I'm looking at picking up a 1980 TA turbo, the car has some rust in the right rear quarter panel and then a hole in the passenger side floor. Its the original Turbo 4.0liter engine and was a pace car edition. Anyone have any info about this thing as well as pricing for it??

was going to pay about 2300, is that too high?
Thanks,
Mike

 

1980 Turbo TransAm: 210 hp Turbo charged 301 CI V8 (4.9 liter).

5,700 Indy pacecar replicas were produced. All were automatics.

As for the price, if the car literally has a hole in the floor board I would say that 2,300 is too much, but thats my opinion.

I would say it is somewhere in the $500-$1200 range. Unless of course the rest of the car is amazingly clean!


Good luck w/ it.

 

I'm with TAdan, that's too much for a car with that much rust. I'd say the owner is using the pace car thing to prop up the value. BTW, in case you don't know, those 4.9L turbo engines were known to be grenades. Very bad design - thin casting, no crankshaft counterweights, spark knocking time bombs. I'm not saying don't buy it, but I'd probably be thinking about putting a "real" V8 in it. And don't pay that much. Good Luck.

 

Just remember that a 455 will fit in that same whole the 301 came out of. Those are nie looking cars (except those gay turbo rims). I say buy it and fix it up.

 

if you get another small block you can put the turbo on it, but I think that turbo is pretty weak

 

Those turbos would cook or coke there bearings. I would be surprised if that is the original turbo.

Also for that motor they recommend straight 30 weight oil for the motor because of the turbo.

What would happen is the owner would pull up after a fast run or blip the throttle before shutting the motor off and the turbo would still be spinning 25,000 rpms with the same oil in the bearing. It literally cooked the oil.

If the owner only would have let the motor idle for 1 minute while the turbo spooled down there would have been few problems.

Chet

 

As the owner of a 1980 Turbo 4.9L T/A, I'll weigh in here on this topic.



This is almost as good a story as the guy who asked me $3500 last year for one of these Pace Car T/As.... with the windshield header virtually eaten away.... $2300 is too much for one of these cars affected by rust.... you're being hit with the old "But it's a Pace Car..." sales strategy. Just remember that there were 5,699 other ones built too....

TAdan is right on with the numbers he quoted in this thread. I paid $1K for my '80.... and it has no rust whatsoever, even with the T-tops.

Everything in this entire post is right.... well, except for the part about the "gay turbo rims".... I think they rank among the best looking road wheels ever put on a car by Pontiac or any other carmaker.

The postings are right about the engine and its longevity. The 301 was an economy engine, plain and simple. The Turbo was simply added as a stopgap measure to try and make up for the loss of the 400 V8, powerwise. But modern synthetic oils and fluids make these engines much easier to live with on a daily basis nowadays.

Synthetic oils are MUCH more resistant to thermal and heat breakdown; I have run 10W30 full synthetic in my '80 for 6 years now with no problems whatsoever.... and the turbo is still putting out the boost on demand. But I also still let it idle down after driving, even with the modern oil in there. With no alternative cooling system for the turbo unit, it's very important to give the TC every chance to spool down on its own; this will help tremendously if you run standard oil in the car.

Also frequent oil changes are a must as well.... I change my car's every 6 months or 2,500 miles, whichever comes first.

In short, these cars will take care of you if you take the time to do a liitle for them as well. Don't ever expect one to be fast (they're not, and never will be....unless you yank the 301 out) but the WS6 Turbo cars are well balanced road cars, they have that famous bad-*** "T/A look", and are a conversation piece just about every time you drive one anywhere. I know mine is....