This is going to be rather long, but a great read...!!

Back in early March my '91 3.1 Firebird finally bit the dust. It had a cracked head, two bent valves, two cracked head gaskets and little remains of a manifold gasket. We began doing an engine rebuild, we stripped the engine right down to the bare block.

I took both of my heads to a machine shop to get checked for cracks and get milled. The machine shop owner is a long time friend of my buddy who is helping me rebuilt my engine. The owner gave me a free head and milled both of them specially (supposidly to get more horsepower)

During the time the heads were being milled, Brandon accidently dropped a head bolt and a nut into the engine where they were hung up on a crank shaft. We were screwed!! But I remembered my other friends G/F's old Firebird that was recently totalled in a wreck. I called just to see if the car was still around and sure enough it was. I went up to the shop where it was sitting in the back lot. Two days and $100 later I had a 1988 2.8 Firebird parts car. We weren't screwed after all!!

It took about two weeks, between both of our work scheduals, but we swapped the 2.8 engine and tranny into my Firebird. The project was finally completed... Or was it!?!?

I drove the car around for three days where it ran progressivly worse each day. I was on my way out Tuesday to pick up a friend and the car would not start. I pushed it into my garage and Brandon came over to look at it. After a few hours he determined that only four cylinders were firing and the car was burning coolant. THE EXACT SAME PROBLEM I HAD WITH MY 3.1 WHEN IT DIED........ AHHH CRAPOLA!!

All day yesterday and today we spent the day tearing apart the 2.8 engine until we got down to the block. We drove 30 miles to Sharonville to Dave's machine shop (The guy that milled my 3.1 heads) Dave checked the block for any cracks and said it was perfect to him. We took the block home and began to put my 3.1 milled heads on it.

So now all that is left is to put a few more parts onto the engine and drop it back into the car, hook everything up and give 'er another try. We both took off work tomorrow (Friday) so we are going to give it out best shot!!

I am hoping that this works!! If not, I am going to sell it as a parts car or rolling project car.

WISH ME LUCK!!

 

I wish you the best of luck on the swap, and the same with the new performance heads you've got...hopefully it'll be a strong setup, that'll be reliable enough for your personal taste, good luck ,and keep us posted.