[Project] 00' Formula WS6 Makeover

[fb0dy0nly]

Whats up everyone, just thought Id share some progress I have been making on the firebird lately. I am swapping out all the suspension parts, well most of them including new bushing and ball joints as well. Also doing shocks and springs as well as a new clutch, flywheels assembly with a tick adj master cylinder, new slave, etc.
Once my new TSP 1 7/8 headers get here, those will be going on as well.
Here is the good part, the pics...
Finally got all the bushings and ball joints pressed in on the control arms, that was a ***** as I had to heat up the arms to get the old ones out and took me a few tries to get the new ones lined up and not crooked going in.
Here are the control arms all done with new bushing and ball joints. Still have to paint them though as they are getting the POR15 treatment next.




All the new bushings and joints in their pretty boxes just waiting... oh and the stainless brake lines plus power steering cooler too hiding the background...


Also did the top bushings, need to POR 15 these as well before I install the top ball joint



Here is some progress made on the rear suspension. Got the new springs and shocks in, new adj panhard rod and control arms with relocating brackets. Bad pics sorry, it got dark.






here are the front spindles that are all ready to go back in after some intense wire brushing and a few nice POR15 coatings, still need to give one a final coat and they will be ready


Also painted the brake calipers black with high temp caliper paint after a good scrub with a the wire brush, came out good I think. Wish I had a before pic so I could show you the amount of time spend getting these clean. My brother thought I had painted them silver already when they were just cleaned up waiting for the black paint. Good prep makes for good paint


^^^Top parts of the upper control arms coated with POR15.
Painted the drive shaft safety loop as well, still wet sorry for bad pic, waiting for them to dry...


Here are some other parts that havent gotten on or in the car yet...work in progress; Ill get some more pics up when I get more work done. I work full time during the week so late nights and weekends are really my only time to do anything and with the crazy heat lately, its hard to get going but I want to drive this thing so bad so hopefully Ill get more progress done soon!
TA read support cover

LS7 clutch assembly

Drilled and slotted rotors



^^^front shock/spring assembly waiting to go on. Strano springs with Bilstein shocks (if you couldnt tell..)
tick adj master cylinder

new sway bar poly bushings and end links all around

Car should handle like a brand new machine, I cant wait to get it back on the road!!!

[1999Black_Z28]

Nice work. I really want one of those tick master's.

[alone_and_insane]

done some good stuff already. I'm looking forward to the rest of your progress.

[BP_Z28]

Brakemotive?

[fb0dy0nly]

Nice work. I really want one of those tick master's.

Thanks, yeah I cant wait to be able to shift proper at 6k+rpms! Should be a blast!

done some good stuff already. I'm looking forward to the rest of your progress.

Appreciate it, I cant wait either, I miss driving her so much already!!!

Brakemotive?

Yes, Brakemotive. Cant beat it for the price. If these dont work out good and start cracking on me, Ill up to some Baer's or something else that I know will take the abuse. Id like to try a few track events sometime at the end of summer/fall or if not, after this winter, next year. Never had any drilled/slotted rotors b4 so I was tempted to try them and see if I like how it feels. If I dont, like I said, didnt cost much and Ill then know what to spend some serious coin on in future.

[fb0dy0nly]

Work Continues

So I didnt get much done this week as Ive been feeling under the weather and had a horrible migraine yesterday and was off work, etc. But anyways; Also had to change out the alternator on the camaro as it was whinning and then the belt started coming apart so that had to get changed too. All is well now with that. I did manage to get my shifter handle shortened and now its just like I wanted. I decided to shorten the pro5.0 handle 2'' because its long and I used to have a short stick from ws6 store on the z28 and loved it. In order to do it right and having no welder available, I decided on drilling out a hole all the way through the middle and then cutting out a 2'' section in the middle. I reconnected it back together with a hardened threaded bolt and then pinned it all together so it aint goin anywhere. I figured the metal the stick was made of would be hard as a rock but it actually was extremely soft which was a surprise. I also got the rear brakes painted and they are drying. Ran out of paint to finish the brackets so I have to either get more or use the POR15 for them, which I might try and see how well it matches.




I also got in my metal gear sets for the headlights from Brent Franker. He does very good vinyl work and all his stuff has kept up really well on the camaro and thru the harsh MI weather nonetheless. So Im happy to get those installed as well as one of my headlight gears was acting funny last fall and I had to manually open it up a few times and then it started working proper again, but Id hate for it to give me trouble when Im in a rush so Im changing them for a piece of mind. Still waiting on my vinyl pieces I ordered from him though as I wanted to fill in the rear pontiac letters in black and the do the front bird black too. Should give a nice touch once done.



Gotta go get some more cheap paint brushes to finish putting on the POR15 on the rest of the suspension stuff this weekend. Hopefully will have pics for you guys by Sunday night or so. Also got the new inner/outter tie rods on and will snap a few pics of those. The passenger side inner tie rod was a PITA as someone at the factory put a crap load of locktite on it and it took some he-man strength getting it apart. Driver side was a breeze after that haha.

[fb0dy0nly]

Sorry for no updating lately. I was out of town for family stuff all last week and just got back on the car this past few days. The trans is now out and working on getting the bellhousing out. That thing is a PITA! It doesnt want to budge and Ive been prying on it for a good time now. Slowly is it coming off the back of the engine. Today ill get the clutch stuff done and hopefully install the new tick master, slave, and everything else. Also got the new upper ball joints and upper control arms put together after paint. Cant wait to get this thing on the road!!!!
sorry for the blurry pics, they didnt look that bad when I took them... Ill try and use a real camera for the rest but my brother is borrowing it and he told me this weekend id get it back so hopefully better pics to come!





Also had to change the entire belt tensioner on the camaro this morning. What a pain. The pulley was worn and making lots of noise and my car sounded like it was electric so finally I ordered a new pulley and when I went to take off the old one, broke the bolt head off that connects the pulley to the rest of the tensioner.. Well I need the car for monday and good luck finding a left-hand thread bolt that size on the weekend around here. So i just bought the entire part as it connects into the waterpump and everything. Very dumb design. Got that back together this morning and its not whining anymore, woot!!! Ill try and snap a pic of that later but nothing special there.

[fb0dy0nly]

Got the old exhaust manifolds off today and also the old clutch and flywheel. New clutch is on and torqued down. Finally got my camera back too so pics wont be so blurry and crappy from now on. Snapped a few of the progress made so enjoy!!!
Old stuff off awaiting new clutch...


Old clutch and flywheel; notice the hotspots and worn areas. Its not tooo bad but def could use a change.




New flywheel; much nicer


Clutch is on and ready for shifts!



New hydraulics waiting to get on the formy...


Old manifolds off along with the ypipe and cats sitting with other suspension parts that are off the car for good..



Better pics of the new bushings and ball joints and fresh paint along with a few rear end shots of new hardware..










New vinyl letters for the rear...


More to come, still waiting on my headers to get here from TSP. They are suppose to change over to stainless now on their 1 7/8 LT's so Im excited to get those and see how they will look.
Next on the list is to get the new slave and master installed and also the dreaded poly motor mounts. Ive done a set before and they werent that bad and with all the stuff including the tranny outta the way, hopefully I will have more room to work with this time. After that, its reassembly time; get all the new stuff back on and in place. Then an alignment and some clutch break in; slowly but surely its gettin there, woot!!!

[Darren]

wow coming along nicely! Your going to notice some huge differences in that car once you have it back on the road!

[fb0dy0nly]

Sorry for the delay in updates, I was up north for a bit and then had some work stuff to take care of messing up my work days. Things have been moving along nicely though and soon it should be back on its own 4 wheels. STILL WAITING ON TSP HEADERS!! :bang: But what can you do? Hopefully they will arrive here sooner than later because that is really the final piece of the puzzle. Those and the sub-frame connectors. Staying patient...
The motor mounts are in FINALLY. This is the second time doing these and it was much harder due to the trans being out and the motor moving around a lot more between getting the trans and old motor mounts out. We had to pry like crazy and loosen the bottom motor mount pedestal to get it all to fit in right. It was nice having the trans outta the way which helped in getting some of the bolts, esp the big ass 18mm one but it did move outta position pretty bad.







Got the trans back on and the tick master and new slave bled and installed. Tick is not an easy job to tackle alone, having a buddy help is really the only way it was going to work for me. The original holes on the tick did not line up right with the holes in the firewall no matter what we tried. It was off just slightly so we had to widen one of the firewall hole just a hair to make it fit. Once that was in, we bolted the trans back up and connected the hydraulics; then bled it all. After that I filled her back up with DOTIII ATF through the shifter hole by shoving a line down there and pouring it down letting gravity do all the work.



Also got the rear end draiined and took off the stock cover. It was on pretty good due to the excess amount of gasket RTV they used. Took some time cleaning that all off the rear end before the shiny new TA rear support cover went on. Worth it in the end as the new one looks awesome!



Then started on getting the front suspension back together. New shocks and springs are in as well as the re-conditioned upper and lower control arms. New sway bar poly end links, and inner/outter tie rods are also on.
I also used some POR15 on the top shock mount area in the wheel well as there was some surface rust I sanded down and then used this overr it to keep it from returning.








Next was the spindles to go on...


After that I took the headlights off to change out the crappy old plastic gears inside with new strong aluminum ones. Once I got them off, had to open them up and take out the plastic gears. The passenger side gear was worn down completely on one side which I know was the cause of my headlight not coming up like it should 100% of the time. This should help it out a ton. I then epoxied them back together and they are clamped and drying waiting to go on tomorrow... sorry no during the process of putting them together pics, I went quick to keep the epoxy from hardening on me.





Finally I painted the center of my rotors so they can be ready to go back on when I get the calipers , new brake lines and brackets back on.




New black front bird came out great!


Hope you guys enjoy the progress, Im sore as hell now... but worth it!

[my95z28]

Very nice and clean! Thanks for the front shock/strut pics, should help me next week when I throw my Strano's on

[fb0dy0nly]

Damn I know its been forever since I have updated this thing. Problem was that I was waiting FOREVER for TSP (texas speed and performance) to send me my damn 1 7/8 stainless headers they just came out with. Its only been since late June that I placed my order!!!! Anyways, they arrived along with their off road pipe that wasnt stainless but aluminized steel. I dont know why they wouldnt switch over both to stainless at once, seems it would be easier since they are going all stainless anyway soon but oh well, cant wait any longer dammit! I ended up using some POR20 on the off road pipe which is heat resistant and will keep the rust off the thing hopefully a little longer than without anything at all. Its the only part of the exhaust that isnt stainless and down the road ill prob go custom anyways. So got the headers on along with the ypipe and magnaflow muffler. The ypipe was a ***** to fit as were the header collectors. They had a tiny tiny lip on the edge of the collectors which caused the mating ypipe piece to not want to fit over the collector, even with some heavy "persuasion". So had to cut slits on the ends of the ypipe piece and file down the edge of the collectors and it finally went together. Also had to cut about 2'' off the end of the ypipe to mate it to the muffler I-pipe as it was too long. In the end I felt like I made my own damn "custom" ypipe haha. So after I got that bolted in, I installed the subframe connectors that I bought last minute to help the suspension and keep those damn dimples off the rear quarters. Then I installed the new power steering cooler in front of the radiator and ran the lines. I also drained and flushed the PS completely and added some nice Red Line PS fluid to help keep it from whining like a dying cat. Finally got the brakes all back together including the stainless lines and then bled them thoroughly. Got the car on the ground and started it for the first time last weekend! Woot! The master cylinder didnt even need adjusting either which was the first break I got it seems like. It will for when I plan on shifting at 6k rpms but that wont be for a while as the clutch needs to be broken in and everything else settled down as pretty much its riding on a brand new complete suspension overhaul. I def know this car was from Florida as the previous owner stated because I scrapped off about 2lbs of sand and grease from the side of the torque arm when I took it off. Felt like I was at the beach that day working on the car. Car drove fine for the first time out, new tranny parts are so nice, I can shift by barely even needing to clutch in at all. Had to mess with the passenger headlight for a while though as the pins inside the connector to the motor are rotting away but I got it cleaned up and fixed a few pins and seems much better now.
Oh I forgot to add that I bought an aeroforce gauge as well and installed it in the driver side center heater duct, fits perfect there! Ill get better pics of how it looks lower now when we get a nice day, weathers been crap the past few days and I want to clean the car really good as its been sitting for months.
new headers finally arrived!!





ORY and exhaust




Installed the driveshaft loop for the track


PS cooler installed


Subframe connectors in place


Its a race car now

[OIF1VET]

Nice job!

[Formula Z]

very nice! do you know if that y pipe will fit other brands of longtubes, take for instance some pacesetters??

[sman]

I heard about the new headers, look sick! But I cant believe they didnt do the y pipe in stainless! That is seriously lame!