10 Seconds' 78 Trans Am Project

[Bandit Ls-1]

looking good man, how wide/tall of a rim are you going with in the rear?

[10Seconds]

Well, right now I am planning to run a Torq Thrust II 17x11, since they are relatively cheap. I want a 17x12 or 17x13, but then I am custom making them and the price skyrockets. I have been planning to run 335/35/17's on the street. 285's in the front.

And where are the pic's of your car Bandit Ls-1? I did a search but came up empty. Dont be shy, post em up.

[10Seconds]

To start the Mini-tub process, we had to do lots of cutting. Basically, we cut out the factory wheelwells, and since I built the new rear frame section, we cut out the entire factory rear frame rails. Then we cut out the rest of the sheetmetal to meet the new framerails, which will be installed as a continuation of the front rails, running parallel the whole way back.

[Bandit Ls-1]

i havent posted about my car yet on here. all work has stoped since im going to college out of state but im 3months away from graduation!! and then its time to start putting it back together, the body needs quite a bit of attention but nothing i cant handle. here are a few pics of her...

[10Seconds]

Here is another little update:

After getting the new rear frame rails build and the 4-link mocked up, it was time to tie the whole thing together.

Here is where we cut out the existing rails and part of the floor to make room for the new rear frame and the subframe connectors we fabricated.





As I mentioned, we built some subframe connectors:





But they did not work out, so it was a lot of wasted effort. I just am showing them here, since I may as well get something out of all that effort, right? Anyways, we ended up going with a plain piece of square tubing for the connecting section after these did not work out.

[10Seconds]

Ok, enough suspense, here are some more pics:

After cutting out the wheelwells for the Mini-tub, there wasnt much left to the back seat area, and it has a bunch of hole:



Since I am relocating the battery to the trunk and dont really want to run a battery box, and since we had gone so far anyways, I decided to replace the back panel with a piece of sheetmetal.



Also, the driveshaft loop from my new rear section was too high to fit in the factory tunnel. So I had to cut out the rear section of it as well.

Here is a shot of the the new rear floor pans and the new rear driveshaft tunnel area. Note you can also see the new frame rails running through the notch in the floor area:







That's it for now. But I also need some help. I have become obsessed with supercharging the 455 pontiac that is going back in it. But I am also running the shaker hood and retaining the A/C, so Pontiac Dude's kit wont work. Has anyone else here done this in a 2nd gen firebird and maybe have some pictures? Does anyone else have any ideas on mounting the supercharger. I am not going crazy with it, probably will use a ProCharger D1SC. Thanks for the help.

[10Seconds]

Geez, no replies. I hope I am not boring you guys with my build here.

Anyways, what I would love to find is someone that has mounted the A/C compressor low like Anthony (awr68) did on his project. I wanted to see if it can be done like that and leave room for the SC above it in a 2nd gen (I think that Anthony's is a 68).

[mazspeed]

Cool project, and no, not boring at all.

[Bandit Ls-1]

not boring at all man awesome work, but i offer no help or ideas with the SC question

[57hemicuda]

I love pictures of the rough in work,alot of guys only post the more finished stuff{its no where near as interesting}Cool project. Ron