1971 Firebird Build ("The Other Woman", a.k.a. Project "T.O.W.")

[srh3trinity]

Sounds like a great pile of parts going together. I like the JRS Torque Arm setup and I have seriously considered that setup myself at some point in time.

[carbuff]

Leigh,

I was wondering about those. I noticed at least one catalog said that they are not available yet, but I also see them for sale on eBay, so someone is selling them. Do you know if they are all the same, or if multiple vendors are producing them?

Unfortunately I'm not having a lot of luck finding parts locally, and my luck with internet purchases seems to be about 50/50... :\

Stephen,

I can't wait to get it all together! If it all performs nearly as well as it looks, I should be pretty darned happy.

[tazzz25906112]

They say the new repro rad supports are pretty good.....

We used one on a little 71TA project I'm doing over at the shop and it worked out real well as far as initial fit etc and would have no issues recommending it's use to anyone so far....

[carbuff]

My DSE goodies arrived yesterday!



And Jake sent me a few more pictures of the completed rear end housing and Watt's Link mount:

[tazzz25906112]

This is going to be a cool ride Bryan,,,,, looking forward to running with you at one of the events this summer I hope.....

[carbuff]

I received my dyno data the other day from Golen. I found the data very interesting and thought others might as well....

As a little refresher, the engine is an LS2-based 402ci with L92 heads, lightly ported. Originally it had an L76 intake with a 90 (or 92) mm throttle body. I'm replacing the L76 with an Edelbrock Victor Jr. and 4-barrel throttle body since I want to use a functional shaker scoop with my hood (without crafting an airbox. ).

There are 3 plots on the chart (I created the chart in Excel from the raw data):

• RED - original 242/248 Golen cam and L76 intake (not completely tuned, which accounts for the much lower torque below 4000rpm)
• GREEN - my custom grind 234/242 cam and L76 intake
• LIGHT BLUE - my custom grind 234/242 cam and Edelbrock Victor Jr. intake

Now, I expected to lose some low-end torque with the short runners of the Victor Jr, but I didn't quite expect to lose 60 ft-lb! Don't get me wrong, this engine should have plenty of power for what I want to do with it, but if I ever do decide to go back to a long-runner composite intake, I will know what awaits me.

[Doug1]

Welcome to the second gen Pontiac bad ass build club!

[andrewb70]

I received my dyno data the other day from Golen. I found the data very interesting and thought others might as well....

As a little refresher, the engine is an LS2-based 402ci with L92 heads, lightly ported. Originally it had an L76 intake with a 90 (or 92) mm throttle body. I'm replacing the L76 with an Edelbrock Victor Jr. and 4-barrel throttle body since I want to use a functional shaker scoop with my hood (without crafting an airbox. ).

There are 3 plots on the chart (I created the chart in Excel from the raw data):

• RED - original 242/248 Golen cam and L76 intake (not completely tuned, which accounts for the much lower torque below 4000rpm)
• GREEN - my custom grind 234/242 cam and L76 intake
• LIGHT BLUE - my custom grind 234/242 cam and Edelbrock Victor Jr. intake

Now, I expected to lose some low-end torque with the short runners of the Victor Jr, but I didn't quite expect to lose 60 ft-lb! Don't get me wrong, this engine should have plenty of power for what I want to do with it, but if I ever do decide to go back to a long-runner composite intake, I will know what awaits me.

Great project Bryan. Glad to see you back, building cars.

The huge torque loss from swapping to a single plain intake has been documented before. I would much rather fabricate an airbox and keep the L76 intake. What EFI system or factory ECU are you using? The factory ECUs that were designed for the 58 tooth reluctor wheel don't work with cable operated throttle bodies. Just saying...

Andrew

[cdoggy81]

Bryan,
How are thing going with it?

[carbuff]

You have good timing. There will be some news for me to share next week. I've changed direction with this project, slightly. More specifically, I sold the red Esprit that I had and have purchased a Formula that is in better condition as a starting point. I should have pictures and some more information next week as this transaction just happened in the last couple of weeks! So stay tuned, more info to come...

[carbuff]

As promised, an update!

So Project TOW has taken a little change of direction... Earlier in the year I decided to sell my house and move (still within Austin), but that left me with the problem of what to do with the Firebird. After a lot of thinking, I decided to sell the car. Tough choice, but I believed that I could find a better starting point, and given that I was going to be living temporarily without a garage, it just made sense.

I've been searching since that time for the next car, and about a month ago I found it. This car was located in New Hampshire, about as far away from Texas as I could get of course. ;) I spent a lot of time on the phone with the seller, he had owned the car since 1988 and had done a complete restoration on the car (including the replacement of much of the sheetmetal) during the 90's. So even though I couldn't see the car in person, it was nice to talk to someone who had actually turned a wrench on the car as compared to so many others that I considered that were 'owned' but not 'built' by their current owners.

The plan for the car remains the same, with the exception that some of the work is going to be done by Jake at JRS. Jake arranged to have the car picked up from the seller (about 3 hours away from him) and now has it at his shop. I flew up last weekend to check it out and make a plan with Jake, and the disassembly should start later this week. Jake's going to do a lot of small projects for me that he and his crew can do a lot faster (and better) than I would do myself, such that when the car gets down to Texas, my part of the project should go a lot faster! I'm closing on a house purchase at the start of November, a house with a nice 2.5 car detached workshop btw, so the timing should work out great for me to have the shop all ready for the car's arrival.

While I originally really wanted a red car, I love the blue on this car! I found a picture of a 72 Trans Am that was painted in a Dodge Viper Blue color with the white stripe, and I fell in love with that combination. This car isn't quite that dark of a blue, but it's darker than the original Lucerne Blue that Pontiac used. I imagine that someday I will paint the whole car, and I'll go with a slightly darker color at that point. Until then, this car will be great!

Jake is going to replace the Formula fenders with a pair of Trans Am fenders, the hood with the VFN hood that I already have, and the nose with a carbon fiber one as well. I would love to do the entire CF front end, but that's just a bit out of the budget at this time I think...

Jake's also going to install or fabricate the following for the car:

• JRS Watt's Link Bracket
• DSE Mini-tubs
• DSE SFC's, modified to allow the subframe to bolt in
• Muffler-back exhaust to weave through the Watt's
• Firewall to subframe down-bars
• 4-point roll bar with removable harness bar
• JRS Apex front spoiler/splitter
• Front tow hook

There may be a few more items as well, but this is the plan for now. Should keep him busy for a few weeks, but fell in perfectly between some projects that he had on-going.

Look for more progress pictures now that I am back on track! Hopefully Jake can post a few as he makes progress as well...

Pictures from my visit to JRS earlier this week:

[joeko23]

Gonna be awesome! Good luck

[cdoggy81]

It will be very nice!
Also, post a pic of that "72 Trans Am that was painted in a Dodge Viper Blue color with the white stripe" if you can

[carbuff]

Sure thing... Here is an album with all of the pictures I was able to get. I love this color combo!!!

http://s100.photobucket.com/albums/m...r%20Blue%20TA/

Enjoy!

[LeighP]

Man, that looks great!!!!!

[cdoggy81]

Nice! Thanks for posting them

[carbuff]

Wow, I didn't realize it had been quite so long since I updated this thread here. Although the car has mostly sat during this time, it's finally starting to move forward in the last month...

As a refresher, I sold my house last spring (2011), so I haven't had a place to work on the project since then. All of my parts went into storage, I sold the red car, and bought the blue one. Jake picked it up for me, and I had him do some work on it before shipping it to Texas.

The car finally got here in Febuary '12 after the work was completed. I drove it a handful of times, but mostly it has sat for the year. The one thing I did do was to install a new reproduction stripe on it, which looks GREAT!



Fast forward to December, with a handful of drives on the car and no prospect of having a better place to work on it. That's when I first heard about a new fabricator in town named Eric. So those of you who know SW from Austin (I think he is on here, goes by StreetKing), Eric spent the last year building SW's latest project: a silver 2nd gen Camaro. After SW spilled the beans on who built the car, I went over and met Eric just to see his place. The conversation went from there to a discussion about him possibly doing some work for me (since he had some free space in his schedule), and the next thing you know, my car's at his shop being disassembled!





That's Eric's personal project, a '50 Ford, in the background, a really cool car in its own right (which I think may be for sale if anyone is look for such a project).

Eric is basically going to finish most of the build on the car for me. He made quick work of the disassembly, having the car down to a shell in about 2 days. Within a week, the JRS subframe was in place, and the firewall filling had begun:



It was quickly decided that the transmission tunnel was going to have to be cut in order to have a decent angle on the transmission and exhaust:



Since that time, Eric has been busy on a lot of tasks, moving from one to the other as we hit hurdles like missing parts, or decisions we need to make, or other little problems that you all know we run into with these projects. But as of yesterday, most of the suspension, engine, and transmission mockup is done, so a lot of the harder work has been done. Most of the firewall filling has been done, the transmission tunnel has been reinstalled (raised about 1.5"), the JRS front and rear are in place and some fabrication has been done to make everything fit as it should. I'll paste a few of those pictures below.

In the coming weeks, we should get a lot of the major work done. There is more fab work to do (mounting the radiator/condenser/coolers, mounting the AC unit, building down-bars from the firewall to the subframe, exhaust), but we expect those to go a little more quickly. On my side, I'll be helping out with some electrical work, probably laying some sound deadening under the carpets, reinstalling some of the interior, building a new gauge panel, and whatever else I can do before Eric just hops on it.

While I'm a bit saddened that I'm not doing all of the work myself, I can say that the quality of the work that Eric is doing is well beyond what my skills would allow! Anyone in the central Texas area should stop by and check out his shop and work. There's some pretty slick fab work going on at this shop.

Here are the pictures. I'll try to keep this up to date now that the build is moving forward again!















Exhaust collectors:



After the tunnel reinstall:



Some of the firewall work so far:





The engine with the Edelbrock intake, 4b throttle body, and Wegner front drive setup (minus the PS pump at the moment):

[cdoggy81]

Nice!

[carbuff]

Mid week update...

I stopped by the shop tonight to see how things were coming along and to discuss a few more little issues Eric has run into... Pictures will follow below...

So this week has revolved around gauges, wheels/tires, sound deadener, and exchanging a few items. After exploring what seems like every possible tire brand on the market, I've decided to run the Falken Azenis RT615-K's in 275 and 315 widths. I ordered those from Discount Tire Direct today, and they will be here by Tuesday. I'm closer to my wheel selection, but I'm going to be using a fitment tool in order to make certain that I have the tires exactly where I want them! And I've been emailing back and forth with Speedhut's support team with questions about the gauges I'm looking at.

For some reason my gas tank straps are about an inch too short. Eric has the tank hanging in place, and the straps will barely reach the bolts. A quick phone call to Rick's today and they are sending me a new set tomorrow which are cut a little longer, even though the length of mine is what they normally provide for a 2nd gen. I like that customer service!

Contrast that with DSE, whom I'm pretty frustrated with at the moment... I called them last Friday to discuss the brake booster / master cylinder angle as shown in the picture above. They seem to be aware of this 'potential issue', and have a replacement set of brackets to resolve the problem. But they want to charge me for the brackets instead of swapping them out. I sent them a picture of my MC, and the sales guy I spoke with agreed that it seems too steep. He was going to grab one of theirs and compare it to my angle and get back to me. That was last Friday. I'm still waiting... So I called back on Tuesday and spoke to a second person. After a lengthy discussion, he was going to talk to the first person and one of them would call me back. Well, 2 days later, nada... Oh, and they have an order in their system for another $500 worth of their goodies that I want for the car which is holding on resolving this stupid $20 bracket issue. Disappointing to me for all of the positive feedback that they normally get...

Anyway, enough of my rant, here's another positive customer service review. Wegner Automotive. Eric asked me the question about whether I had the correct PS pump to mate up to my Ford steering rack. A call to Casey revealed that I did not. I told him I purchased the kit about 18 months ago, and he said no problem, just send them my pump and he would send me the correct replacement. I'm very appreciative of good service like that!

As for Eric, it's more mockup. He stuck the fuel tank in place, made some new spacers for the rear suspension pieces to get everything lined up just right, and assembled the engine/clutch/transmission and installed it for more mockup. He also finished the shifter cover and is going to install the nutserts to bolts it down this week. Tomorrow he's going to work on a set of seat mounts so that we can test fit me on Saturday.

On Saturday I'm going to get dirty scraping and grinding on the inner floorpans to prep them for the Dynamat install. I bought 3 boxes of Extreme and 5 boxes of Dynaliner to seal up the interior. While I plan to do track days in the car, on the occasion when I make a road trip, I'd like to drown out some of that outside noise as best I can. :willy:

Ok, enough rambling, I know you all just want to see pictures. Here are a couple of the engine installed, the Mocal oil thermostat, and the shifter cover...

[carbuff]

Weekend update...

I spent yesterday working inside the car scraping the original asphalt goop off the rear floor and trunk firewall areas. That stuff is a freaking mess! Took me a couple of hours to get it pretty clean. This week Eric is going to prime the front half of the floor area where various metalwork has been done, and hopefully next weekend I'll get to start the Dynamat process.

My front tires showed up on Friday, so we spent a little time trial fitting them in the wheel well. The pictures below are the 275/35, which is just about 1/2" shorter than the 315/30 will be, so it gives me a good idea of the fitment in terms of diameter:



Here's what I'm looking at for the outer edge:



Unfortunately on the JRS setup, as with most setups which use the front spring pocket for a trailing link, the link itself is the limiting factor on the inside:



I couldn't get a good picture, but that shot shows a little over 2" from the tire to the link. Starting with a 275, that would let me get to a 325 with almost no clearance. And I'm not completely sold on my outside position, so that's pushing it.

You might also notice that we replaced the rear bushing with a heim join to see if we could gain a little room. We get about 1/2" on the rear, so maybe 1/4" where I took the measurement. Without cutting the frame rail, there just isn't much else you can do there... When I get the 315 on Tuesday, I'll do some more detailed measuring. I have a wheel fitment tool that I'll be using to be more confident also.

Eric is also making mounts for the Sparco seats. I knew these were going to be a tough fit (just about any aftermarket seat is) due to the height, and the fact that I'm 6'2. He's got it almost as low as it can sit without cutting the floor, and we have resolved that the floor is going to have to be cut at least some. I like his seat protection method here (garbage bags )





I'm going to need a much shorter shifter rod than the one I have, it's way to long/tall. Add that to my shopping list. :willy:

We did a few other small things yesterday. Hopefully we've decided on a mounting spot for the II Much fuel and axle vents. We removed the factory canister that was behind the seat, and there's a flat spot there which we are going to try and use. Eric will make a platform that we can remove, but the opening is in just the right spot to snake the lines around the axle, exhaust, and Watt's link there.

We also looking into all of the plumbing we need to do. The rear brake lines are going to be tricky, again due mostly to the exhaust. I have 4 pages of notes of the AN and brake fittings we are going to need to plumb the fuel lines, oil lines, PS lines, vent lines, and LS steam vents. Can't wait to place that order... ;)

And finally we stared at the shaker setup for a while. If the measurements are correct, the top of my 4b throttle body is about 1 3/8" higher than the Quadrajet which came off the car. I have a 1" spacer on there which we can remove, but that still leaves me 3/8" or so too high, as it was also sitting a tough higher than I wanted. So I will probably purchase one of the aftermarket filter bases which are made for shakers, but then we'll probably have to cut it up to make it fit. We can't lower it much though due to the fuel rails. Tight fit in this area, so we have some work to do here...