hey all. i am looking at an 84 t/a that is just awesomely (is that a word???) loaded. its got the ws6,l69 motor with the gt4 rear.wich is a 3.73. unfortunatly it is an auto. but i have learned to cope with that.

anyway. my ? is does the 84 t/a with the ws6 come with a torq arm. i will prolly go and look to make sure,but i figured i'd ask here first.
thanks alot.
jay

 

i wen to the car after work this morning and sure enough even the 84's have the torq arm. thanks any way.

i am waiting till the middle of this eek to make a final decision. the other car is a 1978 gta metalic grey 5.7. as u can tell i am very partial to the ws6 package. if this 84 didn't have it i wouldn't even be considering it over the gta. the 84 needs alot of work but i love the fact that it has the ws6,3.73 and the l69 motor.i say that b/c my buddy owns a small mom & pop dealership and i will be buying either one from him. even still getting parts for it will be little to no problem as my buddy has about 8 trans ams in another location that he said i would have full run of. god, i'm gonna be like a kid in a candy-store. i have to wait to see them side by side. i know the gta is going to be worth more over all in the future,wich is why i'm kinda leaning towards it. i have to wait til he picks up this gta to decide.
thanks.
jay.

 

all 82-2002 F body cars came with a torque arm. It's a critical part of the suspension.

As for picking between the two cars, I'd say you have the choice of do you want fuel injection or carb. And then which car is in better overall shape.

 

thats funny. i was under the impression that only the ws6 and 1le cars had t-arms. in fact i'm like 99% sure. i could be wrong, but are u totally sure. i am goin to have to look at my buddys 86 t/a.its not optioned hardly at all.

 

All 1982 to 1992 F-Body Camaro and Firebirds have a Torque arm. As Jay said, they are integral to the suspension on these cars. I have an 84 T/A and it has a Torque arm so, as was asked, the question really is, which body style do you like better (The GTA has pretty good GFX), do you want a Carb or Fuel injection (All 84's came with a carb), and which is in better shape. Those are the questions you need to ask yourself.

 

Just verifying...

ALL 1982-2002 F-bodies (Camaros & Firebirds) have torque arms. The only differences are, that the 93+ ones are 2" wider, per side. But they are a direct bolt-in. All the mounting points (LCAs, torque arm, shocks, springs, sway bar) are a perfect fit.

The L69 will be carb'd, the GTA will be FI, meaning your gas mileage will be better in the GTA. Easier to tune for varying conditions.

I bought a 84 Z288, L69, auto, 3.73, that had been totalled. My wife's 90 RS ended up getting the rear end, direct easy swap.

 

On the fuel economy note, my carbed 84 with the 700R4 and 3.73 gears gets about 22-23 on the highway. I can squeese 24 if I cruise at 55 and 19-20 around town if I drive easy.

 

i went to my buddys lot today and looked at a 6cly camaro,a berlinetta,and a base 86 t/a and u are all right. they all had the t-arm. i guess the only things that make the ws6 are the disc breraks,beefier springs and shock and larger diameter sways. thanks guys for setting me straight on this whole thing, i appreciate it.

i still haven't decided on wich one to get. gas milage means nothing to me.

 

Glad we could help!

So I guess all you have to decide is how much work you want to put into it.

The 84 has a mechanical speedo, the 87 is electronic. 84 has a carb and is easier to work with in that regard but the 87 with it's fuel injection has several options as well. Which is in better shape? What is your "goal" for this car? Do you want to spend more up front for the better condition car or do you want to spend less and put more work into it as a project?

 

i kind of like the fact of the carbed t/a. b/c it gives me alot more options.
i would buy both if my wife would let me,lol. but seriously.the gta is by far in much better condition,but the 84 can be brought back. i think its come down to rarity. i other words.wich one of these is more rare for me. and that would be the 84. just b/c of the options it has. i like both body styles for different reasons.

i'll let ya's know for sure prolly this week. i'll take pics of the one i chose and post it in a new topic.

 

restoration is a cute way of saying "i can't drive my car". my 2 cents..

 

well i'm goin with the 84. it does need more work but that is no biggy. like i said before it is a rare optioned t/a.l69,ws6,and 3.73 to name a few.

i'm not sure if i'm gonna swap the engine. i know punching out or even doin a H/C/I on this motor won't get me the h/p i would want and its just not worth it. i do plan on showing this car when its done. i would rather put most of the money towards restoring the body,interior,suspension and the rest of the drivtrain. so with that said i will tune the motor and get it tip top. if i decide to dump a motor in it,it will be a 350 carbed,350 to 400 h/p.i'll do the motor last. by then i would have made up my mind. i will try to buy all ws6 components from GM if they still make it. except for the shocks. konis all the way.

 

That's not a particularly "rare" car. The combo is typical. In fact, every L69 car I've ever seen except some of the less desirable 84 auto ones, had those options. Pretty much the std package.

It's best to leave the whole "WS6" monkey-spank thing behind. It's not particularly useful information". Nobody really went around bragging about it until the cars with the badge came out in about 98 or whenever it was; then all of a sudden, it came out of the woodwork as an annoying buzzword with little meaning. The exact contents of that RPO changed from year to year, which means that it doesn't really comunicate any useful information about eaxactly WHICH PARTS the car has. About all it means is that the car came with whatever the stiffest springs and sway bars were FOR THAT YEAR. It has no specific meaning, the way that 1LE for example DOES, without drilling down pretty deep into build sheets and part # lists for THAT YEAR of car. And some OTHER year of car WITHOUT "WS6" might very well turn out to be equipped with better suspension soft parts than one of the early years WITH "WS6"; and in fact, ALOT OF THEM DO.

All F bodies from 82-2002 have the torque arm. It's an integral part of the suspension design of these cars.

Don't bother with GM and the "WS6" crap. They won't be able to look it up; they won't have it; any part of it they DO have will cost 3 times as much as getting the IDENTICAL same Federal-Mogul/Moog/TRW part that GM buys, from someplace else; and the "WS6" stuff for 84 isn't as "good" as off-the-shelf aftermarket numbered stuff you can buy.

Go get yourself a set of sway bars off of a 91-92 Z28, a set of Moog 5662 or 5664 front springs and CC635 rears, Energy Suspension poly sway bar bushings and end links from the VatoZone aisle, shocks of your choice, and a "wonderbar" from an IROC or 90-92 Z28 (that being a part that none of the Pontiacs, "WS6" or no, ever came with). You'll have a FAR FAR FAR better handling and riding car than the 84 "WS6" package was, even brand new.

Disclaimer: I have a 83 L69/WS6/3.73/T-5 car (far "rarer" than yours), equipped with the above parts. And the later-model disc brakes from a 89-92, and a T-56, and an aftermarket torque arm, and, and, and, and.....

Nice car though, a good one to start out with as the basis for a "project". Being a top-of-the-line type car, that's the right kind of one to use as a "core". The L69 cars, IROCs and Z28s with TPI 350 or 305 5-speed, T/As and Formulas and GTAs with those same motor combos, TTAs; those are all the best cars, for their years.

 

ok?

 

yea i agree with sofa, the core of the car is whats important, you can't make a silk purse out of a sows ear, so to speak.. i've worked at body shops, restoration is never as good as original, and rarely is it sufficient. i own a gta, and just bought an 85 t/a, im building the t/a cause i accidentaly bought a car that has no rust undeneath, at all, i was in shock, my 700 dollar parts car just turned into my project cause the $2000 gta is cheese underneath, i'd rather have a solid plain old t/a then a restored gta for a sports car.. if you're showing it cool but you don't have a particularly rare car. They only produced rougly 10,000 gta's a year, if it's not too late i'd go that route. check out the gta source page, google it. there's a lot of history to them and the best cars pontiac made 87 and forward either were gta's or based on gta's (tta's, firefox 1 etc). another .2 cents, in the end it's your money i'm just throwing a few figures at ya. t least you're getting an f body though, can't go terribly wrong there

 

well then i guess it is more rare then a gta b/c they only made 7,051 l69. thats alot less then the 10k gtas.

check it out.

http://www.gmtips.com/3rd-degree/dox...n/number-2.htm

 

Your abbreviated link doesn't work...

Unless you include the Canadian production figures, production #s don't quite hit 10,000.

http://www.gtasourcepage.com/productionfigures.html

 

In your first post, you said it was an auto...

"hey all. i am looking at an 84 t/a that is just awesomely (is that a word???) loaded. its got the ws6,l69 motor with the gt4 rear.wich is a 3.73. unfortunatly it is an auto. but i have learned to cope with that."

I found your link....http://gmtips.com/3rd-degree

And you used the 7,051 production # for L69/T5, when the real production is 18,097 for the L69/auto. Roughly double that of any year of the GTAs.

Sorry, but the GTA is more "rare" than the '84, by those #s.

 

ooops. yes. mine is an auto. i don't know how i missed that. but ur right. sorry about that

try this
http://www.gmtips.com/3rd-degree/dox...n/number-2.htm

 

No biggie.

Look on http://www.gtasourcepageg.com and you can get decent idea of the GTA. You can get the production # built by RPO code, but only for 1 code. No way to combine codes.

So, you can see how many had power windows, or how many had 700R4s, or how many had T5s. But, you can narrow it by combined options. Like...How many 700R4s had power windows, and power locks, and the gear ratio. People like to speculate, but the best you can do is, go by the lowest option #.

My 87 is like 1500 or so. I forget exactly what. I think my lowest # was by the # of white 87 GTAs. Just no way to know how many white ones were 700R4s. Could be only 1 that year, and all the others got T5s, all the way to every one got 700R4s, but 1 got a T5. Now, I'm just throwing those #s out as an example.

 

ok. cool i'll check it out.