Breaking Wind LSR Firebird

[Revolutionary1]

Over the last several years I have brought my 96 Firebird to Bonneville and Maxton (have not been to Wilmington yet) to see what I could do. It ran over 190 at Maxton and 195 on the salt with a small block LT1 and little nitrous, but that just was not good enough. I decided that I would make big leap and drop in a twin turbo big block and see if I could hit 300 at Speedweek 2015.

I ended up buying the 555 BBC and turbos that I built for Shannon Carnathan's 73 Nova we drove on Drag Week a couple years ago, and brought the car to Coffey Fabrication in Nashville, TN to have my friend Chris Coffey completely rebuild the chassis to handle the new setup. Coffey, btw, holds an SCTA record of 219mph in the little S10 he worked with Dave Kixmiller and Kris Henderson to build.

Below are some of the build pics to date, starting with how the car looked at Bonneville 2010.

[Revolutionary1]

Torn down for rebuild

Erin Carpenter (driver and tuner) and Chris Coffey (fabricator)

555 with shiny new Jeff Johnson oil pan

twin 88mm Comp Turbos

[Revolutionary1]

Howe road racing front frame, steel plate firewall, engine in the right location

Ultrashield seat and double main hoop rollcage

3 speed Lenco with air pod shifters

Winters Extremeliner rear end

[Revolutionary1]

By the way, I believe the photobucket album for this build is public so you can click on a pic and look at a bunch more pics.

[Revolutionary1]

Mocking up the rear tire and wheel

Checking the profile

Mocking up the front clip

We're gonna need a scoop

[JOES66FURY]

The tile cracked me up simple because of what is going on in my office right now.

That is on hell of a redo! cant wait to hear what it runs!

[DanStokes]

See you in Impound!

Dan

[Russell]

Thanks for sharing your build! What class do you plan to run? Is this same car that came to Maxton with a N2O v6?

[Revolutionary1]

Russell - yes that is the one. I bought the car for a grand with a questionable 3.8 v6 so I put a single fogger on it to see what it would do. It had rained all day Saturday I believe and I got one pass on Sunday. I started spraying about 1/8 mile and by 3/4 mile it nosed over and was losing power. I never figured out if it was a head gasket or what but all the coolant went in the engine. That is when I put in a 383 LT1.

The LT1 was actually a really good engine and put down over 600rwhp through a little TH350. In typical fashion, it ran great on the dyno, but when I brought it to Boneville, it showed an ignition problem and was shooting ducks all week. coupled with a mystery cooling problem (turned out to be a bad radiator cap), I could never get over 195 spitting and popping and spiking 250 degrees. Really depressing. I tore down the engine and it looked perfect, but that is when I decided to sell it and go turbo.

With this build, I plan to run AA/BFALT (290 - Mike Cook), AA/BGALT(240 - Gary Hart), AA/BFCC (249 - Keith "diet coke" Turk), AA/BGCC (246 - Dave Freiburger). I don't know if Mike realized that I was going for one of his records, but he is the one who just built my rear wheels and has been helpful with advice.

[Revolutionary1]

A little progress

[Revolutionary1]

Finally have a roller now. We cut off the T-top roof and put on a hard top a few months ago, then got back trying to make it a roller. We managed to get that accomplished and now working on mounting the body and lexan...

[Revolutionary1]

lots of customs bits. Coleman Racing uprights (14 degrees KPI) Viking coilovers, etc

[Revolutionary1]

Sits pretty now

[Revolutionary1]

Lexan window kit from Shields - very nice...

[DanStokes]

Starting to look a lot like a race car. Mike will be the first guy to shake your hand when you bump his record - we just rent 'em for a while and no one owns one. My buddy David's Avanti (the old Burke Brothers car) still holds a record that Mike set in it (BBC) and he asked us if we're FINALLY going to put that one to sleep. The answer is "not right away." But he's eager to see what we can do with his old record so I know he's perfectly happy for you to bump the one you're looking at (maybe it's the same record - I forget the class the Avanti was running). Either way, Rock On!

Dan