This car has been a few years in the making, and I don't think I've ever put any pictures of my build up. I'm nearing the end (should be done by the end of summer), so I'll take you guys through my build.

Started with a real nice 91 Z28 (red on red) 305 tpi a4 car. The project kind of snowballed.

EDIT!!! STARTUP VID ON POST 37!!

I stripped the entire car down to the bare metal.






I decided to paint the car black, so I had to make sure everything was 120% straight. (all of the red paint was eventually stripped of the doors)

 

I put in a roll bar as well.

 

I'm running 19x11 in the rear, so I cut the lips out of the quarters and welded everything back together.



Off to primer...then more sanding.

 

I painted the car in 2 different locations. I did the engine bay and interior in my shop. The I took it to my friend's body shop, and we did the rest of the car in a paint booth.










Fitting of the 4th gen dash.




BMR k member

 

Out of paint.

 

At this point, the car sat for a few years. Life got in the way. I moved a couple of times also. I'm just now getting back to working on it. Here are a couple of pics of how it sits now.





I recently painted the hatch and rear wing and installed them. I ordered a stock flat fiberglass hood from VFN (which should be here some time in June) and some new hood blisters from Hawks. So I will paint them both at the same time.

 

The engine is currently a forged 347, g6x3 cam, 799 heads, crane rockers, fast 90/nw90, billet rails with 32# injectors. That's just to get me going for the time being. I plan to add a nice set of heads and more cubes. It'll do for now (money is super tight).

I also converted to a 6 speed with a textralia twin disc passing the power (don't have pics of that yet).

 

I have 14" cts-v front brakes (and will be adding the rears), that I will post pics of later. I also have coilovers on all 4 corners. The entire drivetrain is out at the moment, but I will be putting all that back in shortly. I'll post updates as I progress.

 

WOW! I wish I had the time and the money to do mine this way. Very nice job.

 

Do you happen to live in Charlotte?

I picked some parts up for my swap from a guy who had a car that looked just like that. IIRC he had about 3 LS1s in his garage too

 

What parts did you pick up? I live in Concord...and I've had quite a lot of stuff laying around, so it's possible .

 

man, i gotta clean the keyboard again. too much drool. awesome looking project, keep the progress (and pictures) coming!

 

Seriously jesus. Amazing work, Subscribed!

 

Wow, looks amazing so far

 

Waterpump, intake bolts and oil sending unit. I drove the green firebird up from UNCC

 

Yep, that was me.

Thanks for the kind words everyone. Hopefully I will have some updates in the next week or so.

 

Subscribed. In the process of doing the same to mine. Looking good man!

 

outstanding. more pics as you have time would be great. thanks for posting up.

 

LOL I really can appreciate "life got in the way" man does that ever happen! Seems every time I think I have time and tear up a project... blam swamped with higher priorities.

Anyways looks awesome and VERY well done thus far. Hope the last push goes quickly for ya

 

Couple of small updates. I haven't had much time, and I've been waiting for parts. Here are a few pics of what I've been up to. Please excuse how dirty the car is. I can't roll it out to wash it (no rear end under it currently).

I mentioned earlier, but I didn't have a picture. My 14" CTS-V brakes, and koni coilovers.


The engine was out before, and I just got it back in last weekend. Here are a couple of shots of that.




After waiting 2 and a half months for VFN to build my hood, I finally got it. I didn't want anything crazy, and the more I thought about it, the more I wanted to look stock. So I went with a stock hood. Still unpainted obviously.



I mentioned I wanted to look stock, so since my car is a Z28, I bought the reproduction blisters from Hawks. I made a couple of templates out of cardboard to get my placement right.




After drilling my holes (which by the way was extremely hard to do. I did not like the idea of drilling 12 holes into my brand new VFN hood) I was able to fit my blisters. Now I figured they would need a little tweaking, but this is a little more than I had hoped. They were not curved to fit the hood. They were perfectly flat. I was disappointed in that regard. Hopefully there is enough material to sand down to make them fit properly. Judging by the depth of the indented part, it has me worried. Maybe someone from Hawks will read this and offer advice.



This was after lots of sanding.



When I paint the hood, I'll finish fitting the blisters. I have more work to do before I'm ready to paint.

Lastly, my carpet came in from the guys at 1Aauto. I still need to work on the fitment some, but you get the idea. I opted for the one without the cutout for the console. Mainly to keep things nice and neat. Once it's fitted to my liking, I'll cut the hole for the shifter to come through.

 

Awesome build, love the deep glossy black!!!!!

 

great build i saw the a.c ducting are you planning on doing ac?

i like my ctsv brakes.. but i need a proportioning valve to balance out the brake system.

 

That really sucks about the blisters. I haven't seen anyone having that problem before, but I guess I never really paid attention to who's using those aftermarket ones anyways.

 

Originally I wasn't going to run a/c...but I have since changed my mind. It's just too hot in the summer not to have a/c.

Yea, it really sucks. I don't know if I can even get them to fit properly. They need a rather large section removed from the middle, and Hawks didn't leave enough meat to trim down. I'm already sanding on the back side of where the "grills" would go. I would have tried to modify my oem ones if I knew they were going to be this bad. Of course, I sold my oem ones knowing they wouldn't fit a flat hood without modification...hence me buying the Hawks pieces.

 

Id fix the holes in the VFN and rock it flat. Car looks badass smoothed and slick

 

Thought about it....but I really like the blisters. We'll see what happens.

 

Amazing work! In the process of gathering parts for my LSx swap. Subscribed.

Did you really need to bondo the whole door? was it that bad?

 

Let me give you a quick lesson in body work. Metal is naturally wavy. That wavyness is extremely fine, but noticeable once painted...especially black. The only way to make your finish look like glass, is to cover the panel with a skim coat of body filler and block it down. 98% of that filler will be sanded away. Only the low spots of the natural wavyness will have body filler. And the filler that's left is only a couple thousandths thick. So anywhere on my car you see body filler, it is only as thick as a sheet of paper. All the metal was hammered straight and welded where it was needed.

 

I appreciate the lesson. I am a amature when it comes to paint and bodywork.

 

hey evrybody been a long time sence i posted but i had to say great job on this one soo glad u didnt just rebuild the dore out of bondo lol ( seen it done before) looks realy great good luck with the hood it looks like a pain in the @@@ but worth it i too cant stand the flat hoods

 

Wasn't trying to come off as an ***...I just don't want anyone thinking I did some hack job.

 

I don't think he took he took it the wrong way, Since he said/thought you used Bondo after all.

Amazing job 377, maybe one day....

 

Sick ride man! 2 questions, will those fuel rails fit an LS6 manifold? And was there allot of mod to get the CTS brakes to fit your car? And where did you get them? Cant wait to see your car when its done!

 

just realized ur doin almost the same thing i want to life is currently waaaayyyyy in the way for me though project will be on hold for a couple of months

 

Really nice work bro. You've got a lot of man hours invested in that Z and it shows. I do have a question for ya though. If you wanted to blisters on hood, why didn't you purchase an Iroc/Z-28 hood instead of the flat hood? Not trying to bust your ***** or anything....Im just curious.

 

Yes, my fuel rails will fit an LS6 intake...I ran that setup at one time. Brakes are from GM, adapter brackets are from Ed Miller. Took very little work to make them work.

Thanks! No one makes an aftermarket fiberglass hood made like the factory Z28 hood...at least I couldn't find one anywhere. That would have been a lot easier . And there was no way I was putting that 100# stock steel hood back on. I'm hoping to tip the scales well under 3000#.

 

Here is a quick startup video (quality might suck as I was having trouble uploading it to photobucket and it was just a digital camera). I just got it running, so it's just a baseline tune. Once I dial it in more, idle will be a little more choppy. Plus, I just have some turndowns crammed into my mufflers...I can't decide on tips, so I haven't put any on yet. Just click the pic.

CLICK THE PIC FOR VID

 

Hey fast377, very nice build. I had a question on the blisters. Did you ever get them to fit. The reason I ask is, I think the stock hoods have an indention that the blisters sit in. Is that not right? So, if Hawks was making a repo for those hoods they would not need to match the curvein a stock flat hood. Just a thought.

 

Oem blisters have an extended portion that fits into an indentation in the oem hood. Hawks made their blisters without that extended portion, so they would fit on a flat hood. If I had a steel hood, you could just tighten the nuts on the blisters to pull the gaps closed.

To answer your question, no, I never finished fitting them. I don't think I'm going to either. The hood is the only piece of body work left to be painted, so I'm thinking I'm going to just fix the holes and paint it.

 

Looks cherry man congrats!

 

what headers are you running?? are they the ones from the hawks/youngs website. thanks man, your project looks amazing, i wish i would have done the newer dash swap...

 

Thanks! I ended up making my own headers. My car sits so low, I was afraid the Hawks were going to hang too low. Now that I have my duals installed, I might have been okay with the Hawks. I might break down and buy some to try eventually, but I'm happy with what I have at the moment.

 

I would love to see how you build your headers as that is something I am interested in learning about.

 

Cut and weld, cut and weld, cut and weld. It's very time consuming. I didn't have all the equipment I really needed when I did mine, but they came out okay. I'll probably end up making another set eventually.

 

One small update...finally. I've had so little free time, I haven't taken the cover off the car in months. My new wheels finally came in. Thought I would post a quick teaser pic.

 

Nice build. So your running no console with just the shifter coming off the floor?

 

No, I'm running a full interior. 4th gen dash and console. I just don't have it all in yet.

 

Nice wheels! What size are they?

 

really looks good very impressive.

 

Very nice build. I love the wheels...what are they?