![]() ![]() Many manufacturers sold performance parts for the car promising huge gains, but really those parts did little to improve the situation. The car felt like a v8 conversion 6 cylinder mid-priced car, not a premium-priced v8 powered car. That also allowed the engineers to use the small-sized transmission and rear axle. The 305 engine should have made over 210 HP which still would have been conservative, but the fuel injection of the time just didn’t have the control the engineers wanted, so they dialed back the horsepower. Later on, the 350 returned to the Firebird and Camaro platforms and that meant over 235HP and the Buick powered Turbo T/A made even more power but was conservatively rated at 245 HP. The upcoming C-4 Corvette was the focus of Gm as far as performance cars, and the F-body just wasn’t their focus. Their engineers just didn’t like the car enough to be bothered. Had GM allowed a turbo version of the Chevrolet 5.0 that came with the car, that would have been a beast because unlike the 301 Pontiac Turbo T/A which came with deliberately restricted cylinder heads, the Chevy engine came with standard heads and a turbo version would have easily made between 250-350 Hp even at low rpm. The Japanese cars tended to rust, but they ran much better and had digital gauges that were available much earlier than the Firebird’s awkward north/south gauges of the era.īecause the engine peaked at 4,000 rpm, the v8 really couldn’t compete with the high output Japanese 6 cylinder engines that revved well above 6,500 rpm. This was sold as a high tech car for the era to compete with something like a 300ZX or Toyota Supra but those cars came with high-performance fuel injected 6 cylinder engines. The average household income was just about 28,000 in this era, so the car cost half of the family net worth at the time. The car was just cheaply made and felt like it. Gone were any chrome or machine turned trim bits that were well-liked styling cues of previous Firebirds. According to there were 116,362 Firebirds sold that year of which 52,960 were T/A models. The T/A outsold the base and S/E models 2:1. That option would return later in the 3rd generation F-body. ![]() There wasn’t even a V8 powered Formula version available for this year. The seatbelts were recalled for the front mounting points coming loose and the gas tank was recalled for the evaporative controls whistling under operation. You almost had to buy the T/A version of the Firebird for this year because the 4 cylinder version came with 80 HP and the v6 came with 112 HP which made those Firebirds feel like an economy car. This car just felt cheap, and its price of 13,000 dollars was not inexpensive for the time. The interior of this car felt cheap with lots of plastic. Neither the engine or transmission was very good on the 1982 model. Where the earlier Turbo Trans-Am had a junk engine with a turbo, it used a decent transmission. The 200 series automatic was designed for less than 200 HP so there was no turbo version of the engine like the 1981 4.9 model. The alternators and starter motors of these models would last about 30,000 miles between changes. Equally fitting for this awkward car was its identical 1983 model was used in a box office dud called “Smokey And The Bandit 3.” Nobody went to see it. Even the optional premium stereos broke early. ![]() The radios and stereos available in domestic cars of this era would fail at 30k miles and this car was no exception. The headliners of all the GM cars of this era would delaminate from the sponge they were glued to and would drop down onto the heads of the occupants. The first year of this body style was also the one year that those strange north/south gauges were in the dash. The front suspension struts and steering parts were not of good quality and wore out early in their lives. The engineers must not have worried about the rear axle having only 165 HP anyways, and most came with less than that. The 4 link suspension was an improvement over the leaf springs of the second generation, but the rear axle was reduced in size to accommodate fuel mileage increases. The wheels were an acquired taste as they looked like painted trash can lids. You had to buy them as part of the options WS6 handling package, but it was worth it. To its credit, Pontiac had optional 4 wheel disc brakes on the T/A by the 1978 model year ahead of Ford and Chevy. The quality of the bodies weren’t very good as they would twist under load. The car was aerodynamic and its low drag coefficient resulted in good fuel economy of better than 19 m.p.g. Consumer Reports supposedly complained about body squeaking when testing the car as new. The 3rd generation F-Body was all about weight savings and successfully shed 500 lbs from the last of the 2nd generation cars, which ended up about the same as the early 1st and 2nd generation cars. The problem was most of them leaked water. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Details
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |