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History / OriginalityGot a question about 1982-1992 Camaro or Firebird history? Have a question about original parts, options, RPO codes, when something was available, or how to document your car? Those questions, answers, and much more!
The odometer looks awfully uneven to me. The one in my Formula is pretty straight, even after completely disassembling it recently to replace the broken gear!
The 5 digit odometer...hard to prove miles on those cars. I've never understood the thinking behind it or why some cars have it and some don't. All three of mine have 6 digit odometers.
I'm going to decipher the crazy carfax at 161K. Seller thinks 61K. But man those floors are so clean. It's like you could wipe them down with a Simple Green soaked rag and see the clean factory gray sealer.
Maybe the interior was so shot in 2008 the inspector thought it must be a 300k mile car.
The underside doesn’t look that awful though.. Most Thirdgens with over 100k that I see the control arms and cradle are all rust with patches on the floors and frame..
The exhaust looks stock and probably in need of replacing..
Goes to show with a 5-digit car and you know your mileage, make sure the inspection stations don’t take liberties because you could end up with “inconsistent mileage” on your Carfax..
Buy my 1991 RS t-top 5 speed that has 17,700 miles and is like the day it left the dealers showroom
and throw on some IROC decals on it........for only slightly more $$$
There was a black one but I can’t find it anymore.. with a clean L03 and 15” wheels..
There was also a red 85 that looked decent with the 5.0 H.O. Carb motor.. I think someone put it on here..
There is a restored 87 Vert 5-speed that looked decent in the Craigslist ads which are now down but it’s still on Facebook. It’s in Western Massachusetts.
It’s listed on Facebook as an Avalanche and Automatic, but I remember the Craigslist ad which has gone down and come back 3 times now.. If I recall interior restored correctly to brand new, TPI motor rebuilt to be stock and everything works according to seller.. It is a 5-speed.. looks to be being sold by a middle aged woman so maybe she messed up the listing..
I still see that other black one with TPI that I posted up a while back, but it’s at a dealer in Texas and looks to be a project to get it right again.. Overpriced for what it is..
Last edited by 88IROCvertZ; Apr 2, 2019 at 01:17 PM.
You guys are too squeamish. If it runs good and drives good mileage is just a number, and daily driving a car like this means you should be pro-actively replacing stuff anyway. Hard to tell if it runs and drives good from pictures though.
I'd say its a 161k mile car, but the re-paint has me more worried than any miles. Buying from afar it's hard to see if there is any hidden crash damage.
You guys must have standards much higher than mine. A rust free 5 Speed IROC for under 7K is a deal in my book!!
But there are plenty of rust free IROC and Trans Am/Firebirds out there that don't need a complete interior redo and possible driveline replacement for not much more money.
I don't know how any car guys manage to live in CA, I really don't.
I have a friend that lives in CA with a few classics including a thirdgen. He's always telling me how hard it is to keep an older car registered and how he hates it that I can not only replace the engine in my 82 with a 60s engine, but also not run any emissions or a cat and walk right into the DMV and re-register it each year without anyone even looking at the car or caring for that matter.
Who cares? Buy the car, not the exempt gizmo in the dash that's subject to tampering and innaccuracy.
Is it a nice car? Or is it crap? Mileage isn't close to the top ten concerns when I look at a car.
My personal favorite thirdgen has nearly 130k on the clock, my others all have less than a third the mileage and don't mean nearly as much to me. My project thirdgen has 000,000.0 miles.
I don't know how any car guys manage to live in CA, I really don't.
Yeah, there's a lot of downsides to the upsides. I have to say though that growing up in the seventies every summer day after being outside and running around like kids do, my chest and lungs would hurt after a long day. We had "smog alerts" Stage 1 through 3. Three being the worst. Since the requirement of the the catalytic converter and smog control, those typical smoggy summer days are literally gone. Like they did with seat belts decades before, big business resisted, said it couldn't be done but California was too big a market to get booted from and here we have it- MUCH better air in SoCal.
My stock IROC got hit with a gross polluter. Because it was running like cr4p. Super rich. I knew it but I couldn't figure it out and thought I would try to pass it anyway. Turn out that "stock replacement" Bosch D3 injectors really aren't. I needed a series of chip tunes. Now the car runs perfectly and I passed. No stink, no smog, no more fouled plugs every three months (yeah it was that rich). I spent over a year trying to figure out what the heck was wrong with my car. Just needed a custom tune.
Just for kicks, one day I'm going to throw my Multecs back in and the original memcal and verify it runs like new.
Yeah, there's a lot of downsides to the upsides. I have to say though that growing up in the seventies every summer day after being outside and running around like kids do, my chest and lungs would hurt after a long day. We had "smog alerts" Stage 1 through 3. Three being the worst. Since the requirement of the the catalytic converter and smog control, those typical smoggy summer days are literally gone. Like they did with seat belts decades before, big business resisted, said it couldn't be done but California was too big a market to get booted from and here we have it- MUCH better air in SoCal.
My stock IROC got hit with a gross polluter. Because it was running like cr4p. Super rich. I knew it but I couldn't figure it out and thought I would try to pass it anyway. Turn out that "stock replacement" Bosch D3 injectors really aren't. I needed a series of chip tunes. Now the car runs perfectly and I passed. No stink, no smog, no more fouled plugs every three months (yeah it was that rich). I spent over a year trying to figure out what the heck was wrong with my car. Just needed a custom tune.
Just for kicks, one day I'm going to throw my Multecs back in and the original memcal and verify it runs like new.
If it was that rich, you got the wrong injectors, period. And you'd be foolish to put the multec injectors back in ever, they belong in the trash.
I've still got the Multecs in my Formula that it had in 1999. It's possible they're not the original set, but I know I haven't changed them in 20 years. It's still the best running tuned port thirdgen I've ever driven. In the back of my mind I wonder if it'd run better with fresh injectors, I put injectors in the Iroc, and Mustang, and they both ran better, but I can't agree that all Multecs are trash.
In my experience, Multecs are fine until they aren't. It's not that they don't meter fuel well, it's that they will quit pulsing completely when they get hot. I've had a couple sets fail on me, and that's what they all did. Run perfectly one minute, no pulse the next.
Drew, I really like the way stock SD cars run. I think SD cars transition better and have better drivability than MAF cars. It's just my opinion, but I think stock SD cars run fantastic. I just view Multecs as a liability. I drive my cars frequently and sometimes for long distances like on the Power Tour. I don't want to be at the mercy of a tow truck operator or a bone head mechanic, so I view injectors as preventative maintenance in this instance.
You guys are too squeamish. If it runs good and drives good mileage is just a number, and daily driving a car like this means you should be pro-actively replacing stuff anyway. Hard to tell if it runs and drives good from pictures though.
I agree with the sentiment of just drive it, but why not buy a low mileage one and drive it? I bought my car in 2010 with 12k miles on it. It's currently at 30k.
I'd much rather pay more for a lower mile car and then deal with its issues versus paying far less for the one Charlie posted, which probably needs a completely new interior and, based on its smog issues, an extensive engine refresh... You could probably buy that car and dump 10K into it and still be behind where you would have been if you got a $12-15k low mile thirdgen.
I agree with the sentiment of just drive it, but why not buy a low mileage one and drive it? I bought my car in 2010 with 12k miles on it. It's currently at 30k.
I'd much rather pay more for a lower mile car and then deal with its issues versus paying far less for the one Charlie posted, which probably needs a completely new interior and, based on its smog issues, an extensive engine refresh... You could probably buy that car and dump 10K into it and still be behind where you would have been if you got a $12-15k low mile thirdgen.
The advice I always give is to pay the money and buy the better car, it will be better and cheaper in the long run. But sometimes you see a cheap one and are seduced.
Drew, I really like the way stock SD cars run. I think SD cars transition better and have better drivability than MAF cars. It's just my opinion, but I think stock SD cars run fantastic. I just view Multecs as a liability. I drive my cars frequently and sometimes for long distances like on the Power Tour. I don't want to be at the mercy of a tow truck operator or a bone head mechanic, so I view injectors as preventative maintenance in this instance.
I understand completely. While I don't really have any evidence to back up my belief, I'd put more faith in later Multecs than the ones used during thirdgen production. At one time my 3.1L 91 Firebird was forever suffering from flaky injectors. I mean so bad that a couple cylinders were dead holes, and another would come or go as it pleased. After a few rounds of hand to hand aggressive problem solving, I finally built a full set of 6 junkyard injectors that worked 100% of the time. After a couple years daily driving, one or two cylinders would come or go whenever, another trip to the junk pile to raid FWD 3.1L fuel rails, and again it ran 100% and for the rest of the years I had the car the injectors never gave me a bit of trouble. I would imagine that part of the reason the pile of cast off injectors finally resolved the issue for a relatively long term, was that the supply of injectors in the pile were off of later GMs like Luminas and Grand Prixs from later in the 90s. That's also why I have a hunch the Multecs in my Formula might not be 100% original to the car. They're jsut slightly different from some of the other gray Multecs in my parts pile, and the car was part of a government fleet for a time, so it stands to reason they would have been on top of maintenance issues. I cant remember if the Multecs were ever officially recalled, but there were certainly a lot of technical service bulletins covering the problems. One of the key issues I remember reading was that they did not react well to some chemical cleaners. I'd imagine that sensitivity might well extend to not playing well with ethanol.
At the first sign of a cold start stumble or inexplicable driveability issues, stumbling or hesitation, if a thirdgen appears to still have the original injectors, I'd have no problem suggesting throwing in a new set of injectors. One of the issues that plagued my Iroc from day 1 was always poor cold starts and throttle response. Last thing I changed was injectors, and suddenly it was like a new car, and that was with the stock pintle injectors. Picked up a set of new aftermarket injectors a couple weeks later for my Mustang and was blown away at how much better it ran too. I've got a couple more sets of aftermarket injectors tucked away for the Formula and the green Firebird (assuming it ever becomes a complete car again). As soon as it shows symptoms of a flaky injector(s) it'll get a different set. Just wish I could bring myself to buy a NEW set of Delphi Multec style injectors. If they were as cheap as some of the aftermarket injectors, I'd give them a go, but when I can get Standard aftermarket injectors for $150 a set, it's hard to justify taking a chance on $450 worth of Delphi injectors that look just like the troubled injectors of the early 90s.
