I am sure this might have a debate, but on ebay is a 1989 Trans Am, 1LE, R7U. This is one of 17 Trans Am's produced in 1989 with the R7U Players Challenge option package.

TA on eBay

There were 26 Trans AM built in 1989 with 1LE (excluding Turbo TA's). Of the 26, 20 were shipped into Canada, and 17 of these were Player's Challenge cars.

In 1989, the majority of 1LE cars were shipped to Canada for the Player's challenge series (which makes a US car even more rare than you think it is.)

This car appears to be a non-raced car, although I have not personally seen it to verify that.

Notice the plain jane front buckets ... stock for an R7U car, but I doubt you could get a TA with them if your ordered off the street.

The car also has power windows, power locks, power mirrors, tilt, delay wipers AND is a 1LE .... AND .... is a factory built race car.

Just some neat history.

Mark.

 

interesting find

 

Thats where I live! Not the first time it has been for sale.

Wish I had the money

 

CAll me skeptical... it has power mirrors, Power Locks, power windows, AM/FM cassette, and cruise... A nice car...

EDIT: but wait, the SPID sheet states "1LE" well slap me silly...

I guess that just takes everything people have stated that the 1LE and shoots it right out the window... there you have a 1LE that has power everything (which does not exist).

John

 

I cant see the SPID clearly, is there dual cats on this car?


I think the low start bid is a teaser, Im sure it will go for way more, thoughts?

~Don

 

I cannot find the N10 RPO, however keep in mind that was an option later in the 1989 year...

It does have the JG1 Alum driveshaft, G92, just to name a few that would go with the 1LE.

Whats interesting is its all white, It is almost like someone wanted a TTA but without the engine. Obviously it does not have the articulating seats. But a striped down version possibly as a way to save some money. and possibly the only way the customer could get the 5 Speed transmission.

I did not know you could get a monotone T/A this year without going to the GTA.

John

 

Although upon further thought unless you went to the TTA you could not possibly get the 1LE package on the GTA. Possibly the purchaser wanted all the performance goodies, and some creature comforts, but could not get the 1LE on a GTA.

Notice the lack of C60 A/C; but how often do you use A/C in Canada... I know in areas it does get warm like here in MI, but for the most part I don't drive mine on too hot or too cold of days either.

John

 

The car is an RPO R7U car. R7U was a marketing package for "CAnadian Player's Car". Basically showroom stock racing similar to the firehawk series in the US, however the one main difference was that the Player's cars could not be altered in any way from stock. You will see in firehawk that Camaros typically ran the GTA wheels since they were lighter, but in the Player's series, this was not allowed.

This car was ordered as an R7U. The only choice after that was color. White was predominatly the color of choice since you could paint whatever scheme you wanted on a white car. Red, Blue, Yellow were tougher to cover up. Just think of white as primer.

I have an letter from GM (Nov 1988) which announces the R7U option package and the vairous options which were included in it. I don't recall N10. The Teams had to remove the stock exhaust and use a GM Motorsports dual side exit exhaust. So often the N10 was discarded.

It is a rare car ... perhaps one of the rarest TA's of the third gen and it was not raced ... just street miles.

I'd buy it ...

Mark.

 

1LE = heavy duty front brakes.

No more. No less.

Certainly there was other options ordered with 1LE or perhaps grouped with it. But there is ZERO truth to the stripped down 1LE cars. Actually it is more rare to find a 1LE without ANY options.

All Player's cars in 1989-1992 had 1LE .... AND .... a host of options.

And just for fun ... the 1988 Player's cars came from the factory with the 1LE brakes .... before it was a regular production option.

Mark.

 

Mark, Thanks for the lesson, I guess there is alot to still learn...


I am surprised it did not go for more however .

John

 

I expected it to fetch a few more dollars. I am thinking the TTA is what is keeping the price from going up.

I am sure most people will want to spend $10K on a TTA rather than a plain jane TA.

It's still a neat car and so is the TTA.

Mark.

 

I emailed the seller. We will see his bottom line on price. I like rare T/A, especially the ones nobody knows about.

What indicates a balanced and blueprinted mill? He sent me a pic, it looks stock and not like this:

 

Riddle me this riddle me that...

I was just looking at that GM motorsports engine. I notice that on the Right head (left side of pic) the valve cover has the tube that goes into the throttle body...

not a big problem there.. However On my 87 the tube comes from farther back on the valve cover... Although trivial, was that standard on 88+ cars and they reversed the valve cover OR was that a Motorsports only thing?

 

Mill in topic 1LE car:

 

The engine in the picture is a 1991 or 1992 engine. I don't recall. I have talked to the owner of that engine. He is one of two people I know of with an original crate engine. you can see the paint markings on the bolts where GM sealed it. GM also used special UV paint that only shows up under black light.

Mark.

 

The engine in the picture is a Player's engine. If you look closely at the top of the plenum, you will see an outline of the decal that use to be there. Just compare it to the engine picture in the other post. The engine has been apart a few times as the paint markings are gone.

The engines were all batch built by GM. The same casting molds were used to minimise air flow differences. The cams were all checked, injectors flow tested, and so forth. GM wanted equal engines. All engines were dyno'd and 100 or so equal engines were seleted sealed and tagged at R7U. Approx. 90 were sent to Van Nuys to be installed into cars, the other 10 were kept for spares.
From my research, the early engines involved alot of hand assembly in order to ensure tolerances were met. I understand that in 1987, the rods we all marked with their weight on them, which I assume was for balencing purposes. According to GM, they learned alot about engine building with the race series, so much that the later engines were very close in power.

From anyone I have talked to who owns a Player's cars, they all say they are pretty fast for a 305 car. There was one up where I live, full cage, side exhaust, GM PROM, etc. It ran 14.6 or something like that ... and I live at 2200ft! That puts the 305 in the 350 category. Somewhere I have a magazine article on a 1989 Player's car vs. a stock car.

Ah yes ... found my magazine. It rated a stock 89 Iroc against a 89 Players car. The stocker was rated at 225hp, the player's car was 250hp. Torque was 285 stock, and 320 ft-lbs for the player's car.

The best part of the Player's cars (and firehawk) was that they contributed to the development of the street versions, which we all enjoy. Take for example the baffled gas tank which became standard after 1989 in all cars.

Mark.

 

Ok then, how about the blank TB cover vs the Std one ? Whats the story there ?

 

Ah yes the blank cover. Well that is a special pontiacism. It was made from a rare earth element called Transamium which was only available in old detroit. They say this little addition was worth 25HP over stock.

:-)

... ok, so GM just cut costs.

 

ha ha Contrary to American beleifs, we don't have snow all eyar... ha ha jk Its 90 somethin degrees out right now and humid on top of it... beleive me, I use the air in my truck all the time! Too bad the air in the GTA is dead... oh well....

Cool car tho... its interesting to learn the history of some of these odd & unusual GM cars. Very interesting reading...

 

1LE was a performance PACKAGE consisting of several items..

What was included or deleted in this package did vary somewhat depending on the year, model, and make.. Having the heavy duty front brakes alone didn't mean the car automatically got the 1LE RPO

AFAIK, Despite having the larger dual piston PBR brakes that came with the 1LE package, the Turbo Trans Am and the B4C (police) package cars DON'T have the 1LE code on their SPID stickers...

 

"Having the heavy duty front brakes alone didn't mean the car automatically got the 1LE RPO"

I would love to see an example of this. How can you have the option (heavy duty front brakes) without the option code?

The car still is for sale, $9,000 US

 

The B4C's HAVE the 1LE code if they had the brakes period. All 1992 B4C's have the 1LE code but only a handful of the 1991's did. The brakes were a late option on the 1991 B4C's and were standard on the 1992 B4C's.

 

I love cool cars like that

 

About the only thing you can say for sure about 1LE is that it DID come with heavy duty brakes in 1989-1992. The other options changed from year to year.

Perhaps a quick list:

- the heavy duty front brakes (rear PBR were stand item in 1989-up)
- heavy duty shocks
- baffled tank (in 1989, then tank was regular production item)
- fuel pickup (sock).

The fuel pump is an odd thing. There is a different part number for it, but no stats on what it is. Was it bigger? I can't see why for showroom stock racing. It might have had something to do with longevity ... it could have simply been a cooler running pump.

Shocks are also strange. I have a set off a zero mile GM prototype and they don't have the 1LE part number. The best information I can find out is that the 1LE shocks may have started life as a shock from a convertible (which was the stiffest of all in 1988 ... go figure). Then delco re-worked them for racing.

There is no information about what GM put into the 1LE package from year to year. And there appears to be many very oddly optioned 1LE cars that it is difficult to say what was or wasn't in the package.

The more of us here that talk about this, the better the information will be. Nothing wrong or right here ... just good information exchange.

Mark.

 

He sent me a couple of pictures of the undercarrage and it had so much surface rust it it was hard to tell it was ever painted.

9K is too high.

- Dave

 

It ended for $4250. Where is this $9000 coming from?

 

The reserve was not met.

In reality any V8 is worth about $3000+, thats just where it seems to be starting, unless its in really rough shape. 100,000 miles etc.

The car is clean looking on the net, but pictures do lie, White is a great color for hiding things.

If the car was rust free, under side and all --- ok I would consider 9K a reasonable price.

A little rust on the bottom side, still se original paint on MOST of it 6K to 8K

The car is probably woth max $5000 in its current condition. I will not touch a car with MAJOR rust, a little here and there that a little time with a grinder removes is one thing, but completely covered is not even worth my time.

I would rather rebuild an engine and trans, and rear end before tackeling rusty parts, because you never get them Perfect unless your in the business and have the equipment to remove, and weld into it.

John

 

It's because the crate engine pictured is a 92 and the plant ran out of the "TUNNED PORT INJECTION" TB plates and started using blank LT1 plates. My 92 GTA is this way as are many late 92 cars I've seen. The very late July/August 92 built engine use the textured TPI vette runners also, they ran out of the smooth F-Body ones.

I have a question, why are the valve covers on the crate engine shown black? I thought all TPI valve covers were silver and only the very late 92's with the vette runners have the black TBI valve covers from what I've seen over the years, again because they ran out of TPI valve covers. So did ALL Players 305's use TBI valve covers?

 

I have pictures of a 1990 player's engine (still in the wooden crate) and it has silver ones ... as well as the Tuned Port Injection plaque.

The one in the picture I have not been able to decode. I assume it was a left over from 1991 or 1992 ... but reading above, it sounds like 1992. As it is sealed, it is tough to check for casting dates, but on the back of the block might be a date. The engine code stamped on this block is "DBS" which I can't find anywhere. The 1991 engines were "CLW".

I have a picture of a 1991 Trans Am that WAS raced in 1992. In order to race in 1992, you had to either have a 1992 model year car, or replace your 1991 engine with a 1992. This car has an engine with black valve covers and a blank TPI plate. I would guess all crate engines built in 1992 would look like this.

MArk.

 

When I was at the plant in May of 1992, all the TPI engines that were installed had the black valve covers. I guess they ran out of the silver ones. The black ones were used on the truck throttle body engines.

- Dave

 

My 87 Formula 350 has Black Valve covers... Both my 87 305 TPI's M5 & A4 had silver valve covers, and my extra intake from an 89 305 TPI has the silver covers. But my 87 LG4 had Black.

Did the 350's get Black or silver?

John

 

wow, i feel so uneducated. I thought they only made 1LE camaros. I never knew they made player's cars on the Trans Am, just the Camaro