front. :doh:

24153

After installing the brass plug and bolting on the EWP, the water pump itself goes on the engine.

24146

[Spartan7]

I took many hours to clean up and re-tape the whole engine harness. I also added and replaced some more split loom, it came out pretty nice.

24241

All the spark plugs got replaced with some fresh Autolite 104's. The MSD wires I had cleaned up very easily with just some WD-40.

24240

I ordered some chrome vinyl intake fin decals from Brent Franker, and they looked better than I thought they would.

24242

Then I got to installing the engine harness as much as I could. This was the last step before dropping the engine in.

24243

24238

24239

[SSlowBoat]

Very nice

[ginoz28]

She looks like she's ready to ROCK B-)

24240




Sent from my EVO using Tapatalk 2

[popo8]

lookin good!!!

MEMBER @ LTXtech.com

[Spartan7]

Thanks guys, I was pretty excited to see the engine at that point. I don't have any pictures of the installation, but it went pretty easy. I was doing it in my apartment complex parking lot, so I wanted to get it done before anyone made any complaints. I did get some very strange looks. It's not every day people see a car hanging from a cherry picker.

The hardest part was probably lining up the engine on the motor mounts. I then got the tranny bolted up and headers mocked up. Unfortunately, during the process, I broke my furniture dolly, which made it more difficult than needed. But after only a few hours of wrestling things around, the k-member lined up and the body was dropped down for good.

Right after installation. The trash bag is just the rest of the engine harness piled on the intake.

24262

And sitting where it should. I'm already liking the color contrast. Still a ways to go!

24263

24261

24264

[Blackbird96WS6]

Damn, that's clean! Looking great, man!

[SSlowBoat]

Holy beautiful engine bay! Nice work man

[Spartan7]

Thanks a lot guys, I'm glad I waited to paint the engine bay rather than getting too impatient.

I got the Kooks headers all bolted in with new gaskets, connected the fuel lines, and started routing the engine harness. The next big obstacle was the accessory bracket. Since the A/C was gone, I decided to kick the alternator down low, while keeping power steering. The Speed Inc kit was way overpriced IMO, so I modified the stock one.

This project had been started long before, so the basic starting cuts had already been made with a sawzall. The idler is just a regular 6 groove idler, and I forgot where I bought it. Here it is mocked up. The alternator sat very close to the k-member "L" bracket, but there was enough clearance to avoid cutting.

24316

I made an upper alt. bracket out of some 1" angle steel, drilled a bunch of holes in it, and used some grade 8 hardware to attach it to the alt. bracket.

24317

24318

Installed

24319

And all accessories bolted on. With this setup, I could keep the stock tensioner and avoid belt slippage. The lower bolt hole for the alternator needs to be shaved about 1/8" for the pulleys to all align. I chose to take it off the bracket itself rather than the alt.

24314

24315

So much cleaner.

24313

In case some of you can't stand the suspense, the first belt I tried was too short and slipped a bit while revving. I replaced it with a .75" shorter one and no more belt slipping issues.

[Spartan7]

It's not in the other pics, but here's how I routed the plug wires. Rather than take a chance of the alt. pulley or belt nicking them, I ran them behind the bracket. It looks like there's a really tight bend on them, but it's not that bad. And they're much safer now.

24379

Got the driveshaft and torque arm back on, filled up the tranny, and topped it off with the shifter.

24377

I also performed the !wire mod to keep things clean. I made my own jumper cables so I wouldn't have to cut a big hole in the shock tower, then routed everything underneath. I detailed the whole write-up a while ago.

http://ltxtech.com/forums/showthread.php?19254-!wire-mod-with-a-twist

24380

24376

I also got the radiator cleaned up and installed. Getting much closer to starting.

24378

[SSlowBoat]

Thanks a lot guys, I'm glad I waited to paint the engine bay rather than getting too impatient.

I got the Kooks headers all bolted in with new gaskets, connected the fuel lines, and started routing the engine harness. The next big obstacle was the accessory bracket. Since the A/C was gone, I decided to kick the alternator down low, while keeping power steering. The Speed Inc kit was way overpriced IMO, so I modified the stock one.

This project had been started long before, so the basic starting cuts had already been made with a sawzall. The idler is just a regular 6 groove idler, and I forgot where I bought it. Here it is mocked up. The alternator sat very close to the k-member "L" bracket, but there was enough clearance to avoid cutting.

24316

I made an upper alt. bracket out of some 1" angle steel, drilled a bunch of holes in it, and used some grade 8 hardware to attach it to the alt. bracket.

24317

24318

Installed

24319

And all accessories bolted on. With this setup, I could keep the stock tensioner and avoid belt slippage. The lower bolt hole for the alternator needs to be shaved about 1/8" for the pulleys to all align. I chose to take it off the bracket itself rather than the alt.

24314

24315

So much cleaner.

24313

In case some of you can't stand the suspense, the first belt I tried was too short and slipped a bit while revving. I replaced it with a .75" shorter one and no more belt slipping issues.

That looks oddly familiar lol im running the same setup. I had to cut the bolt down that holds the swaybar bracket to the body as it hit my alt

[popo8]

Def clean... guess Im a girl...cause I NEES my A.C. lol

MEMBER @ LTXtech.com

[SSlowBoat]

quick heads up, watch your heater hose to belt clearance closely. i had mine just rub through and spray my nice clean engine/bay down with coolant...

[Spartan7]

Def clean... guess Im a girl...cause I NEES my A.C. lol

I can understand that, summertime in Texas sucks with no A/C. I just roll down both windows and remind myself how much room I have under the hood now. lol


quick heads up, watch your heater hose to belt clearance closely. i had mine just rub through and spray my nice clean engine/bay down with coolant...

Yea, I noticed that too. I zip tied the heater hoses and power steering hoses to keep them away from the belt. I've put quite a few miles on the engine with no issues yet.

[SSlowBoat]

I did the same thing and for whatever reason the ziptie broke and rubbed threw the line last night.

[Spartan7]

That sucks, makes me want to go double check mine now. Thanks for the warning.

[Spartan7]

I picked up some new battery cables from somewhere, I forget. But they're pretty nice, really thick gauge. The hardest part was routing the positive away from the exhaust and serpentine belt, because it's much stiffer than the original stuff.

24497

24502

Next up was the exhaust. I got my Kooks catted y-pipe mounted again. Not cheap, but tucks up very well, and makes the smog sniffer happy.

24498

24500

I traded the honeycomb taillights to my brother for his driveshaft loop, which didn't fit his exhaust. It fit mine, but as you can see, hangs down WAY too low. I ended up pulling it off after a hard scrape.

24499

And I got the catback on. It's an SLP Loudmouth system that's been tweaked pretty bad over the years, but I managed to get it aligned decent. The LM1 resonator has been replaced by a Dynomax bullet.

24496

24501

[Ugod02010]

Was that a series 3 3.8l. It looks different than the one I had in my 96?

[Spartan7]

I honestly couldn't tell you. Sorry about the late response, I've been floating in the ocean with no internet for a month. I'll try to post up a few more updates on this.

[97Z4CZ28]

Nice work looks great!

[Spartan7]

And here's what I'm sure a few of you have been waiting for, an idle and rev video. This wasn't the first startup, but it was one of the first. I had a coolant hose leak and some other things to fix, but it's running like a champ at this point. You can hear the belt squeak, but I fixed that with a slightly shorter belt right after this. Ignore the black smoke, it was running rich because it was on the old crappy PCMforless tune. Idle is about 850, which has since been dropped to 700.



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Io6DTJ5jiaQ

[Ugod02010]

Sweet sounds good. For a secon I thought that truck pulling in was gonna be the popo. Lol

[Spartan7]

Thanks! That's actually my neighbor, but I was afraid some cops would see me because one lives nearby.

I did have one major issue that scared the crap out of me on first startup; oil pressure was zero! :face_shocked: I pulled one of the valve covers to verify oil was indeed pumping to the rockers, and it was. Add a broken oil pressure switch to the list!

And here's the culprit. I gave it a nice farewell.

25949

New AC Delco switch installed a week later.

25950

And woohoo, oil pressure! 60 psi cold, 30-40 at operating temp. Very nice.

25948

[Spartan7]

I got my K&N CAI back in, and a couple other things under the hood.

26006

I decided to paint the windshield washer reservoir black. It was my first time ever really painting anything, and it looked like it. I ended up repainting it later, more pics to come.

26007

The next thing on the list was the header panel. This is the big plastic piece that the headlights and front bumper mount to. The original was trashed pretty bad in the wreck, and sourcing a replacement proved very difficult. So I ended up buying an ebay one. There is a much more detailed write-up that I did here, but the gist is it required a bit of work to get it where I wanted.

http://ltxtech.com/forums/showthread.php?20953-Does-your-Bird-have-a-damaged-headlight-panel

Here is the new one as delivered.

26012

Compared to the old destroyed one.

26013

After all fabrication and transfer of metal brackets (some of which I ended up painting later). The headlights are the euro sealed beam conversion housings with an HID H4 Hi/Low setup that I'm very happy with. All the ballast and wiring is hidden behind the panel itself.

26014

And with the headlight doors mounted. It's starting to look like a car again!

26011

[fullforce]

NICE BUILD!

[Ugod02010]

I had the exact Same thing when I started up the t/a roller I bought. I forgot I broke the pressure sender, same exact spot as urs. I was looking at the pressure and it was 0 scared the shit outta me. I'm lookin over everything and rembered bout it! How much was the new one?

Everything looks good!

[Spartan7]

Thanks guys. I don't remember the cost of the pressure switch, but I bought a new AC Delco one from Rock Auto. It scared the crap out of me too, because I had taken apart the oil pump, and thought maybe I screwed something up.

[Spartan7]

Next up for the front end was the bumper support/impact bar.

26082

I got it all cleaned up and bolted on, then hooked up the fog lights.

26083

And finally the front bumper goes on. You can see it's suffered quite a bit of damage; the paint is spidered, there's a couple tears in it (mainly the big one on the driver side from the accident), holes where the front license plate used to be, etc. The body shop I'm planning on having it painted at said they could make all the repairs, so hopefully it's salvageable. If not, another GM bumper is going on.

26084

She hasn't been this complete in years.

26085

Notice my awesome duct tape job to hold the bumper together. I think it makes her look "mean". :D The fender is missing for certain reasons that I'll reveal soon enough.

26081

[Spartan7]

Well, here was the reason why the finder was left off. When I bought the car, I noticed that the driver door was popping a bit while opening/closing. I thought it was a bad hinge, but unfortunately it wasn't that easy.

Some of you may or may not know that these cars have a tendency to break the fiberglass structure of the door around the lower hinge. I don't believe this is an issue of the door being too heavy (don't get me wrong, they ARE heavy), but rather an issue of previous owners putting their weight on the door while getting in/out of the car.

26125

It's a little difficult to see, but there is a sizable crack behind the hinge. This causes the fiberglass to flex, which was making the door pop. With the hinge removed, you can see it better.

26126

26127

So, I started shopping for another door. Of course, that's easier said than done. I must have looked at 5 doors at least, and every single one of them had the same fiberglass damage. Mine actually looked better than them! So that was put on the back burner.

On to the next project; painting the cowl trim. I made a thread about it a long time ago here, there's more details in it. But the long and short of it is the factory stuff was faded and looked like crap, so I painted it. I used Krylon Fusion satin black, and it came out amazing.

http://ltxtech.com/forums/showthread.php?21191-Painted-the-cowl-trim

Before, old faded trim:

26135

26131

And after:

26133

26134

[AdamG]

Thats crazy with the door. Im gonna check mine. I like how ur cowl came out thanks for the idea.

Sent from my SCH-I110 using Tapatalk 2

[Spartan7]

It's worth a look, just know that if you take off the hinge like I did, you'll have to realign the door. Thanks for the compliment on the cowl, I was surprised how well it turned out for a couple hours worth of work. And I'm not a professional painter by any means, just rattle canned it in the garage.

Shiny new parts! I don't remember when I ordered all this stuff, but it was probably on sale. I picked up some BMR lowering springs, UMI bolt-in subframe connectors, Founder's Performace bolt-in LCA relocation brackets, and Moog replacement LCA bushings.

I picked the BMR springs over the Strano ones because I'd heard of guys having issues with the Strano springs wearing out Bilstein shocks, and a couple even had issues of not lowering as advertised.

26170

I had to get another set of SFC's because the driver side was tweaked from the accident so badly that I couldn't unbolt it. UMI wouldn't sell me an individual one, so I had to buy another set. Oh well.

26172

Founder's was picked over the others because I didn't feel that the price of BMR or UMI justified the fact that it was a simple bracket. They looked solid anyway, and came with all required hardware.

26173

And I picked the Moog bushings because of things I'd read about poly bushings causing bind issues and noise. Since this is a strictly street car, and BMR had not yet offered rubber bushings in their LCA's (I wish those had been out when I bought these!), this was the best choice for me.

26171

[96lt1m6]

Looking great!!!

[Spartan7]

Thanks! I went back to California for my vacation this year, so didn't have a chance to update this. But I'm back home in Texas, so on with the updates.

You can see the difference in the rear springs easily. So long crappy semi-truck springs!

26303

In goes the subframe connectors. I really like the ground clearance on these, they're nearly invisible from the side.

26304

In go the springs to match my nice new Bilsteins that I put in a loong time ago. I also got the LCA relocation brackets in. If you have LS1 brakes, the e-brake mounting bracket needs to be cut in half and only bolted onto one side, because it will not fit around the relocation bracket.

26305

26306

Here's the old bushings for the rear LCA's. See the places where there's no material between the rubber and outer sleeve? Some of these even slid out with minimal effort. :doh:

26307

And here's the Moog bushings installed. No more loose destroyed bushings. A local shop wanted like $80 to install these, what a ripoff. So I rented a tool from Autozone and did it myself in an hour.

26308

And everything installed. Looking back, I kind of wish I had painted these before installing them, but whatever. It's not a show car.

26309

[Spartan7]

And on go the front springs. These are much easier to install than OEM springs, because there's less to compress.

26401

Here's the ride height before. Even with over 110k on these saggy springs, it still looks like a semi-truck.

26400

And after. MUCH better.

26402

26403

The stance should look even better with these on there. I picked these up from OE Wheels, 17x9.5 C5's all around.

26399

[97Z4CZ28]

Looking outstanding! I can't wait to start putting my Z back together again. Did you do the hose mod on rear springs or did you leave stock spring rubber bushings in?

[Spartan7]

Thanks! That pic is right after I installed them, with the stock isolators. The springs did settle a little, but I'm still debating whether to do the hose mod or not. I don't want to drop the ass end down too much, a reverse rake would look weird.

[Spartan7]

I'm finally back from work overseas, time for some updates!

Got some tires mounted on those sexy rims. BF Goodrich G-Force Comp 2's, 275/40/17 all around. These are supposed to be better than the KDW2's, we'll see!

http://i238.photobucket.com/albums/ff114/malomanm/Firebird%20swap/IMG_2625_zpsc608a76e.jpg (http://s238.photobucket.com/user/malomanm/media/Firebird%20swap/IMG_2625_zpsc608a76e.jpg.html)

I also picked up some Strano 35/22 hollow sway bars. I was contemplating BMR, but for the small price difference, the weight savings was worth it to me. These things are light, and much better than stock.

26928

On goes the front...

http://i238.photobucket.com/albums/ff114/malomanm/Firebird%20swap/IMG_2636_zps839f5f29.jpg (http://s238.photobucket.com/user/malomanm/media/Firebird%20swap/IMG_2636_zps839f5f29.jpg.html)

And the rear bar.

26929

And, well, these speak for themselves. :D

http://i238.photobucket.com/albums/ff114/malomanm/Firebird%20swap/IMG_2640_zps0f20d67a.jpg (http://s238.photobucket.com/user/malomanm/media/Firebird%20swap/IMG_2640_zps0f20d67a.jpg.html)

http://i238.photobucket.com/albums/ff114/malomanm/Firebird%20swap/IMG_2642_zps22d90dde.jpg (http://s238.photobucket.com/user/malomanm/media/Firebird%20swap/IMG_2642_zps22d90dde.jpg.html)

http://i238.photobucket.com/albums/ff114/malomanm/Firebird%20swap/IMG_2643_zps1bf4cf88.jpg (http://s238.photobucket.com/user/malomanm/media/Firebird%20swap/IMG_2643_zps1bf4cf88.jpg.html)

[SSlowBoat]

nice

[nateleduc]

YHPM!

[Leedogg]

Car looks great!

[95impalakid]

Awesome build and thread. I read it through all my free time at school. Great with the pictures and explanations too.

[Spartan7]

Sorry about the apparent abandonment of my build, but work keeps me away from home for a good chunk of my time. Plus I have a short attention span and can be downright lazy at times, not a good mix. I really appreciate the kind words, it helps me remember that I need to finish this thing eventually.

So, remember that door popping issue I was having? Well, I picked up a spare door for that. Turns out the door was worse than I thought, and had cracking as well. I finally said screw it, and decided to roll around with no door at all.

28166

Not really. But you get some strange looks when you're taking the door off your own car. Anyway, I decided to take it to a body shop and have them fiberglass it up. They didn't guarantee me it would hold, but they still did a really nice job. Which is good, because it wasn't cheap.

28167

28168

You can see where they glassed it in on the inside. I was told they had to dig out nearly all of it and glass it all back in.

28169

And back on the car. It took me forever to get the gap right by myself, but it's done. And no more popping, hooray. There's still a very small amount of flex, but I'm so tired of screwing with it that I can live with that.

28170

[Spartan7]

Sound system time! I ended up with a new Sony H/U mounted with an HUmount, and a complete speaker kit from Kee Audio. I just reused the Monsoon amp and stock wiring, and soldered the stock harness adapters onto the new speakers. It sounds great for what I wanted, and the Bazooka subs hit plenty hard for their size.

28250

28251

28252

While I was wiring stuff up, I also installed an indicator LED for my EWP.

28253

Here's what I got from HUmount, very nice quality.

28254

28255

I wired it up to come on with the headlights by splicing it into the illumination wire on the radio harness.

28256

[Spartan7]

Most of my wiring is now finished. Another minor difference between 93-97 and 98+ cars is in the location of the "door closed" switches. On older cars, they are single wire push switches located in the door jamb, that compress when the door closes and ground out, indicating the door is closed to the BCM. On 98+ cars, these are located in the door latch assembly. So it was a simple matter of running new wires to these. You can see my new wires as the red ones.

28283

Then I finished the sound deadening on the doors. All done and ready for the door panels!

28284

The older fender I picked up was crap, so I found this one that was in near perfect condition.

28286

And on it goes. It took me a while to align it just right, but it's on. If someone knows a good method to get that marker crap off, I'd love to hear it. Otherwise, I'll just leave it for the painters to strip off.

28288

I also decided to paint some engine bay items. The first time I painted the windshield washer reservoir, it came out like crap. My second attempt was much better. I smoothed down the edges where the two halves were joined, and hit it with a few coats of Krylon Fusion. It really works great on plastic.

28285

Same paint on the PCM bracket and hood latch.

28287

[Spartan7]

Some of you might remember my thread where I found an OEM WS6 hood, so I'll just skip to what it looks like now. Obviously it needs paint, which is the last thing on my list. I just finished getting rid of my huge tune issue, so now it's finally registered. When I get back from this next trip overseas I'll be taking it to the paint shop hopefully.

28449

28451

28450

[Spartan7]

Just got home after another month overseas, so I snapped a couple quick pictures of the engine bay to go along with the exterior. I've got some other small clean up ideas that I'll probably start on if the weather clears up.

29004

29003

[Flyinz]

Very clean engine bay and a sharp car. Sorry if I missed it,but what alt. relocation kit are you running?

[Spartan7]

Thanks. I modified the stock bracket, there should be more details in a previous post.

[Spartan7]

Not much of an update, but here's the happy time mess I made of my engine harness. I got bored and decided to make it look even cleaner, should keep me busy for a couple days.

29070

[Spartan7]

This ended up taking me way longer than I had anticipated, but I think it was worth it.

The harness pretty much got ripped apart, then all unneeded wires were stripped out (all the A4 stuff since it's an M6 now, A/C, etc.). I also relocated some stuff, I moved the pass. side lower branch so it would flow better, since I now run that behind the header rather than the stock routing down the strut tower. I also moved the branch that goes inside the cabin a bit to clean things up and make it less of a mess near the PCM. Since I'm now running a lid, I also moved the IAT to the driver side for a cleaner look.

For wrapping it up, I used Techflex braided sleeving and heat shrink on all the ends and junctions. For the parts of the harness that travel close to the exhaust, I used their Insultherm stuff, which is supposed to be good up to 1200 degrees. I used adhesive lined shrink tubing on the junctions to keep things from coming apart. I used the solid sleeving, not the wrap stuff, so every connector had to be unpinned and meticulously fed through the sleeving.

And that's where it got difficult. A lot of these Delphi connectors don't simply unpin, they are called "pull-to-seat". Which means you can't just pull off the plastic plug, you'd have to cut the pins off to do that. So a lot of connectors had to be chopped off, then spliced back together. For the more important ones like the injectors, I unpinned them from the PCM and fed the signal wire all the way through the sleeving, rather than chop them.

After it was all assembled, I had to ohm out every single wire to make completely sure I had good soldered splices and everything was pinned how it should be. In the end of all that I had only screwed up one wire, luckily it was easy to get to without too much extra work. And here's the finished product.

29121

This was a highly stressful and labor intensive project, and there's probably no way I'd do it again unless I was building a harness from scratch. Now all I have to do is install it and hope there's no issues (which there shouldn't be since I checked every freaking wire, but you never know.

[Spartan7]

Well, the harness is all installed. I haven't taken a pic of it yet, because it's too damn hot. It started on the first turn, no SES light, all gauges working. Yay. But of course something always has to go wrong.

It idled fine, but when I took it for a drive it was hesitating and lurching a bit in lower RPM's. Anything below 3k felt like shit, above that at WOT was just fine, and it was burning rich. It also ran fine in open loop, so of course my first thought was O2 sensors. I hooked up my scanner and sure enough they weren't switching. In fact, they were both pegged at opposites, one side at .050 and the other at .900. I checked to make sure no wiring was touching and they were both fine.

And then it hit me. I probably wired up the front O2's backwards. I popped off the grey PCM connector and checked all the pins. Sure enough, I had switched sides on the high and low wires on both front O2's. So the PCM was seeing the driver side as passenger, and vise versa, freaking out in the process and making it run like shit. I swapped the 4 wires and took her for a drive, and bam, runs like a top. Then I kicked myself for being a dumbass, being thankful it was a simple fix.

[JCzNova]

Good to hear that straightened it up. Most people would've replaced the opti. :laugh:

[Spartan7]

Haha no kidding. In my experience a lot of the issues that come up were caused by me in the first place, so I check what I just did first. Luckily I was smart enough to take a bunch of the pictures while I was rewiring so I could double check my work.

[Spartan7]

Hey, long time no update to this thing! I've just been pretty much driving it around, enjoying it a bit. I don't think I mentioned it previously, but after lowering it, that driveshaft loop didn't clear a driveway so well...

31377

So I bought a replacement from UMI. This one should clear much better, and is supposed to work with Kooks LT's. Yay.

31378

And just before the new year, BMR was having a 15% off sale, which I couldn't resist. So I picked up one of their torque arms and hardware kits. I'm hoping this will help with my lack of traction on these all season tires, I've been spinning through first and half of second.

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[383z]

I stopped for gas and while I was filling up I sat back in my car and ran across your build on my phone. 50mins later, I would like to tell you your doing a great job on the car.