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Thread: "Eh'ts for 8" Firebird Build

  1. #1
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    Default "Eh'ts for 8" Firebird Build

    For those of you familiar with Sloppy Mechanic, you'll get the title reference.

    For those not in the know, Sloppy Mechanic is all about going fast and making big power with junkyard LS parts and cheap chinese turbos. He did a series to run a 8.XX pass for $8,000.

    With the new hotness in North America being "drag and drive" events (street legal cars doing multiple drag strips over multiple days) and the innaguaral Miles of Mayhem popping up last year in Western Canada (only drag and drive event in Canada) I set out on a quest to build me a big ol' murikan v8 drag car.

    Step 1, buy a car

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    Drag racing is can be a special kind of pain on the wallet nowadays due to the incredible power you can make for cheap. Where once a lot of $$$$ was spent on the engine, now its spent elsewhere making sure everything can survive the almost unlimited power potential a turbo LS presents.

    While a purple 1994 LT1 Firebird with t-tops was not my first choice of car, the fact it had no drivetrain, a custom ordered Moser 9", and was $2000 made it a no brainer (the rear end alone was worth about $4k to order)

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    Size matters (heh). Making big power for cheap, there is no replacement for displacement. Had an inexpensive 6.0L LQ4 and a 4L80E from a 3/4 ton van.

    Problem is, truck intakes (and most others) generally won't fit under the cowl of a 4th gen fbody. And if I'm going to buy an intake, its going to be for rec-port LS heads. So the engine got a set of 400k km LY6/LS3 cylinder heads and a LS3 intake. Supposed to be worth 50hp alone over the stock heads.

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    Nasty valves are nasty, so some valve lapping was done to clean things up. Kind of lipstick on a pig situation, but hey, this is the pig I'm stuck with for now, if its a pig that holds compression I'm happy.

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    There is a massive amount of disassembly in doing something like this. Tripped over this stupid crossmember for weeks as I had nowhere to put it.

    That's it for now, more to come.

  2. #2
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    Ah yeah very familiar with his builds and 8f8. You got it for 2 grand and it already has a 9"? Thats a win

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    Definitely going to be watching this build as well. Steal for $2k!

    What kind of power are you shooting for?

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    Cool. I approve.
    I like neat cars.

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    Quote Originally Posted by brucebanner View Post
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    Definitely going to be watching this build as well. Steal for $2k!

    What kind of power are you shooting for?
    888.8rwhp

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    Quote Originally Posted by Sentry View Post
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    Ah yeah very familiar with his builds and 8f8. You got it for 2 grand and it already has a 9"? Thats a win
    Yep, already had the Moser 9" (even came with the original invoice and receipt for it).

    Was the reason I bought it, because any other car was going to need a rear end worth $3000+ to survive anyways. Priced out doing a "cheap" explorer 8.8, still would have cost me over $1k all said and done.

    Theoretically, power goal is 1200whp on the SBE 6.0L. I should be picking up the 88mm turbo in the next week or so.

    Reality is unless I put a partial cage (6.5 in the 1/8th) or full cage (unlimited in the 1/8th) then I am stuck running 7.5 in the 1/8. So thats like, 500whp, can probably do it without boost at that point. Put 4.88's in the rear and go.

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    What fuel system? Really cool build

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    Quote Originally Posted by zechs View Post
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    Reality is unless I put a partial cage (6.5 in the 1/8th) or full cage (unlimited in the 1/8th) then I am stuck running 7.5 in the 1/8. So thats like, 500whp, can probably do it without boost at that point. Put 4.88's in the rear and go.
    Edmonton isn’t very sticky with 1/8 times…we have run sub 6 in a car without a cage without issues…as long as it didn’t go faster than 11.50 in the 1/4.

    But Rimbey is by far the best track in western Canada (maybe outside of Mission) and you’ll be able to run there all you want.

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    Quote Originally Posted by SkiBum5.0 View Post
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    What fuel system? Really cool build
    Currently just AN line size whatever (10? 8?) from the in-tank pump to the 3/8 aftermarket fuel rails. Got a really good price on a walboro 525lph demon pump, that install will be catalogued further on when I post more (the build is actually complete and running, I didn't realize I had not put a thread on Beyond).

    never, that's good info to know. I'm more just trying to follow Miles of Mayhem requirements at this time. I'm going to be slammed with school the next 5 years, so hopefully I get the car sorted with a big turbo this year for Mayhem shenanigans and then next year scrounge some money/sell my body to do a cage and go play with small tire guys.

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    Are you setup to run E85/E98? There’s a lot of power on tap with a boosted LS if you have enough pump/injectors (and a flex sensor if you want to do stuff like MoM).

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    If you don't have fuel stuff yet, hotrodfuelhose.ca is out of Lethbridge and they've been great to deal with. I wouldn't say the cheapest but I think cost effective and quality stuff.

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    Or if anyone is looking for cheap, used AN fittings, PM me as I have a box full of them. They’re all used therefore not necessarily pretty but great for budget builds.
    I like neat cars.

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    Bought all the line/fittings from MOPAC and JBs, not the cheapest, but did I mention I did the entire build in a month and missed Miles of Mayhem by 1 day last year? Time was a factor!

    Literally fell asleep under the car is how many hours were put in. And this was during the heatwave, so we had AC and tarps rigged up in the garage. Was a wild month of wrenching.

    Double checked and its -10 line. I'll be getting a big inline pump and likely keep the 525 in there for now to prime/feed the big pump if I decide to go past the 525 limits this year. Will run E85 if I can find a consistent source.

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    What are you using to control everything? (Holley or something different?)

    Running two walbro 450s intank with my set up, one full time and the second once the car starts getting into boost.

    Could you fit another 525 in your sending unit?

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    Quote Originally Posted by brucebanner View Post
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    What are you using to control everything? (Holley or something different?)

    Running two walbro 450s intank with my set up, one full time and the second once the car starts getting into boost.

    Could you fit another 525 in your sending unit?
    Man, this thread fell off the map! Guess I'll keep detailing the build. For the fuel questions, car runs a Holley Terminator X for just engine control. 4L80 is setup for manual shift, may or may not get a manual valve body with transbrake this year.

    I'm not a big fan of bringing pumps in and out without good reason, just more failure points in a race car. But I'd likely just fab some sort of triple pump tentacle thing with a sump of some sort if it came to it.

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    This entire build happened over a month when the heat wave hit last year. We had to get creative. With the AC units.

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    Stacks of parts arrived continuously from everywhere. I ordered the SECOND LAST Terminator X summit had in stock before they went out of stock across North America last year.

    Rant time: HOLY FUCK TERMINATORS ARE AMAZING. This is without a doubt one of the most game changing pieces of tech in aftermarket performance history. Literally plug and play, no fucking around, and its CHEAP for what you get. It is not worth the hassle of using oem stuff when you add up all the time/costs/shitshow of a harness + custom tune.

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    This is a photo of me fucking up the reman 4L80 I pulled from a Savanna. Installed an HD2 shift kit, transmission stays in limp mode. Remember, this was all last year. So today I picked up another 4L80 for $600 because fuck it all I just want to drive the damn thing!!

    New transmission in the bed of the truck
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    So back to the past story telling. Getting the 4L80E to fit wasn't impossible, but the tunnel had a LOT of cutting and hammering with a sledge done to it. There is a ridge of doubled sheet metal that is an absolute bitch to remove that really cramps the trannies style, plus there is no room for the control harness of the 4L80.

    This pic was taken with me contemplating getting that bitch to fit.
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    That's all for now. More build history rambling to come, I was only reminded of this thread as Miles of Mayhem is 1.5 months away and as mentioned I just picked up the replacement 4L80.
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    Yeah Holley stuff is epic. Especially for LS platforms, they are basically self tuning, punch some numbers into the gameboy and let er rip.

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    Continuing on where we left off, getting a LS engine into a LT car is a pain. Everyone lies and nobody has the straight facts.

    The facts are: you NEED a ls1 subframe AND column universal. I made the grave mistake of only getting the universal. This may have worked with some sort of header system, but not anything that would work with turbskis. Also had bought a dirt cheap H3 pan only to find out it didn't work, so ordered a non-oem LS1 replacement pan off Amazon.

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    Remember me talking about the 4L80? So while aftermarket crossmembers are available, they are only available for LS car 4l80 swaps and lt1 car 4l80 swaps. Not LS and 4l80 into LT1 car. The crossmember mounting holes are in physically different locations.

    This was all learned way late in the game, so I called up BMR and had them overnight their last ls 4l80 cross member from somewhere like Florida to Edmonton. We had to do some additional work to it, but damn if that tranny didn't go in (and damn if that cross member doesn't hang down!)

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    I've never had a driveshaft built before. To keep the cost down as much as possible, I bought a used aluminum one off a guy in Sherwood Park. Nice dude, had seen him at the track before, knew all the usual people. Took this to Pat's driveline to have shortened and proper ujoints installed.

    In all honesty, this was probably not the best idea, as the driveshaft used the smaller spicer ujoints and not the big badass ones. Should be plenty for me for a while, and I have a feeling I'll be going back to manual transmission sooner vs later, but a complete custom ds was only somewhere from $500-$600.

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    Getting the engine in was a pain in the dick, for some reason the motor mounts were a bear to get lined up. We tried everything, and nothing seemed to work. The future will require a different setup so the engine is easier to pull, but I do not forsee this thing coming in and out too much.

    Was doing some digging around the shop today, this is what the final product looks like. Hoping to get the new 4l80 in next weekend.

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    In case anyone missed it:

    400k lq4 short block
    400k ly6 heads
    Btr springs
    Summit STAGE 4 cam with .625 lift (go big or go home)
    Ls3 intake
    Jegs 3/8 fuel rails with decapped ly6 injectors (equivalent to 80lb/hr I believe)
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    @Sentry Do you have any experience with cheap turbos and intercoolers?

    Just bought this

    https://www.ebay.ca/itm/265667755392...mis&media=COPY

    And am debating between buying the $289 GT45 off amazon or getting a Performance World T76 for $439. I want to go with the GT45, but it seems qc is kinda shit.
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    Tons of experience with cheap intercoolers and turbos. That intercooler is unfortunately crappy, I've seen lots of people use that style with poor results, their internal fin density is mediocre. The PW intercoolers from mopac are about as cheap as you can go and still be really good. Get a 4" thick one for your power level.

    What power level are you shooting for? That'll dictate what turbo to pick. I'm guessing 800ish whp if you want to run 8s. GT45 might get you there but it might be a bit of a struggle. Can always spray it a bit if you don't consider that cheating.

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    8's is definitely an aspirational goal, especially since I don't really care for 1/4 mile only 1/8.

    Good to hear on the turbo, I may just chance the GT45 for now. Bad to hear on the intercooler, I already bought it, hopefully they let me cancel on Ebay
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