I am trying to figure out if I possibly have the original intake from the Original Firefox project.

From what I understand is the Firefox was originally a 1989 GTA that was Normally Aspirated, The Turbo version was the Firefox II. The only pictures I can find are from a magazine article (see attached pic) As you can see in the picture the runners are not stock. Notice the attaching points, they used an Allen bolt, and the flange where the runners attach is flat and not contoured like the regular TPI setup.

My intake:


Notice the similarity to the Firefox intake, also notice that there does not appear to be the EGR tube on the Firefox, however it may be hidden by the intake runner. My intake does not have the EGR as you can see from the pic above. The Bolts on the RH (top of the pic) are the Allan screws as you can see below...

I purchased the intake off some guy at a car show, he told me that he worked for some company that used it as a prototype intake. I have no other information other than that, I wish I would have gotten his phone number. I live in MI, where the conversion was done...

When I got the intake it was very clear that the runners were quite a bit larger than the stock intake, I want to think about 1/8"D larger or so.

Does anyone have a higher res pic, or a better picture of the intake on the Firefox. I did a search and came up empty after 7 pages. And I searched Google & yahoo without much luck.

Any thoughts?

 

They look like AS&M runners. just without the EGR tubes.

http://www.azspeed-marine.com/19latuinru.html

 

The engine pic in your original post is the Firefox II engine bay. Firefox 2 also was not a turbo car, there was however a blue twin turbo car built around the same period but both Firefox cars were naturally aspirated. I also remember reading in an issue of HPP that Firefox was sent to the crusher and the powertrain was transplanted into Firefox 2 along with the C4 IRS.

 

It's hard to find pics of the firefox let alone high res one, but those do look pretty close to asm runners

 

If you look at the flange of the runners the Firefox pic, you will see that the flange is also very straight and thin, like the set of runners I have. I am not convinced that mine are the actual FF runners, as using a piece of plate 1/4" aluminum and some bent tubes would be a very easy way to make runners. I just find it interesting how close they appear from the FF pics.

From that link, the ASM FLANGES look more like the stock runners and WAAAY thicker than what I have. If you look at the Firefox pic and the pic of the runners I have, they are simply a 1/4" or 5/32" thick piece of Aluminum welded to the end of the tubes. I do not believe that the runners that I have are a cast piece, IIRC they appear to be welded together.

I would be interested in some good pics of the ASM runners to make sure. Since the intake is now on my car, an on-car pic would be ideal as then I could comapare them.

John

 

Here are a couple of pix of my AS&M runners. The flange does look thick, but it's probably about the same 1/4"-5/32" thickness you mentioned; the flanges are welded to the tubes; and the tubes are about 1/8" dia. larger than the stock tubes. But they very obviously don't look like the stock tubes, nor do they look anything like the tubes you're asking about.

So unless AS&M had an early design that was different than their current design, I'd say yours are not AS&M LTRs.

 

The flanges on the ASM or AS&M look to be quite a bit thicker than mine... Especially look at the front edge of the Passenger side runner, it looks to get wider as it goes past the front most runner tube. My plates are straight.

Thanks

John

 

The flange on that side doesn't get wider, it just looks odd in the pic because the angle of the front of the flange changes, sloping down-and-out, like the stock runner's flange, to match the slope of the front of the plenum. I think you're saying yours doesn't slope, it stays straight... at least, it looks straight in your pic.

So yours apparently aren't stock, they aren't AS&M's or TPiS'(the same, produced by AS&M), and SLP's are not stock-style. They kind of look like FIRST runners, except I think their runners are somewhat oval-shaped, not truly round. I think some of the local SoCal guys are experimenting with FIRST. Try contacting 1989GTATransAm.

Did anyone else made stock-style LTRs? TPiS claims to have designed the first aftermarket LTRs(again, produced by AS&M), just as it claims to have designed the first aftermarket TPI intake manifold(produced by Edelbrock), so maybe those runners are an original or prototype design by TPiS. Try contacting them, too. If they didn't design them, maybe they'll know who did.

 

I don't have any photos of the intake but I thought I did throw this out as part of the debate over how many Firefoxes and etc were built

This is what I came up with

• Pontiac "Firefox" Trans Am GTA prototype (1989)
• Pontiac "Firefox II" Trans Am prototype (1991)
• Pontiac Twin Turbo Trans Am prototype (1992)

• Pontiac "Firefox" Trans Am GTA prototype (1989) (In the years preceding the introduction of the 1989 Turbo Trans Am, Pontiac was busy building excitement. Some of the exercises included a 3.8 liter high output Turbo Trans Am that delivered 360 hp and 412 lbs of torque. The 3.8 liter HO drivetrain consisted of a ZF six speed and a Dana 44 rear with 3.92 gears. Pontiac also examined twin turbo charging with a 5.7 liter red and black Trans Am equipped with a set of Garrett T-3 turbos. This 5.7 liter was fed by 16 fuel injectors, three GNX fuel pumps, two air meters and two GNX intercoolers. The driveline pieces were the same ZF six speed spinning 3.73 gears. The twin turbo put out 605 hp and 700 lbs of torque. It was among these factory super cars from Pontiac that the original Firefox was born. This sinister 5.7 liter black GTA came with the the ZF six speed and heavy duty Dana rear end as well as suspension modifications.)
• Pontiac "Firefox II" Trans Am prototype (1991) (The Firefox II, based on a 1991 Trans Am was built by Pontiac in conjunction with TDM Technologies. TDM is an automotive engineering support firm based in Livonia, Michigan. This incarnation of the original Firefox differs from the original in several areas. The Firefox was powered by a beefed up Tuned Port Injected 5.7 liter with aluminum heads and a bumped up compression ratio of 10.5:1. The Firefox was also given several tried and true TPI modifications. The Firefox had provisions for a catalytic convertor but this prototype was not so equipped. Horsepower levels were an impressive 328 hp at 4500 rpm and a stump pulling 395 lbs of torque at 3500 rpm. It is needless to say that these levels of performance would decimate stock driveline pieces. As was the case with the original Firefox, the shifting duties were handled by a Corvette ZF six speed tranny with power being channeled to a limited slip rear with 3.91 gears. Residing in the rear of Firefox II is a suspension that F-body owners have wanted for the last 10 years, an independent rear suspension. This all aluminum independent rear suspension required the fuel tank to be removed and replaced with a small fuel cell fitted in the luggage compartment. It also required a compact muffler mounted snuggly behind the IRS assembly. The IRS was apparently considered for the 1989 20th Anniversary Turbo Trans Am and the original Firefox but has never made it on a production F-body due to cost and complexity. The rolling stock was also upgrade to handle the increased performance. The Firefox II rode on sticky 275/40/17 Goodyear Eagle ZR40's and 17 inch BBS 3 piece rims with a honeycomb design similar to the GTA's stock WS6 rims.)
• Pontiac Twin Turbo Trans Am prototype (1992) (The only surviving example of the Firefox's era is the 1992 twin turbo Trans Am that Pontiac still shows on occasion. Whereas the Firefox was a normally-aspirated car, this 1992 T/A has some features common to the Firefox on it as well, including the complex independent rear suspension.)

Found this stuff on Firebird an Auto-Biography and some personal recollection from magazines and finally http://ls1tech.com/forums/pontiac-fi...t-history.html


The first Firefox I believe was red and black, second one was blue or blue/green thus could be a different car and my personal fave of the twin turbo TA was Blue. I remember reading that Motor Trend tested that car along with other factory prototypes from Chevy and Ford and the TA whipped everyone's @$$. Literally destroyed the competition in all comparisons.
From what I have gained in my searching and Firebird an Auto-Biography I think there were two Foxes. At least one might still exist.

 

Here is that article if you are interested:

http://www.gtasourcepage.com/91TTTATest.html