Hello everyone. I am Justin from Kentucky. I'm 23 and I love f-bodies. I currently drive a 94 Camaro V6. But found a good deal on an 89 Firebird Formula.(At least I think so anyway)

A friend of mine told me that his nephew had the 89 Formula with no motor for $400. I told him I wanted it so we went to go look at it. Here are some pics I took when we went to look at it.



It had the 305tbi motor in it but I'm thinking about putting a 350 back in it. I know there is a little work involved with the switching of the 305 set up to a 350. If anyone has any input or suggestions all is welcome. I figure this restoration and all will be over time since I don't have money at my disposal to throw into this project. But it is a project I will be planning and figuring out exactly what I want to do since I have more time than money.

I will be going to pick the car up in the next couple of days. I will post more pics once I clean it up a bit.

 

go to members cars and look for my 89 rs restoration thread.

I paid $500 for a complete vehicle with all of the parts. It had new brakes and 4 new tires so that was worth the $500 in itself.

I had both the money and the time. If you don't have the money, it's going to get frustrating and someone will get sick of it hanging around taking up space.

I would look at the seats, dash, plastic and interior parts and if they are in good shape, I'd use it as a parts car to try and make money.

You are missing the engine so there goes the p/s, a/c, starter, alternator etc from which you could have made money. The tranny is probably also gone

If you can't do paint yourself, or even priming, and it's rust free and I mean rust free, then budget a minimum $1,000 for a very basic job.

Interior with rug, reskin seats, headliner, repairing dash, fixing plastic is at least another $1,000- $1500

tires will be $500- $600

brakes another $150- $250 in parts as long as the lines are in good shape

you'll need new shocks and bushings

you will then need all the accessories for the engine and since it doesn't have an engine, and you are doing a restoration, then you don't want to toss a junkyard or craigslist crap engine in it. So, budget $3- 3.5k for a good running engine (documented rebuild or crate) with accessories.

next you need a tranny and driveshaft so budget $1k for that

it adds up quickly

we haven't even added belts, fluids and other items it might need


you could of course try a junkyard restoration and that is what you will have in the end; a junkyard restoration

good luck

 

yeah looks like its going to be a lot of work. When you say back to 350, no 350 tbi engines are stock in thirdgen cars. But depending on where you live you can pretty much do whatever you'd like to the car that's the good thing

 

I also think that it could end up costing you more than you think by far. However, if the body and interior are in good shape, and you don't mind spending a few years getting it done (and by a few i mean 2-5 realistically), then it might not be a bad project.

If you want to keep it TBI, then you'll likely need to find a donor vehicle of some sort, that you can rob any missing electronics parts from as well as engine. There will probably be lots of odds and ends as well. If you're serious about it, start making a list and tallying up parts costs to try and see what you'll be into before starting it.

 

My advice is to buy a cheap, beat up, piece of sh*t 350 tpi from some where, then tear it apart and get it bored to a 383 and rebuild the engine with new pistons, heads, crank, cam, and full exhaust system plus anything else needed if you're aiming to make that a fast, track car, if not, just buy a 305 and rebuild it with performance parts and it'll be faster than stock, but still just a cruiser engine

 

Ok, I brought the car home on the 9th. Haven't got around to taking anymore pics yet but they will be coming before the weekend is over. I've did a search of what the vin# tells me about the car. I'm thinking it had a 305tpi instead of the 305tbi. That comes from the conclusion that my 8th digit is a F instead of an E.

Now about the interior, trans, ect. The interior is decent, not ragged out. The carpet needs cleaned a bit(not too dirty though). The seats need to be "re-skinned". Headliner needs to be recovered. And yes, like all older cars, the dash pad is cracked.

As of right now it has just some wheels and tires thrown on it so it could be hauled home. And yes, it still has the tranny in it. I'm pretty sure it is the 700R4. The paint is faded/ clear coat peeling. I've only found two small chips in the paint.

 

Finally took a few more pics of the car today. Here they are.

 

dashboard is cracked

seats are torn

weatherstrip is shot

no factory or matching wheels

tranny disposition unknown- must assume it's shot or it woud not be in vehicle, core value = $25

engine and accessories gone

There may be $400 worth of parts if you decide to part it out and break even

 

I appreciate your input, but I'm not parting it out! I know I won't be doing a total restore(strip down and redo body and all that) but by the time I'm done it will be to my liking and looking how I want. I want to make it where I can drive it seasonally, not put on a shelf to stare at. I believe the tranny is just fine. The guy I got it from just pulled the motor because he needed a motor for something. He has plenty of performance trannys.

I know there's a lot of work and parts that I will do/need over time. And that's all right with me. I don't plan to throw it back together and be running down the road in it any time soon. It's my first project and kind of a learning experience at the same time.

 

Dont listen to these guys, restore it, exactly how you want it, make it yours, I'd do the same thing as you, no matter how much time and money it took, later in life you won't have time for nice cars, or to restore a car you like, so screw everyone that is going against you and DO WHAT YOU WANT, but most importantly, have fun doing it bro

 

yeah pretty much. the body looks solid no sense in parting out the car and scrapping the body. fix her up. go over the car step by step and decide what you wanna do. then add up how much you expect to spend on that. remember your going to put more money into the car then its worth. but it is very rare where you can be in a situation where you'll make money off of a car if you decide to sell it later. car's are not good investments unless your ultra lucky and get that 1 of 100000 car or whatever. but do what you want. the car has a ton of untapped potential

 

I do not beleive anyone is telling him not to do it..........bro

and to your comment about can't do it later.......BS

it's later in life when you tend to have discretionary money.

I'm on my 5th project vehicle now having just completed a 3rd gen restoration

my comments were not trying to dissuade him, au contraire, they were posted from experience

he is going to spend more than he realizes because he bought a vehicle which was already semi parted out and paid $100 less then I did for a running complete restoration project which is a FL car with ZERO RUST


look at the telltale signs within the post: he knows the tranny is great and isn't going to do anything

I'm sorry but that's just a pipe dream because if it did have value the prior owner would have yanked that as well

It makes no sense to be this deep into a vehicle and not toss a rebuild at the tranny

those are signs that the poster has no clue as to time and money he is going to face but is going to learn quickly


as they say

"live and learn"

 

You're all telling him to just part it out and break even with what he paid for it, let him learn how much time and money goes into a rebuild, and not everyone has time later in life for these kind of things, it's great that you do, it really is, but not many people get the chance to rebuild a car they love later in life, if he wants to restore it then don't tell him to just part the car out, just give him advice on what he needs, no need to ruin another mans dream

 

Thanks for the honesty of your post. I know a lot of people will say do whatever you want, this giving someone a big head about it. But you don't blow smoke up peoples @$$ and I like that.

I was wondering about the two tone seats you got for your 89 RS. I can't find anything like them. Do you know if there is still somewhere to even get something like them?

 

If your seats don't NEED to be replaced, you can probably find some pretty cool seat covers to put over them, or just order custom ones, maybe ones with the bird logo on them

 

I was starting the tear down of the Camaro and the interior was the last thing on my mind. I did however scan craigslist and Ebay 2-3 times per week looking for any deals on interior pieces. Wouldn't you know that before I even pulled the engine that I found a guy on Ebay who had all sorts of factory leather and he was only 65 miles from my home. If i needed the leather I probably would not have found this guy but that is how it always seems t happen with me. I find deals when i don't exactly need them but my experience tells me to jump all over them and thus i did.

I paid $260 for the leather. I re-skinned the seats myself and added a wee bit more foam to the side bolster of the driver's seat. The new upholstery has a little foam on it as well. Also, i cheated and didn't use hog rings but instead used tie wraps.

If you are going to reskin then take your time and wire wheel the rust from the seats and tracks and paint them. That old musty smell goes away quickly.

What I did with my 4th gen was I purchased faux leather (aka vinyl) covers from "coverking" on amazon. They are not the cheap covers you can buy, they slide over the seats and fasten down and look almost like factory and are designed for specific model vehicles. They are the same covers you see on Ebay from a seller called Igee (maybe 2 g's) but are $50 less on Amazon. They were not inexpensive either but I could not find reasonable pricing on upholstery. I don't subscribe to paying good $$$ for used seats to put back into a vehicle I'm restoring. If i didn't find upholstery for the 3rd gen I was going to use them again.

I want the new look and feel on the seats.

Another deal I found was on craigslist a guy bought a 3rd gen to part out and it just so happened it had new weatherstripping and black interior. For $175 I got a good center console and cover, the retracting cargo cover, all the black interior pieces, 2 new windows (one of mine had a chip) weatherstripping, HVAC control, screws clips and more.

heck, just price weatherstripping and you'll get blown away at the deal I got. You don't see them every day but when you do, you must react immediately. So, I changed my interior color from dull grey to what you see now, black and grey and it looks sharp.

If i needed to buy those parts from on-line retalers including the upholstery then I would have easily approached $2,000 and that is before buying the headliner, carpet and sun visors. Again, price complete weatherstripping and you can't find good weatherstripping at the boneyard.

 

He's right, even though the interior is one of the last steps in a restore, you should definitely start looking for parts you're going to need now, so if you do find a deal, you can take it, but that could alsoset you back for a little bit with the money situation

 

Thanks for the input guys. I will keep update of my progress.

 

Ok, So I've decided to try to clean up the engine bay in the next couple of days. I was looking over the wiring and most of it looks like it's all there. But I noticed there is one group of wires that have been cut. It's 4 thick red wires, 1 thick purple wire, 1 small black, and one small white wire. Anyone know what these could be? A friend of mine said it was probably wiring for the Alt and Starter. Anybody know for sure?

 

I believe that's correct (at least on the alternator), but not positive. IIRC, the alternator on those is on the driver's side, while the starter is passenger side. So likely the starter/alternator wires would not be in the same harness. where are the cut wires positioned in the engine compartment?

I would suggest picking up a haynes/etc manual for it before you go too far. Most at least have a halfway decent wiring diagram that can let you know colors. That's usually about all you can get out of them though, they don't really say locations well. I'd also get a cheap multimeter if you don't have one. You can then determine if the wires are switched, etc, by checking for continuity between your + battery cable and the wire.

 

looks pretty solid, hope it turns out nice