I recently purchased a fairly low mileage '93 Firebird Formula with auto trans. It's bone stock, was very well taken care of and no mods at all. Has 80k original miles and to my knowledge has had no major work done and has no issues mechanically at all at present.
I am wanting more performance from the vehicle, I love that body style and the car is nearly perfect cosmetically inside and out.

So is dropping the cradle and doing a rebuild something to consider? Rebuilding for the reliability aspect mainly to accept some type of forced air? Or is it really just better to put an LS engine in and turbo that? Other than the optispark I've heard a lot of good comments about these LT1's, and I believe there's a 'delete' option for that to output the cam and crank signals into the LS type signal if I'm recalling correctly.

New to these cars, the LT1 platform and to V8's in general.. not new to the car world and have done some work on other vehicles often over the years. Thanks for any info/advice/feedback. I'd love a sub 11 second reliable Firebird, something I can hop in and drive and not have to worry about it breaking.. but having that 'modern' day power you expect from a new Camaro or Mustang.

 

What's your budget?

 

Just starting out if you keep the lt1, it help keeps the costs low. I personally dont see any reason to just ls swap since there is a lot more involved than simply putting the engine down into the car. You can find many successful turbo lt1s that are still going strong on the internet; some impressive ones on youtube as well making around 700 hp. It is really up to you, if you find modifying an lt1 not worth the effort or not. Though I think you may find some issues tuning the 93 yea since that ecm is chip based.

I recommend Solomon for tuning, he is able to tune for forced induction as well. His website ----- > https://www.lt1pcmtuning.com/