scooter

iTrader: (11)

So I bought this car back in December 2012. 1992 Jamaica Yellow Firebird, V6, auto, One owner, 88,000 miles on the clock, It was an older woman that owned the car and she mostly just used it around town. It has a bunch of dents and dings all around, but a solid car overall, almost no rust on it. Lived in a garage for most of the time she owned it and it really shows. Relatively un-molested, except it has the fuel pump access hack, and I do mean hack. they didn't seal the hole well, the sheet metal used is not flat against the hole and some of the screws are missing. One of the steering wheel holes for the puller tool is cross threaded, at an angle, severe angle and someone changed out 3 of the injectors at one point.

Shortly after I got it;


So far I had to change the struts, shocks, hood struts, window motors, injectors (Thanks Southbay), and all the vacuum hoses. Hadn't been touched since 1999 and it showed. The coolant was brown and the thermostat was stuck open.
Tires on the original wheels were pretty much shot so I put on a set of GTA crosslace with good tires and are painted black in the centers



In the future plans are; Front brakes, change out the 10 bolt with drums for a 9 bolt with 12" discs, rear control arms, PHB, and subframe connectors. Also put on a 91/92 TA rear spoiler form my 91GTA I basically have all of that already, so I just need to bolt it all on and weld in the SFC's

I also could not believe how fast the windows go up and down with new motors and re-greased tracks! I have NEVER seen a 3rd gen window move so fast Also not used to driving a car that is sooooo slow and one without the 3rd pedal. As of now, it is my daily driver. Once I finish my truck I am going to swap in a stock-ish 4.8 LR4 with a LS T56 and put some 3.73's in the 9 bolt. I have a 91 GTA that is a a shell in the garage, so I will get all my mockup completed in that car and then do the swap quickly, car-to-car since they will be side by side in the garage. I figure I can do the actual swap over a long weekend, or two but I have a few minor things to fix. There is a spot of rust at the bottom of the cowl that needs to be fixed and then I will also paint the engine compartment since it looks pretty bad right now.
I will also weld up the fuel pump access with a piece from a donor car and put in a plastic 4th gen tank since I have 3 of them lying around. I also figured out most of what I need to do to use the stock plastic/hard lines from the 4th gen tank and I will run the 4.8 return-less.

scooter

iTrader: (11)

I have done some other appearance mods. I put in an Advanced Keys alarm/entry system. I changed out almost every bulb with LEDs, I put in 91/92 TA tail lights and I did some custom lighting in the dash.

Here are all the interior lights swapped out with "cool white' LED's



Here is the blue and white LED lighting in the dash. The white isn't as bright as I would like, but I have to do a major amount of work inside the cluster to get the lighting how I want it, that will be a project for another time. The hash marks are lit by a blue COB halo with a modulator to dim them and the white is from a 194 replacement in the stock bulb locations. I also scraped the orange off the needles and painted white. The MPH and RPM are a complete halo glued to the back of the face, but the gas and other pods are halos that I cut down to the length of the hashes and glued on. I dont like the way it came out, one pod is dimmer then the other, but it was a lot of work and I needed to put the car back together. I'll redo it later when I have something else to drive. You can see a white circle around the MPH/KPM area where the 194 bulb is shining directly on the back of the gauge face. Eventually I will cut a lot of the reinforcement in the back of the cluster and put in white LED strips to make everything more even and light the needles better. I actually want the needles to be lit green, but I am not sure if I can pull it off.

scooter

iTrader: (11)

A shot of the 91/92 Tail lights with LED replacement 1157 bulbs;





Here is the fuel pump HACK! You can even see some of the screws are missing. I also smell fuel in the car sometimes since the hose that was used doesn't look like it was rated for use with gasoline.



I can't wait to fix that, so I can get some vibration damper and then some sound deaden-er over that. The car has a Borla cat back for a 3rd gen, but there is a lot of resonating back there, and I like my hearing, so I want to get all that finished up back there. Also with the Bluetooth for the phone, no one can hear me when I try to talk in the car while driving from the road noise. I want to make the car as quiet as one of the newer high end cars as possible. I know I am in the wrong kind of car, but I have the 73 Camaro to hear that once it is finished.

DynoDave43

iTrader: (11)

That's a good looking car Scooter!

92GTA

iTrader: (11)

Awesome, glad to see it on this forum!

scooter

iTrader: (11)

I updated the previous post

The car rolled over 100k a few months ago, so I pulled over and got a quick shot;


I still had the gauge cover off because I was still working on the LED lighting at the time, I cropped the picture so no one would see the insides, lol

scooter

iTrader: (11)

I put an Alpine head unit in the car. I wanted to use the flush mount, but I didnt cut enough of the back of the pod out and the sirius/xm unit has to go back there too and I wasn't able to do it right now. I may try again in the summer. I had the "Performance sound" bezel from when I had the 88 GTA, so I put that on too



This is where I mounted the antenna for the Sirius, I didn't want to see it on the outside of the car. It does have problems getting signal sometimes in this location. it's hard to actually get the shot, but since the dash pad actually has a metal base, the antenna stays in place.



I had t take the pad off to get the A pillar cover off for the microphone so it was easy to run the wire for the antenna too, I just fished it back and left some slack so I can get the pad in/out.

92GTA

iTrader: (11)

Ha, I did the same thing at 100,000. I didn't bother with 200,000 but I might do 300,000.

scooter

iTrader: (11)

I wish I could have gotten it without the fraction partially rolled over to "1" but oh well. I was on a road where there was no shoulder, so I had to pull into a strip mall lot to get out of traffic

scooter

iTrader: (11)

I started a thread for my LSx swap

https://www.thirdgen.org/forums/ltx-...ird-4-8-a.html

92GTA

iTrader: (11)

I pulled right over on the busy 405 freeway in LA, **** it haha!

scooter

iTrader: (11)

Well, I was working towards installing my DSE subframe connector on the passenger side and found a little rust in the rocker. I was already aware of some slight surface rust on the floor board on both sides and this stopped my Spohn SFC install previously. Since the DSE ones have you cut the floor out I figured this was a great way to negate that rust. Further inspection showed that this car had been in an accident in the past. The fender support rail is pushed back maybe 3/8" and a piece of sheet at the windshield is torn. There are also some seams that are separated in that area and have let water into the cowl on the inside of the car. I am guessing this is where my rust in the rocker is from, the rust is around the welded nut that the lower fender is bolted to. I will have to cut all that out, treat inside, and put new metal.
Since i had the interior all apart anyway I started looking around at the drivers side. There is a large rot hole in the area where the starter relay is on the kick panel, much worse than the other side. After I am done with the rust repair and all the SFCs, I am going to paint the entire underside of the car and do a lot more seam sealer, I do not want this to happen again.

It just sucks that a freeze plug in the 3.1 has lead to a complete tear down and finding so many problems. At this point the only thing that will be attached to the body will be the hatch during the tear down. I plan on removing everything in the engine compartment for paint, the interior had to come out for the SFC's and fuel pump access weld/closeup and the dash is out since it would be too difficult to repair the cowl area with the dash in place. I will also do some "upgrades" while it is all apart. I will do some vibration damping and additional sound proofing, probably new carpet, headliner re-covered since my was falling, the dash and interior panels will get foam all inside and between parts so it doesn't rub/squeak. I will also re-wire the back up lights and the starter relay since I am going from an auto to a manual and I like everything to work like factory. I also have an idea to put some LED's under the bottom of the door that illuminate with the dome light, like a newer car, which I also think is a good safety item since i like to park in the street. I also want to do some LED's behind the door handle that will illuminate and hold for a time period, activated from the unlock signal from my car alarm. Another upgrade I plan is a heavy 10 gauge wire and relays to work the windows. I had replaced the motors when I bought the car and they were much faster than any other 3rd gen I had owned, so relay control and heavy power wire should make them amazing, I think I am also going to get and express module so I can have the alarm roll the windows down.
I also bought some new speakers since I was running the factory ones still. I have the TDS greasable hinge replacements and I have to buy some new detent rollers, the drivers one is so bad it makes the door difficult to close sometimes.

Tdlowe

I also have a Jamaican yellow 1992 firebird.
Bought it off the showroom floor in Jersey that year. LOVED this car. Almost 280000 miles later its tired. Going to sell it for parts. Has the original gold laced rims too! Car needs a fuel pump and frame is cracked in 2 spots but it would be a great parts car. Interior is great and lots of good exterior parts. I will miss her, but Id like to see sold for parts instead of crushed . Live right over from Jersey in Delaware.