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After a nine year hiatus, I finally bought another F-body. Its not the highly modded LS1 car that I once had in my younger days, but its an F-body. I had to sell my 02 Z/28 back when my son was very young. It was a sad day. My son is now 11, and I told him some stories about my 02 Z/28. After nine years I was itching for another LS1 car, but stumbled across a 96 Firebird. The guy was asking $2000, and it was a 6-speed car. I almost didn't look at it, figuring it would be completely trashed at that price. I figured what the hell and went to looked at the car.
The car is cammed, has long tube headers, and exhaust. It is unknown what cam is had in it. My gut says its a LT4 hot cam. Engine sounded good with good oil pressure. It drove, but I could tell it needed some TLC. Actually, a lot of TLC. After talking to the guy, I made the deal and took it home. The first time my son looked at it, he said how cool it looked. He then asked me, "whats this stick in the middle for?" (mind you hes never seen a manual car) Then I tell him, if you help me fix it up, I'll teach you how to drive it. There are not many LT1 cars around here anymore. Its something different, and gives us both something to do during the long South Dakota winters. Now we see what we got ourselves into.
The first thing I figured we would do is address the front end. The front end still has all the original bushings, ball joints, and shocks. After the car was jacked up, we found that the rack and pinion was leaking from the drivers side dust boot. We replaced the rack, and tore the entire front suspension out. The lower control arm on the driver's side was a bear cat to get out. The dreaded rear bolt was seized. After a day of soaking it with PB blaster and hammering the crap out of it, we finally got it out. After ordering a ton of part of parts from Rockauto, we got the bushings and ball joints out of the control arms. After we got it apart, I found out we needed more parts, so I ordered some more tonight.
I then figured since it was all apart, I would upgrade the front brakes to 98-02 f-body. I found an assembled k-member off of a wrecked v6 camaro for $100, on my local Craigslist. I got the k-member apart tonight, and started cleaning up some parts.
Today is nice and cold in the great white north. -13 with -35 wind chill this morning. usually, its not this cold in March. Making more progress on the suspension. Got all the parts cleaned up, and Por15 most of the parts. I need to take the lower control arms to a shop to get the bushings pushed out and new pushed in. Don't have the press or cups required to get them out. I also looked over the brakes off the wrecked k-member. Both lower brake pad adjusters were seized in the brackets. I got the first one out with tons of heat. The second one, not so much. The head broke off the slider. Looks like reman brackets at the minimum.
Last edited by seawolf18; 03-04-2019 at 11:02 AM.
Reason: Spelling and stuff
That's awesome, the 93-97 is actually my favorite body style, I prefer it over the LS1 cars. I'm in the process of fully restoring a 95 at the moment as well, I suppose I should start a build thread on here.
Got some work in on the car. We have been dealing with some major flooding last weekend. I did some plastic repair, with some epoxy resin I had laying around. The radiator hold down and PCM bracket were broken. Then we tackled the burned up wiring from the headers on the passenger side. I got all the melted factory wire loom off. Luckily, the wire loom was the only casualty. I re-loomed the wires with a heat resistant loom and routed the wires. Hopefully no more burned up wiring. Then we finally got the front suspension back together, 98+ brakes and all. If any one else is doing the brake swap on their LT1 car, C5 Corvette front rubber lines give you enough slack from lock-to-lock.
We finally found out what cam is has in it. One of the previous owners left a clue on a forum they were apart of. Went to the forum and found a engine build thread for it. The engine was rebuilt in 2008 and it has a Lunati 237/242 duration and .525/.525 lift. A lot bigger than I was expecting. The PCM had a PCM for Less sticker on it, so I'm assuming the guy got a mail or tune for the car. The car has rear o2 simulators and still has the skip shift. I don't know why he just didn't get it all deleted when they sent the PCM in. I may have to send the PCM back in. One of the 02 simulators got burned up by the passenger side header, and its having VATS issues. Might just go a head and send it in to have all that stuff deleted.
Made some more progress on the car. Got both window motors replaced. The driver's side was a nightmare. Someone in the past tired to "fix it", but in turn messed it all up. I had to completely take all the guts out of the door, replace the motor, and get it all back in the door. Then the wiring was a mess. Half of the connectors had the wires pulled out of them. I finally got it all back together and working. The passenger side hadn't been touched it, so that was much easier.
We got the new rear shocks installed. I took the lower rear control arms off to replace the bushings in them. The first side, we got the bushing out and in no problem. On the second side, the metal tore when trying the press in the new ones. I threw them in the trash and brought new rears from UMI. We then replaced the panhard rod, and sway bar bushings. The rear brakes were removed and repainted black. The rotors and pads were replaced when putting the rear brakes back on the car. We then bled all the brakes, with the help of my brake bleeding assistant.
I then sent the PCM into Soloman to get it tuned. Whoever had it tuned last time, didn't seem to do a very good job. The car is pretty gassy when it ran. Soloman said that most of the fueling was still stock, even though its been cammed with supporting mods. Whoever had it at the time also put a Jet Performance MAF on it. I put a stock one back one, and should have the PCM back tomorrow. After we get the PCM back in, and the tires back on, it should it ready to drive.
Car looks really familiar, I remember a member/kid here about 10-15 years ago that had an identical car down to the wheels, that Lunati cam, etc. and I bet anything it's the same car. I only remember because he was an interesting individual so it sticks out in my mind. Very cool to have a father son project to work on, props to you. I hope to do the same with my future kids and I hope the modded LT1 I drove way back in high school pops up one day and becomes a father/son project for someone.
It was probably his car. There was some Quad City Auto Forums Paraphernalia still in the car, and I found a ton of posts from him when I went poking around on it. Yeah, you could say he was interesting feller.
Got the PCM back in the car today. Runs much much better. Was going to put the wheels back on, when I noticed the Brake Warning light was on. I re-bled the brakes again, and it was still on. Took the center console apart and unplugged the brake light switch on e-brake, it was still on. After messing with it for hours, I noticed the master was weeping from where it connects to the booster. Went to the parts store and ordered a new one. Waiting on parts again it seems.
I also found some more burnt up wiring on the passenger side. This time for the ABS wheel sensor, got that repaired and put the wires back in a heat resistant loom. Also secured the wires away from the header tubes. Hopefully no more burnt up wiring. I guess we will see.
We finally got the brake system figured out. After bench bleeding and replacing the master, and re-bleeding the system, the brake and ABS lights were still on. After more messing with it, for some reason I figured I would check the ABS relay in the electrical box. Pulled it out and found corrosion on the blades. Used contact cleaner on the connections and now no more ABS and brake warning lights. When I got the car every warning light was on in the dash. All I have left is the security, and that is going to be bypassed, as soon as I find a 6K Ohm resister.
I then went down to the DMV Friday and finally got plates for it, and put insurance on it. I drove it and coasted the last 1/2 block to the gas station. Put 17.something gallons in it. It was empty empty. Now I have a check engine light again, and the idle won't go lower than 1300 rpm. I am also getting an annoying squeak from the accessory's some where. Pulled the codes and it was no response from o2 sensor bank 2 sensor 1.
Thinking I'm having another burned up wiring issue, I unplugged the passenger side o2 sensor and pulled up the wiring. The wiring tested out ok. I then tested the sensor, and got an open on one set of wires on it (both gray wires). For the idle, I sprayed everything with carb cleaner to check for vacuum leaks. Didn't find any. tried unplugging the MAF, no change. Tried unplugging the IAC, no change. Back probed the TPS and the closed voltage and wide open voltage were in spec. Took the intake tube off, and looked at the throttle blades. They looked like they were seated in the bores all the way closed. The throttle stop screw doesn't look like it was messed with. I then blocked off the IAC port between the blades, with my hand. The idle came down. There was a bunch or corrosion in the IAC plug as well. Cleaned the contacts and still no change in idle. I think the IAC is stuck or bad. Time to order more parts again. I also need to get it in for an alignment.
Its been a while since the last update, but we got some car time in, finally. I finally figured out the O2 sensor problem. If you would bend the wires one way it would work, and the other way it would not. Replaced the connector and now the O2 sensor works. We have been having a lot of other issues with it as well. I went out to mess with it the other day, and it wouldn't start. After going through the steps, found out the ICM was bad. Pulled the ICM out and found no thermal paste on the heat sink. They actually put dielectric grease on it. So it looks like it cooked itself. The ICM electrical connector was also in poor shape Replaced the ICM, connector, and also did the cooling mod at the same time for it. The belt accessory squeak ended up being the A/C compressor.
We then had a flooding out and miss fire problems with it. Pulled the plugs and they were fouled out and wet with fuel. Also found out the plugs were two or three heat ranges colder than stock. We also found two plug wires that were burnt on the headers. Replaced the plugs with the factory heat range ones, and the plug wires. We also found corrosion in the ECT sensor connector, causing it to read about 25 degrees colder than it should be. Cleaned the connector and it now reads fine.
Took it back out for a test run. Car ran ok, but would cut in and out at 5k plus RPM's. The car would also back cackle really bad while shifting down coming to a stop. When We got home in the dark, and looked to see if we had any plug wire arching, we noticed the #3 header primary was glowing red. Now the car has a lean condition?? Thinking we have a fueling problem, we pulled the fuel rail. When we did, gas came pouring out the vacuum port of the fuel pressure regulator. I guess thats bad too. Two of the o-rings on the injectors fell apart when I pulled them out the of manifold. I took the #3 injector off, and looked in it. It looks like there is a piece of gunk of some kind in the injector. The car still has the original Multec injectors in it. With a large cam, headers, and ported heads the injectors are probably getting to their limit anyway. Looks like new injectors are in my future.
When we were changing the plug wires out, we noticed that the timing cover is leaking oil at a pretty good clip. The opti cap had oil all over it. The opti was changed by the previous owner, supposedly. This could also be a source of the infrequent missing problem. Looks like it needs to all come apart in the front to see where the oil is coming from. The opti could be full of oil for all I know. The saga continues on..
03-01-2019, 12:12 AM
Father/Son Firebird Project 
