Firebird gets a Heart Transplant (again)

"matthewklein220" (matthewklein220) 04/14/2014 at 23:23 • Filed to: Pontiac, Firebird, engine swap

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So... Remember that racecar engine from !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! ? Well... One track day at Thunderhill and the engine began suffering a slow death as cylinders 7 and 8 filled with oil. By the time we pulled the engine out, 6 weeks ago, it had gone from a 462 V8 to a 347 V6! My father and I had run out of spare engines, so we put together a new 462! (A less racecar, more street-friendly one)

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Since we were building a new engine from the ground-up, we figured it would be best to put all the parts we'd been wishing to put into the other engines. First up was a deep-sump baffled oil pan, made from a stock pan cut and welded resulting in a 7/8" depth increase, which increased oil capacity by a little over a quart! The homemade baffle should also lessen, if not eliminate, oil starvation issues that reared their ugly heads at Thunderhill.

The goodies don't stop there though! The stock crank has a set of Crower forged connecting rods attached to !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . We estimate the rotating assembly is good to ~500-550 hp and at least 6,500 rpms. The heads of the now-deceased 462were cleaned up and reused for this engine. The Holy Poncho Father, Jim Butler himself, told us which cam we should place in the engine to get the best all-round performance out of it. The exact specs elude me at the moment, but the cam is slightly smaller than the race-engine cam. The dished piston-large combustion chamber -smaller cam combo gives a cheap-gas-friendly compression ratio of 9.2:1. The pumps and accessories were all pulled off the old engine, giving the new engine a very similar outer appearance to the one that preceded it, but internally the engines are quite different.

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All my complaints about the previous engine are nonexistent with this one, this engine is AMAZING. And since it's not super overdue for a rebuild or meant to only run a quarter mile at a time, it should have long happy life under the hood of the 'Bird. Which is good, because six weeks with no car is something I wouldn't wish on my worst enemies!

BiTurbo228 - Dr Frankenstein of Spitfires > matthewklein220 04/15/2014 at 05:56

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Kickass :) I've had a go at home-made baffling as well. I went with weld-in steel sheet, with a windage tray and a vertical baffle laterally across the base of the pan.

In case you were wondering, the welts knocked into the shallow end of the pan are to clear the longer throw crank of the Triumph 2.5l using a GT6 2.0l sump (needed to clear the Spitfire chassis).

Takuro Spirit > matthewklein220 04/15/2014 at 07:53

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I need these. Please. I only have two on my T/A right now and it's killing me. KILLING ME.

matthewklein220 > BiTurbo228 - Dr Frankenstein of Spitfires 04/15/2014 at 14:26

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Mine is just a metal sheet, but with a doorhinge in it so the little oil that makes it through can come back through into the pickup area.

matthewklein220 > Takuro Spirit 04/15/2014 at 14:28

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They look really good on almost any car, but are a royal pain to clean and find performance tires for. It seems all tire companies have a hatred for 16" wheels.

BiTurbo228 - Dr Frankenstein of Spitfires > matthewklein220 04/15/2014 at 16:04

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Those gated baffles are rather clever. I thought about putting one into mine, but decided against the added complexity.

They are probably the ideal solution though :)

Takuro Spirit > matthewklein220 04/15/2014 at 16:22

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Yeah I lucked out and found two black ones on eBay, around the same time a local guy had a set of gold ones WITH tires (bald though) for cheap.

I wanted black though, and thought two more would be easy to find. Maybe. Then I got them and found paint chips in the black... revealing the gold underneath. Shit. Oh well, I can touch them up, they're still in really nice shape.

But I gotta find two more still....

matthewklein220 > BiTurbo228 - Dr Frankenstein of Spitfires 04/15/2014 at 16:53

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I thought the same until I sat down and thought it out. The pressure from the oil holds the door closed through the corner, and then pushes it open when the oil level is higher outside the pickup area than inside of it. As for the design itself, all ti took was cutting a hole in the baffle and attaching the hinge!

matthewklein220 > Takuro Spirit 04/15/2014 at 16:54

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You'll have to compete with all the Grand National guys who want them! (These were originally bought for my dad's GN)

BiTurbo228 - Dr Frankenstein of Spitfires > matthewklein220 04/15/2014 at 17:57

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My concern was that if it came apart I'd have a big chunk of metal rattling around the bottom end.

Probably highly unlikely to happen, but it also saved me going out and buying a hinge :)

matthewklein220 > BiTurbo228 - Dr Frankenstein of Spitfires 04/15/2014 at 21:02

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True... I WASTED $2!!!