ok, i am new to the third gen. my first car was 1998 grand am se, that blew a rod and due to financial reasons had to sell it. now i got a 1987 firebird for $250 from a friend.

the body looks great, was told it works but just need to buy a battery. i was told many weird things about it (it was a 4 cylinder, the top and bottom doesn't match and when i seen it the top was defiantly the 2.8.) the person i got it from had it at her ex's house (where they were going to fix it up) and it hadn't moved in over a year. so i assume she didn't remember what the engine was like.

as i can tell it is stock 2.8 v6 in and out and needs a little rebuild on the engine and it has no steering wheel (she forgot to tell me that one). down side it is an automatic.

-=-here is my main post

Is there anything worth doing to give it anymore power for the cheap?
(would an engine swap be worth doing on an automatic?)

Should i go more the restored original or my personalized play thing?
(paint interior, add LEDs, make it a back to the future meets night rider car and/or anything my imagination asked me to do)

where can i find free reference pictures, instructions on a rebuild?
(as in free Haynes manual downloads or something similar.)


i have a really limited cash flow but a little later on once i am in a better financial flow i'll be able to do more. my main goal is to be able to get this back on the road, and to have a second car in the household.

 

Welcome to TGO, as far as performance goes if the engine need's to be rebuilt you could replace it with a 3.4 out of a 4th gen camaro or firebird and put a turbo on it. There's also a few people on this board doing hybrid build's that are pretty neat and will make a pretty nice amount of power but they are a bit more involved.Others will surely chime in to further assist you with that. A base model v6 bird probably wont hold a high value so I'd say personalize it whichever way you want. Good luck with your car.

Let the madness begin

 

You'll want to check and see how much underbody damage there is due to sitting first before you decide what to do. The list of things to replace off of the top of my head would be the engine, the front brakes, all fluids and filters, and possibly the tires depending on condition. Check the emissions hoses and lines, suspension bushings, brake and fuel lines for rust damage, and for any animal damage.

Then, the hardest part of a manual swap is getting the parts. If you know anything about cars, have a floor jack and place to work, a drill and a grinder with cutting wheel, you can swap out the auto.

You can access free repair info by signing up at AutoZone.com, but that info is a little on the shaky side. If you're dead serious about the car, pick up a factory service manual.

 

Unless your dead set on an expensive and time consuming engine swap, I say get the 2.8 running good first, do tom P's major tune up (search and you'll find it). Once it's running good you can think about adding some preformance bolt on, adding aluminum heads, or building up a 3.4 block to be dropped in.

The rust thing is a good point, what condition is the body/underbody in?

 

i just checked the underbody. it looks really good in my opinion. no holes. it has a little light spotting. the exhaust pipe looks a little worse but still not that bad.

i mainly just want the car running ASAP so getting the engine running is my main interest.

i'm thinking of taking off the front fenders to clean the inside of them sand and spray with rustolium (if that is a good idea?) thay have seemed to got a little pile of leaves in there and provided a nice home for some bull ants (and i worry the leaves might have mulched and i want to avoid rusting from the inside out). and the side mirror had wasps.

after that i want to replace all the door and window seals. also get new keys so all the doors will match.

one problem i am not sure about fixing is... on one of the doors there is a small gap between the window and frame on the back of the passenger window. how would i go about fixing that?

 

Look up the major tune up, and how to run seafoam through the intake, oil and gas. Hopefully that'll get you running and there wont be any hidden problems.