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My '93 FD turbo LS/T56 Rebuild-build-buildthread...Finally Driving!
by
Dvous
on 09 May, 2015 13:02
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The back story:
I'm a 25 26 27 28 year old mechanical engineer. I started with cars with a 1980 Toyota fj40 when I was 13, I put 1500 miles on it before I turned 16 without ever leaving my parents 5 acre property lol. After 4 fj40's, a '95 powerstroke that I built and broke constantly, a multitude of Toyota mini trucks from the 80's (including a 22re turbo truck that was all forged and pushed 18 psi haha) I settled on a 96' Firebird ws6. I learned a TON with that car and ended up spec'ing my own 6.0L stroker for it (6.125" stroke lt1's are few and far between). I parted out the Firebird after attending an open house at limerock, at which time I took a few hot laps in a spec Miata with a bad ass dude wearing pajama pants!...Which made me think: "boy, I wish I worked in pajama pants all day!" and also: "I need need a jap sport car with a v8". My firebird was completely parted inside of 30 days and I had my FD shell on its way from AZ two weeks later. I bought the car here on Norotors from some sack of shit from AZ who "forgot" to mention he sold a bunch of the included parts after making a deal with me. To this day, I still have not seen a more beat down, stripped, cheap, but also rolling FD for sale. I wanted to start with a clean slate, and that's exactly what I got.
Flash forward to 2015: Over the last 4 years I’ve built the car, rebuilt the car, rebuilt the car, rebuilt the car...and so on. Its been running before, complete and ready to drive before, and moving under its own power before. But we all know how these projects go, especially for semi-broke college students. Anyway, two months ago it was sitting in my garage a complete car. It had a stock 5.3l with an ls6 cam, custom 76mm based front mount turbo setup, Holley HP efi, custom roll bar, stage 2 t56, too many stupid little mods to list...everything short of paint, which I was going to do this summer.
A few weeks ago this whole Sikky mount kit thing came around, and at the time it was posted on this forum I already knew my buddy had the first setup ready to go. He works for wiring specialties, however it was his own project car and not directly a wiring specialties project. When he decided to abort the FD build in favor of a 4-door something we talked about the possibility of me buying the whole project but devolved to just taking over the Sikky sponsorship and swap kit. After getting Justin@SIKKY involved we settled on a deal that satisfied all parties and I took possession of the parts. I never started a build thread before because of the ridiculous time table and lack of progress while in school, but part of the agreement is to help display the install of this first kit via build thread...so here we are!
Now that my life story is behind us, I’m not going to focus on my car exactly for the time being. This build thread is more about displaying all the SIKKY parts by themselves so everyone can look closely, ask questions, ask me for more pictures, measurements etc. And also install the entire basic kit plus headers. Once that is all complete I may document the rest of my build, or not...I’m lazy when not under contractual obligation!
Lastly: ANY questions that you may have regarding pricing of the kit, availability of the kit, ETA, etc can and should be referred directly to Justin@Sikky, who responds very quickly with email ( sales@sikky.com ) and is awesome to work with.
ANY questions that you may have regarding the fit and finish, install, specific picture's, clearances, etc please post them right here and don’t PM me. I'm happy to answer any and all PM's, but I’ve gotten a lot of duplicate questions already and would prefer to keep all the Q and A as a public resource.
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#1
by
Dvous
on 09 May, 2015 13:07
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I've had the kit for two weeks, and took a TON of pictures for this build thread before I started putting it together.
The basic Swap kit comes with the following:
- Custom Oil Pan
- Billet motor mounts
- Oil filter relocation setup
- Tranny mount and isolator
- Steel driveshaft (I think they offer an aluminum upgrade too)
- Subframe braces
- Hardware
As of right now the diff. brace is NOT included, because so many people have other rear end solutions and/or already have diff braces. However from what Justin tell's me a discount will be available when purchased with the basic kit...dont quote me, I'm waiting on an invoice for the diff. brace still.
My initial opinion is that this is absolutely top notch stuff!...i've never owned a Samberg kit, but I did have hinson parts...SIKKY Vs. hinson is like Mercedes-Benz Vs. Kia to me right now.
Oil Pan:
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#2
by
Dvous
on 09 May, 2015 13:11
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Motor Mounts:
You can get these with solid mounts also I believe.
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#3
by
Dvous
on 09 May, 2015 13:13
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Transmission Brace and isolator:
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#4
by
Dvous
on 09 May, 2015 13:14
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Subframe braces:
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#5
by
Dvous
on 09 May, 2015 13:16
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Yesterday I received the headers and the oil filter relocation setup from SIKKY.
The oil filter relo. setup is top notch like everything else:
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#6
by
Dvous
on 09 May, 2015 13:20
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I've never seen the competitors headers as i've only been turbo with this project (minus a few minutes of running with cheap hooker mid-tubes). But these SIKKY headers are some of the nicest headers I've seen. Its all CNC mandrel bent, tig welded, real collectors, v-banded...hell, it even comes with the v-band clamps, the flange's for the y-pipe ends, gaskets, and Header bolts!
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#7
by
Dvous
on 09 May, 2015 13:44
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Thats all I've got for parts display shots. When I get the diff. brace I'll get some detailed pictures up of that, I've been all over Justin like a schizophrenic ex-girlfriend on a power trip to get those parts here, shouldn't be much longer...I know he's doing his best.
Anyway, I started putting this biotch together (wasn't a difficult process, I sold the Hinson subframe prior to picking this up so it was in a million pieces already).
To start, you have to drill some holes in the factory subframe for the braces. I thought about this for quite a while before I started. You can put in one bolt on each side, and it lines up into the factory studs as well (at the front mounts points). This means you have 3 alignment points for each side, but I noticed it could still move a bit. So I bolted the mounts on a 6L block i have and put it in the car just to help align the mounts. Once you've done that, you can tighten the subframe to lock down the braces, pull the motor, and drill your rear two holes.
Important: The supplied hardware for the braces comes with 4 equal length bolts, with 4 different length spacers. It's obvious where the go, but only if you noticed first that they are in fact different!
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#8
by
Dvous
on 09 May, 2015 13:46
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And now I tightened the subframe and the first of the mounts bolts, and drilled the rear holes:
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#9
by
Dvous
on 09 May, 2015 13:59
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Next I pulled the subframe back out of the car, removed the braces, painted it and put everything back together.
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#10
by
Dvous
on 09 May, 2015 14:03
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...
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#11
by
Dvous
on 09 May, 2015 14:24
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Yesterday I tossed on the oil filter lines, and also the headers. The headers fit TIGHT to the block, I'm not sure how much tighter they could possibly get.
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#12
by
Ruler_Mark
on 09 May, 2015 14:40
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is the oil pan baffle removable?
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#13
by
Dvous
on 09 May, 2015 14:42
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is the oil pan baffle removable?
I suppose so, if you drilled the rivets in the top it would come out...do you mean for cleaning or on a permanent basis?
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#14
by
Ruler_Mark
on 09 May, 2015 15:35
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is the oil pan baffle removable?
I suppose so, if you drilled the rivets in the top it would come out...do you mean for cleaning or on a permanent basis?
Just curious on the construction.