WarShrike's Project Thread - V6 Firebird

[Leonard 3.8L]

Re: WarShrike's Project Thread - V6 Firebird

Wow, very nice motor there.

[WarShrike]

Re: WarShrike's Project Thread - V6 Firebird

Little more time today, was mostly making things clean by making other things dirty. Cleaned up years of grime baked into the power steering rack as well as installed a few "upgrades."



First on the list is a set of boxed swaybar brackets by Blainefab. These help take care of deflection and bent brackets caused by big swaybars and sticky tires + high g cornering.



Second is a small piece, but it is a solid bushing for the steering rack. This is actually for Corvettes from Doug Rippie, but it fits our rack as well. This eliminates some slop from the rack, but in all likelihood it is a placebo effect until I get some hoosier slicks on the car.



Hope to get the trans mated to the engine tomorrow and get it all ready to go back in the car if I'm lucky.

[WarShrike]

Re: WarShrike's Project Thread - V6 Firebird

Second full day of going at it. Had to run some errands here and there, did some more cleanup and wrestled the engine around for a little while. The cardboard came in handy since I could just slide the engine/k-member off the hoist and onto the heavy duty dolly. Hey, if it's stupid and it works, it isn't stupid.





Pretty good shot of the Mal-Wood adapter plate. This allows me to use a full T-56 and LSx bellhousing and just bolt it directly to the engine block.



Ram Clutches throwout bearing spacer (Necessary to compensate for adapter plate and difference in height of the T-5 clutch/flywheel vs. T-56 stuff), OEM slave and Tick remote bleeder.

[WarShrike]

Re: WarShrike's Project Thread - V6 Firebird

Closer.



Testing things out to see if the engine and trans would roll under the car without touching anything. Makes it easy since the intake plenum isn't installed. 6-ton stands, really nice investment and a lot more room for me to move around under the car without feeling friggin claustrophobic!



Just waiting on UPS/Fedex/USPS to drag race down my block to bring me the last of my gaskets and other parts...

[WarShrike]

Re: WarShrike's Project Thread - V6 Firebird

Kind of a "meh" day of trying to find bolts that were supposed to be in one spot but after a year later, they...migrated. Oh well, found them and got things moving along.
Really like the eye for detail that the guys at Total Engine Service have for their engine assembly. It's those little things that tend to make me happy.

"In the beginning, there were no accessories. And then a lot of terse words were spoken..."




New water pump and an underdrive WP pulley from ZZP.




Mmm, all sealed up.

Notice the NPT plug? This prevents unfiltered oil from going through the bypass and washing the mains. Spun bearings are one of the lead causes of 3800 engine death. This helps fight it along with good filter and oil selection.




Accessorized!




More tomorrow.

[WarShrike]

Re: WarShrike's Project Thread - V6 Firebird

The brown truck stopped by today!

UMI Performance Inc. boxed A-Arms. This is pretty much the last part of the suspension puzzle for the car. Just got really busy with other things today and things are competing for my time when I really wanted a clean and open schedule to finish...this...car!

I actually remember asking about boxed A-arms like the LG Motorsports ones a few years back and Ryan from UMI piped up that they actually had prototypes in the works. So, a few years later I finally get around to buying them, better late than never!

Really clean design, looking forward to putting this through the paces soon enough:

[2.8 Bird]

Re: WarShrike's Project Thread - V6 Firebird

Beautiful beast of an engine there. Love to see it when you put it all together.

[ssms5411]

Re: WarShrike's Project Thread - V6 Firebird

Looking good.

[WarShrike]

Re: WarShrike's Project Thread - V6 Firebird

For the first time since August of last year, there's an engine in the car.

Exhausted and have a few mixed feelings since it has taken so long to get to this point. Still have to reconnect and reinstall a whole lot of parts.

[russell1]

Re: WarShrike's Project Thread - V6 Firebird

I like everything that you have done looks great I hope I can get to do something like this soon

[WarShrike]

Re: WarShrike's Project Thread - V6 Firebird

Progress got stalled a bit, just really busy with other things.

[ssms5411]

Re: WarShrike's Project Thread - V6 Firebird

What posi and gears are you running?

[WarShrike]

Re: WarShrike's Project Thread - V6 Firebird

Still 3.42s amd upgrading from the stock posit to an Auburn road race/auto-x diff.

[ssms5411]

Re: WarShrike's Project Thread - V6 Firebird

Looks good you get the beast running yet?

[WarShrike]

Re: WarShrike's Project Thread - V6 Firebird

Nah, been too busy with school and life stuff in general lol!