My $1,100 Mystery Auction Car Has A CRAZY History! Famous Builder & Built Engine But, Will It Start?

welcome to the inside of one of my cylinders no chunks yet and pour some of it out see if we find any glitter I'm gonna do what a lot of you guys wanted me to do in the last video I'm just gonna send it because I really want to see if this thing will fire your freakin hands oh I meet you guys up at a car mater coffee if anyone can lift this up ten times in a row I'll buy you coffee alright guys seriously this hatch is no joke it will literally kill you I swear if it were to fall and you had your head in there you would die okay so with the death hatch closed welcome back to legit street cars my name is Alex sorry I look a little disheveled I've been working a ton lately the newborn won't sleep I've been really busy but either way I'm super excited for this video because behind me is my very you 1985 Firebird Trans Am and since revealing this car just a few days ago I've learned a ton of its history so the previous longtime owner of 20 years reached out I spoke with him on the phone he sent me a bunch of pictures of the car and he even told me about the built crate engine and the built transmission that he installed in it just a few years ago I also received a message from the guy who spent three years building this car back in the early 90s and he's also built cars that look like this like this and like this and believe it or not he's actually a big deal in the world of Knight Rider so in this video you guys are gonna learn a ton about this cars history all while we work on it and try and get the engine started or at least diagnose why it sounds like this I'll leave the reveal video link down below if you want to check it out but for those who tuned in you guys know that I may have a bad engine which would totally suck because this is a built 350 which I'll talk to you about here in a minute or it could possibly be a bad starter now I'm giving myself a strict budget of $1,000 to get this Firebird totally roadworthy even if it needs a new engine so that means I need to save on everything but luckily I have honey who's gonna make sure I get the best deal on everything I buy on the internet honey is a totally free web browser extension that automatically applies all the promo and coupon codes when you checkout and it installs in just two clicks one here and one here and you're done now I'm being hopeful it's a bad starter so I added a starter engine oil and a filter to my cart and the dancing coin dude went nuts he automatically found coupon codes that saved me a whopping twenty seven dollars on this single purchase alone this works on all the popular sites like Amazon eBay Walmart and even tires from tire rack and I highly recommend you install it on your significant others computer - check this out honey saved over a hundred and thirty one dollars on some jewelry and a dress from Ann Taylor and in my book that equates to more car parts for me right so myself everybody family we've had honey installed on all of our computers for years and it saves us a ton of money not having honey is like giving up free money so just go to join honey calm slash legit street cars that's join honey calm slash legit street cars this lets them know that I sent you and it supports the channel at no cost to you so thank you so much for doing that and a big thanks to honey for sponsoring this video now let's try and get this engine started alright it's the next morning I've cleaned myself up just a little bit and I've had time to gather my thoughts and these are the most common ideas from myself and from you guys in the comments section of what could be wrong with this Chevy 350 and yes this is a crate engine the previous owner replaced this about 10 years ago so it came with a 305 with I think like 180 horsepower and a 5-speed manual and now we have a crate 350 he thinks this is either the 330 or 350 horsepower variant but this is a turnkey crate engine from carburetor to oil pan and then he got he built 700 a mild built 700r4 with a higher stall converter at the same time so he basically replaced the entire drivetrain in one shot about 10 years ago not exactly sure in the miles but not that many so this gives me hope that the engine is not bad and this is a massive upgrade versus the roughly 180 horsepower crappy 305 that came in this car but anyway this is what we're gonna be looking into right away piston ring stuck to cylinder walls I mentioned this in the last video if you let an engine sit around for too long the Rings can actually develop some rust around them and freeze themselves into the cylinder wall you can spray some oil in the cylinder sometimes and break this free but we're gonna inspect it with a borescope we could also have rod or main bearings contacting the crank so this could be maybe they ran low or ran dry of oil whatever the case may be we're basically ceasing binding up or locked up the crank can't turn so we're gonna drain the oil see if we have any metal shavings starter gear to flex plate is binding this is something that you guys had mentioned a bunch of times in the comments section and that's the starter may need to be shimmed out so I've worked on cars for roughly 20 years now but a lot of the newer stuff so I haven't worked on a lot of Chevy's blocks all the starters I've done I just put in with no shim so I didn't know this thank you so much I got the shim so we're gonna try that out for sure or it could be a bad starter which would be really cool all right welcome welcome to the inside of one of my cylinders the piston looks pretty clean right off the bat not a lot of carbon buildup which to me indicates this might be a very low mileage engine so let's look around for any damage and we're looking at the cylinder wall right off the bat and I will say this guys these newer HD Bora scopes with the LED lights at the end of the camera they exaggerate everything so I know these look like deep scratches but those are the cross-hatching marks from the honing process so that's a good thing and then you see the purple in black lines I do believe that the pistons were kind of frozen there and they left that mark the Rings left that mark on the cylinder walls but nothing is gone uh thing looks permanently damaged but I would say that this cylinder was probably dry for quite some time and that all eight of these pistons are partially seized in there which is causing a ton of resistance which is why I can't turn the engine over by hand even though the high torque starter can get it going with a full battery but it's depending at like half an RPM but take a look at the cross-hatching marks those little crowns there everything looks really clean so I definitely think we need to lubricate the insides of these cylinders before we start this car Kenny into some of these spark plugs looks impossible especially from the top so a lot of these it's much easier to get from the bottom and you have to use a wrench on some of them not sure if there's a special like stubby socket or something when you have these these header tubes right in the way but check this out I just connected the battery too you don't want to get shorted out but alright see there we go the wrench in this situation is a lifesaver and I think I can use that on a couple of them from the bottom alright so all eight spark plugs are out they look to be in excellent condition so I'm not going to be replacing these just yet especially because we don't even know if this 350 is any good here are the GM starter shims which we're going to be installing shortly and these are vice grips and these are channel locks in the last video I propped up the hood with vice grips I use the word channel locks a lot of you guys let me know about that I'm sorry I used the wrong word it was really cold out but anyway these are vice grips they work really really well to hold up the hood of old cars so here is what we're gonna be using to lubricate these cylinders so this is just an old really old squirt bottle that I have with half trans fluid and half engine oil and then we're gonna be bombing the cylinders with a mist of this stuff called globo I've been using this since I was like 15 years old it works really really well at lubricating penetrating it repels moisture so I think this will get in all the little nooks and crannies and the first time I use this guy was when I was rebuilding the engine on my 1988 Trans Am GTA that had a 350 as well so I found it to be only fitting to use it again on this third gen Firebird I think this is the only one I'll be able to get from the top so a couple squirts that's really good and then we'll mist in some of the globo with the straws work really nice okay I'm Cooper cated all eight cylinders and now I want to turn this engine over by hand just to kind of move all that oil around make sure it's contacting all the way around the piston and before I do that I want to just loosen up the starter and see if it will retract because I don't want to drag this with us while we try to turn it over so let's see what happens yeah there we go starter has retracted nicely and I'm really am hopeful that the shims will totally fix this part of the problem that would be amazing so we may have a two-part problem with the Rings and the starter but that's better than it being something with the bearings while we're waiting for all that oil to kind of circulate around the cylinder I'm going to drain this and hope that we don't have any metal shavings but anyway first let's turn the engine over I'm getting ahead of myself I'm excited that we can get this running in this video that would be amazing okay so in the last video I did try turning this over by hand and I couldn't do it I felt like I would break the crank bolts off only that high torque starter was able to just barely spin this on for those of you guys who just said the spray gas or carbon choke cleaner into the carburetor and send it this is why you don't send it we had the starter still engaged so we would have taken the starter along with it and all the cylinders were dry so if you hear an engine that's cranking very slowly and then there's a screeching sound it's usually for a reason so anyway let's see yeah see I said it was locked up just because the starter can plow through things I had said the word locked up and people are like well the engine is spinning so it's not locked up yeah I know I made the video I'm literally holding the camera watching it's bent but when it's going at like half an RPM and you hear a screeching sound it's locking up so what's the difference between an engine where all the bearings have contacted the crank and it's just about to totally lock and an engine that did lock nothing they're both totally screwed so I used the word locked and everybody said not everybody some get probably new guys of the channel he's not a real mechanic he said it's locked in it's spinning really really dude yeah anyway so this is really difficult right now I don't want to break this crank bolt it is a massive bolt but still all right let's just try one thing here no longer breaker it's like if it is the Rings holding this up then we just need to kind of let break loose a little bit with that that was not the bolt okay no she's not turning at all all right well let that oil soak in there for a little bit longer in the cylinders maybe it'll loosen up the Rings and in the meantime let's drain the oil and hope we don't see metal I'm gonna truth here on the bottom end we're gonna save this oil just in case some stuff comes out of it that we want to take a look at always fun to look at carnage let's hope there's nothing in here well let's hope there's oil in here so there's no metal in here okay so nothing on the drain plug that doesn't necessarily mean anything though but so far no chunks it's not looking too bad on the dipstick it looked kind of clear like it was uh wasn't that old I mean this obviously is black but nothing yet if this oil is totally clean it's got to be those cylinders it's got to be the Rings which we can work with we can get a car run Ian that has frozen rings even if it's scuffed up the walls a little bit I'm not saying the engines gonna last forever now I don't recommend you let an engine sit forever if you are gonna have an engine set you can spray like a product like global there's a bunch of other stuff on the market that keeps things lubricated and repels moisture that's always a good idea but I have a feeling that this thing sat around for a few years and just wasn't started no chunks yet it's looking good I don't see any shavings in there yet nothing glittery at all we'll pour some of this out on a white piece of paper to further inspect but I think we're gonna be in good shape all right let's mix up our organic milk here and pour some of it out see if we find any glitter and no this is totally clean I don't see anything in this oil at all that is fantastic while that oil and penetrating oil is soaking into the piston rings hopefully breaking that up let's starter fix that problem okay so I've never actually done this but it uh pretty self-explanatory we're basically just spacing it out with a shim so this is gonna go on the top of the starter and then we're gonna put our normal starter bolts through it and that's about it that we can salvage the starter that would be awesome there you go see the shim up there I'm actually not really even sure of which way it goes I'll flip it around see if that makes more sense but anyway the shim goes on top and then we bolt it up and then I'll show you how it's supposed to how the teeth are supposed to mesh into the flexplate okay so I kind of had to mess around with the orientation of this thing I kind of forgot which way I had it but either way it's pretty obvious so now at this point we want to pull out that starter gear and see if it's going to release bank so all we have to do for this is one of these and see how it's meshing in the starter I mean in the flexplate there we go and it's still not retracting so this is kind of trial and error they give you a few shims on basically the clearance between these teeth and these teeth are just too tight so it's just kind of getting hung up on the flex plate so we'll put another one in it'll drop it down and hopefully give us plenty of clearance inside of these teeth all right guys have been battling with the starter to get the alignment of the teeth correct I'm still not there but it's been a couple hours so I decided to see if I could turn the engine check this out like butter oh it's so nice so after a couple hours of the oil trans fluid and go globo sitting in the cylinders it kind of soaked in there so I think that was the major problem now we still obviously have a starter not retracting issue but I think what it was doing before the binding the locking up of the engine was the ring so that is awesome awesome news there's a few more times oh that's nice so anyway let me show you what's going on with the starter okay so I've installed all three shims and the starter is still not low enough now I used a little bit of anti-seize here on the flexplate this was actually a very common repair procedure at mercedes-benz when I was a dealer tech there strands is literally leaking as we speak but that wood on those cards they would squeak because this was all kind of dry so anyway I put a little a nice ease to help this thing retract and it isn't really helping much so right now it's out and I can't even push it back with my screwdriver I cannot get this thing to retract by itself this is about as good as it gets so I'm gonna do what a lot of you guys wanted me to do in the last video I'm just gonna send it because I really want to see if this thing will fire up and run it also even if I'm risking damaging the starter I'm going to do it okay for the sake of hearing this engine run and if we have to we'll get a new starter in the next episode and I'll figure out exactly how to shim this so anyway I'm gonna go put the plugs in charge the battery back up a little bit and we're firing her off okay that did not sound very good towards the end there the cranking sounds a little wonky but I'm gonna get some starting fluid or something inside of the carburetor so try and make this thing start a little bit easier we'll try it again guys it rose I cannot believe it that sounds really good although I'm starting to hear kind of a knock towards the end I'm gonna go check on the starter but it runs guys check this out the starter gear has fully retracted so maybe with the engine firing up it kind of just rattled its way back you know like I said I'm not super experienced with spacing out starters so comment down below guys it's working right now I'm just gonna kind of go with it but man we have a really really bad transmission leak this is just from sitting for like five days but anyway I'm going to just check the oil again I obviously have filled it up with oil and I'm glad we're gonna run it again I don't even know what to say let's start it back up I'll open the garage door though because we are getting smoked out there you have it the super weird Firebird is alive she's alive and actually runs really really good I'm hearing a little bit of ticking and this is a seems to be disconnected try the vacuum advance oh wait a minute I'll look at that oh my gosh the distributor is like totally loose hang on let me shut this off okay so I noticed that the factory oil pressure gauge is reading zero even when you rev it up the needle doesn't move at all now this is a 1985 Firebird it very well could be the oil pressure sender unit it could be the fact that the gauge is bad who knows but I don't want to risk anything because so far we have gotten away with murder on this engine I'm gonna hook up a manual oil pressure gauge in the next episode verify that we have proper oil pressure I gotta fix the transmission leaks they're really really bad and then we have to figure out what is going on with this distributor as it just kind of moves around it's hard to see right now but the bolt in there that has the little hold down it's stripped so I can't even tighten it so I'm gonna have to take that out I'm gonna have to probably remove the distributor and tap that and whatnot and get that set and then we're gonna get the timing light on this set the timing perfectly but just the way it is obviously I gonna put the belts back on just the way it is though it runs really really nicely so yeah guys I don't know what else to say this is so cool that this car that had been sitting at a cope art auction lot just looking disgusting is now up and running and we got the hatch open there's no metal shavings in the oil we got it to turn over by hand really nicely so overall this has just been a massive massive success so the first one it's actually the first thing I said in the last video seemed to be our problem we shimmed the starter and although it wasn't working before it is now so comment down below what you think of that and i'm gonna go dig up my old Chevy small-block manual figure out what the timing should be I got to read up on a few things but we are gonna get to work and get this thing road work and driving in the next episode so let me tell you guys a little bit about this cars crazy history ok guys a couple minutes of the history behind this car everything that I've learned from the longtime previous owner and the Builder of this car and then I gotta take off for work I'm gonna probably be late today okay so I've messaged with this guy named Rob and he is the one that built this car from 1991 to 94 so it took him three years to build this car and he named it the invader so Rob is a professional he owns a car he owned a company called Luis Selim I might be butchering that Louis sell enterprises so it's robbed Louis sell and he built Knight Rider replicas he's built about 20 complete Knight Rider show quality replicas all the fiberglass parts so the whole - the crazy Knight Rider - the exterior everything he would do now he said this car the reason he built extra up asked me like why did you build this car he said he was obsessed with the Banshee concept so in a reveal video I mentioned two guys that I thought this was loosely based off of I think it was the 1988 Pontiac Banshee concept it's a very futuristic looking car crazy interior crazy-looking engine and just very ahead of its time and of course it never came out so he was obsessed with that and he took a third gen back in 91 so this car was only like six years old at the time and he spent three years building what you see behind me so at the time he said he was working a couple jobs basically and he presented this car to Tom goat a special project manager at Pontiac sorry I'm reading this off my phone he showed him the car he invited this Tom invited him and his family to visit the actual Banshee concept at Pontiac VIP treatment he says but nothing really ever came out of that so he said for Hollywood he did provide the Nightrider parts for the 2008 reboot which I'm pretty sure is a Mustang actually so they made parts basically for the Knight Rider reboot and then yeah he's made 20 kit replica cars sold hundreds of parts all over the world for people to build their own kit cars and and then he retired a couple years ago and now he builds Model T's in his spare time so I got to speak to the guy that bought it from Rob his name is Chris he bought it in 1995 so right after it was built and he owned it until 2015 he did all the suspension work that I showed in the original video which is some really nice quality stuff and then he put the crate Jegs engine the mildly built transmission it's a 4-speed 700r4 so he said he put about $10,000 into this car and he drove it he enjoyed it and it did stay indoors in his barn but he did use this car quite a bit he said he loved it and I really hope one day to show him and Rob the car again Rob is actually in Michigan about five hours for me here in Chicago so I don't know who owned it for the last like five years I guess I could start googling his name I found his insurance card but either way I'll let you guys know if I find anything from the previous owner but there is a lot of dirt and debris under the hood here that you can see little mouse droppings and stuff I think it just kind of sat around for many many years so this was the invader based off of the Banshee concept built by a guy who built professional kit replica cars and had a little bit of a connection with Hollywood for the reboot in 2008 so $1,100 for this car I could not be happier I'm so happy we got it running we checked everything off the list and this is turning out to be just a really cool project my first car was a 1988 Trans Am GTA so this is bringing back a ton of memories just sitting in there and stuff like that so anyway if you guys enjoyed this video subscribe if you're new to the channel maybe you just started watching because of this car consider subscribing we're gonna start making some more videos with this getting it roadworthy I might even drive it to Michigan I have an ls1 turbo Trans Am that I've built over the course of 16 17 years something like that so anyway subscribe if you're new share this video most importantly have an awesome day [Music]

Channel: LegitStreetCars

Views: 578,206

Keywords: AUCTION CAR, CONCEPT CAR, pontiac banshee knight rider 2000, pontiac banshee concept car, LOCKED ENGINE, built engine, crate engine, crate 350, knight rider kitt, MOVIE CAR, PONTIAC FIREBIRD, TRANS AM, legit street cars, legitstreetcars, will it start, cars, legit streetcars, mystery car

Id: Z03_DW9yWXY

Length: 26min 4sec (1564 seconds)

Published: Sat Dec 21 2019