1976 Trans Am Full Build.
Welcome to my Trans am build. Not actually my car, but a car I am building for someone.
A bit of a back story to this project, because its a big one. This is a 1976 Trans am, which was put together/rebuilt a few years ago ( I believe 2015-2016 ). The cars body LOOKS good in the first few images, and overall the car was relatively well put together. This is the sort of build one would have done lets say in the 1990's to 2010 era. It has a 400 pontiac motor, dual exhaust, th350 trans with a stage 2 shift kit with a B&M shifter. Even a vintage air system, pretty standard stuff. The interior was clean, new carpets with a few odds and ends missing ( ash trays ). The body was redone ( this came to haunt us as you will see the progress ) it was repainted, fixed up. and overall the car was running ok.
The owner was however, just not satisfied with the full build. so they came to me INITIALLY just for a cam swap, maybe headers, and an overall tune.....
This is where the snowball began rolling.
Having seen my previous LS swap build of the 1980 Golden firebird, the owner started asking me about potentially doing an LS swap since the old pontiac 400 just didnt do it for him.
And then, they began inquiring about how sloppy the car drove, so we discussed suspension.
And so on, and so forth... and so I present you with our 1976 Trans am build.... a full ground up rebuild.
The following images are what we got when we started.
Enjoy!
https://shiftworks.com/collections/firebird-products
If you have any questions let me know!

@Shiftworks Thank you! I will definitely keep your info for this build.
First was a 79 Camaro with a stock 2002 LS1/4L60E swap. I used the Shift Works shifter mod. Worked perfect. I used it because it had a stock auto console.
On a 71 Corvette LS/4L60E swap with an originally 400 turbo I used the Shift Works parts. Again worked well.
Current project 80 Camaro was a manual with a LS3 swap so I used a Lokar shifter for the 4L60E. The stock 80 Camaro manual console was/is mint.
My current mostly done Camaro is a 80 RS. Bought it from the original son. Dad had passed away and the son just was not a car guy. 28K original miles. No hit zero rust car. That's the good. The bad was it had the super powerful 229 V6 three speed combo.
Now it has a L92/4L60E dressed like LS3 combo. Runs great.
Trending Topics
I had torn the entire car apart, what was originally only supposed to be an LS swap, has turned into a full ground up build. As I took apart the car piece by piece, I saw more and more rust. At first I attacked the front floors as I saw the previous body work guys had double layered the floors to patch them up. Im not a body work guy, but doing the floors is easy enough to address.
hint of things to come.
more hints.
under body
double layered sneaky moves.
new floors part number GMK4021505752L and the R
welded in place.
sealed, painted and coated
The Best V8 Stories One Small Block at Time









