Harry's Trans Am WS6

  • Thread starter Harry6784
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Koni shocks arrived! Look great can't wait to put them on. Springs still on the way, they got delayed due to the crazy weather on the East coast.

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Also the lift my dad and I are building is almost finished. Just need to fill it up with hydraulic fluid and wire power to it then it's good to go. No more time wasted with floor jacks :D

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It's our old piece of crap minivan :lol:

Trying to sell it and I'm in charge of cleaning it up and getting rid of all the error codes. Just replaced the EGR valve in that pic.
 
A lift? In your own garage?!? I'm more jealous of that than any car I've seen on GTP.

And oh yeah, those shocks are nice too.
 
Stage 1: Complete! Lift is operational and AWESOME. Many future projects will be completed here :D

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Did as much as I could today. Rented a spring compressor from O'Reilly, took the wheels off and PB blasted all the bolts to let them soak overnight. Tomorrow I hope to have shocks and springs in.

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Awesome! Much, much jelly.

Looking forward to seeing what's next, now with a lift.
 
Wow your very own lift at home. That is just too awesome. I think you are actually the first member in here that has a lift in their garage. :sly: :cheers:
 
So rears are done, working on fronts. After taking off front assembly found that my strut mounts were all rusted and shot. So I'll be ordering new ones along with some new bushings. Also tempted to pull the trigger on some tubular sway bars since they're already taken apart... but I have no money :lol:

Cano
:0 that's kinda another level there. You could charge to use that thing :lol:
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My friends have been bugging me to let them use it, maybe this is a business opportunity :lol:
 
Finally got it on the road today. Project isn't 100% complete though, still waiting on a few more parts for the rear end and finally to get an alignment but all the major stuff is done, and I couldn't resist taking it for a spin :D

Here's a recap:

Old rear springs/shocks compared to the new ones

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Fronts finally removed

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Also got new strut mounts

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Front gets dropped a lot...

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And shoes on ready to go :D

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I didn't push it too hard since the suspension is way out of alignment without the adjustable panhard bar, but even so it feels awesome. Much more stable and predictable. Went around some bumpy tight corners where before it would jump and skip and now it just hugs the road and GRIPS. Can't wait to get the rest of my parts and really push it :D


Anyway this is how she sits now

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motortrend
That will probably get lower in a week or two of daily driving
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Thanks, you just gave me an excuse to drive it more :lol:

Last set of parts finally shipped, should be here by Thursday so car should be ready to rip come this weekend, I'll find some nice roads and maybe upload a video...
 
So just got the LCA relocation brackets in as well as my Poly/Rod Adjustable LCA's and my Rod/Rod Panhard. Greased everything up, centered the rear and hit some roads. Straight away I noticed that my wheel-hop is GONE. No longer is my car trying to shake itself apart when leaving hard from a dead stop. The rear also grips a lot more mid-corner and is more stable and predictable on corner exit. It's amazing how much GM left on the table when they released these cars, it's a completely different animal than the one that I had in my garage a month ago
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As for alignment settings I think I'll go with -1.25 Camber/Max Castor and no Toe for a street car/occasional autocrosser. Obligatory pics:

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May dig out my GoPro and go find some nice roads here soon ;)
 
This looks like it must be a blast to drive.

Harry6784
I didn't push it too hard since the suspension is way out of alignment without the adjustable panhard bar, but even so it feels awesome. Much more stable and predictable. Went around some bumpy tight corners where before it would jump and skip and now it just hugs the road and GRIPS. Can't wait to get the rest of my parts and really push it :D
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Words of warning, don't push too hard!

I recently got new shocks, and know the feeling but you never know what can be a fine road surface one second and a corner full of sand the next. Problems like that will come up faster now in a faster car.
 
carracerptp
This looks like it must be a blast to drive.



Words of warning, don't push too hard!

I recently got new shocks, and know the feeling but you never know what can be a fine road surface one second and a corner full of sand the next. Problems like that will come up faster now in a faster car.
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Yea it's a totally different car, I'm still getting used to it. But I only 'really push it' on familiar roads that I know. Just tonight I came home from work, and at this time there's no one on the road, even less on the backroads I usually take. First time I pushed it to my driving limits that I felt comfortable, and not a hint of understeer. Corners flat and just grips.

And best part is most of the stuff I installed is fully adjustable, so now it's time to dial it in to my driving style :D
 
Family reunion :D

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Every day on my way to school I see this beautiful 3rd gen parked outside O'Reilly's, decided to finally pull in and try to talk to the owner. Turns out it's quite a beast, iron block 6.0L LQ9 WITH a turbo making God knows how much power, C6 brake upgrade and fully built suspension. Probably more but that's all I gathered in the 5 min we talked, he works there and wasn't on break :lol:
 
Harry6784
Every day on my way to school I see this beautiful 3rd gen parked outside O'Reilly's, decided to finally pull in and try to talk to the owner. Turns out it's quite a beast, iron block 6.0L LQ9 WITH a turbo making God knows how much power, C6 brake upgrade and fully built suspension. Probably more but that's all I gathered in the 5 min we talked, he works there and wasn't on break :lol:
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Small world. I recognize that car and guy from another forum that I visit.
 
Weather looks good this coming week so decided to give her a professional detailing.

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Tried to work the compound by hand, and there was no way, I ran out of elbow grease before I was halfway done with the hood. So I got the DA Power System tool, and it worked great. Borrowed my Dad's Makita and used one battery while the other charged. Still pretty exhausting but this stuff actually works. Got rid of the majority of scratches with the Ultimate Compound. Then I used Ultimate Polish to remove fine swirls and add some color and gloss. Then went around one final time with the wax. I'm sure I got over 10 hours of time in this but it turned out amazing:

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Now there are some scratches I couldn't remove, but you gotta look real close and have the sun hitting it just right, but overall I'm very pleased. Great mod for anyone if you have $100 in your pocket and a weekend with nothing to do 👍
 
Odometer just rolled over to 80k, feel like my car is going through a mid-life crisis so I spend the whole day doing some PM's:

- Fresh Oil + Oil filter
- Cleaned MAF and TB
- New serpentine belt
- New fuel filter
- Seafoam
- Checked air in all my tires
- Stiffened up my front shocks

And also checked all the bolts from my recent suspension upgrades and used loctite on the ones that were loose.
 
Crash
Farm background picture looking good. 👍
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Thanks, it was taken over near Snohomish, there are some great roads there too. And I guess the roads are pretty popular for weekend cruisers, while on that drive where I snapped some pics I saw 4 C7 Corvettes, 2 C6's some Evos, a super clean '87 Grand National and God knows how many bikers.
 
Car sure has come a long way. Stunning now from any angle and you nailed the stance. When it comes to the detailing, the clay honestly is not even worth the time or effort. As you found out. Best to just jump to the compound, then polish, and wax. Looks stunning. Still one of my all time favorite cars. I really like everything you have done to this car. Especially removing the blacked out rear tail lights. 👍
 
Finally got around to getting an alignment after installing all my suspension goodies. Last time I took it to Les Schwab but this time I took it to a dedicated shop that just does brake and alignment work. Twice the price but love how sharp the steering is now, not to mention it tracks dead straight...

Spec sheet they gave me:

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-1.25 camber was recommended by Sam Strano for an 'aggressively' driven street car/occasional autocrosser. Cosmetically it's just barley noticeable... Performance-wise however, this car just wants to turn. Very satisfied :D

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CAMAROBOY69
Car sure has come a long way. Stunning now from any angle and you nailed the stance. When it comes to the detailing, the clay honestly is not even worth the time or effort. As you found out. Best to just jump to the compound, then polish, and wax. Looks stunning. Still one of my all time favorite cars. I really like everything you have done to this car. Especially removing the blacked out rear tail lights. 👍
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Meh, if your car sits in the garage it may make sense to skip the clay, but for me this is my DD and I went through 2 bars. Both were filthy by the time I was done and there was a definite difference in feel before/after. Also I read that the ultimate compound is VERY hard to work with if your car isn't clayed properly.

Ya got tired of the black tail light look :D
 
I'm kind of curious why you had the front toe zeroed out, wouldn't that make the car feel a little nervous on the highway/ at speed? I do love the stance of the new setup too, it doesn't have that stock 4x4 look to it anymore. 👍
 
I use the same liquid cut and polish on my commissions, a great product indeed.

Car is looking awesome. :)
 
savage388
I'm kind of curious why you had the front toe zeroed out, wouldn't that make the car feel a little nervous on the highway/ at speed? I do love the stance of the new setup too, it doesn't have that stock 4x4 look to it anymore. 👍
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On real bad rutted highways, my car does tram line but that's mostly due to the 275's up front. 0 toe is a good compromise. Some guys run 1/16 toe out and while that gets you better turn in it makes it more unstable at high speed. But on nice highways I can comfortably go upwards of 100 (Theoretically of course :sly:) and it feels perfectly solid and stable.

SVX
I use the same liquid cut and polish on my commissions, a great product indeed.

Car is looking awesome. :)
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Good stuff, but they gotta put a warning label on the bottle about how much elbow grease is required. After washing, claying, cutting, polishing and waxing, even with a DA, I could barley move :lol:
 
Nice ride, I'm liking what you've done with it so far. You might want to consider getting those LCA relocation brackets welded in, the bolt in ones have a tendency to egg out the bolt holes over time.
 

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