I have a 1989 Firebird. When I went to insure the car the vin decoded as "1989 Firebird/Formula". There are no insignia on the car except the small bird emblems on the posts and front bumper. Does anyone know how to tell if the car is a plain Firebird or a Formula? It has the 305 V8 engine, power everything, and is an automatic. Thanks.

 

here you go..

https://www.thirdgen.org/newdesign/vin/

if it decodes as one, it must be one

 

The spoiler, hood & wheels should be enough to differentiate them. I could see someone turning a FB into a Formula, but vice versa? Hmm.

 

Oh, almost forgot. I'm pretty sure I read somewhere that the codes in the VIN# specify that the car is either a Firebird/Formula (same for both) or a Trans-Am. Maybe i'm wrong...

 

Ran my vin # and it comes out as a Trans Am,Formula ?
What Gives?

 

ok, here are the facts, nothing but the facts...

A formula would have EXACTLY the same VIN as a firebird, as long as the car had the V8 "E" Engine or "H" Engine in 87, the F and 8 Engines were NOT available in the base firebird BUT were for the Formula.

in a nutshel, A formula is identified by the following:
--The Buldge Hood (same as 82-84 T/A used)
--The Aero Spoiler (Painted body color)
--16" Aluminum Rims (the 87/88 had flat style, 88+ have dished in style EXCEPT 91 & 92 when optioned with 350 and T-tops in this case they would get the Black spoked same as T/A
--The WS6 Suspension, this is difficult to tell unless your a real guru, or there is the RPO sheet in the center console/rear hatch area.

Another neet thing is on some years like my 87, there are little identifying stickers on all of the body panels that SHOULD match the VIN on the windshield. If they match, and you have the buldge hood then its a Formula...

confused?

John

 

 

Actually if it just has the WS6 then it is a Formula, the base was not available with the WS6 package without the W66 Formula package. Thats the most popular and most recognizable.

John

 

chances are you have a firebird not a firebird formula.

like 82R said, the vin decoder is kind of flawed / limited. It seems like it was programmed years ago with what the program author happened to know, and then left un-revised all these years with many limitations. if i had the code I could probably update it to distunguish between firebird and formula (based on engine). I don't know who to contact though and how private they are with their code, so it looks like we'll have to keep using the crappy version.

same with the RPO decoder. you absolutely cannot generalize on one RPO code over many years! RPO meanings for the SAME code change from year to year sometimes. Example: C60 has always been, and always will be, the code for air conditioning setup hvac controls. But AR9, a seat code, describes very different seats in different years. Y84 is supposedly a code for GTA's .. right? Not exactly. there was no GTA in 1982 - 1984, but Y84 was living large even back then, denoting a car not as a GTA but as a Recaro T/A. Heck, Y84 even existed in the 2nd gen cars, when there was no Recaro or GTA.. so you can see Y84 describes at least THREE different things, depending on the year. I have never seen an RPO decoder than was specific or accurate to a given year. If you look on different RPO decoding sites, you'll see they often have different explanations for the same code.. it just means they probably looked up the data for their car for their year and then they assumed the code applied to every year, which is the root of the problem. This would be tedious to fix and combine into one all-encompassing database, but it would be worth it at the end.. Bottom line, never trust an RPO decoder to be 100% right. It's pretty much guaranteed to have a few of your codes wrong.

1 more thing; 82R said w66 and ws9 not w66 and ws6

GT

 

Thanks for all the info. It looks like I have a standard Firebird, which is just fine with me. The engine code comes up as L08 and I believe the more souped up versions had an L98. I still think it's cool and it goes more than fast enough for me.

 

KIZZ,
You are correct, W66 denotes the "Formula Package" which included the WS6, that is what I was referring to. The WS9 is also part of the package it might even be a different part of the same package OR it could be from different years.

What I was trying to get across was the WS6 was Standard on the FORMULA, and GTA, and optional on the T/A, but not available on the base firebird ever (to my knowledge).

I will have to look at my cars to see if I in fact have the WS9 package on either of my 87's

John

 

I in fact do NOT have the WS9 package on my Formula's, so I wonder if it was from a different year, 88+ OR, it might be the RPO code for the 93+ cars, and it made it into our decoder.

John

 

I dunno, I've been trying to get my hands on a parts & illustration guide which should have all the RPO's listed from before 4th gens came out, and that would be somewhat accurate and trustworthy info

 

The parts and illustration guide is a handy tool, I will give you that (I have one), unfortunately there is no list of RPO codes in one spot, it is spread over the both catalogs.

I can take a peek and see what I see in there tho.

John

 

Kizz,
I just looked in the Parts & Illustration Catalogs, and I went to the most obvious place I could think of, body. There was no reference to the WS9, only W66 for the Formula Package where I looked.

BTW, my catalog is dated November 1992, so it should be the last version for 3rdgen

John