Well, it's been a long time coming, but I finally have made enough progress on my '98 Formula to start a build thread. I figure it will help me stay focused to keep getting things done if I'm making it public, lol. This is part turbo conversion and part "barn find" ressurrection, as this thing has been in storage since 2009. I had built a fresh engine in '09 and after 1000 miles, it grenaded - I was so pissed off that I stuffed it into my aunt and uncles pole barn and left it there until 2021. I pulled it from storage and brought it down to where I live, and proceeded to put it back in storage. I have always wanted to turbo this car from the day I bought it, but never was in a place financially to get it done. Well, the time finally came and I began gathering parts, and then a few months ago I decided to go all out and see if I can get it done this year. I've done a bunch already, but I figure I'll post things up every so often to keep the thread fresh. I'm not one to do regular updates, so I figured if I did a lot before I started a thread, I'd have regular content to post.

I'll start here with a pic of the car as it sits, and then go into the engine build:

Paint is 20 footer quality, and both the back bumper and front bumper need completely repainted, as well as dents fixed in the rockers and new paint there as well. The rear quarters could use some paintless dent repair, but eventually the car is going to need a full repaint. I'm probably going to try my hand at painting the bumpers and rockers myself, because why not? I'll buff the rest of the paint out and it will be better than most daily drivers out there.

The engine started as a 2006 LH6 out of a Saab 9-7X that my neighbor was going to scrap out. I bought the whole thing for $500, sold the trans for $350, the TBSS intake for $350, and the shell for $300, so I made a bit of a profit on it and got a complete running aluminum 5.3 out of the deal. But I wasn't stabbing it in stock. Here it is after I tore it down and then again after I had Steve Morris Engines go completely through the block, boring, torque plate honing, align honing, decking, and setting up all my bearing clearances, as well as plugging the DOD towers:

 

After I got the block back and fully cleaned, I assembled it with a stock polished crank and Summit Pro LS .030 over domed pistons and H-beam rods, along with a BTR Stage 2 turbo cam. Had a few screw ups along the way ( nicked the crank with a mic, so had to fully tear it down to get the crank re-polished ), but I eventually got the shortblock assembled:

 

Looking good so far! What's the plans for the Turbo?

 

It's a VSRacing Gen 2.5 billet wheel turbo, 78/75 with a .96 A/R . Should make decent power on E85.

 

Following, I love Formulas I had a red hardtop '98.

 

I do too, they always just seemed more purpose built to go fast. No frills, just power. I appreciate Trans Ams, but Formulas will always be my favorite. I'm building this to be a kind of reverse psychology counterpart to my Camaro. My Camaro definitely looks the part and is pretty quick ( 11.70's so far ), but I want my Formula to be in the 9 second zone. No cage, no gauges, nothing outwardly appearing to make someone think it's anything but stock. Unless they crawl under it or I pop my hood, people will assume it's just a typical heads/cam build.

 

Agreed, the Formula was/is a better looking drag car but I am highly biased.


2001

 

looking good. Starting mine soon. Been gathering parts for 4 years now. Just picked up a 02 SOM trans am. Needs work but I had to jump on a SOM trans am regardless of condition. Good luck with yours and I hope to start on mine this summer.

 

So, finishing out my engine was pretty simple. I decided to go with AFR Enforcer heads rather than rebuilding and having my 243s ported. They ended up being slightly cheaper after factoring everything in. Plus I can sell my 243s to get back some of my money. Valvetrain consists of GM factory LS7 lifters, BTR pushrods, and BTR platinum springs with Ti retainers. Head gaskets are small bore BTR LS9 style, and with the ARP head studs, I don't think I'll ever need to worry about popping a head gasket. Compression ratio is 10.5:1, perfect for running E85. Intake is an old FAST 78 that I ported to an 85MM many years ago and documented here on the site. I don't know if it's going to hold up, but I already had it, so why not run it?

Setting up my springs:


All done:



Harbor Freight sonic cleaner works great for cleaning rocker arm bodies:




Assembled longblock:

 

Thanks! It's been a long time coming but I've got momentum now. Good luck with yours as well. Mine needs everything, but I'll get it done.

 

I'm not able to use these valve covers ( they're now for sale in the marketplace section for $150, with the powdercoated ICT Billet coil brackets - a steal!) , but man does this thing look wicked mocked up with the turbo out front

 

Why can't you use the valve covers?

 

They are so tall, with the coil brackets raised like they are, the coil and heater hose were trying to occupy the same space. Bought a pair of Summit ones where the coil mounts to the cover itself and I have a 1/4" of clearance now. Live and learn.

 

Before I installed the engine and trans, I had to cut my core support out to install a stand up Griffin radiator. I didn't want to make it permanent, as the large open area will make it easier to pull the engine in the future. I grabbed a piece of 3/4" by 1/8" bar stock, 36" long, to make the main radiator mount. I figured it would take up the least amount of space. Cold bent it in my vise, and didn't have to cut it down at all. Cut the center of the core support out and made a couple of notches in the remaining stubs for the bar to locate into. I fabbed up a couple of end caps to clean up the area. I can't weld worth a crap, so they were just bent and shaped, but they looked pretty good once I was done. Drilled some holes and installed rivnuts in the core support stubs, 2 on top and 1 on the backside, left and right. Drilled and tapped the radiator mount bar for some M6 bolts, 2 on each side and 2 in front for the hood latch support/radiator cover cap I was having fabbed up. Once everything was installed, the mount bar was strong enough to use to push the car in and out of the garage, even without the hood latch support installed.

Also decided to paint my engine compartment a bit, as it was looking pretty ragged after all these years. I didn't do an amazing job, as this isn't ever going to be a "show car", but I wanted it to look decent. I didn't do the core support area, as I still had some parts to fab, but the rest came out nice. I ordered some 2K single stage paint in a spray can, and the results were impressive. I recommend using it anytime you want to try to color match any fab work in your engine bay.

 

After getting the core support done, it was time to mate the engine and trans. Unfortunately for me, my Quicktime bellhousing needed to be adjusted because it was .014 out. Ordered some Moroso .007 offset dowels and ended up with .0015-.0020 out of round, which is as close to perfect as I think you can reasonably be. Got the Tilton ST-246 clutch installed, along with the Tick adjustable Tilton master cylinder and slave cylinder. Using a steel clutch alignment tool made easy work of mating the engine and trans, took zero effort to slide them together.

 

Had almost the exact same setup in my last car and it was great.
Drove it everywhere, made 700whp on pump gas only, radio, AC, power everything, a true streetcar.
You will love it.
I don't know what your plans are for exhaust and EBC, but an electric exhaust cutout made a night and day difference in power and spool up time.
I used an Innovate SCG-1 boost controller which also woke the car up even more than running on gate alone plus it doubled as an AFR gauge so two birds one stone.
Just make sure you put the sensor downstream of the turbo a bit, helps it live longer.

 

I'm going to have a full exhaust fabbed up, because the Huronspeed downpipe doesn't fit with my UMI K-member. That's kind of a blessing though, as I think the 3" outlet on my turbo is going to be an impediment to my power goals. I'd like to see closer to 800 at the wheels if this turbo can manage it, switching from a .96 to a 1.25 A/R will help with that. I might not have enough turbo for that, however. I'm planning on having a 4" dump pipe welded up with a 3" downpipe fishmouthed in ( focusing the flow into the dump pipe ) and a Moroso spiral flow muffler dumped before the rear axle. That should be enough to quiet it down for street use. I definitely would like to have an electric cutout as well, but I'm well over budget as it is, so it may have to wait. My boost will be controlled by my Terminator X system, I don't want to make this any more complex by adding a separate boost control, lol. I'm already stressing about how much wiring I'm going to have to do.

 

I did a full 3" exhaust to the largest Magnaflow muffler I could fit in the stock location.
It had a decent rumble to it and was perfect for cruising comfortably, but it really killed power.
My cutout was right under the driver floorboard and made a huge difference so a 4" dump with a cutout on the end will be killer.
With good fuel and 20+lbs. you outta get pretty close to 800whp.
The Terminator will handle all your boost control needs better than external EBC for sure, hell you could probably have the Terminator control the cutout too.
Since you're standing up the radiator, a larger T4 variant with a larger turbine will be possible or simply bolt on a T6 adapter and open your options further.
I'll tell you right now, 700whp in a six-speed car on the street is a handful.
The guy I sold mine to totaled it within a month.
I'd be looking into a TCS setup if you really want to be able to use all the power, otherwise you'll be limited to 3rd and 4th gear lol.

 

Since I have the newest version of the Terminator X, I'm going to take advantage of the traction control capabilities of the V3 software next year. I have to swap gears anyway, so when I do I'm going to get a Strange pinion yoke that incorporates a magnet wheel and install a driveshaft speed sensor. I figure if I tune it right, I'll be able to use all of my power and then some!

 

Another thing I ran into that might help others is, I bought an ICT Billet valley cover to finish off the top end because I had the DOD holes plugged with pipe plugs and didn't need a factory one. When I tried to install my FAST intake, the oil pressure mounting block would not allow the intake to sit flush. Ended up machining off the side of the block and using a button head cap screw to hold it down. Doesn't seem to have interfered with the structural integrity of the block any: