All Wheel Drive Swapped Supercharged 1971 Trans-Am

Morning guys, it is 5 43 a.m. We are at Speed Vegas and my buddy Greg Kemblok's lead mechanic was nice enough to bring out his personal project for us to shoot. This is the first time I've seen this since it was basically a parashell. So cool. Can't wait to shoot it. This is seriously the perfect backdrop. We got Speed Vegas here, their private track, perfect pink sunrise. Gotta take advantage of the light. Oh my god, look at it. Would you just look at it? Just look at it. You know when I see a car like this, first thing I do is I say, would you look at that? This is it. This is the one. It's like, what, two years? More than two years in the making? It's been two years, yeah. Two years. Thank you so much for bringing this for me. Thanks for having me. It's cool to come out and show everybody what it is. Yeah. It's been tucked away for so long. This is my friend Greg and the thing is, I never actually get to see him in the U.S. And the reason why we travel all over the world is because Greg is Ken Block's lead mechanic. Whenever Ken is filming, whenever Ken is racing or anything to do with Ken and his vehicles, you're there. Yep, all the time. You're there all the time and then you have such an extensive background in rally racing too, in stage rally, right? I've been rallying for ages. I was at TTE for a little bit and then a wee bit at ProDrive, quite a long time at ProDrive back in the U.K. And then moved to the States, a bit of time at Vermont Sports Car, followed Ken and our team manager Derek when everything went to Ford. So we've been doing that for a long time now. How long have you been in the racing industry as a mechanic? Oh, 30 years. 30 years? Yeah. Okay. And how long have you been with Ken Block's Hoonigan Racing Team? Since 2011, but before that at Subaru, since 2005. Oh, okay. So you were with Ken when he was still in a Subaru, even? Wow, okay. With Ken and Travis. It's so crazy to me because we became friends just over time. Everywhere I traveled, since I follow Ken a lot, you know, during his adventures, you're there too, you know? And then we're both car guys, so we kind of hit it off. We've hung out in a lot of car parks. Yeah, we've hung out a lot of car parks, we've hung out a lot of pits, a lot of late nights and a lot of early mornings. We kind of started talking and then you told me that you have this Trans Am build, but not this one. You built another one that's so clean that actually legitimately went viral. Yeah, that was a surprise. It's a cool thing, that one. The cool thing to me is with your other Trans Am build, the fire chicken, as you appropriately call it, you modernized it. You know, you gave it a modern look. You put some your own touches, flares, a lot of power, clean interior, clean paint, everything. And you kind of just made it your own, which for some reason, I don't know why more people don't do that. And maybe that's why people really appreciated this car, because it's like a modern interpretation of what a Trans Am should look like if it came out new. Maybe. I mean, I just like being stuck away in my garage shed doing whatever I like. Right. It's sort of fun. But this is not that at all. It's the complete opposite of that, right? As you put it earlier, you already have a very clean car. Now you want something that you can beat on. You get tired of looking after paint, you know, and the patina thing, that's cool. But it's just nice not to have to care about the outside of it and just focus on the mechanical side of it. Tell me the story about this car, because the last time I saw it, it was a bare shell. You kind of told me what your concept was in building it, but I just couldn't wrap my head around it. It's one of those things where why would you do that? You know, so like tell me about the car. Where did you find it? I found it out in a field in Sandy Valley, just outside of Vegas. I've been sitting there for 10 years or so, just full of dirt and stuff. And I think a river had been through it at one point. It was fairly nasty, but it was cool. And I wanted an early Firebird because I have a thing for Firebirds in general. So that's why this happened. And it just happened to be on Craig's list. With the patina that's on it, you can't really recreate that. It just happens over time. Yeah, it's fairly well aged. It's that Nevada desert that just cooked it. It's tough out here. So what year is the actual car? 71. Let's do a little quick walk around on it. It's just so crazy. I mean, what was your concept with it? It was kind of like a Mad Max look or like just with the super low splitter. Well, there's a couple of things about that. You have to make it look nice. And it's sort of nice to make that shape look better. You know, whatever that is, whatever car it is. And then this one, it just needed it. It's not that I set out to build that splitter. Yeah. But, you know, you think, well, you look at it for a long time. You think, well, it needs this or that. And you just, you make something, you try and you like it. And it sort of evolved. It was never, it was never a rendering. There was never a drawing. It was just a, just an idea. Yeah, yeah. You never quite know where it's going to go. Let's pop the hood on this thing. So there it is. Unbelievable, unbelievable. So what, what motor is it? It's a 5.3 LS out of a Silverado or Tahoe, something like that. Found in the junkyard. Really? Yeah, it's a junkyard engine. Okay. Now it's got crank and rods in it and then it's got a set of heads. So, and then plus the blower. So how much power are you thinking it's putting out? Well, I hope it's 600-ish plus a bit. Hopefully. It hasn't been on a donor yet. Hopefully around there somewhere, but over that with a bit of luck. Just, this is how far, how far back is the motor? It's like 18 inches. You really had to cut into it. Well, I wanted the engine back because of, you know, a bit of weight distribution, but you need it to fit everything else in the front. So it was a big hole when you first mark it out and cut the hole in the middle of the car. You sort of have to commit to it. That's awesome. All right, so let's just get it out of the way. Let's just get it out of the way. This is all-wheel drive. This is probably the first all-wheel drive Trans Am ever, right? Yeah, it's one that's not on a Chevy pickup. Right. Chassis. What the heck? Like, it's crazy. You could see the, what diff is that? It's out of a Q45, that Nissan four-door V8. Oh, okay. Yeah, whatever that thing is. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was just a big diff and there seems to be a few in the junkyards around here. Yeah, yeah. So you got a Q45 front diff. Rear diff, but yeah. Oh, rear diff. Rear diff in the front. Exactly. What's the suspension? The suspension's all cobbled together from bits and pieces. There's Corvette subframes, Corvette uprights. Then handmade everything else. The shocks are just bespoke for this. And I made the, there's rocker arm suspension in it because you can't fit the shocks where the drive shafts are. So crazy. It's all a bit of everything. Yeah. So kind of tell me some of the other things that you did here. Like, it's just the tubing, everything is just so cool. It's a factory subframe that I've cut and modified and added everything to it. And then it all goes through to the roll cage. So it's all tied into everything. Yeah. And there's a 10-point roll cage or whatever in there. I really liked that you matched the patina almost, you know, like you went out of your way to kind of make it look old, even though it's not old. I sort of, I wanted it to look like it was sort of like a barn find. Like you could have just popped the hood and think, you know, maybe that was there. And it all sort of, it looks like it should have been there. Yeah. It doesn't look out of place. Amazing. With the blower and everything, it just looks great. I mean, the blower is just cool. Yeah. That's just cool. Yeah. So what else? The header work here is just something else. I mean, there's not a lot of room in there. So we had to point the headers forward and then make some pipes to get it out. Yeah. And behind the wheel. It seems like a lot of the parts on this car, you kind of just had laying around, or you just kind of put together from a junkyard. Like that's kind of the cool thing about it. It's more of a backyard home garage build more than anything else. I didn't want it to be bespoke fancy pieces, you know, because there's plenty of stuff out there that's cool. Yeah. So I tried to pick and choose from various things, what I liked and what might work. It's more or less walking around the junkyard and having a look and thinking and measuring, and then hopefully it goes in. And it's easy to modify something else than it is to modify some part. What is that brake master cylinder from even? It's a Wilwood floor mounted kit. Oh, okay. The generic floor mounted thing. The rocker arms are all handmade. Obviously the suspension and the push rods and everything. What about the radiator? Radiator is somewhat racing. Thank you very much. Yeah. And then a couple of fans off, I think it's the Corvette fans. Because they pull quite a lot of air and they're quiet. Not that the car's quiet. No, not at all. It's very loud. I'd say it gets side pipes too, obviously, because they're just cool. Yeah, no, that's really cool. That's kind of an interesting way for form and function on the outside of the car. It actually keeps all the heat out from underneath the car. Yeah. You know, instead of trying to route it through everything. And they sound good and they look good. Yeah. So tell me about the brakes. These are insane. Brakes? Z06 brakes off a, you know, 2008 Corvette. Instead of Wilwood discs, but standard Corvette calipers. Front and back. The six pots on the front and the four pots on the back. Wow, that's some serious stopping power. Seems to stop all right. She's a little squirrely, but it stops well. Tire wise, how wide are you? Or all the way around? 295s all the way around. Absolutely insane. Just good. But they needed to stick out a bit. Yeah, yeah. That was one of the goals. Yeah, that's super cool. You did that on purpose. Oh, yeah, absolutely. That's so awesome. It would be nice to have flares on it, but it actually looks cool without the flares. I really do like it. It's sort of, it's like, it's not how everyone would do it, but it actually looks cool. Yeah, yeah. Well, you built for yourself, so that's the point. The patina on here, seriously, like, just don't touch that, you know, it's like. I couldn't make it. No, you couldn't. So let's look at the back here. Oh, this is one of my favorite parts here. You put a GTR badge, and the best part is it's not a real GTR badge. You just probably got one off eBay. Oh, it's off Amazon, isn't it? That is so funny. If someone sees that in a parking lot, parked on the street, they would just laugh. They would laugh because like, look at this sucker. Look at this guy for putting a GTR badge on his Pontiac. Like, why would you even do that? But what they don't actually realize is there are GTR parts on this thing. There's lots of them. Yeah. So what is this about? Is this your name for it? Formula 400R? It's not really, but I think, yeah, it's sort of the name. The Formula 400R sort of fits. It's what it is, really. It's a combination of both. So I think that works out. Because this was originally called the Formula 400. It was, yeah, this is actually, if actually, Formula 400 with the, you know, as factory. Yeah, yeah. It just seemed fitting to put that on there. All right. So let's just pop the trunk. What the heck? What is this, actually? Well, that's the control unit for the center diff. For the center diff? Yeah. So it's basically like a test system or what? So Nissan R32 all-wheel drive system in this thing? I think it's out of an R33. It's the one that had the, well, whatever it was with the active rear diff. Oh, okay. It's got the second solenoid. Right. So, but yes, they're all similar throughout the years. So this one just controls the center diff. So this is a R32 GTR five-speed transmission? Yes, that's correct. With the R33 TESA center diff control system? Control, yeah, system. And then I have a separate diff control unit, you know, brain for it. And you can set it to what you want. And it can be active. It has a G-sensor. And that's the actual original Nissan one? No, it's not. It's an aftermarket. Oh, okay. Because you can program it. This is just crazy. This is just too much. My head is getting overloaded. But like, what else is in here? What is that thing right there? So that's the fuel tank or one of them. It's got three fuel tanks just to split move because, you know, standard fiber has a fuel tank right at the back. So I tried to move the weight forward. This one's a little high, but that's life. So there's two in the backseat area. And then the third one up here. Oh, okay. All sort of painted to look like a bomb. Because where is the stock fuel tank located? The stock tank is under your Ateca pump there. Oh. So it's a lot. It's a great, it's 20 gallons hanging out the back there. Amazing. Okay, I see. And we can move it in. Yeah. But like, this is because this is all power steering fluid, right? That runs Ateca pump. Amazing. I just can't believe you got it all to work. Yeah, it took a bit of sorting out. Yeah. It didn't just fall into place, but it works. But it controls the rear diff also. No, this one doesn't. The rear diff is passive in this. It's a viscous rear diff. Oh, okay. It could control the rear diff, but this one doesn't. And the rear diff is out of a what? 300ZX? 300ZX. Wow, that's the coolest part of this car. That blows my mind. My favorite bit actually is the dashboard. Because it comes out of a 205 Celica or Celica. Oh, okay. So it's the dash out of one of those. And that was a whole $38 at the junkyard. You're just so proud of that. You're proud of getting all these things that were not meant for the car. Yeah. Also, you're saving money. You're repurposing junkyard parts. But that's such a cool part of this build. It's actually a really nice dash. It's a cool shape, which is nice, you know? No, it looks great. And it fits. It looks really good. I like it. Wow. So it's all function inside, huh? Oh, yeah. There's not a lot of niceties in there. I actually really like the raw look. No door panels. It doesn't warrant it. It doesn't ask for it. And the thing is, the last time I saw this car, you just finished the license plate thing, I think, in the back. That was a while ago. And then you just started cutting out the transmission tunnel. And I think you might have had a motor sitting on some blocks. Possibly. But to see it this far, a running, driving, working car, it's just so cool. The tunnel's all handmade. It was a ginormous hole in the car. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I remember. You got a CB radio in there so you can kind of yell at people? Only because of Smokey and the Bandit. We have a van that has a CB radio in it so we can talk to the van. Yeah, that's awesome. You have vintage air in it, actually. Shout out to these guys. Yeah, there's vintage air and AC and heat because it's just hot here. So you need AC. Otherwise, the car's undriveable in the summer. This is usable. This is a usable car. So the Hoonicorn did inspire you then, right? Oh, for sure. I mean, I'm lucky enough to drive that around a couple of car parks every now and then. It's a cool thing. And I really like the idea of the big old V8 and four-wheel drive. And, you know, coming from that rally background, the rally cars are super cool, but you can't beat the noise of a V8. So I like that. And then to have one for yourself, it just had to happen. That's so cool. So you built your own. It's not a Hoonicorn. No. It's a Formula 400R. Exactly. Yeah. That's the one. That's so cool. And that's the thing is you actually had a chance to drive the Hoonicorn. You had a chance to shake it down because you were doing so much work to it, right? Yeah. To get it ready for the climb, we spent a lot of time trying to get the oiling system right. Luckily enough, I got to go and make sure that it was okay. Yeah. No, good for you. Yeah. No, that's very, very... Oh, man. Must be hard work. Poor guy. It's just... That is a fantastic thing. So I needed one for myself. Yeah. No, that's great. I'm glad you built one for yourself. And it's completely different, but it's the same concept in a way. Philosophy of it. Yeah. But the execution is different. Oh, I like that little badge in there in the center. Okay. So the badge is cool and it's all burnt up because it's actually a mud flap. It's the bottom of a fiber and mud flap that it was on the back of it for years and years. And it's all baked by the sun. And it just, it looks cool. So I had to go on the dashboard. That's so cool. One of my favorite bits is the... Hold on. Is the fuel tanks. I like... Yeah. I really like what you did with the fuel tanks. It's hard to see them, but they're sort of neat. Yeah. They're sort of fun to make. Yeah. And paint up and... But it's kind of crazy because instead of just doing like a fuel cell or whatever, you just decided to make these yourself? Yeah. I mean, it's the space ahead and I like making things. Yeah. I see that. Yeah. You don't get enough working on Ken's cars. You got to build your own projects. What else do you do? I'm a bit of a one trick pony. That's awesome. All right. Let's put it on the lift and check it out. R32 transmission. R32 center diff. Q45 rear diff in the front. 300ZX rear diff. Corvette uprights and arms in subframe. Uh-huh. Front and back. Custom coilovers for the front and back. So many man hours going into this. Oh, there's so much. What's the steering rack in this thing? Corvette. But it just moved up in different brackets. What a trip. Really? It was something else. I mean, like all these brackets. Oh, yeah. So much. You don't want to build another one. I remember seeing this transmission sitting on your floor. Yeah. Like this whole piece. And I thought to myself, this is going to be some challenge to put it in there. It was. Oh, because this is all new metal too. All of that. Yeah. That's a big. There was a big hole all the way up here. Yeah. And when there's nothing in there, you're like, oh, that's a big hole. It's crazy because this is so drastic. Like the way it looks pretty normal looking back this way. But then when you see this drive shaft here, this is when it gets crazy. Like it's so drastic. This turn and then it goes here. Oh, something else. It looks so cool under here. It's cool underneath. Yeah. It's cool laying on the ground and looking up at it. Yeah. So let's start from the rear here. What subframe is this? It's Corvette rear subframe out of a 2008 model again. It's got just some things that are nice about it. And then the diff is from a 300ZX. Wow. I mean, the thing is you had to do so much to get it to fit, right? There was. Yeah. There's a lot of chopping and cutting and making of a couple of extra subframes. And it all sort of fits in there. I mean, like, and then you try to match it to the same thing. Yeah. I wanted it to look like it possibly might have been that way. And the suspension pickup points and everything. Very close to how it is in a Corvette. Wow. Just about fits under there quite nicely. It's surprising, actually. And what coilovers did you go with here? QA1s. Same on the front. Different spec, but same. I was trying to use the Corvette leaf spring, but it's just not quite strong enough. It's just crazy how much I could see that you fabricated to get everything to fit. Everything you see under here has been made. Right. Tunnel, all the mounts, everything. Wow. And then the front subframe, all Corvette. Front subframe is Corvette again. 2008 again, I think, or that era. And that again fits in, but it mates up to the factory 71 subframe as well. Wow. So I kept that because it was an easy piece to keep, an easy piece to modify. And the Corvette subframe, once you've cut a whole lot out of the standard subframe, fits in quite well. Yeah. It's amazing to me to see. I mean, like you had to modify this just for this to clear just a front driveshaft. I didn't want to offset the diff like you normally do in a four-wheel drive car. I wanted to keep it center. And this is the way to do it. And it means that all four driveshafts are the same. Right, right. And you've got quite a lot of travel. So you haven't got that really short front shaft. That's what you wanted to avoid. Because all of these shafts are the same on all four corners. So you can swap them if need be. What are they out of? Are they just custom? They're custom, those ones. Wow. It looks so finished. It's crazy. I mean, you even went out of your way to have urethane mounts on everything. Yeah. So it's a little more comfortable. A little bit. Yeah. You don't want it to be soft. And if you're going to sort of use it as a road car or a hot rod, you want it to be nice-ish. The suspension, really, is such a highlight for me on this. And you felt it. It actually feels all right, too. It actually handles quite well. It feels like just a performance car. A high-performance car with nice coilovers on it. Yeah, exactly. So I'm happy with the way it feels, actually. It's the first time I've been around a track. That's the thing. With all your experience, it's like you thought of everything. I tried. You know, like something as simple as the shield. I'm sure everything is functional. I hope so. Yeah. You sort of need everything that's under here. Surprisingly, there's not a lot of room. But it all fits in reasonably well, you know? I cannot believe how much Bondo is here. I know. What the? Let's see. You did some serious effort on the old Bondo scheme there. It's crazy because I bet this whole piece fell off by itself. It did. Just like at one time. It did. You still have it? Yes, I do. It's even deeper there. Well, thank you so much for showing it to me. Thanks for coming and seeing it. Yeah, it's just so cool.