1992 Firebird Daily Drive/Project

[bluebird92]

Hello all,

My name is Lars, I am from Corpus Christi, Texas, and I recently purchased my Pontiac Firebird.

I am new to gm v6's (last car was a 1.8L SOHC Plymouth Laser) For this car, I want to make this as quick as possible while maintaining some sort of streetability, lol.

Also, I apologize for the double post in the garage, I created one profile for my car, and it said an error occured, yet that first thread still appeared...

[bob442]

So lars as in Lars from futurama? lol
Welcome anyways, there are a TON of options for your car from ditching the top end and building a hybrid to using a FWD block from a 2005 malibu, and well... even more!
When you decide to put the car up on blocks, or start searchings for parts just start listing your goals like budget, your willing skills and power gains and we will all do our best to shoot you in the right direction.
BTW your bird is really clean or its just been repainted!

[Superdave]

Welcome!


Yes.. the sky is the limit with the 60v6.. Or the thickness of your wallet. haha

[bluebird92]

Lol yes, or Lars from Metallica, I'll take either one.
I want to make as much N/A Hp/Tq as possible from my 3.1, which will hopefully include a hybrid build. Seeing as I am a broke college student, my budget will be whenever I can get the money, lol. I am definitely looking forward to building this car up.

Yes, the person I bought it from just repainted it, and there are a bunch of little things that are wrong with it, but over time, those will be fixed.

[bob442]

Well, if that's your case, take the advise that I didn't take and build a motor on the side as 3400s are much cheaper, and in large abundance

[bluebird92]

I might do that... What cars could I look for to pull the engine out of?

Also, I'm more comfortable with building the heads on the side, and I would swap them out as a weekend project with a couple of people, one who's owned and worked on a v6 blazer before. I've looked through this site and others and found info about 3.1/3100 and 3.4/3400 hybrids. Which heads would be the best for my car?

[bob442]

i got got about iron head to aluminum head, if you wanted to do a top swap you will have to change your pistons or get really impractivaly thick head gaskets, because your valve will come in contact with the pistons and/or your compression will be over 12:1.

a motor to look for would be a 3400 from a 2000+ GM car. if you have to pull it at a yard a W body is easiest to work on. and they have a nice engine harness to grab and modify if you ever decided to run OBD11.

then if your worried about A/C, i'm sure you could get something made up easy from 2 sets of line (old and new) and crimped together at a hydrolic shop as the A/C mounts will be different,

[bluebird92]

Hmmm... decisions decisions, lol.

So basically lower compression pistons in addition to the head swap, and then I'm assuming for the engine swap, I would have to change the wiring? Or no?

Thanks for all the info, I'll definitely look a whole lot more into it when the time comes. I know until I get the money, it's all talk, lol. First, I need to make it reliable because the previous owner was an electrical "genius" and I'm finding that out every time I revive it.

[bob442]

hopefully you should be able to swap in a different harness to make the 3400 run easly. hopefully someone that has done this **cough cough Dave** can point you in the right direction when you get to the swap

[Superdave]

92 Firebird should already have a 1227730 ECM, with a couple changes to the current harness it will have no problems running Gen 3 stuff.

You'll need a custom chip or the ability to tune it to get the most out of the setup though.


I'd get a 3.4 from a 4th gen Fbody, swap the top end for all 3500 stuff and add in a little bit of a cam (the 260 grind from Delta is pretty common and very cheap). You can modify some Fbody headers to work on the aluminum heads as well. Keep the 3.4 pistons, static compression will be in the 11.5:1 range and you'll have a very happy engine.

[bluebird92]

A 3.4 swap sounds like a very good idea. And would I keep my automatic transmission?

[Superdave]

If you want, it'll bolt up just fine.