Car Type

• SVA Test
• Current Modifications
  • LED Tubes
  • Diagnostig & Tuning Tools
• Future Modifications
  • Cosmetics
  • Performance ModificatioNS
• Things I already have for this Trans-Am
  • AutoTap diagnogstic software
  • HP Tuners tuning software
  • Corsa Cat-Back Exhaust System
  • LSX Intake Manifold and fuel rails
  • Trans-Am Decals
• Photos taken in 2002 on Portsdown Hill
• Photos / Videos of Burnouts
• Photos taken at various car shows
• Hi-Res Photos from Portsdown Hill taken by Tim Smith

What would you buy? Neons? Cheap or Quality LED Lighting?

There are a few forms of under car lighting. I have opinions on all, at the end of the day its only an opinion and may not be the right lighting for you.

Since July 2002 a prototype of LED tube lighting from www.led-tubes.com has been fitted to the car. The LED's are like 12mm apart and encased in a 2mm thick polycarbonate tube, many high grade LED's all in one area produce an extreme amount of light, I have seen other LED tube lights with 1 LED every 40mm the light barely bounces off the floor, the LED's arn't even that bright, they look like a real waste of money, so be aware when buying LED tubes, make sure you check the distance between LED's and check the specification of the LED's used, they should give a reading in mcd, the ones on www.led-lights.co.uk are over 5000mcd, the budget LED tubes we have seen are nearer to 400mcd. Make sure he tubing is polycarbonate, it is the type used in riot shields, if its good enougth to deflect bullets then its good enougth to deflect stones flicking up. The tubes have some flexability, not alot but if you bend a neon tube a little then that's it, the glass tube smashes (even is it encased in plastic), there is no way of fixing a neon tube. Why are neon tubes called neon tubes? Only the red ones are Neon, Argon gas producing blues. It seems to be a trade name, people talk to me about the tubes on my car, they call them Neon's even when they are LED's.

Fitting the tubes was easy. Drilled a few holes covered the hole with rust preventer and then used the self tapers that come with the tubes to secure them to the car. Beware of cables running down the inside of the car, I found some when drilling in with a mains drill and no jack, so movement under the car was tight, not the ideal situation when you see smoke coming from the end of the drill bit and you find you drilled right through the main wiring loom to the rear of the car. I was meaning to check for cables before I started. Saw some running down the other side, didn't expect them to be running down both sides. The wiring loom seems to be the same running down both sides, perhaps its redundancy.
One of the tubes that I wanted to fit at the rear was a little too long, so out come a hacksaw and cut it to suit, resealed the end of the tube and put the end cap on. Thats a good thing about these tubes, they can be cut to length, the end caps give you 360 degree rotation. The end caps also look great, although under the car people wont see but you know they are good quality. Will get some in the engine bay eventually.
Back to top

A great thing about the LS1 engines is the tuning side of it is all done in the ECU. You really need to be geared up with a laptop and some great software to achive this. I purchased AutoTap Auto Tap/ got the enhanced version for the LS1 engine Auto Tap's EFI Live software. Its great for data looging and reporting error codes, many things you can check for manual or automatic cars. This told me about a vaccum leak not in so many words but did point me towards the problem so it could be fixed. Done some looging when going down Thorney Island drag strip, video of the car from a spectators view, can be seen here.

12mb AVI / MPEG Up against a Nissan Skyline V6 Twin turbo with NOS, well not sure if he used NOS down the strip, but he done the Fast and Furious NOS purge before the race.

Great to have a bit of American muscle throbing with power at low RPM. Next time will try to change into 4th gear, was in 3rd at 101mph, well was at 100 about 50 meters before the end. The silly thing is I set the rev limit to 6000rpm, this means its starts taking out cylinders about 5500 rpm. 6000rpm in 3rd = 100mph. The rev limit was set by another piece of software I have by HP Tuners, available at hptuners this enables you to change stuff in your ECU. First thing to go was the speed limiter. Next was the CAGS (Computer Aided Gear Selection) its a reall pain in the butt, happiliy pulling away on a roundabout in 1st gear between 15mph and 20mph, time to change gear, but think again, is only locks you out of 2nd 3rd and 4th, duh!, whats the use? apparently meant for fuel economy, but not so good when car is coming towards to and your coasting to a stand till. I used to end up in 5th gear, it was the only one I could get into. Considering 5th gear takes you over 160mph, its not really geared up for accleration at 15mph.
Back to top

Cosmetical Modifications

One thing I like the look off isn't a performance modification but a bit of dressing up, provided by Wingswest in the states I could have the car looking like this....

Wings West Trans-Am on their website.

I need to get the front bumper of the car resprayed not because of scratches but its starting to not match the right front wing, the other side is fine, it could be the sun fading one part faster than the other, although both are plastic it could be different types of plastic. Most of the car is plastic / fibre glass apart from the rear quarters being metal.

Performance Modifications
I beleive Thunder Racing http://www.thunderracing.com have everything you could ever need for modifying a Firebird Trans-Am and many other cars. Such an easy and informative website to use, you selet the car you have and it only shows parts that will fit that car. There are many other sites that do parts for these cars, I always go back to Thunder Racing.

Back to top

Looking for some bolt on horse power, after loking at what some people had to say in www.ls1tech.com the F.A.S.T. Intake manifold looked the business, fine bit of craftsmanship, wouldn't lok complete with the stock fuel rails so I invested in some F.A.S.T Fuel Rails which can deliver plenty of fuel for my needs, think I read some where in the region of 2000hp.

Photos of the F.A.S.T LSX Intake manifold before installation. Fitted the fuel rails. The braided hose and pressuer guage is from Speed Flow very helpful company, they visualise what you require and send you all the bits you need. I'm all new to these pipe fittings, I got everything I needed to do the job.

Below is the standard LS1 intake manifold coming out. Need to take care taking it out as some pipes at wrapped round the oil pressure sensor, this can easily snap, we managed to take the old manifold off okay without knocking the sensor.
Once the old one clear need to change the bolts that hold in the knock sensors to lower profile ones, these come in the kit and need to be used as the new intake is deeper and will fowl on the old bolt causing damage. While changing these bolts i knocked the oil pressure sensor, breaking it off, whoops, this car wont be going this weekend. Going to order a new part on Monday, hopefully will come next day.

New FAST LSX intake manifold on the left, stock ont he right. Need to swap over the throttle body, and move the gaskets from one to the other, they are reusable. not reusing the fuel rails as I have some nice anodised ones to be fitted.

LSX Manifold going in. to help with the install got rid of the AIR and EGR, will modify this with the HPTuners software.

Installation all complete!.

Had a faulty oil pressure sensor, so all came off again and changed the sensor. Off and on again in about 1 hour. Ready for the Can-Am 2005 Show the next day.