Polishing The Fire-Turd

We have a confession to make. Even after freshening our ’88 Firebird with new paint and interior and a trick set of wheels, the car still made for a rather mundane driving experience. The 350 TPI motor was a competent performer in its day, but 13 years later we’re lucky to pull a fender-length on a new Maxima. We needed horsepower, and we’re partial to cheap and easy installations, so we chose to inject a healthy dose of N2O via Nitrous Works’ 125hp plate kit. We spent a long afternoon installing the system, proving there’s no simpler way to corral 125 extra horses. Of course, we made a few passes at the track to validate our efforts. The car’s performance surpassed our optimistic expectations—but you’ll have to read on to see just how well we did. OK, we’ll just tell you the nitrous knocked a full 1½ seconds off the e.t. But it’s still a mid–14-second car. At least that’s faster than a Honda.