My car is a 1997 WS6 Convertible model. The WS6 is an additional performance option offered on the V8 Formula and Trans Am cars. The option offers a functional Ram Air hood and upgraded exhaust adding an additional 20 horsepower over the factory LT1 engine setup. The WS6 cars are rated at 305 horsepower and 335 lb/ft of torque. All of the modifications were performed by SLP Engineering (1997 and prior). The WS6 option also offered suspension upgrades as well as larger wheels for the coupes prior to 1998 (1998 and later the suspension upgrade and larger wheels are available on all body styles).
My car is 1 of 120 WS6 TA 6 speed convertibles built in 1997.
It is also the only year that the
WS6 convertible was built with this body style. As some or most of
you know the Firebird slightly changed body styles in 1998 when the new LS1 engine was introduced.
Family. Germany 2000
Christamas 2000
I have since added a Pro 5.0 shifter, FLP longtube headers, LT4KM, 3.73 GM gears, Borla catback, Meziere electric waterpump and converted to OBDI PCM to do my own tuning. The car dyno'd 292.8 RWHP and 328.5 RWTQ in March 2002. My best track time for that setup is 13.35 @ 104.84 MPH with a 2.08 60'. Best MPH is 104.99.
452 rwhp 398 rwtq
It's been a while since my last update but the this one was worth the wait. As noted above I built my car up with AFR 195 LT4 heads, LT4 intake and a CC 306 (Comps Cam). While the car sounded great it didn't run up to my expectations and I wasn't all the happy with the performance considering what I had invested. I took the car to the track one time and ran a best of 12.95 @ 109.97 mph 2.11 60' in almost perfect fall weather, something wasn't right and I figured it to be the combination of heads and cam.
Fast forward to Spring 2003 on a nice cool day in April. A friend of mine GMRULZ (Mike) calls up and invites me to come out and run our cars on a closed runway, yes as in Airport Runway well it was open but no planes were expected so it had to be safe ;) Well how could I refuse an invitation like that? So, off we go on our adventure that would ultimately set forth me into tearing my car down within 24hours for the second time within a year.
We met up at Mike's house and another car arrives not unexpectantly. It is a mean sounding red 96 LT1 Trans Am with a brutal lope to it. Quickshotkimber (James) is the owner and a good friend of mine. This car had recently gone under the knife and was sporting a set of ported heads and a healthy cam. The only difference between his combo and mine is that 1) his heads are stock LT1 heads and 2) you can't find his heads or cam in any catalog on the internet.
James went through two proven racers to set him up with a combo better than you will find on any website. He talked to Eric Bradby of E.B. Porting and Joe Overton of Lethal EFI Performance. Eric has his own stable of cars and customer cars running solid 9's and drag bikes running low 6's and yes we are talking 1/4 mile runs here. Joe himself has a 388 cubic inch LT1 running 9's without the help of any power adder. Joe is at the top of the LT1 mountain and Eric helped him get there.
Now we're out on the taxiway and we drive up and down familiarizing ourselves with the course before we go full throttle. James is low on gas so he heads out to fill up a bit and that leaves me and Mike to make a few passes. My car does well out here on the taxiway and I win all 4 runs with Mike (he has bolt-ons, I have H&C) Mike runs 12.4's with his bolt-ons so he can certainly hold his own with his auto tranny and stall but the taxiway limits his traction which was good for me and now I'm thinking it will effect James the same way, little did I know I was about to get my feelings hurt. :(
James comes back and he and Mike are first to line up. James has H&C (Heads and Cam) with a big stall to Mike's bolt-ons so the outcome is obvious but by how much is the question? The answer is, it was by a wide margin. A margin large enough for me to know before we ran I was about to lose when we lined up ourselves. James and Mike make a couple of more passes and have some fun. They park the cars and we let them cool for a bit as we bs about our runs and who did what during our passes.
Now it's time for James and I to run and I'm ready to go. Mike rides with me and runs the video camera :). We line up, Mike counts 3 and we're off!.......well at least I was.......I stop about 80' out. I was the only car running :) I back up to the line, there's James sitting on the line staring straight ahead.....he hadn't even flinched, lol. Mike asks "Which part of 3 did you not understand?" lmao. So anyhoo Mike counts 3 again and we're off again! Woohoo, I pull about 1/4-1/2 car and I'm rollin' ....I didn't roll to far because all of sudden I'm not walking away, I'm getting pulled! By the time we hit 30mph he stopped me from pulling and he got right beside me.......after that he just walked away! He took me by about 4-4 1/2 cars and was still walking away with ease. My 6 speed couldn't recover and I was out gunned! :( We did a few more passes with about the same results and I knew James had a good runner and a great combinaion under the hood. I was envious, I wished my car ran that good.
We wrapped up our day with some cruising and a dinner at Hooters, lots of fun we had. The biggest surprise was about to come. We all parted ways and headed for home and I tell the Mrs. about James' car and how strong it was, she was impressed. That evening or perhaps the next day I get a phone call from James and he asks me how would I like for Eric to take a look at my heads. OH MAN! Are you kidding? I was like HELL YEAH! Eric had some time to look them over but I had to get them there soon, I had them at Eric's on Tuesday.
Eric pulled one intake and one exhaust valve while I was there and the bowl work left something to be desired for a set of $2400 heads. I wasn't impressed and for sure he wasn't. It was rather obvious to see some faults after Eric educated me about the magic of a good set of heads. Now AFR does advertise the porting is 70-100% complete so they covered their behind on that.
I left my heads with Eric knowing they were in good hands.
During a couple of visits to Eric's house with James while my heads were being worked on Joe Overton was also there and I met him for the first time. I knew of Joe before hand since I also have an LT1 and I knew well what he had accomplished on the track. Joe asked James how his car was running and they talked about the tuning and then James told him about my car and how it ran on the taxiway. Joe took an interest in my car as well and that made my day. After the heads were done and flowed tested which was about 30 cfm higher than what they did before Eric touched them discussions about the cam began. Joe kicked around some numbers and he had a custom grind he wanted to try, though it wasn't tested he thought the cam would work and I was willing to try it.
When the cam was ready, I picked up the heads and the cam had it put back together in a few days and took the car out for a ride. The car ran so smooth I honestly didn't realize it picked up that much power. The engine has a constant pull from down low until I shift so it threw me off a bit. With the CC306 in there I felt a surge of power at about 3k up until I shift but this new cam didn't have that, it was simply pulling across the entire RPM band. James stopped by one day and wanted a ride. I told him I didn't think it would be as fast as his car but would be glad to give him a ride anyway. I took him out and hit the on-ramp to the expressway and dropped the clutch. Now the car pulled hard but I didn't think it was like his car but all he said was "Bullsh!t, it pulls just as hard as my car ....lets line them up" Well we lined them up from about a 40 mph roll and damn if he wasn't right. The cars stayed side by side right up until we let out around 90 mph or so with neither car gaining more than 6 inches at a time. At this time my car was still untuned except for 30# injectors and I was running with the top down.
About a week or so later it was time to put the car on the rollers and dyno tune it. I went to DTP- Dyno Tuned Performance in Chesapeake, VA. We strapped the car down, rigged for wideband to get the Air/Fuel ratio and gave it a run. First pull it put down 402 rwhp (Rear Wheel Horsepower), that's with a base tune and the Borla capped. I flashed in the first tune that Joe Overton had prepared after our initial run but something happened to the dyno after that pull so I had to come back another day before we knew the results.
In between dyno sessions James asked me to go to Richmond Dragway with him and I decided why not, I'll go have some fun. It was in the low 90's that day and humid as usual in Virginia so I didn't expect to put down a great number at all. I ended up running a best that evening of 12.44 @ 114.47 mph with a 1.98 60' which was better than I hoped for! I ran with the Borla capped up and easing out of the hole. I toasted my clutch on my 3rd pass trying to get a good 60' . I parked the car a while to let the clutch cool then came back for more. :) That 12.44 pass I got during a bye run in the eliminations of the Camaro/Firbird Shootout which I happened to win that night, on my 40th Birthday. What a night that was!
In early July 2003 I went back to the dyno to finish the tuning. On the first pull with the Borla still capped she put down 419 rwhp and about 368 rwtq (rwTorque) still running a little rich. I called Joe and he was pretty happy with that number but said there was more in it! I'm thinking WTF?! He says yeah this is what you do...... I open up Tunercat and he walks me through changing some perameters and says now try that. I'm thinking whatever you say you da man! So while the laptop was flashing the PCM it was time to open the Borla. We hit the switch to the electric cutout and we're good to go there. We fire the car up make another pull and now we hit 442 rwhp 388 twtq! I'm thinking No F'ing way!!!!! Brent and Frank note that the A/F is STILL a little rich. Another call to Joe another flash and the car puts down 452 rwhp and 398 rwtq on the final pull, A/F right on, cut-out wide open and tuned over the telephone! ALL MOTOR!!!!! WOW!
Thank You Joe and Eric!!!!
Thank You James for sharing your connection. :)
New Best. 3/14/2004
Went to Richmond Dragway and pulled an 11.96 @ 118 (117.99) mph with a 1.85 60' on a borrowed set of skinny's. Temp was 60 degrees during the run.
After installing a BMR K-member and switching to a 4.10 gear I ran
again at VMP in Dinwiddie, VA. With the ZR1's at all 4 corners 17/275's up front and 17/315 Nitto's on the back I ran 11.97 @ 117.84.
I also ran 12.01 @ 117.83 and a 12.03 @ 117.83 matter of fact all of my runs were 11.9-12.0. 5 in all, 3 of which are in video online. Temps were in upper 70's DA was about +1600.
Here are my runs on Sept 25 (right click the links.... save target as....)
Check back later this season. I plan on getting my own set of skinny's
and running in hopefully some great fall racing weather. Hoping for 11.8's @ 119 and maybe.....just maybe.....120mph. :)
Skinny's are ordered, delivery scheduled on Oct 4, 2004. Woohoo :)
I will still run the 17/315 Nitto's on the backside.
New Best Nov. 5 2004,
Went to VMP for Friday night racing and pulled an 11.790 @ 119.53 with a 1.83 60'. I let James take the car for a trip down the 1/4 and he spun to much in the 60' to beat my ET but he did pull a new best for the car on the big end with 27.55 mph. My best is 26.xx. I ran skinny's up front and 17x11 ZR1's and 315 Nitto drag radials on the rear.
UPDATE NOV 15 2004
I took the car to an EFA event at Maryland International Raceway (MIR). New best is 11.73 @ 119.95 mph on a 1.76 60'. I also had two runs of 11.8 at 120 mph for both runs. The car was run with skinny's and the ZR1/315 Nitto Drag Radials.
May 10, 2008
5 years have passed and the car is running great. What a great setup
for power and longevity.
March 23, 2009
Running GREAT! Might take her to Pontiacs in the Park 2009 for the car show.
March 3, 2011
2 years since last update?!? Where does the time go?
Took the car to Pontiacs in the Park last year and brought home a trophy. Also took it on a road trip and pulled 25 mpg! Not bad for
.gif){kind=small}
