Thread: Here's my Pizza Ship

So this build started as a budget build (it still is). I bought the car for my wife in 05 or so. 90k miles. $4300. My wife drove it for a while and then my son took it over. About a year or two later the trans died. I got a trans from craiglist for $100. Dropped that in and two days later 2nd gear was gone. I told my son to buy another car as I didn't want to screw with this anymore. So the car sat for a good year.

I had a friend take the trans apart and rebuild it for $200 (total was $450) I pulled the motor (180k miles) and got a top swap from another friend for $200. Also got an XP cam for $200. Found some used 105 springs/retainers for $80 or so. Friend who built the trans had a set of SD headers for $50 so I scored those. Replaced the flex for $30.

I wanted to make this a budget build. My goal was 12's for $1000 including the car. That kinda blew out the window. Right as I put the car together and got it started, the brake line blew (the one that goes to the passenger front wheel). Found a replacement on amazon for $50 or so. Put that on and one of the trans cooler lines busted (rust). $30 later it was running. Then the starter took a dump. Friend had one of those so that's good.

I wanted a light exhaust so I decided to dump it out the side in front of the passenger tire. I had two maganaflow resonators and that was it.. It was WAYY too loud to drive on the street. So I got rid of that and put the 3" exhaust from my 03 onto the '99. I ended up doing a 2.5" setup on the 03 but that's another story.

Here's a few pics of the progress over the past year.











Yes, I painted the transmission chrome.. why not?









this was the exhaust I had on the car.. it's different now.



Then I gutted the interior.



got bored.



Swapped the drivers side power seat for a manual rack from a GP SE from the yard.



Found some ST springs on craigslist for $50.. Just installed the fronts.I left the rear stock height. Also had a set of GP wheels in the shed to get rid of the junk chromies that were peeling.



So fast forward to yesterday (Sunday). Finally made it to the track. Threw the ET streets on and made a few passes.

First one was 13.4, then 13.3, then the last pass was a 13.1 @ 103. I still have some tuning issues I need to figure out but it's a start.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lzouy9k2a7Q

red light too. shes screaming tho lol

I could care less about the red light. I don't bracket race.... ever.

As for the trans yeah lol. I just used whatever I had on the shelf when I re-sprayed my fog lights on the other car. As for the copper stuff, I wanted to use the oddest color I could get for a blue Regal. I think it worked lol.

Good sh!t

are those heads a diy port job?

Yep. Followed the thread on CGP. Just basically cleaned them up. Not much material came out of them. I could have went more but gave up and said F it. Only other thing I did was lap the valves.

i went further then you for sure, my casings marks are gone. my valves were nasty, (junk yard heads) lapping made a huge difference.

this aint even polished yet. shame you never see this stuff again lol

i never noticed all the shavings on the table there lol wow

Here's a side by side from one head I did and the other I did not. I actually did more to clean it up but didn't take any other pics.

The only other thing I did was lap the valves.

Nice Scotty. I just got tired of my air compressor running every 30 seconds trying to keep up. I think if I had more compressor or even an electric grinder I would have gone much further.

Originally Posted by SgtMarshal

Didn't you hold the na hp record for a while?

I did with my Lumina back in like 05/06 for about a week. Intense heard about that and a week later some stage 3 package came out for the Wes Express and put down some 250 something and then blew up.

i put up with a break every 10 minutes lol

cause its purdy looking. and once you start your fully committed lol


right after lapping, you can see some water drops there still.

subbing for MOAR PIZZAAAAAAAA

Love it!

Awesome build on the cheap!