Any decent 4th gen. F-body forums?

[FordMan77]

Besides LS1tech, is there any good ones out there that would humor a newb? Reason being is that I was just given a 95 Formula Firebird w/ a blown LT1 in it (blew the drivers hg- I should know as I was the one that started the teardown 6 years ago). Since it is now officially mine I'm kinda on the fence about repairing it and getting it running again versus parting it out.

Since the orig. LT1 is trash I have given thought to swapping in an LT1 from a 94 9C1 Caprice that I can get my hands on for about $450, versus the $800+ for an actual F-body LT1 and need to do some further research before I try to convince the wife that we should spend the cash on it and not just sell it as is. Besides, I could get about 3K for it running, versus about $500 as it sits.

And yes, I know some of the differences between the 2 motors already I just need to verify a few other things.

[KwazrollinZ28GTP]

as long as its the 5.7L caprice motor snag that and then buy Fbody aluminum heads and you pretty much have a LT1 from a fbody.
Using Cast iron heads in a Lt1 based fbody is a crime lol

I say do it

[FordMan77]

Well, I still have the entire LT1 from the F-body, which includes the stock alum. heads. But I've heard that the iron heads have a better coolant flow and flow about 20% better stock for stock. Downside is they're iron.

I know that I will have to change the balancer and use one from the F-body as the b-body ones are different.

[The Guz]

I usually visit ls1tech, camaroz28.com and ls1.com. ls1tech still gets the most traffic out of these.

[FordMan77]

I guess I'll go ahead and register over at ls1tech then. I'm sure they'll just love my screen name, lol..

[02 WS6 TA]

Oh yeah. Have fun with that.

[UR LOSN]

LT1 is a great engine. just the ignition sucks, now you can swap it over to LS based ignition system. I am going to buy another LT1 car here soon.

but MFBA can give you other sites..

[FordMan77]

Yeah I've had dealings with the Optispark on occasion. What a PITA. At least in 95 it got the vented version which helped.

This project is going on the backburner for a while anyway so I can do more research and sell off/finish a few other projects before I get going on it. My wife was none too happy about me even suggesting it (purple piece of sh*t is what she calls it) In fact she was rather pissed. I have to finish getting our T-bird back on the road first or I just may find myself sleeping in the garage

[Justintiime]

I say buy my buddies complete LT4 conversion kit and keep the car! LOL

[PurpleGuy]

I say tear the motor down and rebuild/cam it. Or just give to me

LS1tech and Camaroz28 are the forums I go to. LS1tech quite often. I've been to LS1.com only a handful of times.

[GreyGhost]

What year T-Bird are you working on?

[FordMan77]

I say buy my buddies complete LT4 conversion kit and keep the car! LOL

I would but don't want to have anything extra to do to convert. Just a LT1 swap. Like for like.

I say tear the motor down and rebuild/cam it. Or just give to me

I had given thought to tearing it down myself and just rebuilding it. And yes, camming it came to mind. Once again, not sure how far off I want to go from just swapping in a good LT1 and selling it.

No freebies either, lol...

What year T-Bird are you working on?

Our 95 LX. Still the stock anemic 4.6L but I have other goodies for it that are just laying around waiting to go on. Would have been done by now had the wife not played "Nascar" with it. I have a fiberglass cowl hood, 96/97 headlights, a new j-modded mildly built trans, Mark VIII alum. driveshaft, side skirts/rear valence and some exhaust waiting to go in/on it. I was going to part it out but that was put to a stop. It does have that rather rare color of purple/blue where it changes color depending on the angle. Vermilion Blue I think is what it was called. According to my pocket its called "expensive", lol... It still runs/drives just looks like hell. Even with a half burnt up one-way clutch I can still pull a 1-2 chirp out of her.

This is what it came home on the flatbed with...

[GreyGhost]

Yes, assuming you are over on TCCOA than. Have my 97 I bought back in 98. It has had a few modifications done. Are you going to swap over to the PI intake and heads and bump up the compression?
Have a friend that put a 02 Explorer in his 95 and it really woke that thing up. Didnt know the Explorer intake would fit under the hood, but he got it too. Which size of J-mod are you going with? I would suggest stepping up to the 99 GT valve body. The Mark VIII shaft will make a difference. I went with MMX and it was even better. Funny how just dropping that rotating mass helps out.
Maybe find some JBA headers and make sure they have the extra support on the mount. That helped mine breath pretty well.
That Explorer engine is 200lbs lighter as well. I put all poly bushings from front to back and that helped the car along with Addco sways and bilstein shocks. Was going to convert to the Mark VIII rear suspension, but chose to put that on the 89 SC.
You have several SC guys down in your area. My Birds are sitting up near Champaign, IL. Dave Neibert is down there in St. Louis he could help out a lot with it as far as information. Do you have Trac Control? If not swap out for a SC rear diff to get the T-loc. I wouldn't use the 2.73 gears though that auto won't like it.
Have fun and thanks for helping another one stay on the road. Currently putting a 99 4.6 in a 94 Bird, so the fun continues for us as well.

[FordMan77]

Yep, been on TCCoA for a while. I'm going to drive the 95 until I can save up some extra cash then just do the Explorer swap. For what all I have to change just to run PI heads its almost easier, plus like you said then I drop 200lbs. I think I can pretty much clear any intake w/ the Cobra R hood on it. Had given thought to S/C it as well.

The trans is out of an 01 Marquis and I drug it up to Indy one year to have Darrin go through it and put it all back together. Tore it down to the case, hot tanked and rebuilt in a day. All I have to do is stick the VB in it.

It does have trac control on it but I can just dump it. I'd like to get a 3.73 TL in it at some point and get a set of Kooks long tubes. I'd love to have Dave build me something but he may just be out of my price range at the moment, lol.. The only good thing I have going is that the wife really likes the car still even after the accident so she may not balk at some mods too awfully bad. Of course having a 3yr old takes a good chunk of mod money away. I'm working on the wallet-delete mod

The bird WILL be back on the road at some point. Hopefully by next year.

[GreyGhost]

If you can find an 04 Marauder TQ and use a Mark VIII flywheel you would notice a nice difference and the higher stall would help the 3.73s. Even and 03 would be a help.

Have fun with it!

[PurpleGuy]

I still say build the LT1 lol. I bet with a full exhaust(longtubes all the way out the tips), bigger TB, CAI, and a CC306 cam you could push 350+ to the wheels. Maybe not quite, maybe a little more. Depends on the tune.

[02 WS6 TA]

I can't help but observe how this thread went from a remotely interesting thread regarding LT1s to Ferd Mumbo-jumbo...

[GreyGhost]

I can't help but observe how this thread went from a remotely interesting thread regarding LT1s to Ferd Mumbo-jumbo...

Still keeping it all in the "bird" family though.

[PurpleGuy]

I can't help but observe how this thread went from a remotely interesting thread regarding LT1s to Ferd Mumbo-jumbo...

We should have our own sub-forum to talk about our dumb fbody LT1 stuff lol.

[FordMan77]

I still say build the LT1 lol. I bet with a full exhaust(longtubes all the way out the tips), bigger TB, CAI, and a CC306 cam you could push 350+ to the wheels. Maybe not quite, maybe a little more. Depends on the tune.

I have looked around to see what cams are "streetable" for the LT1. Seems the Comp XFI extreme energy 466 would work to, as well as the LT4 Hotcam setup (which everyone does, so I'd rather build my own setup). Of course change over to rollers, new valves and springs, etc.. Longtubes are a must w/ any cam. From what I've read the LT1 likes a small duration cam?

Ghost- I actually have a higher stall Morris TQ and matching flywheel. Forgot about that

WS6- It may be a Ford, but at least its still a V8! And I like the IRS rear. I like the F-bodies. Would rather have an LSx motor if I were to own one though. The LT1 can be built decently but you can't argue with the LS1/4's. I don't plan on a monster build for the Formula just trying to get it back on the road with some extra kick and leave it at that. A nice lopey exhaust note will help sell it when the time comes especially w/ the "locals" I have running around here that think there sh*ts the fastest thing around even though my 03 CV Sport could pull on 90% of them and it's bone stock save for the j-modded trans.

4thGEN- I figured this would be the best spot for the LT1 stuff, lol... Not sure where else to put it. Unless someone plans on swapping an LT1 into a GP