1986 Pontiac Firebird:
From 2.8 To Great.......
I am about to wrap up my year long project of converting my weak 2.8 MPFI V6 powered Firedbird, into the beastly musclecar
that it should be. I have over $5,000 dollars invested in the motor that should turn about 350 horses
at the rear wheels. I started with a 350 out of a 71 Impala. Then I took the Weiand Stealth
4 Barrel Intake, and threw it away (well, not really). Then I found a Tuned Port setup off of
a 86 305 Powered Firebird. I took the intake, sensors, computer and wiring harness off of the turned port,
and started the fun of building a Fuel Injected 355 from scratch.
The Machine Shop
After I stripped my 25 year old block down, I took it to the machine shop to be prepped for my rebuild.
Overall, the cylinders didn't look too bad, but number 6 barely cleared the 0.030 overbore that I wanted,
and was almost sleaved. So after they bored the block, I had them align bore it,
grind the crank, recondition the rods and press on the new dished pistons, and finally they did a complete
engine balance. Now it is time to start assembling.
Assembly
I got the motor together with only a few setbacks. I installed a 270 Crane Compucam, and that was linked to the stock crank
with an Edelbrock True Roller Timing Chain. Then I sat on the 64cc Trick Flow Heads with 1.6 Ratio Roller Rockers. The engine was then ready to paint black and then istall
the dress up stuff. After taht was install, I put on the intake minus the runners and it's ready to set in.
