I have seen pictures of 82 T/A's with normal firebird hoods (no bulge). I thought the bulge style hood was used from 82-84. So did some 82 T/A's come w/o the bulge hood? My 83 T/A had the bulge hood as does the 84. So why have I seen some 82's w/ normal firebird hoods? Early production cars, pre-production photos...? Thanks for any help

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83 T/A 84 T/A 94 25th anniv. T/A and some Fords.

 

i have an 82 T/A with that bulge. it feeds the air to my Cross-Fire Injection. it could've been a Firebird with Trans Am logos that you saw. because all 82-84 Trans Ams had that so called "Turbo Bulge", or those pictures couldve played a trick on your eyes

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RED82TA5.7L

1982 Pontiac Trans Am
Cross-Fire Injected 5.7l V8
Eldebrock Headers, 3" Hooker Cat-Back, duel outlet with quad tips.
Mods: 1.6 Proform Roller Rockers, electric fan, Corvette 5.7L computer chip, K&Ns.
Audio: JVC Kameleon CD deck, Jenson 4x6 front, Eclipes 6x9 rear, 2 10" mTx T4000 powered by a mTx 200watt amp.

[This message has been edited by RED82TA5.7L (edited December 18, 2000).]

 

Thanks for the response.
I thought all the 82's had it, The pics ive seen clearly had the firebird hood though

All the pics looked like GM promotional photos. I would assume they were pre-production. Also I have a pic. of an 82' vert (custom) with the plain jain hood.

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83 T/A 84 T/A 94 25th anniv. T/A and some Fords.

 

Actually you could have gotten any 82-83 Trans am with the firebird hood, all 84 TA had the turbo hood, , not many 82-83 came without the turbo hood. but some did

 

The '82-'84 Firebird T/As came equipped with the "turbo-bulge" hood as standard equipment. However, the Firebird S/E with regular hood looked very similar to the T/As from '82-'83.

Cross-fire and L69 H.O. engine options came with a functional "turbo" hoods while base engines (LG4) came with non-functional "turbo" hoods.

I have seen that picture of the '82/83 T/A convertible that you mentioned. Black on gold with tan interior? Since ASC didn't "officially" begin F-body drop-top conversions until around 1987, I consider that photo as another pre-production prototype that does not reflect actual factory production appearance.

I hope this helps.

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1989 Firebird GTA: black on black 5.7 liter (N10 dual exhaust) with T-tops and leather.

 

Thanks guys, thats kinda what I thought.
Both of my LG4's had a functional "turbo bulge". Yeah its a black 82 vert tan int.
Also saw a pic of a red 82 T/A w firebird hood.(factory photo)

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83 T/A 84 T/A 94 25th anniv. T/A and some Fords.

 

A little story that may be of some interest...

In my 1/82 Motor Trend test of the '82 Firebird, they showed a pre-production demo with "T/A" logos rather than the full "Trans Am." Apparently, Pontiac was going to call the top-line Firebird the T/A rather than the Trans Am.

So why did they want to? Apparently Pontiac pays a $5 royalty (as of this '82 article) to the SCCA for the use of the Trans Am name. They planned to change the official name of the car to a T/A to dodge the royalty. Then they found that even if they used T/A, the SCCA still demanded their $5 per car. So Pontiac kept the Trans Am name...

Leave it to GM to find a way to save a buck!

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Jason E
'89 Camaro RS 2.8
Hypertech chip/K&N filters/Accel 8.8 wires,coil/RapidFires
Eclipse CD and 100x4 amp/Boston plates and 6x9s
JasonEE98 on AOL IM

[This message has been edited by Jason E (edited December 19, 2000).]

 

Funny that you mention that!, Today I looked at the pic of the red 82 (in school library) and it had the T/A logo on it where it would say "TransAm"

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83 T/A 84 T/A 94 25th anniv. T/A and some Fords.

 

I'll bet that pic was of the same car

 

Ancient thread but I had to reply

The turbo bulge hood was mandatory for Cross-fire injection. It was also mandatory for L69, as far as I know. It was also manatory in all 1984 T/A's regardless of engine.

That leaves the 1982 - 1983 LG4 4-barrel. the vast vast majority of them got it, but not all. There are in fact LG4 Trans Am's from 82 and 83 with an original flat hood. I know of one 1982 with 9,000 original miles and it's flat, non-WS6, hardtop.. sort of an oddball.

Speaking of the T/A fender logo, below is a still shot of a 1982 promo video showing a T/A zooming by with the T/A fender logo. A very very rare logo It's hard to tell in this still shot, but in the video the logo is metallic and 3-dimensional like the "Firebird" logo that usually goes there. A cool oddity

 

Whoa! A blast from the past.

Thanks for the new info Kizz

 

I've seen a few '82 T/A's with original paint and flat hoods. In other words, they were'nt wrecked and replaced with the cheaper flat hood.

To correct a post above, the fresh air "functional" hoods could be had with an LG4. I believe it was late '82 production though.

I've never seen a '83 T/A with a flat. I always thought is was an early production '82 glitch, because they were originally supposed to be aluminum, but i've never seen one of those either. I think they had trouble producing the aluminum hoods and ended up using steel but got caught behind because of it. That's my own little deduction though, not to be confussed with any sort of fact.

82-83 are the funky years of F-bodies. Especially late '82-early '83. '83's could have one of three engines, five transmissions, and several trim packages came and went during production. Lots of unique combinations.

 

my 82 t/a LG4 has original dome hood and my 84 s/e 2.8L had a flat hood original ,
i saved flat hod and stuck it on the 82 to keep dome hgood inside out of crap weather to stop the rust for now. 82-84 had both hoodss, depends on engine and option level as previously stated

good luck

 

I remember when those 82's came out. If I am not mistaken you had to order a different T/A package to get the Turbo Hood and the rear spoiler. I have even seen them without the fender scoops also. I worked with a girl that had one with no bulged hood, rear spoiler and no fender scoops. It was a medium blue. It did have the Trans Am decals and lower body stripes along with black paint on the bottom.

I have an 83 T/A with the LG4, WS-6, 5-speed, 3.73 positraction, am-fm with equalizer, functional ram air hood, with the stock turbine wheels. I also have all the dealer info on the car and the original window sticker.

 

Hi Dan!
Back in 1982 I saw alot of Trans Ams without the "Turbo" hood budge. When I went to the dealer and asked, I was told that not enough of the hoods were ordered at the time (there was some kind of car distribution memo on it). Pontiac sold more Trans Ams than they thought they would. On top of that, Chevy didn't give Pontiac all the engines that they wanted! So, alot of them just came with the regular carbed engine with hardly any power. All that after Chevy got GM to kill the Pontiac 301 Turbo engine! Heck, if Pontiac used the 301 Turbo, it would have had more power that the Vette! I would have loved to have seen that! Has anybody done a engine transplant with the 301 Turbo into a third gen?
On another note, all Trans Ams got the rear spoiler and fender vents! SE was to be short for Special Edition, which was to be the top dog, which it wasn't. Even though it came with Trans Am options.

Hope this helps,

George