Like ***** said double adjustable fronts are in your future, definitely let Santa know. You want to nose to come up and stay up through first and second gear. You can always change the shock rebound and compression back to whatever you like on the street.

 

Yes, 100% buying some Vikings this winter. First purchase will be a BMR drag sway bar, as I have the money for it and it'll be a good project for me. I think the shocks and sway bar will go a LONG way to getting my car to hook and launch.

 

I'd recommend looking at the Midwest Chassis Anti-roll bar.
They have a nice bolt on option, I just ordered one for my car after sharing my setup with them they recommended the 1 1/4" thick wall unit with adjustable end links.
Then you can add in some preload to keep the car going straight.
I told them I planned on being around 900whp and they said it would work great.
If you wanna get real nutty, TRZ makes one that is badass, it was the one I wanted but it won't work with a back-braced 9".

 

Already have the BMR bar waiting with UPS, lol. I don't want to have to go through welding sway bar mount plates on my axle, and even though the MWC bar is bolt on, it requires welded mounts to work.

 

Have my sway bar, but I'm probably going to wait until I install my new 3.54 gears before I tackle that job. It's certainly way bigger in diameter than my stock bar!

 

Most recent mod, making custom power steering hoses since my stock ones started leaking after I bent them out of the way. I didn't like any of the pre-made aftermarket line kits, so I used the crimper at my work to build myself some nice ones that fully clear the Huronspeed crossover pipe. @The ****** Note the nice Turn One power steering pulley, lol.

 

Good looking pulley.....lines look pretty ok too.

 

Those lines look great, should list them on marketplace.
At least now you won't have to worry about your PS pulley coming loose or exploding at high rpm lol, plus it looks killer.

 

Yeah, for sure. I'd thought it would be kind of cool to sell these, but I wouldn't make much after paying for the raw materials. Plus I'm sure my boss would frown upon me using shop equipment to make hoses I'm going to sell, lol. I can measure and list specs for anyone who'd want to replicate what I have, though.

I've been annoyed by my steam line set up since I installed it, because it was right in the open and all it was is a plain rubber hose with brass fittings and hose clamps at the ends. Most all of my plumbing is AN fittings aside from my radiator hoses, and I wanted a cleaner set up. So I went and bought a pre-made -4AN coated hose and a 90 degree fitting for the engine side and basically made my steam line invisible by routing it beneath my catch can hoses. Looks much better now. There are a few other differences in the plumbing and parts as well.

 

Haven't updated in awhile, but I went ahead and installed my BMR drag bar and rear double adjustable Vikings. I'm going to wait until it's nicer out to do my gears, so I figured I may as well get the bar installed in the meantime. Next up is getting the front coilovers installed. Have to buy a new set of wheels and tires as well, as I wasn't happy with what I had so I sold them. This will give me the opportunity to swap some real meats in the rear. Plan on running 305/45/17 M/Ts on 17X11 C7 ZR1 Replicas out back, and some Kenda Vezda 245/45/17s up front on 17X9.5s. Already rolled my fender lips and hammered the inner wheel wells, so they should fit quite nicely.





I also mounted my CO2 bottle in the spare tire well using some heavy duty foam at the base and an ICT Billet bottle bracket. Let me tell you, it was a royal pain in the *** getting the bolts into the bracket from under the car by myself.

 

I did a fairly trick mod today, and figured others might like to do it if they have aftermarket EFI on their stick shift car. My 2013 Camaro has a clutch pedal position switch that tells the PCM where the clutch pedal is in it's travel, and Lingenfelter sells a box you can add to intercept that signal and tie it into their 2-Step box. I installed these on my Camaro and instantly my launches became way more consistent. It's one of my favorite mods on my SS, and I wanted to add it to my Firebird. I was contemplating how to mount a factory 5th Gen clutch pedal sensor and it seemed like it was going to take a lot of fab work. But then someone suggested I use a shock travel sensor, so I bought one with a 2" stroke and quickly figured out a way to mount it directly to the clutch pedal, with the stationary end being attached to the steering column support bracket. It took a bit of time to figure out exactly where to drill the holes so I'd have a full 2" of pedal travel. I ended up going slightly less than 2" because I know things flex down there and this sensor is mounted with nylon capscrews that will shear if the sensor gets overextended.

The reason I wanted to do this was to engage the 2-Step in the Holley, and normally that is on a switch of some sort. You could tap into the clutch anticipation switch, or into the clutch fully depressed switch, but either one causes issues. If you do the anticipation switch, the 2-step won't disengage until the pedal is fully released, and it will most likely cause the engine to bog. If you use the clutch fully depressed switch, as soon as you begin to lift your foot the 2-step will disengage and RPM will flare up until you reach the point where your clutch grabs. This sensor fixes all of that. At rest, it puts out 0V, fully extended it puts out 5V. All I'll have to do is log the voltage and figure out exactly where my clutch starts to grab and I can tell the Holley to turn on the 2-step at that voltage and above. There are other possible uses for the data as well, like timing modifiers and such.

 

Hot rodding at its purest.
discover a challenge
come up with a plan
implement the plan
enjoy the result

Well done.

 

Finally got my wheels and tires mounted and on the car. Even though I hammered the inner fenderwells, the tires rub on the very bottom of the front, right where there's boxed tubing right behind the fenderwell. It's almost impossible to hammer that area in, so I may have to do some surgery on the car to move that portion in a little further. I have wheel spacers, so I may try those first to give me 12MM of extra clearance. I rolled my fender lips, so I don't think I'll have any issues there. One thing I found that I don't know if I can fix is that my car is a bit bent. I know it was hit in the rear before I bought it, and while it looks fine, certain stuff is off. With these 28" tires on the car, I only have about 7/16" from the tire to the passenger side of the bumper cover. When I ran 275/60/15's previously, they rubbed the paint off the bumper in that spot. I could get adjustable LCAs to move both sides forward slightly, but there's not much room in the front, either. I may just have to live with it, unfortunately. The rims look absolutely killer on the car, though. I can't wait to get my front coilovers on and set the ride height. It should look sweet.

 

Finally got my power steering leak fixed, so I was able to get it back on the ground for a bit. My fab guy made me a nice bracket to mount a wheel speed sensor, so I installed that and ran the wiring up into the engine bay. Also got my second boost solenoid plumbed, as well as another solenoid I'm using for a CO2 powered exhaust cut out. Filled my CO2 bottle and I'm happy to report that nothing leaked when I tested it. Started using Deutsch connectors for my sensor/solenoid wiring and I gotta say, they are cake compared to Metripack connectors. I'm soon going to start on fully redoing my Holley wiring, as I need to move a few things around and add some sensors, some of which I've gotta wait to install. No big deal, I'll run the wiring and it'll be ready to go when I get them in. Pulled her out of the garage to move to my other, larger garage, and snapped a couple of shots sitting on the new rolling stock. I gotta say, it looks pretty wicked now! Unfortunately, the driver's side was rubbing a bit. Missed a spot with the hammer, so I'll be doing more clearancing tomorrow.

 

Looks killer on that rear tire! I agree with your comment on deutsch connectors, the Haltech I installed on my car came with them, so much easier to deal with.

 

Did you put those sensors on all four corners or just the one wheel? Are you using this for some kind of traction control signal or simply a signal for the Speedometer?

 

I'm just going to have one on the front passenger side, and one on the driveshaft when I get my gears done. Doing it for traction control, but also so I can set up boost by speed, as this is mostly a street car. Boost by time wouldn't work well for me.

 

5 counts per rotation is going to be a very low resolution signal for any sort of accurate TC. Personally I would try to integrate it with your existing ABS wheel speed sensor on that front spindle or put a real reluctor on the hub.

 

I probably will eventually, but so far this is working pretty well, at least for my boost by speed set up.

 

I got a bunch done in the last month. Got my CO2 system plumbed for boost control and for my CO2 powered exhaust cut out, which works great. Have to finish the exhaust on Thursday and I'll make a demonstration video. It's pretty slick. Rewired a few of my I/Os and ran wiring for my driveshaft speed sensor, plus the additional MAC valve for the CO2 control. Mounted a couple bus bars in my glove box to make it easier to add sensors and other items later on, I already have too much attached to my battery. Also figured out that I needed to put more power to my second fuel pump, so I installed a Kenne Bell Boost-A-Pump. It's pretty slick, it only powers on when my 2nd pump comes online. Don't know why some people dislike them, it immediately fixed my high RPM fuel delivery issues. I decided to learn to tune myself, so I bought Joe Simpson's tuning course and it's proven invaluable. Took the car out for it's first trip to the track after some street tuning, ran a best of 11.44@128.72. Ended up bending all my wheel studs due to negligence... I should have retorqued them at the track and didn't, plus I had my shocks set up completely wrong and had bad wheel hop. I had zero idea how the suspension was going to react in this car, and when I thought it would squat on launch, I was 100% wrong - It separates. So I only had 3 clicks on compression, but 6 on rebound. Wheel hop city.

After my trip to the track, my brakes started squealing, so I pulled them apart to inspect. Good thing I did, my front pads were nearly worn out, and 3 out of 4 caliper slide pins were seized in their bores. Seeing as this car is going to be capable of 140+ trap speeds when it's fully tuned, I didn't think I should even try to replace only the pads and get the brakes working. I just ordered a full set of Powerstop brakes and did everything at once. Night and day difference, I hardly have to step on the brakes to stop now. On my subsequent trip to the track this past Saturday, I ran 11.31@131.50 and backed that with an 11.23@131.73, both with 1.8X 60's. My launches really suck, I'm going to buy a Hitmaster clutch tamer this summer and dial that in so I don't have to worry as much about how to modulate this clutch. As it sits, this will run easy 10's with even a .10 drop in 60' times. I dropped .4 in ET simply by improving from a 2.07 to a 1.87 on back to back runs. And the best part is, I'm only running 16PSI and 15 degrees of timing. It has a LOT more in it. I'll post up a video of my 11.31 pass, still spinning the tires but with much less wheelhop.