Recently i purchased a 1985 pontiac trans am. Cost me 600 bucks and gas to trailer it home. Car was sitting in the guys driveway for 2 years and he had no driven since he bought. Floors were rusted out and "patched" so they are junk. Engine has a rod knock. Clutch is going out. 2Nd gear synchro is gone. Posi is worn out. All the seals are gone, leaks some water, not much interior and no radio. Seemed like something i needed to have


couple cans of spray paint later..


So i get the car home throw some plates and a sticker on it so i could get it going and see what it really needs. Well all i really cared about was power and the knocking 305 in it just wasnt enough. 350 out of a 1980 k20 plow truck
found a 350 for a decent price. Put all new gaskets in the motor, high rise intake and some headers. Also had to paint it of course.

All done with the motor so time to pull the old one out.


Old motor comes out with the t5 trans. Finally looked up the number on the block and tha old 305 turned out to be an even worse 267 out of a 79 g body. So that will end up in the scrap pile soon.
attatched the old t5 with a new clutch to the new 350 and threw it all back in the car. I used synchromesh mtf in my t5 cause i couldnt find any 50 weight, not sure if others have used this.

Right now im just running open headers because i havent had the time to get to a shop and have them weld me up a 3" y pipe for the hooker 2460 headers. Timing set around 12* advance. Hard to tune without an exhaust on it. Does seem to have a high rpm miss. Just changed out the distribtor with my other one, still used but better shape so maybe that will help? Have yet to try as i have an electrical issue with a shorted coil wire.

 

Got the shorted wire figured out back and running again after setting timing. Just ordered dougs y pipe so hopefully that will be here soon. Hopefully it will sound slightly more legal for the street than the open headers sound right now. Already have a 3" cat back(well no cat so right after that) installed on the car with dual muffler.
This car will never be about looking great or being structurally sound(unless the eventual homemade square tube connectors fix some of that). But it will burn some damn rubber thats for sure.

 

Finally got my dougs y pipe d901 in. Went to put it on and realized it wouldnt clear the oil pan on the 350. I then hammered the oil pan until i could get the 2 ends of the pipes to touch where there was supposed to be 2.5inches of overlap. I tacked the side that was touching and filled a 3/8inch gap on the other. Then i hammered the pipe 1/2inch and the oil pan another 1/2 inch so i could have slight clearance when everything was tight. All hooked up now and sounds pretty nice. Feels better than the open headers did, even though you cant beat that sound.

 

This sounds like a great project so far! Keep us updated!