First page: My 1989 Formula 350 TPI
Second Page: Formula L98 before taken apart.
Third page:Modifications to my
Formula & plans for Formula
Fourth: Friends cars and suchthings.
Fifth: My future parts.
Sixth:87-92 Firebird Trans-Ams,
GTA's and Formulas.
Seventh: My "To Do List".
Eigth: My '87 IROC-Z pics b4 and after
Nine: My Formula L98 motor apart.
Tenth: Stereo stuff.
Eleventh: '68 GTO stuff, father son project

This was how the car looked before the accident that destroyed the car.

This was the perfect hood without the blisters

This was the interior. I replaced the stock dash pad, console cover, visors, and the center button shifter with a firebirds, I hate the center push button one. I also had seat covers, that's all.

I did swap the factory tilt(broken tilit mechanism) to a manual steering column, it's actually the same one in Cavaliers, I noticed that after I changed it

Heres the L98 the way it was, before the really bad, completely destroyed Iroc accident. I did clean up the molding spot, where theres a lip of plastic in the dual air filter lid, to improve air flow, it worked at the track. I used "GOOP" that stuff works pretty good.

I did make it a heat only car, you may notice that from that pictures of when I first bought the car, makes it lighter, and when the A/C doesn't work, why have that weight?

Heres with the hood open, taken the picture in front

Heres the fresh radiator I had from autozone, lifetime warranty, steel tanks for $120, the motor ran just fine, nice and cool with a stock water pump, and 160* thermo, I went through the formulas, and the camaros factory plastic tank piece of shit, and alot of my friends with 3rd-gens also realized that plastic tanks suck! I even only had one fan on the radiator, never needed the second, so I got rid of it.

Heres the one belt I was using for the alternator/waterpump, that's all, saves alot of power, not even underdrive pulleys. I did remove the smog pump, since I wasn't using it, I have it here in a box, It was gone for the accident. I removed it for the 2950lb total car weight

This was the Manual steering gear I got out of a '91 S-10, I got it with lower mileage, with 100K on it, at the junkyard for $12; the junkyard is called Pick-N-Pull, off 61st and 171(Archer) in summit, they have a ton of f-body stuff if you ever need any

The above was all through 2005, until I broke the trans at route 66, it had 155K miles on it, and my last run was with first & second, the car still ran a 14.86 at 86 MPH, I'll scan my timeslip to prove it soon, I have it here though, and clubbies have any questions, ask me here or on our www.v8havoc.com, or join the forum, it's great

This was in 2004, after the first minor accident

Well the car used to look pretty good, but since the ghetto accident, I wacked a '04 cadillac, the guy stopped to fast and was yacking on the cell phone, not paying attention, and I wacked him at about 15 mph. I bashed the nose fender and hood in.

I have an '86 berlinetta nose on it, and good passenger side fender, and I have another z28 hood for it, and drivers side fender, as both original iroc fenders were rotted out in some spots.

I like the berlinetta front end, it gives the motor more air while making it look like its going to jump in the air when I get on the gas.

I reworked the rear suspension with Lakewood lower control arms and panhard bar now destroyed.

I still have the dual eaton blower setup project in mind, especially that I now have a welder, all I need is another M62 and some time, and another 160 hp will be bolted on but that is for the firebird with an intercooler and alcohol injection kit I have, so 800 to 1000 Hp.

After the accident about a month later when I was still driving the car with a ghetto fender, when it was a good day, and had some nice air in the afternoon with v-power and octane booster in the tank; I decided to go out and try some different things with my very worn nitto's and tire pressures, something I hadn't done yet on the street in the car.

*note* - I never do dry hops, because it takes away some of the heat you just put in the tires from the burnout.

-So I did a burnout with the tires at 34 psi for about 8 seconds, then staged the car, and prepared to do a nasty hole shot. I stalled it out to about 1250, then nailed it, the tire hooked fairly well, but still felt like they were struggling, which at this point I noticed the tire laying down a good amount of rubber, from out of the hole, through 2nd, and into 3rd with faint noticable rubber left behind and in my rearview.

-Then I tried another burnout, one with the Nittos at 24 psi, and staged similarly, but I did an 8 second burnout and stalled the car out to about 1350 this time before the tires would break loose. Then I nailed it, and the tires seemed to have hooked more on the outside, which tells me that the suspension really isn't planting the load of torque over the wheels evenly, so a better suspension would take the car down to low 13's with the power its making right now, its amazing what a well taken care of, un beaten on 87-Iroc-z with not 150K miles on it, blows and leaks no oil, and is almost a sleeper until you hear it, could run high 13's easily, while spinning the tires a bunch. More to come soon on this car, I wish I knew I could definitely keep it.

Here is the car more recently:
This is my daily driven beater, that runs 13.8's and faster with suspension mods, lol, not bad eh?

Me and my no longer buddy watching some simpsons:

I ran the car again 6-22-04, first run right off the street with 46 psi of fuel pressure and 29* of timing I cut a 13.82, at 99 mph, then a 13.90, then a 14.02 as of the car heating up, still not bad though. Then I cranked the timing up to 34* total advance, and the rest of the night, even with 16 psi in the nitto's I spun them up like no tomorrow, even with a better longer burnout. Car still weighed in at a nice 3330 lbs, then 3320 after 5 runs as of using the gas.

As of the running the car and slipping so badly, and losing torque and hp through the suspension, I'll be boxing in the control arms, panhard bar, also putting a tach in the car and maybe even a 3.70:1 rear ring and pinion set, I found a guy that works for motive gear, that can set me up with everything I need for 150$, so this will help propel the car into the low 13's. The motor is making enough power now to run into the mid 13's, but its making so much torque/hp its losing it at the wheels and through the suspension, and body; sub frame connectors may also be in order.

I ran the car today 5-25-04 at route 66 raceway, and began at 15.1's at 89 mph, and brought it down to a 13.9 at 99 mph, with my tuning, and theres a 13.8 and better in the car, but I made 11 runs on the car, and I thought letting it chill out for the rest of the day would be good, although I couldn't have ran it any more anyway, I went back to run every time I could.

Ok as of right now 3-04-04, this is what I've done within the last 5 days, on the Iroc-z.

Installed my fully ported 91 tpi base,
installed my cleaned up runners and jb welded the 9th injector hole closed, swapped the drivers side fuel rail over to a 91's, and removed the cold start timer on the intake base(no more 9th injector) installed my fully ported intake plenum, I put close to 20 hours of porting into that intake, base, installed my adjustable crane pressure regulator(47.2 psi now), accel fuel pressure gauge, new injector o-rings, all new intake gaskets, removed egr vacuum solenoid(non functional now), replaced the coolant temp sensor, retuned the car. Installed my huge ass trans cooler, manual Steering gear is in, and all the p/s stuff is gone.

Installed edelbrock tes headers, chrome coated, vht'd the y pipe, followed by a the longer 3" bullet muffler, then a 45* mandrel bend to a tip dumping under the car, 3" sounds bad as hell, there isn't much else I can do to get more hp out of the car right now, its mean as hell, and gets noticed pretty fast. It has that funny car sound, its starting to look a little better under the hood, the heater box is in and has fully function heat. I have also installed the switch to cut off the power to the alternator field sensor wires to drop some more time off the et at the track, and a relay and switch for the fans(as of 5-17-04), I'm taking the car to the track 5-25-04 and am going to find out what it will run, I'm hoping the high 13's, with my nittos out back and the other mods I've made to the car.

Now when I first bought the car in December '03, not modified yet, it even has the A/C stuff still, I took that out, notice in the above pics. Notice the rust under the hood, I cleaned up a lot of this car's midwest damage, it's ovbious in the above pics, it looked pretty good, for a BEATER!

This is my 1987 IROC-Z. It has a 148,600 miles on it, and is a works in progress, as money provides.

It is pretty extensively modified already.

Heres the Motor, the L98 TPI, with serpentine/v-belts, and 9th cold start injector, which is now retrofitted to a non-cold start injector fuel rail, off the same 91 formula I got the intake base off of. The car starts just fine now, especially now that the Fuel pressure is right where the motor likes it the most, without running too rich to cost alot of power, and it runs great. I can hit the gas from a roll and leave some faint rubber from both wheels on the ground, every time, its great.

Heres the interior, its kinda ruff, but I'll take care of that over time. I have a better dash pad, console cover, firebird shifter, seat covers and a few other on there, so it looks nicer, than before, and reminds me of my formula.

I have visors now, headliner is next and maybe carperting, money.

Here are some of my modified components for the IROC-Z. The plenum is fully ported, I reworked the dual snorkel intake, and descreened the MAF, but I was too lazy to remove the fins, maybe later, when I'm less lazy. Right now the car sucks in so much air, the sound is kinda funny outside the car.

This is an 89-92 drivers side fuel rail, that I used to delete the cold start injector. The cold start injector was used on the 85-88 TPI's. I used this rail to get rid of that 9th injector, so its gone now, and I used J&B weld to seal the hole on the runners, the cat starts up a little rough when its cold, I tap the gas a little, but then it roars to life, and starts up just like an 89 or later does when its warm.

Also the 89 and later intake bases don't have the second hole in the intake below the cts, for the 9th injector timing control module(looks like a big cts with a fuel injector connector).

At first I tried the car without it, and it starts up and runs fine, but I installed it, and the car starts faster, and idles smoother, than it did before. Also before I had the 9th injector timing module installed, sometimes when the car went into closed loop the idle would go up to 1250 or higher, so that was no good, and the rest of the time it was fine. So I'll just keep the module plugged in.

Now the car starts up just fine and idles like its nice and warm, its great

Here are my other parts, cruise control bracket off a formula to relocate to fender well, replacement door handles, and pig tails that I used to replace some of the broken connectors on the Iroc, they cost me 3$, new ones can be as much as 10$ each!

And heres the manual steering gear I put in the Iroc, its out of a '91 S10, I paid $12.50 for it, its not in good enough cosmetic shape to use in the Formula, so I'll find another one, and sand blast, clean, and paint the nicer one to install on the bird later on. The cheapest price I could find for one was $185 at pep boys, with a core charge over 200$ so it was worth finding a used one. If your looking for one, the '86-'91 S10 and Blazer manual boxes will bolt into the 3rd gen fbodies. The trucks are the four cylinder, two wheel drive versions if you need help finding them, this way you'll know what to look for.

I installed it on 3-09-04, and it went in with no trouble, you need to use the pitman arm that is on the '91 gear, because the whole steering gear is shorter and the pitman arm is shorter than the stock p/s gear, and the manual housing has the output shaft closer to the steering shaft. This is why you need the pitman arm off the s10. Its about 2 turns from center to each lock, and isn't hard to steer, its like having a little power steering at idle, but not 100%, while your sitting, which is when its the most difficult.

I also probably took off 30-40 lbs off the nose of the car by removing the p/s gear, and p/s components.

This is the cowl air induction that was on the early 80's third gen Trans-Ams. This one was off a '85 T/A with a carbuerated 305. It will be worth lots of money one day.