I've been looking through this site for a while now and in those months my car has been mostly sitting. I bought it last October for $1000. You don't see many firebirds for sale around here so I kinda jumped on the deal. The paint is rough and the right and left fenders have dents also the hood has lots of dings.The good thing about it is the tires, it has new firehawk tires and the interior isn't that bad (I'll post some pics later). I think I got a good deal for 1k .

When I bought it, it came with a cc Qjet which the car didnt have the harness for one , it actually still has the tpi harness. It ran ok with the qjet but it had no power and stalled on occasion. I went ahead and bought a holley 600 cfm carb. The plug wires were rusty so I decided to do a tuneup, when I did the tuneup I forgot to plug in the #8 plug wire to the spark plug and the carb backfired after trying to keep it running. The power valve blew and I just kinda let the car sit since I ran out of funds and It still needed a few other things to get it road worthy.

I finally got a flexible job so I can start buying parts for my bird. So far I replaced:

Hood and hatch struts, hatch guides, Tv cable, leaking coolant overflow tank, water pump with upper and lower rad hoses, and intake

The car runs pretty good but it still needs a new cat which is why I still don't drive it. It starts glowing if I drive it too much so I think I'm just going to straight pipe it for now.

 

got some engine bay pics
1st pic how I basically bought it but with new holley carb and without the windshield washer tank

2nd Painted edlebrock intake with new water pump,rad hoses, alarm horns and wires removed . I tucked the injector wires, pass side in fender and drivers side in back of brake booster. I also put the sensor connectors on the pass side in the compressor for now I guess, they're not really visible from the front
3rd pic with new overflowtank

I lost the air cleaner stud, I got a new holley one so I just have the old one on there for now

 

Looks pretty good. Got any body pics?

 

sorry for the wait. I had some old pics but, they were pretty crappy so I went out this morning and took some

I painted some rough spots with dupli-color and I didn't cover the fog lights so some got on them, I cleaned the driver side with carb cleaner, I still have to do the pass



There's some pinstripes that are faded, they probably looked pretty good when they were new

 

For a Grand, that's not too shabby at all!!

 

It looks like this bird doesn't wanna leave the nest just yet.

I got it straight piped which made it run better but its giving me some overheating problems. I never drove it far enough to get it to run hot and I always drove it at night. It only starts getting hot if I'm sitting in traffic. It stays below 220 in the hwy and traffic it keeps climbing. its been close or past 100* everyday this summer so its pretty hot outside.

Things I've checked:
1 fan is always on so I know thats not the problem. Timing is right around 6* btdc. Got new reverse flow water pump and bottom rad hose isn't collapsing. Radiator looks good, no leaks or corrosion. Made sure no air was in the cooling system. It has a new 180* mr. gasket thermostat. I'm also running straight water so it shouldn't even be getting hot at all.

I also flushed the cooling system with the prestone kit and flush treatment which did clean it up, but also freed up some rust that was probably keeping my heater core from leaking. I'm in the process of replacing that, it has a small leak which only leaks after the car is off. The temp gauge seems to be pretty accurate since I was checking to see when the thermostat would open while I was doing the flush and by the looks of the sudden dirty water, it opened almost spot on

I'm thinking it might be running lean since I haven't really been able to tune the carb correctly. It idles just under 1k and when I tap the pedal, the rpm will take a bit to go down . I don't have a vac gauge so I just turned the idle mixture screws out about 1 1/2 turns out. Hopefully I'll solve this soon

 

air dam.

 

Air dams there. No air dam would affect it at hwy speeds.

Took this at my friends house. I think it looks pretty cool

 

Is the 2nd fan turning on?

 

[quote=BillyTheGoat;4989882]. ... I'm also running straight water so it shouldn't even be getting hot at all. <<<(Duh?)

The same thing happened in my girlfriend's 1969 Electra 225 w/455, over 30 yrs ago.
Soon as we dumped half the water out, and added 50% antifreeze the problem went
away. Remember, normal water boils at 212 degrees. Antifreeze is also a COOLANT,
and ALL modern engines require it. Please follow GM's requirement of adding at least
50% coolant/antifreeze to your solution. This will prevent the near boilover condition
you have created, and give you boilover protection to about 240-260 degrees F.
You REALLY need this protection, especially in the hot weather you're experiancing.
Fresh antifreeze also adds anti-rust compounds to the solution, which you'll want to
protect your new heater core, which is not a trivial job to replace. Trust me, your
overheating pbm WILL go away when you quit using 100% water. Stay away from
GM's pink/longlife/nontoxic stuff. The LT1 guys absolutely hate it, especialy in a
reverse-flow cooling system.

 

no, only the first fan is on.

xcalibur, water cools better than coolant and with a pressurized system, the boiling point of water is raised. I'm only running water until I find out whats causing the overheating. Lots of people run water with no problem.

 

your problem is caused by the two issues mentioned above. The 2nd fan should turn on when the engine reaches a certain temperature (I forget what it is right now) but if that 2nd fan is not turning on, then you need to check the fan and/or its relay. You NEED this fan to run also.

And I'm sorry but with xcalibur 100% due to my experience and reading and investigation on the subject. Just my

 

The 2nd fan on a tpi engine comes on a bit after 230*. My cars carb'd and the primary fan is constantly on with the key on. I don't think the 2nd fan should really have to come on, unless I was running ac. The car starts getting hot just by being at a light, but if i'm moving , the temp stays the same

I'm going to get a vac gauge and tune the carb a bit better to see if that helps. If it doesn't, I'm going to buy a fan controller that'll work with dual fans

 

Before you monkey w/the carb, please consider that your coolant sensor is calibrated to run in a 50/50 antifreeze mixure, and the output of this sensor has control over your carb's mixture, if it is still connected to your computer. Without that input, you'll never go into "closed loop". Sure hope steam/bubbles aren't collecting around your coolant sensor. Just trying to save you a lot of time & trouble.

 

It has a Holley 600 cfm Carb, the computer is out of the picture. I'm going to put some coolant later and see what it does

 

I haven't messed with the car yet since its been way too hot. I did however replace the heater core. It wasn't that bad, it took like 1 1/2 hours taking my time and cleaning all the dried up foam.

I also picked up a 86 305 tpi setup. The guy said the car ran great before he took it off. Its got all the sensors, I just need to clean it up a bit. The only bad thing about it is the runners, the drivers side is dented quite a bit. It looks like I'll need the following to get it running

Fuel pump
small cap dizzy, it came with a HEI though
Ignition coil
get rid of vats. I don't know how to burn proms so I'll have to see who can do that around here.
throttle and tv cable

I'm probably going to get it back to tpi by december when its nice and cold

 

The runner in the middle picture looks just like the one that came off my '89 Formy 350. Wonder if it came from Binghamton, NY ? Anyhow, my Formy was only about a month old when the dealership informed me that the dual cats (I think they were called N10), which were std on my car were never installed, (since my car was a special order due to the color). They wanted to offer me a couple hundred bucks in free accy's, or install them free of charge. The car already had all the accy's I wanted on it, including the floor mats (which they swore I wouldn't get). They really pressured me into the dual cats, since they didn't want to 'pull' real money out of the cash drawer for the accy's and could bill Van Nuys for the factory mistake, instead. As soon as I found it would make a few more ponies, I went for the dual cats. At least another month went by while they waited for parts, and when I finally got it back, my brand-new runner looked just like yours. Back then, everyone and his brother were asking to see the L98, and besides they damaged my new car, so I had them order a new runner. They lied, and wrote it up as "damaged in factory" and giged Van Nuys again.

 

that must've been cool having a new firebird, all us younger guys get the old battle hardened vets. About the setup, I got it off some guy in new braunfels, TX. There's also a dent on the pass side runner.

As much as I don't want to, I might be selling my firebird soon. I might look at a z28 camaro tomorrow that doesn't need anything and even has working ac. I'm not sure how much I should ask for the firebird if I do get the camaro. I've looked on craigslist since before I bought my car and I have only seen a handful of firebirds. I guess everyone here doesn't want to sell theirs.