1991 BMW 850i

Read all about how I got my hands on this car HERE

High Quality photos HERE

1994 Pontiac Firebird

I had my Corrado built for me to specifications with the intentions of racing it.  Unfortunately, I never actually got the race the Corrado before it was sold.

I did, however, get to race my friend’s 2002 Pontiac Trans Am WS6 Ram Air, which was a hoot.

In fact, this car guaranteed a smile every time you got out of it.  It was so much fun, I had to get one for myself.

So, I purchased my co-driver’s old 1994 Firebird Formula.  He had sold it to his cousin’s husband’s brother, Rusty, in North Carolina.  I brought it back home.

This car is 1 out of 8 ever produced – Formula V8, no sunroof, no t-tops, no AC, crank windows, manual locks – power nothing, no options.  A factory curb weight of roughly 3,350 lbs.  I quickly proceeded to molest this rare, light car.

We’ll see how much weight I took out once it gets corner balanced, but it was quite a bit.  I also purchased some real wheels and tires.

17″ x 11″ ZR-1 wheels with 315/35/17 Nitto NT01 tires.  My 3 year old son for scale comparison.

Of course, to fit all that rubber, we needed to make some room in the wheel wells.

Nothing a grinder and a big fucking hammer couldn’t take care of.  Also added new spacers and custom wheel studs – these were a whore to put in but they’re super high quality from Blaine Fabrication.  Shout out to Alan Blaine – very nice guy to work with, wonderful experience.  Unlike Strano, who wouldn’t return my calls.

The car came equipped with tubular rear control arms, an adjustable panhard bar, and subframe connectors.

The motor was also very well sorted.  A lot of people like to shit on the LT1, but this motor has been nothing but powerful and reliable.  The optispark was relocated and converted to a vented system to deal with those notorious issues.  It currently has a Comp cam 224/230 with a .530 lift, 1.6 aluminum rocker arms, new pushrods, new lifters, and an electric water pump.  Minor headwork.  SLP headers, street legal (barely) Random Tech cats and a Flowmaster ‘Murican Thunder cat back – which sounds fucking awesome.  The prior owner had sunk about $6,000 into the car.  Some people have been seeing 500 whp from these motors.

I’ve also eliminated skipshift.  Yay.

I did go out and order a shitload of new parts for the car as well.

She handled alright, quite a bit of body roll – we’re hoping to control the body motions a bit more – there’s definitely plenty of grip with all that rubber.

The passengers certainly look frightened by this beast.

All this abuse is adding up – so for good measure we replaced the diff and transmission fluids, along with a front 2002 WS6 sway bar, new bushings, and new endlinks front and rear.  I also have four new 1LE (rare factory sport) package bushings for the front control arms.

The Konis also finally arrived, fully assembled.  Double adjustable.  Bonertime.

Considering upgrading to C5 brakes – Kore3 makes a wicked (and cheap) conversion package.

In celebration of 9/11 (2012), I got the bird corner balanced and aligned (and lowered about a half inch).  It came in at a tick over 3,100 lbs which ain’t bad for a big bad beast such as it is.  We maxed the caster out to about 6, which is definitely making for some interesting vehicle dynamics.  The biggest issue was the inability to get as much camber as I would have liked.  We’re stuck at 0.6 degrees and in order to get more we need to grind a fragile component, or upgrade to some different upper and lower front control arms (such as the Global West stuff) – of course, with tires this big camber isn’t quite as important, but it’s always nice.  I’m positive I could get more camber if I lowered it further – this will be considered.

For the end of the year, I treated the car to a little trip to Ricky Bobby, the Bald Turbo Freak.  He gave the car a once over and replaced the rear differential (positrac) with a superior TorSen limited slip, and replaced the steering column wtih a brand new one where the wiper stalk won’t snap off in your hand (as mine had).