Budget Big Turbo Firebird Forum Build Codenamed “Project E-Bird”

21-year old Firebird owner built himself a 700-horsepower beast with the help of some friends.

A great many 17-year old guys buy their first muscle car with the hopes of someday building it up into a high performance monster, but in most cases, those hopes don’t pan out. The build thread for Project E-Bird starts off with a 17-year old guy buying a clean 1995 Firebird with the hopes of eventually building it into an 800 horsepower beast. However, unlike most younger muscle car owners who don’t get anywhere, this Pontiac owner fulfilled his dream of creating a wicked street and strip car.

The Introduction

The Project E-Bird thread was started by the owner of the 1995 Pontiac Firebird Trans Am, known as “Almonz T/A” on the forum. When he first introduced us to his build, he provided some background on the car, as well as pointing out the fact that he was just 21 years old when he tackled the project. His introduction is lengthy and if we removed all of the steps of the project, the story of the OP’s Trans Am would likely be enough to make for a cool read, but in this case, the story of the car is only the tip of the iceberg.

Since it is so long, it is best to read it in the thread, but here is the quick look at how he introduced us to his car:

This is my first “real” thread I’ve made on here. I enjoy looking around at other people’s builds, so I decided to have a go at logging my own build. It is currently running, but there will always be more upgrades to come so I’ll update it as needed. One thing I can say is it is much better to do these WHILE you are building the car and not when it is running, but oh well. The car was dubbed “E-bird” because I was originally planning on using a lot of cheap China parts off of eBay so it was a play on the name. However the build changed and I ended up using a lot of nice parts and going over budget, but the name stuck. I will put this out there as a disclaimer, but I go extremely into detail with things when typing so bear with me here.

A little bit about myself before I dive into it all. I am currently 21 years old as of last October. Money doesn’t pour out of my wallet as much as I’d like it to so the car took almost a year from start to finish. I don’t know anyone else my age that owns something like this so I take a lot of pride in what I was able to accomplish. Throughout the entire build I had a ridiculous amount of help from my best friend who does more LS swaps in a year than I changed my oil in my daily driver. We did 99% of everything in my grandfather’s garage and my friend’s garage. Sending the car out to have chassis/fabrication work was out of the budget entirely, and my friend has fabricated for a few years so I trusted him completely with it all.

The goals for the build were to run 9s, all while being fairly streetable, and keeping the costs somewhat down. I really didn’t care too much about driving the car around, but it’s nice to be able to. As far as power I wanted to be able to make roughly 800whp full tilt.

This first post also detailed the early steps of the process, including finding the donor engine, buying a “new” transmission and acquiring the chassis components needed to switch from the LT1 to the LS engine. He also began collecting internal bits for the build, such as the new camshaft, valve springs, coil packs, a Victor Jr intake manifold with Holley EFI fuel rails, cylinder heads and new valves.

The Teardown

While the 5.3-liter LS engine was off at the machine shop, the OP began preparing his Firebird for the new engine. This entailed removing the front fascia, the original LT1 engine and the stock T-56 transmission, but as time went on, he began trimming portions of the original chassis to make room for the engine swap and some new, lightweight chassis components.

During the teardown of the stock drive train, the OP scored a deal on a complete turbocharger install kit minus the snail, so he had the headers, the intercooler and all of the piping needed to plumb the turbocharger at the front of the engine bay.

The New Engine

With the 5.3-liter LS engine back from the machine shop, the OP assembled it on an engine stand. Of course, as he walked us through the build, he went into detail on everything that went into the engine, but in short, the young man went to great lengths to do this build correctly. Everything that he used was new and usually top-of-the-line, while things that he had to reuse were fully checked over.

Once everything went together nicely on the stand, it was time to put the new engine into the 1995 Firebird. The OP went kind of crazy at this point, cutting out a collection of stock chassis bits to make room for the new engine and the big turbo setup. This included trips to a friend’s house for fabrication work around the front end, as they built custom brackets to hold the radiator and intercooler.

During this whole process, the interior of the car was stripped completely out, all-new wiring was installed, as was a roll cage and a set of lightweight front racing bucket seats.

Honestly, there is so much detail that we could go on for days about it, but we will cut to the chase. In the end, the OP’s self-built LS swap with a big single turbocharger made 707 horsepower and 607 lb-ft of torque at the rear wheels on light boost, as they were running out of injector. As always, follow the build in the forums to stay up to date on this excellent budget build.

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Patrick Rall

"Before I was old enough to walk, my dad was taking me to various types of racing events, from local drag racing to the Daytona 500," says Patrick Rall, a lifetime automotive expert, diehard Dodge fan, and respected auto journalist for over 10 years. "He owned a repair shop and had a variety of performance cars when I was young, but by the time I was 16, he was ready to build me my first drag car – a 1983 Dodge Mirada that ran low 12s. I spent 10 years traveling around the country, racing with my dad by my side. While we live in different areas of the country, my dad still drag races at 80 years old in the car that he built when I was 16 while I race other vehicles, including my 2017 Dodge Challenger SRT Hellcat and my 1972 Dodge Demon 340.

"Although I went to college for accounting, my time in my dad’s shop growing up allowed me the knowledge to spend time working as a mechanic before getting my accounting degree, at which point I worked in the office of a dealership group. While I was working in the accounting world, I continued racing and taking pictures of cars at the track. Over time, I began showing off those pictures online and that led to my writing.

"Ten years ago, I left the accounting world to become a full-time automotive writer and I am living proof that if you love what you do, you will never “work” a day in your life," adds Rall, who has clocked in time as an auto mechanic, longtime drag racer and now automotive journalist who contributes to nearly a dozen popular auto websites dedicated to fellow enthusiasts.

"I love covering the automotive industry and everything involved with the job. I was fortunate to turn my love of the automotive world into a hobby that led to an exciting career, with my past of working as a mechanic and as an accountant in the automotive world provides me with a unique perspective of the industry.

"My experience drag racing for more than 20 years coupled with a newfound interest in road racing over the past decade allows me to push performance cars to their limit, while my role as a horse stable manager gives me vast experience towing and hauling with all of the newest trucks on the market today.

"Being based on Detroit," says Rall, "I never miss the North American International Auto Show, the Woodward Dream Cruise and Roadkill Nights, along with spending plenty of time raising hell on Detroit's Woodward Avenue with the best muscle car crowd in the world.

Rall can be contacted at QuickMirada@Yahoo.com