I've got an insane idea....I could drop these on. IDA webers can bolt directly to these heads...hmmmmmm













Complete it looks like this

 

Looks great! But, a fuel pump access cover is something you have to put in yourself correct?

 

An access cover is a hack job, I'd rather not have it

 

Lol, you and I both. I'll take the long way and unbolt everything.

 

I sorta agree, although a door would be great for someone who drives their thirdgen daily. The fuel pump crapped out in my 91 TA... I'm still debating if I should make a neat little door because I drive it very often spring-fall.

 

I'd still rather do it the long way, less risk of rust or something else.

 

More deconstruction...

last pic is a phone pic, camera batteries were dead...









I have the entire susp. removed but the phone pics were crappy.
Gone will be this filthy mess.

Some tool figured he was afraid the center link came off. It's a stock type for use w/ pinched nuts, not castle nuts. No hole for a cotter pin. Of course on the pitman arm side someone did install a castle nut...now...how to secure that, one could drill a hole. Nah, too easy. Let's fricken WELD IT TOGETHER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Jeff was that you LOL? If so, bend over to receive a "e-foot" up your *** hahahaha

At least I goot my baer track 1 brakes in, same as on the camaro.

 

hell yeah another one to follow! love your work. hope this one turns out like the iroc

 

Looks great so far, can't wait to see how it turns out!

 

I'll probably go w/ another Fays 2 system and maybe adapt an unbalanced engineering decoupled torque arm. It wouldn't be hard to fabricate SFCs that would allow the DTA to bolt up like on a 4th gen.

I may end up w/ a tubular k member & front arms also. Didn't get to do a whole lot, been snowed in here, this weather is really dragging me down.

 

Lookin' good. I've never seen heads and intake like that before(the 4bbl one).
It never ends, and once you've driven a car with all the goodies nothing else will suffice!

Cant wait to get under my car and start ripping the suspension apart.

 

That old lump of V8 iron is out... now we can get cracking to pretty this thing up a little like the camaro

 

Any update pics?

Did you ever fully decide what motor/trans you were going with?

 

thinking about a 421 & tex 101A, need something truly brutal

I did a little more, the car is completely stripped (chassis wise) and I started cleaning up some of the booboos on it. A poorly welded wiper motoor mount section that converts to a later model motor, very very badly done. Going to fully weld it, smooth it out and make sure it's not an eyesore. There's also a section of sheet metal cut and hammered away to ease removal of the tank. Hammered it back in shape as well as it would go, going to weld it up too. Last is a bracket for an external pump or filter, not sure...nothing was there, crappy welds like on the other areas. Flux core crap, no penetration, complete misses and holes blown in the sheetmetal. I ground it all off, as clean as I could and it's now ready to weld in. Easy enough to fix. Leaves the horrible fuel pump access panel, I'll tackle that later. PArts are at the blasters and coaters. Got some back but thinking about tubular arms since these were pitted and it shows (they're the old arms off my 87 camaro) oh and yes, the idiot powdercoater coated my flywheel which was only supposed to be blasted...nice!!!

 

The container came in so I finally got some of the parts I was waiting on. Most importantly the Stret & Performance Multiport intake. I was amazed at how close it is in size and design to a HSR. The base manifold (hi-ram) is virtually identical apart from details but the same in port shape & size. The upper plenum is slightly larger and more profiled so it doesn't look like a square box on top and has a neat factory distributor cover. The TB is angled slightly down, I hope this is enough to make it fit under a power bulge hood, looks like it's going to be awful close.

 

unless your iroc is show car quality worth about 30K i dont mind at all cutting a whole, making a panel, and seamseal/ pop rivit it back in. if you make your plate out of aluminum there will be no rust. its the best way to save yourself a couple hours and make you less stressful. besides, it gets covered up with carpet and nobodys gonna pick you apart on it if they cant see it..i mean does it really tear at people to make an access panel that GM should have designed in the first place?

 

i thought steel and aluminum react negatively

 

I've never had any rust in mine and I've had it like that for years n years. It doesn't see much moisture at all right there anyways. Use self etching primer on bare metal that you see. Who knows maybe one day in the future when 3rd gens are rare and worth 100,000 everybody will look to the trunk to see if there's an access panel to drop down the price 50,000 dollars, but I doubt it

BTW is this factory paint all the way around? Very solid car & good buy. Hard to find an original 3gen in that good of shape

 

That's a great looking T/A!
82s came with serp. belts?

 

no, the serp system is from an 88+, the engine is a corvette short block, iron L98 F body heads and 90 TBI system. The entire car is rewired w/ 90 electronics incl. dash & headlamps & wiper motor (hence the welded in section) brake system is also the later metric bubble flare stuff.

It's not the factory paint, it was resprayed some time ago that's why the stripes above the gold are missing. the paint is not 100% perfect but driver quality. I touched up a lof of small scratches and chips. The only real prob is there's some blisters on the roof, I'll have that resprayed.

 

Well, did most of the necessary sheet metal work on it, welded up some holes, cut of some misc. crap someone welded on and cleaned up burn holes, sticking wire and blobs. Hammered the jack damage on the fenders back into shape and started cleaning the grime off. Also got most of my stuff back from the coaters. Missing the tank, heat shields, torque arm and crossmember as they were either too large or not ready yet.

 

I'm liking this build. It's nice to see an early car getting some lovin.

 

PM SENT........................................................

 

Got my tank and some underbody heat shield back from the coater, this was the last stuff.....however I'm missing the large one under the tank. I hope he hasn't lost that one.

 

Great work. Thanks for sharing!

 

Got my bolts and stuff back from the platers. Now all that's left is to clean the underside and spray some bedliner ad I'll be ready to put this back together

 

Lookin' good!!

 

i got my hands on a set of barely used eradispeed plus 2 extreme brake rotors from a C5 corvette. The rears in that kit are actually larger than the fronts, about 14" and 1.1" wide. The fronts are even wider but about 13.35" I'm thinking about using the rears although it looks a little silly w/ the small swept area and the baer calipers. May need some bigger brembos but then I'd probably use them on the thicker fronts

 

Since those brakes will never fit the stock wheels I've been looking for some nice wheels, with a gold center that are larger and wider than stock. I've been looking high and low for BBS wheels, Elipse wheels...didn't find anything that wasn't either 15" or too narrow, the wrong bolt pattern or too modern. Then I found these on ebay, jongbloed modular wheels 17x11 and 17x12 according to the seller but he probably measured the outsire lip to lip. Willing to bet they're 10.5 & 11.5 more likely. Right up my alley so right now they will be shipped to me via container so it's going to take a little while. Can't wait to get these. Probably will have to do some mods to fit them. The guy says they came off an 3rd gen Z28 track car.



just like stock I like it that they resemble the multi spoke stock wheels a bit

 

those are sexy

 

wheels look great

 

Car is looking amazing! Not too often that you see a 1982 third gen getting restored

 

 

Sweet wheels! I can't wait for more pics dude.

 

Absolutely amazing! I own a "ground effect-less" 84 TA and I wish i had shared your vision to make the two worst things about my car (in my opinion) stand out. ..I never liked the two tone scheme and have never liked gold on any wheels. Cant wait to see those wheels mounted and possibly pics of them rolling down the road...hopefully in a not so distant future.
Even though I have all the components to convert mine to a 91-92 Formula front-end, I think i will be a bit more patient and keep my eye out for a good 82-84 replacement bumper. Thanks for the inspiration!!

 

My 83 is non-GFX as well, and they are hands down my favorite style third gen.

 

Dam I want your time and resources.

Nice work.

 

Got the wheels in, looks like it's a very close fit. they're 17x10 & 17x11. I may have to convert the 17x11 to 17x9 or something like that and use the 10s on the rear.

Crappy phone pics

 

Very cool wheels. They'll be something that I've never seen on a third gen before and they go pretty well with the style/color of your t/a.

 

Wow those look great! Can't wait to see them with tires now. What are you doing for brakes on this one?

 

Not sure yet, something big definitely, I am going to put the baer set I have on the grey camaro and find something bigger for the TA

 

Sounds like a good plan...some big brakes would def compliment those beautiful wheels.

 

Problem is, the 13.5 and 14" rotors are too large. If the 13s fit I may still put the baer brakes on the car, no need to buy soemthing else if I have the stuff lying around. Then again a 13" brembo setup would be nice too, the 14" 5th gen stuff won't work.

 

Cleaned up the underside some more. Still amazed at how clean this car is









I did find some more nasty however, this is the inside lip of where the tank filler neck goes through. I already fixed the outside, then just now noticed the inside was cut and the flaps hammered down. I already hammered them back into shape, only need to weld it up and weld the other side too, you can see where I already tacked those together in the upper part of the pic



If the person who did that hadn't touched this car it would have been immaculate.

 

that even amazes me, is that a fuel access panel i see? did we already go over that?

 

Yes, a horrible hole. The same person did a horrible job at cutting the shifter hole and the hole for the fuel pump bulkhead connector. It looks a if the cuts were done with a sharp chisel. I'll need to clean all those areas up with a sanding roll and a die grinder and use edging to get a clean finish.

 

well if anyone is good at fixing it, its definitely you. are those the correct screws also? they look like really long self tappers

 

Probably not, the car was an automatic originally. Must be home depot screws LOL

 

yeah for home depot

 

Most people don't understand that if you just leave the control arms attached to the axle and remove everything else, it will drop really far downward. Then you slide the tank out while tilting it towards the tranny tunnel and presto. Really not rocket science here!

On another note, that thing is spotless underneath! Are you planning on undercoating it? It would almost be a shame to with how nice it looks currently.