about 6 months ago i purchased an 86' LB8/auto Firebird from a board member. Car had been repainted in a metallic blue, had Ttops, and now has 142k miles on the clock. Car has an intermittant hesitation, but i think thats a bad MAF. i had big plans to do some tweaking and dragstrip testing to this "beast", but then my GF gave me the news she was pregnant and the project got put on the back burner

now its Sept, and cooler weather is starting to settle in. I havent driven the bird in over 2 months, and decided to wash it, and detail the interior. after doing so, i kinda got the urge to restart the project to see how far i could take this 2.8L bird at the drags

so, looks like i have to detail the engine compartment, then start to make things right with the engine. the plan is to get it running at 100%, do some "stock tweaking" to it, and establish a good baseline in the cool Oct air. I plan on yanking the A/C and replacing the box with a non-A/C unit, tossing the AIR system (but keeping the EGR), doing some tweaking to the base timing, ditching the spare and jack, and pulling the front swaybar. basically, everything i can do to the car without adding anything aftermarket

any idea what it would turn in this type of tune? im hoping itll crack 16s without any "bought" mods

pics to come

 

Trust me on this one. Pulling the front sway bar is going to get you in a heap of trouble. Yes, the car MAY have better weight transfer at the track, but it will be relatively undriveable otherwise. There is a reason it's there.

Base timing is a good start. Other than that, all you can do is to make sure it's got fresh ignition and fuel parts if you want to keep it stock for the moment. Also, inflate the tires to the max to decrease rolling resistance, and manual shift the trans at around 4k.. However, it might still be difficult to reach the 16 sec range.

 

while ive never personally done the swaybar delete on an fbody, ive been driving my Z51 suspentioned 96' Corvette without the front bar for over a year now. the car drives perfectly fine. if THAT car is more than livable without one, i would think the Firebird will be too. guess ill find out

i thought it would be tough to crack 16s on a "tweaked stock" V6, but if it can be done, ill find a way. my particular track is known for some record breaking runs (Ranger has set a few of his C5 records here), the weather conditions on the east coast in Oct/Nov are legendary for good E/Ts, and the track prep is simply awesome on Sat test and tunes

as far as track prep, i always pump the front tires to about 40-45 psi, drop the rears to around 18-22 psi, ice the intake manifold, and cool the motor to 130*-140* (coolant temp) between passes

is there anything else i could do to the car besides what i listed above if im hovering on that 17.0-17.1 E/T that doesnt involve replacing things with aftermarket parts? if i really wanted to go all out, i could replace the power steering with a S10 manual box, but im only gonna do that as a last resort. So far ive got:

- TB bypass
- bumped base timing
- complete A/C delete w delete box
- remove AIR
- remove front swaybar
- remove spare and jack