As most of you know, I've gone through all sorts of joys on this little project, but it's now done (at least for the moment), and I am rejoicing!!! I got to take it for a spin, stood on it pretty hard, and I think I'm gonna like my new toys! It's not all done yet, but soon...

The day went fairly well. Woke up early this morning and couldn't fall back to sleep, so I took off for the garage. As I got to thinking about it, I needed to get the intake on the car and let the RTV dry for most of the day before starting the car. That went ok, but man those bolts are hard to get to to tighten. The 2 driver's side middle bolts were a true pain. But, I got it on, the RTV looks good, and it sat all day.

Came home about 5:30, and started working again around 6. Managed to get all the electrical and vacuum hooked up in about 20 minutes EXCEPT for 1 wire. Could not find a place for it for anything... :( So, I got down and installed the last few bolts for the y-pipe. TOO SHORT! Argh... Called Lee and asked him to pick me up a couple (THANX), and waited. Nathan showed up a couple of minutes later, and I put the jack under his car to find my missing wire. Found it... And no wonder I couldn't on my car. I had forgotten to pull the coolant temp sender from my old heads and transplant it to the new ones. Oops... 2 minutes later, all the electrical connections were in place!

Lee shows up with the bolts, so I get down and install them. When I got them tight, I knew I wasn't going to be happy with the seal they made. I think I'll be finding an exhaust shop later this week to do some work for me...

Finally, some other folks installed the intake duct for me, and I started my anal ritual of checking for anything that could be wrong. Everything looks pretty good, so I disconnected the coil wire and spun her over. Sounded decent. With shaking hands, I reconnect the coil wire. Hop back in the car and spin her over. She catches! Varooooooom!!!! Immediately I noticed the sound of loose exhaust (thus the need for the exhaust shop work), and what appeared to be loose rockers. Hmm... Revved it up to about 2K for a few seconds to help seat the cam, definitely hear loose rockers. CRAP!

Shut it down and start tearing into the valve cover. Spent 30 minutes readjusting the rockers. Didn't find any that seemed too loose or tight. I was talked into restarting the car with the valve cover off to listen. This was a good idea. Everything in the valve train sounded great! Ok, button it back up...

Once done, started it back up again to get it to operating temp to fill the coolant and bleed the air. Smoke starts bellowing off the headers. YUCK! Man, they REALLY stink! I mean REALLY! The only problem so far with burning anything was one of the air bag lines. It was wedged between the #1 header tube and the heat shield. We solved that one, and all was well...

Finally, started it up again, and it sounded good, so we let it get up to operating temp to bleed the coolant lines. Other than the exhaust leaks, the cam/y-pipe/SLP exhaust sounds AWESOME! Inside the car it sounds kinda bad because the vibration makes some nasty harmonics. But outside the car, ohhhhh mama! It's great! :)

After letting it run about 10 minutes, I decided it's time to see what it can do. Drop it down, roll it out, and hop in. Pulled out onto my favorite test road (literally right outside my apartment! :), and took one easy run around the feeder loop. Everything seems good. Ok, step on it! About 3K rpms and above, this thing starts pulling like crazy! I think I hit the rev limiter almost everytime I ran it up. At 5K rpms, where the stock setup starts to lose power, this thing literally is just waking up! Wow!

But, as much as I was wowed, I still think there is more tuning I need to do. I made several runs, raced 2 somewhat modded Firebirds (Lee and Carl), and pulled them both by several car lengths (I couldn't count how many as I was watching the tach climb! :). 3rd gear pulls like crazy now! It's not a Vortech kind of brutish power rush, but a very smooth power curve.

After my first run, I installed my HPP+ to remove the rev limiter and setup my MSD to provide the rev limit (6400). When I went back out, I could tell I had made an excellent choice! At 6K, it is STILL PULLING! Wow! I really can't wait to get on a dyno and see what it says. I expect that I will see a power peak close to 6K. I didn't do a lot of slow speed testing, but I can say that I'll have to work the clutch a little more at slow speeds. The car felt like it would pull in 6th at 70mph. I'll know more once I've driven the car some.

One thing. I'm gonna need a new clutch soon. On my second race, when I stomped it, I though my rear tires were spinning. WRONG! Clutch was going up in smoke (again). Damn... Still picked up at least a car length in first though! :) Now I have to decide whether to jump into the MTI clutch GP, or hold off for the rather trick SLP aftermarket clutch/ flywheel...

Idle... Well, it does. And rather nicely! :) Once I get the exhaust leaks resolved, I'm gonna love it! A slight lope, but nothing I can't live with. I actually had at least one passenger comment on how quiet he thought the setup was, while accelerating. Just at low engine speeds I'm getting rattles from the y-pipe.

This car is BEGGING for a setup of 4.10's. Not sure what I'm gonna do about that, but I need to do SOMETHING! Given this car's ability to snap my neck now, it should really leap off the line with the gears. Traction still doesn't appear to be too much of a problem (speed shifting through 3 gears with very minimal tire spin, if at all, as noted by the clutch lighting up rather than the tires! :( ).

So far, I'm very happy with the results. I think I need to hook up the Diacom tomorrow night and see what it tells me. I plan to let the car sit tomorrow and retighten all the exhaust bolts I can get on. Also want to check for any leaks. I was really careful with the intake this morning to get a good RTV bead, so hopefully that won't cause any problems. I'm leary about the front seal, and the water pump too. So, I'll check that all out tomorrow. Plan to change the oil too...

I need a new PCM program. Not sure if I'll do Z-industries or a HPP custom yet. Hmm....

Ok, my fingers hurt, and I'm tired. Any questions, just ask! Right now, I'm really physically and emotionally exhausted from this experience. It was a lot of fun, and I'm glad I did it, but it was a lot of work and frustration too. If anyone is contemplating this themselves and has any questions, feel free to fire away! :)

PS: Thanx again to everyone who chipped in to help. Even if it was nothing more than simply handing me a wrench or a towel, it really helps! Hopefully everyone learned a little about these cars by watching and listening to what we did. That's what it's all about, right? :)_