sunbird update

our friend in florida still has the sloppy mechanics sunbird, recently took it to the track and went high 10s on 7 cyls (one of the coils or wires was bad) haha on 14lbs of boost! what a beast

Swapping tq converters in the sunbird

Before the racing tomorrow so long as the weather holds out. Other converter was giving is issues so we threw in a spare we had lol

testing the sunbird trans brake

hopefully racing saturday if the weather is nice

testing the trans brake on the sunbird

testing it out a little bit today, needs some fuel in it but everything else is ok, we are gunna throw this thing on the dyno friday and see what kinda power we can make

installed the glide in the sunbird

operation success, swapped in the glide, had to modify the trans cooler lines, tq arm bracket, shifter linkage, etc but its all working! take a look at these custom brackets made today hahah

powerglide for the sunbird

my friend pulled the glide for the sunbird out today, so hopefully this weekend we will be installing it, and early sunday have it out and driving, then this week get it on the dyno to make sure the driveshaft doesnt come out at 155mph and then take her racing the next coming weekend... whew.

E85 succes and broken trans?!

swapped the sunbird to e85 today, tossed in 10 gallons of it, and we were tuning on 20lbs and all was going well till we broke the trans, i think we broke the sprag or band for 2nd, and we might be able to fix it with spare parts.

 stay tuned!

sunbird ready to rock

cut open the whole top of it today and installed the 60mm from the truck, tested it on the pressure rig i have and it cracked at 20psi, great, thats what we wanna start with haha...

ripped it down the road and it holds 20psi.

also earlier Corey grabbed a bunch of fittings and a Y fitting (youll laugh when you see it) and we re-did the fuel feeds. both 044s getting fed from the sump, and then pushing out into the Y fitting and then up to the rail, it works and doesn't leak, funny thing is one of the pumps was loud and struggling  interesting because 044s are pretty quiet, and when they get upset they make noise right away... so we felt em both and the one was getting super hot, and it eventually blew a 30amp fuse (for both pumps)

well i said every time the pump made noise like that it was because the fuel filter was clogged. well we checked the filter like 10x and its not clogged.. so  we just removed the pre-filter entirely and holy shit, you can barely hear the pumps now, so quiet, ive never heard them this quiet....

now there is tons of fuel, and the car is holding 20psi.

hopefully filling it with E85 and taking it to the dyno later this week.

here is an hour and a half 38mm removal, 60mm install, dump and hood cut all at once lol

still having trouble with fueling and keeping the car under 40lbs of boost or so lol, going to do some work on the hotside of the car and then move the fuel pumps around and Y them together.

please enjoy the fireball

sunbird burnout

Corey doing a quick burnout in the sunbird today hopefully we get er on the dyno this weekend, ready to see how it does! it hit 18psi in this burnout haha

sunbird nearly complete

installed the methanol nozzles in the intake elbow today, also connected the boost gauge, welded the downpipe o2 bung and connected all that. car seems to be doing pretty good! gotta do some fine tuning on it now that the wideband is installed again, then we can do the hood pins and take it for a drive down the road.

cold side completed on the sunbird! haha

cut up some 3.5 inch exhaust tubing and threw it in there today, so now the cold side is hooked up!
we also filled it with water and warmed it up to 160 for now, cooling system looks good, gunna wire the fan and some other things tomorrow, maybe even a video update.

sunbird driving around

only a few small things to clear up now, corey is going to be taking the car home to finish the rest clearing out the garage so i can put the fairmont back in. here is just some video of it running and brake standing a little bit outside.

also cut out the hood special thanks to my dad, he did a nicer job than we would have done haha. so the screw on cowl is installed and painted black and the exhaust is coming out the hood still

sunbird project running already!

installed the pumps, fuel lines, wired the relay, both pumps, connected the new lines on the sumped tank, to the feed and returns that were already in the car, got the knock down fittings in the front in the engine bay to the rails and the return fittings working great, no leaks, its a 255 and a 044 together...

also got the starter swapped out, put in a push button start though the shifter safety, also made the downpipe and wastegate pipe out the hood, just gotta throw in the O2 sensor bung and hook that up and then wire that to the megasquirt box and its really done.

we really hustled today and it paid off, car fired with the first starter hit no problems. only have to finish hooking up the fan, rad hoses and fill the block with coolant and very few other things like boost gauge and whatnot.



video of it running...

Quick walk around video intro of the sunbird

wired the sunbird with a MS1 and MSD6010 tonight

finished up around 4am but wired the car with a MS1 and MSD6010 from the Ventura with a new wiring harness.

motor in the sunbird already

well today we got the motor in, trans and converter bolted up, and started fitting the turbo kit, ended the day with a ton done already, really flying because so much is done already, only had to modify the hotside a little bit to clear the truck accessories we are using

picked up a new project car today for corey

expanding our collection of strange pontiacs... what a gem. this car is our friends car, well one of them he has quiet a few, he is moving from PA back to texas and we bought two of the cars, one was a 69 impala that i showed already and the other is this 1980 sunbird. this car has a dana 40-44 rear, i cant remember and i dont know alot about them but apparently its a beast, new axles, welded tubes, new auburn locker, brand new rims and 275 radials on the car, mini tubbed, and caged already, we got the car from him with the rear, trans, converter, a bunch of gauges, wideband, radiator, etc everything but a motor really... we are gunna be throwing in a lsx tomorrow, ran out of time today but still got alot done at night, yanked the 4.8 out of the ventura and stuck 317 heads on it with studs and ls9 gaskets, pac1218 springs, gunna throw one of the gt45 turbos on this thing and see how much power we can make. gunna go non intercooled, and put the exhaust out the hood like a pulling truck. PICS!