Just a few posts of what I've been doing over the course of a month tryna get her road ready.. I was on a 6 month vacation when I seen it on kijiji, told the owner of it's still available I'll grab it. Long and behold right after I got back to Toronto its sold.. 2 weeks later shes back up for sale by the new owner.. guess it was ment to be LOL

couldnt refuse the price either, plus I've always wanted a digital dash bird.

drivers side floor is rotted a tad, auto tranny has no reverse, previous owner did a hack job of electrical led lights, switches and neon lights , oh and exhuast is completed rotted head to toe.

1988 firebird 2.8L auto

Towing it home
How she sat when i first saw it

 

Wow a true example if domestic rice. You got this make her good and remove that formula sticker

 

yeah bro for sure

 

Couldn't find a tranny locally so I sourced one from the states. Finally have reverse now!
After working with hoists for so long I forgot what it was like working on my back lol not a fun job espcially by urself.

Got my c6 rims to fit right.. 19s in the rear and 18s in front.
3 inch spacers rear
2.5 inch in front
rear took a little hammering to clear but shes looks good now.

 

A few days after I decided to give the motor a little better look over and found that the exhaust manifold warped and popped off the drivers side front bolt caps and passenger side rear bolt caps..

I've been thriguht this b4 with my 86 and its wasnt fun at all. I ended up breaking 3 bolts flush in the head and had to drill em out! What a pain! That was with the motor out smh.

since the motor is staying in this time I decided to soak the bolts over a period of 3 days twice a day. Borrowed a buddy's oxy torch and when to work! They all came out beautifully with a little patience and perseverance.. Rocking back and forth to break the corrosion withing. Luckily the 4 broken bolts had studs sticking out the head; vice grips toook them right out. You can see the fromt bolt head missing

What a relief!

 

Things were slow at work last week. So I decided to try and ceramic coat my pacesetter headers myself using red VHT paint.. NOT RED AT ALL BTW, more like Chevy orange

Came out Pretty well. Downside was I had to bake them while installed so I tried to avoid as many dings and dirty finger prints as I could.. doesn't look to bad from far after installed.
I'll have to snap some pics of it installed later


Prior to prepping
Used about 1 rattle can per header

 

Wasnt sure how to upload the video.. so i made it a gif style instead.. I was baking it on the vehcle at this point according to the instructions.

 

So that pretty much sums up what I did prior up until now.. yesterday I installed my patriot exhuast side pipes I've had sitting in the garage for about 6 years.. was Going to go on my 3.4 3500 top end swap motor build but decided I'll buy a another set but factory ceramic coated, much cheaper that way.

Hope they sounds as good as it looks
Gona have to get the exhaust guys to fab up a bend to hook to the headers.. also adding aditional brackets to hold up the side pipes.. the 2 dingy brackets arent enough, one speed bump and i feel they will fall off..

Starting to look like a hotwheels car lol

 

I take it you intend to keep the v6? Have you considered a 350 transplant? What is the length and inside diameter on you patriot side pipes ?

 

gona keep it a 6 for daily driver reasons.

Inlet is 2inches outlet is 3inches

I believe it was either 50 or 60 inches long

 

Awesome stuff ! Good work i love the orange headers mate, not sure about the side pipes though especially on the gfx, they look mighty low . Oh and please change out those mirrors !! 😋

 

I saw this car on Kijiji a few weeks ago and considered scooping it, but a few "distasteful" modifications scared me away from what else may be hiding. I'm happy to see it being brought back to life by someone on here though! Do you plan on hitting any of the local car shows with it?

 

Thanks bro but the VHT paint didnt last even after the bake. It ended up peeling right off.

IT WAS SUPER LOW LOL. Had to scrap the idea though couldnt get the pipes to connect correctly from the headers or y pipe, it would of been a pain in the *** to set up on the hoist aswel. Maybe I'll try rig'in sowmthing up for the 89.
Idk what the PO was thinking with those mirrors you can see nothing with how they are positioned.. probably gona just add blind spot mirrors to help see. He ended up bondo'ing it to the door.

 

The only show I know of is the normal get2gether by hwy7 & Martin groove fridays and Saturdays. Do thirdgeners have local meets in the Gta? But yeah eventually when I'm done it'll like to show it off lol.

Good to see a local on this board aswell.. I'm by airport and steels, wbu?

 

Yesterday after work I peeled back the carpet. This is what I'll be working with. Going to start grinding and cutting today, I'll throw on some rust converter to help prevent further rust formation.

 

I was Kipling and Eglinton but I live in Oakville now. You should try the saturday night show at the Canadian Tire at east mall and the queensway, it's massive and usually has a decent amount of thirdgens. I saw a Bugatti Chiron there last week, pretty unreal

 

You should peel back that black stuff behind the pedals and see what kind of demons are hiding. I just re-did the floor in my car just to pull back that padding and realise that I have more work to do. Gotta love ttop's