Third Pedal Engineering

Some major upgrades coming to The Birds Nest! Installing new cabinets and doing some reorganization to make it cleaner and easier to work in here. Custom doors are done through our other business, Birds Nest Design. Don't forget to check it out for decals and stickers! https://www.facebook.com/BirdsNestDesgn

So our history car for today is our old 1974 AMC AMX. This car was a rough project, but a fun one. Originally a 304 V8 with an automatic transmission, this one was a Indy-headed 401 with a ST-10 4-spd swapped in. It was fast, fun and rough. Honestly don't remember why we sold it, other than it needing way more body work than we wanted to do at the time. This Plum Crazy-painted beast headed up north where it would probably melt like Pop Rocks.

So how about we roll it on back to our original manual transmission car? This is where the love began. 1979 Pontiac Trans Am SE. 1 of 1107 400/4spd cars. This was rough but I loved it. The ST-10 had been replaced with some trash Saginaw 4spd but I didn't care. I drove it everywhere until the transmission finally shredded. Took the car apart for a restoration, but life got hectic and ended up selling it to pay off some bills.

So let's look back at our history of manual transmission swaps. Like my grandfather always told me, you can figure out anything if you think about it long enough. Some of our swaps have been fairly straightforward, but we definitely delve into the custom at times.

First up....our 1998 Trans Am. Bought it as a bone stock LS1/automatic car. We knew it wasn't going to stay stock so it was a very well maintained lower mileage car at a good price. Drove it with the automatic for a few years and then decided it was way too boring to totally enjoy. Collected parts in the junkyards and eBay, got a Stage 2 T56 from our friends at Tick and went to swapping. In the driveway. In the rain. After a long, wet weekend we had it up and running. Drove it for years till we upgraded to the 402 LS2 stroker and at that point we upgraded to a Magnum T56. Still running and driving great, our favorite car.

Still a few punch list items with this thing, but we're getting there. Still need to either find a new rear axle or regear this one and get the speedometer figured out, but been driving it around and loving it. Taking forever to clean up, sitting in the woods for 5 years will really tear up the outside of a vehicle.

Wheels and tires are on! Going to take it for exhaust and alignment.....as soon as I order a new Tick Performance remote bleeder. Guess I didn't quite have it as secure as I thought. Plus side, taught Chase how to drive home with no clutch pedal. 😅

New wheels and tires coming today, exhaust this week and then it's done!

Our old shop truck is almost done! This was our old parts runner back at the Butner shop before we sold it. When we sold the business, we kept the truck. Eventually it blew a head gasket, leading to a Vortec 350 swap that never impressed us and led to issues that eventually caused it to get parked for over 3 years in our parking area. Things seem to languish there, but luckily Chase got the urge to rebuild it for his sophomore school project. The old Vortec 350 was pulled and sold to make place for a stock 5.3L out of a 2000 Suburban. We raided the parts pile in the attic and found a complete clutch setup for a GMT-400. Went to our transmission stash and pulled out a Tick Performance Stage 2 T56 that was out of our 98 TA when we swapped to a Magnum T56. Running some stainless S10 LS swap headers, BP Automotive harness and some other stuff I'm probably forgetting. It's sitting on a McGaughys 3/5 drop kit and it'll soon have some 20x9.5 Rocket Racing wheels. Pretty excited to get this thing back on the road.

New design! Our 98 Trans Am is in fantasic shape and interior is near perfect. Somehow the sunvisors looked like they came from a junkyard though. I figured since I've only used them a few times in the 18 years of owning this car, no real need for them. These fit in place of factory sunvisors and reuses factory screw holes and screws. For sale in our eBay store soon!

Sometimes we get creative, too! I found an old dealership sign from the early 90s, but they wanted $500 for it. I decided to make my own! Modified the design a bit since I had to shrink it to fit the wall of the shop, but pretty happy with it. Going to mount it outside with an LED backlight.

ALWAYS have a fire extinguisher within reach! We were doing the initial startup on the 5.3L swap in the shop truck. Had our old fuel pressure gauge hooked up to check pressure on the new pump, but apparently it had failed and was leaking down the valley pan area. One little backfire off of the open header and it lit up. Only damage was some singed wire loom and a big mess.

Needed some clips for keeping the fuel lines in order, so 3D printer to the rescue! Designed a few clips and printed them up. Came out great, just gotta paint them a bit since I just used some cheap test resin. Probably will produce some more to sell, keep an eye out for more!

Junkyard haul from yesterday! Complete TPI wiring harness for the 92 Firebird, drivers side battery tray for the 88 GMC LS swap, door controller for the Cherokee along with some Buick Roadmaster horns for it, parking brake brackets for the LS1 Fbody rear brakes on the 92 Firebird, and a bunch of 4th gen Fbody 6spd swap parts just for the heck of it.

After many years, our 98 Trans Am is finally done! We're owned this car since 2004 and it has gone from a bone stock base model Trans Am with an LS1 and an automatic to what you see here. This last iteration was about 3 years in the making. Cars are never really "complete" but this is as complete as you can get. It has a 402 stroker we built using an LS2 block, Lunati forged crank and rods, Wiseco forged pistons, BTR Stage 3 cam, heads are 243 casting that have been CNC ported by Wilkes Performance along with having 2.05/1.80 valves installed and the trunion upgrade on the factory rockers. It breathes air through a FAST 92mm intake, Nick Williams throttle body and a Fast Toys Ram Air setup. Exhales through a set of stainless Kooks longtubes and y-pipe back to a custom setup with a Spintech muffler and Ho**er Aerochamber tips. For the transmission, we swapped it to a 6-spd manual transmission many years ago, but now the transmission has been upgraded to a Magnum T56 from Tick Performance and running an LS9 clutch setup with an MGW shifter. All the power gets pushed back to a Moser 9" with 4.11 gears and an Eaton TruTrac. For brakes the car has a C5/C6 Corvette front brake setup in the front that we built for it a long time ago along with the factory F-body rear brakes with Hawk pads and drilled/slotted rotors. The suspension setup is all aftermarket as well. Spohn tubular k-member up front along with tubular upper and lower a-arms. Rear suspension consists of a Spohn tubular chassis-mount adjustable torque arm, UMI rear adjustable LCAs, UMI adjustable panhard bar and BMR LCA brackets. The body is held tight with some BMR tubular low-clearance subframe connectors. Stance is set up where it is using Viking double adjustable coilovers. The wheels are Sportmax 962s 18x9.5 with 35mm offset, wrapped in Micky Thompson Street Comp tires, 275/35/18 in front and 295/35/18 in rear. Exterior is mostly stock with a Suncoast aftermarket WS6 hood and some custom Blackbird stripes. The interior is almost completely stock other than an AEM wideband and some Modo Innovation pedal covers.

I am sure I am forgetting some stuff, it has been a long process but so glad we're finally seeing the end and can move over to finish some other projects!

So being a little crazy runs deep in this family. Chase wanted to have something really cool for his high school sophomore project. He decided to drag my old shop truck out of project purgatory beside the shop and came up with some plans for it. Well, we picked up a 5.3L and are going to back it with a T56 we had in our parts stash. We're test fitting now, but hopefully we'll have this thing moving very soon1

Another one of my favorites, our 92 Firebird. I owned this a long time ago, left my wedding in this car, then sold it not long after. About a year or so ago I bought it back, been fixing it up ever since. Right now it is currently getting an Edelbrock TPI swapped on to the 355 small block.

My favorite car....my 98 Trans Am. Bought it stock almost 18 years ago. Now it has a 402 LS2 stroker, a Magnum T56, lots of tubular suspension upgrades, Moser 9", Viking coilovers, along with tons of other stuff. It is fast and handles great. Most definitely not for sale.

Decided to open up a page to show what we've got going on in the shop. What cars we have, what cars we are selling and what cars we are working on. Also will be listing parts for sale as they are available. We are not a business although we do sell parts and cars.