I just recently traded a Chevy S-10 for a 86 Firebird Trans Am. I had to replace the front bumper and hood because it had been wrecked. The bumper I put on came from a crappier looking Trans Am and not like the original. My question is that I want to put a Camaro Front End (Front Bumper, Fenders, and hood) on my bird. I know Chevy, GM, and Pontiac all have similar body designs so I thought it would work. Do you think this is a good idea because I think the Firebird body and rear end looks good but the Camaro front end looks better.

 

the "body" your refering to is identical, lol. The front and rear are what changed...and in my opinion i like the idea and i don't like the idea. Then again i'm a die hard flip up headlight guy, lol. Dying to have em since i was able to see over the dash board and been unfortunate to find 3 camaro's b4 i finally stumbled upon my bird. It's been done, you may be able to do a search on this webside to try and find a pic, google/yahoo for a couple hours and you might find one. I know there is one out by me with a t/a rear and a maro front clip. It is fully doable, i would suggest a 85+ z28 body kit if your going to do it at all. Otherwise if you think it'll look good, go for it.

 

thx, i think i'll do that. What are some first steps into getting more horsepower out of this 305 5.0L? It runs faster then my S-10 with the 4.3L but its not that much faster. I thought there would be a bigger jump in power from V6 to V8 but then I heard they made the 86 Trans stock with 160 HP. Yeah, it really sucks and a motor mount broke loose, the one near the transmission; i don't think it will be too hard to fix.

 

that is WAY too broad of a question...you have millions of options and combinations...motor swaps, fuel injection swap, cams, intakes, heads, headers, exhaust systems, supercharge/turbo charge. Even newer rear axle ratio would pep up your car and give it quicker acceleration (higher rear end ratio: faster acceleration and less high speed; lower rear end ratio: slower acceleration and higher high speed plus better fuel effeciency). There are a lot of combinations and there is even a thread to that affect. I suggest you go into the list of threads below in the "Forum Jump" and go into power adder. Inform them of what your budget is, what your interested in, and what you would like to see out of the engine HP wise. Personally after having to rebuild a carb like 3 times i got agrivated and swapped to Fuel Injection (Throttle Body Injection (TBI)) and haven't had a problem yet. Other people will suggest you to go to TPI (Tuned Port Injection) because there is almost a 40 hp jump from TBI motors...but from your motor i believe it would be like 60 or so, but that depends on your exhaust/intake/head combination. I like TBI because you only have to deal with two fuel injectors instead of TPI where you have to deal with 8 fuel injectors, and TBI is one of the most fuel effecient and most durable motor GM produced of the era. It's not hard and nothing to be intimidated by. There will be people here to try and help you every step of the way.

 

2 problems with building a fire-maro and making the parts match up

1. Fender Flares. They are different between the camaro and firebird. To make it look "right", you will have to cut out whichever fender flare you don't want and weld in the other style fender flare. You could cut out the front or the rear depending on what you want to do but they both must match.

2. Ground effects. The 85-90 trans am ground effects extend further up the body than the camaro ground effects or even the 84 and 91-92 firebird ground effects (about an inch or 2 further). The only way to make it look "right" with a camaro front end would be to get camaro side ground efx, 84 t/a side ground efx, or 91-92 firebird side ground efx. Then if you have a 91-92 camaro side ground efx, they might match up with a 85-90 trans am bumper. 91-92 firebird ground efx will match up with a 85-90 t/a rear bumper. 84 T/A side gnd efx will need an 84 t/a rear bumper.

So, to make it look right and to make it look stock is going to require a lot of work. Also, its not always easy finding good parts. You can slap parts together but its going to be obvious that nothing matches, unless you do both 1 & 2 the way I mentioned above.

 

somebody else did this on thirdgen.org, im not a fan of the idea at all, but he made it look slick, i'll post a link if i come across it again
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https://www.thirdgen.org/forums/body...ight=transmaro there it is

his username is "nubird", he made it look good