Well idk about the ultimate, I don't really have the budget for that yet lol....but this should make for an interesting thread over the next few months.

You can can skip ahead if you wish to be spared the details.

a little about me.....I'm TJ, 27 from Altoona, PA

Im a field engineer for a small scientific instrumentation company here in state college. they have me traveling a lot, so I only ever get weekends and the occasional week home to work on the car, but I like to hit it hard.

The car is a 2000 Firebird.....v6 from a little town in NC called Etowah. I found it on Craigslist while I was away for work and staying the weekend to go down to watch the no mercy radial races.
I never got to the races because they immediately accepted my offer, and the next day I was driving it 500+ miles home. It has high miles and a replacement motor/trans but I'm gutting it and rebuilding from the ground up in hopes of seeing 8.9x or faster with it some day. The car is incredibly clean, rust free and solid. It drove great the whole way home and I almost felt bad when I parked it to start tearing it apart because I could've DD'd it all summer without a problem.



Heres the low down on where I'm headed with it.
I have a built TH400
I bought a JY LQ4 with 135k on it
Im currently fabbing together a solid 8.8

its a 05 LQ4 so it's got the 317's. I'm keeping the motor mostly stock other than a cam and valve springs, and possibly a trunion upgrade and new lifters.
Itll be microsquirt powered sloppy style
Gonna tack on an On3 7875 and I imagine now you see where I'm going.

Ill be adding some some photos of the car and I'll reply with some updates to keep it somewhat organized. As of now I have the motor apart and the rear out with my 8.8 at my buddy's to be welded. I just ordered more rear end goodies and have the fuel system on the way as well. Expect photos within the hour. Would love to get opinions/suggestions. This should be fun.

 

Well I had attempted to upload some photos of my progress but I keep getting notified that my posts need approval still. I only run into this when I upload pics so I'm sure there's a reason.

Either way there should be some pics of the build so far up soon.

 

picked up a 05 LQ4 out of a 2500hd with 135k on it for about a grand



the number i wanted to see when i found it.....and a broken manifold bolt......who would've seen that coming lol



and snagged a 8.8 to get to work on



where she will sit until she can move under her own power again



dumped the *** out of it the other night



snagged these awesome small chevy housing ends with the deep bore for big ford bearings....courtesy midwest chassis.....plan on deal with these guys a lot more in the future.



only decent pic i could find from when I was pulling the motor apart. I'll see what I have on my icloud....it really looks great under all of the ****

 

Little misleading with the title. It's more of just a standard turbo build lol. But none the less it looks like you are off to a good start! Keep up the good work

 

I'm curious how much did you pay for the motor?

 

yeah you are right, this its another JY turbo build lol but thanks, I hope to keep at a good pace throughout the build.

on the bright side i plan on detailing the v6 to v8 swap in excruciating detail for anyone who finds something like i did, an incredibly solid v6 car from the south for the right price.

 

$1000 for the motor and computer

looking back......it would have been $800 had I said no to the computer (which now to my understanding i cant use anyways because its an 05 DBW brain that doesn't have the chip to support a DBC conversion)

 

I had sent my 8.8 to the machine shop for some DOM axle tubes to be pressed in about 3 months ago and I still haven't gotten it back. I have a lot of vacation time over the next 2 months I'll be using and I really hope to make a ton of progress.

In the mean time, I've stockpiled more than enough parts to keep me busy through the holidays.

I know its a run of the mill/cookie cutter type build, but sorry for not keeping up on it!

Will update shortly with photos of rear, i'm stopping over at the shop today to either pick up the rear or make sure its done by the end of the week.

anyone in central pa have a press I can use? haha