Project Greyscale 1971 Trans Am

[bsharpe]

Originally Posted by Rick D

As the great Weld would say "that's Hot Rodding"

But seriously just because the parts "bolt"on doesn't mean they are "bolt on" parts, you have to find the right combination for your car to make it all work correctly. Remember this cars are VERY different from one another to begin with so some adjustment may be necessary.

By the way love the car and project!!

I understand the hot rodding mindset and never expect things to "blot on". Especially considering I tend to do things a little differently with my builds. I dont think a 6l80/90 has been put in a 2nd gen yet so i new there were going to be plenty of challenges.

Originally Posted by Mr.VENGEANCE

you really thought that the LQ manifold was going to fit under the hood?...


well then.. prepare your anus..

cause all of that will be surely charged to the game of HOTRODDING..

beat the floor up til it fits!..

I know i can make the truck intake fit. I love running the truck stuff on my builds. the intake performs the same as an ls3 intake but more torque and everything is dirt cheap.

I have the same setup in my chevelle.



It is close now. I just need to figure out where to put the subframe before i make any more changes.

Originally Posted by Sonar Chief

That rendering is spot one! I know the feeling ... just this Friday I was ready to bolt on the upper bars and wtf, where is the other 5/8-11 jam nut? Luckily, there is a Fastenal here in town, so mad dash before they close because they aren't open when everyone else has time!!!!

Keep at it ... it will be worth it!

Michael

The car has a lot of potential. I am going to do a couple of custom body mods but the cars looked great stock.

I build my cars during nights and weekends, its tuff to find time to make calls and buy things during regular business hours.

[bsharpe]

The 6l90 is huge and has awful ground clearance. I want to be able to comfortably drive this car. I raised the trans 3" to allow plenty of clearance. I might need to raise the entire driveshaft tunnel but i wont know until I get the rear 4link setup.


Unfortunately, I found my fully welded trans tunnel interfered with the vintage air unit. I moved everything to the passenger side as far as possible and hammered the cowl area allow more room.


Since I am using vintage air, I shaved the firewall. the firewall on the 2nd gens arent flat. The gas pedal area is recessed more and sticks out farther into the engine bay. I think it turned out alright.



You can also see I relocated the wiper motor to under the drivers fender. I used a motor from a 4th gen i picked up for free.

[bsharpe]

I really like the c5 Z06 wheels, I plan on using them on this car as well. I found a set on craigslist for 450 and they came with a decent set of tires. The tires are old but they aren’t dry rotted. I will use the 18x10.5’s on the Trans Am and the 17x9.5’s on the chevelle. I plan on running 295/35/18 on all 4 corners for now but I might end up buying new tires and going with 315’s for the rear.



I want black wheels on the Trans Am but I don’t want to devalue the wheels so I decided to plasti-dip them. This was the first time using plasti-dip and it worked out really well. Hopefully they will hold up to the abuse but again this is not a show car.

[bsharpe]

Scott verified that his subframe had a similar fit on Grendel's Mullet Camaro. The half height body mounts can not be used at the firewall. I can now move forward with confidence in my setup.

I might keep the subframe wedged as i have it now with the small body mounts in the rear and full height at the firewall. I did the math and the suspension angles will only change by 1.2 degrees.

I am going to move the motor mounts again but I am waiting on my new headers to show up first. You can see how i already lowered the mounts in the pictures below.



I will also add Scotts new extended shock mount to allow a lower ride height.

[fleetus macmullitz]

Great effort on the 'Bird.

[grendel]

Glad I could help in your build

[preston]

Its not the best photo but those wheels look nice in plasti-dip. I might have to try that. Due to my brakes I have to use race pads which leaves everything horrible and its corroding the aluminum so I have to at least paint them but that looks kind of cool. Thanks for the tip, and good luck getting your stuff put together. When I run into problems like that I break out the sawzall !

[bsharpe]

I got the 2010 L92 engine from craigslist. It came from a escalade that had bad lifter noise. The dealership replaced the engine under warranty and i ended up getting the engine for a good deal.

I know the AFM/DOD lifters have had some issues so i wanted to upgrade the top end. The L92 has VVT as well and i wanted to keep it. VVT gives you the best of both worlds, low end torque and top end HP.

After doing some research i decided to go with a Cam from Gwatney Performance. They seem to have more knowledge on the VVT 6l80/90 setups.



This last picture shows the bad lifter which almost completely wiped out the cam lobe.

I installed the new cam, comp vvt phaser, new lifters, pushrods and brian tooley springs. The install was pretty simple. The only hard part was lining up the cam phaser and gear while getting the chain on.

I took my time but somehow messed it up once. I noticed the timing was off when i went to torque down the rockers but i got it setup.

[chichirone]

Another sweet Bird build. Keep posting up the pics. I really like your rendering. I'm a bit partial to a White TA though. Ha!

[GrabberGT]

Love the stacks coming through the hood. Looks mean as heJJ.