Hello everybody! My name is Kevin and I am from Northern New Jersey. Now, I must admit that I have never really been a "car guy". But that has slowly been changing over the past year or so and I became 100%, truly into cars since March. Long story short, but I was the campaign/sponsorship manager for a completely fan organized and crowd-funded NASCAR sponsorship, the first of it's kind in the history of the sport (You may have heard of the "Dogecoin" car). Since then I have been soaking up as much info as I can and trying to teach myself the basics of car maintenance and building.

The past couple of weeks, I have seen a beautiful, bright-red Firebird sitting in a driveway. Everytime I passed, I couldn't take my eyes off of it. Then, last week, I drove by again and noticed for the first time that it had a for sale sign. After work, I went to check it out, instantly fell in love, waited on the curb for 4 hours until the owner got home, and drove it away that same night.

And here she is:



She is a 1987 Firebird Base, 2.8L V6 w/ auto transmission (I have yet to learn how to drive manual haha). She is completely factory original with only 93,000 miles on the engine. Radio was updated to CD, but I have the original to put back in. Garage kept and owned by one family for 27 years. I was blown away by just how clean every part of the car was.







I am however, having a moral dilemma in regards to how I will approach the restoring it. I am not sure if I should keep it stock and factory-spec, or if I should just end up doing custom everything (paint, interior, and upgraded engine after the V6 gives up someday way in the future). I really am leaning towards going the custom route. I would rather have a Firebird that is all mine and exactly how I can imagine it in my head, then worry about keeping it stock.

Any advice, tips, or suggestions that you guys have would be greatly appreciated! Like I said, I am still just learning about cars more and getting into the whole culture. I definitely plan on becoming an active member of this community and look forward to talking with you guys more!

 

that is a really clean car , its your car so i say do what u want with it, build it how u want not how others tell u it should be done .( as long as it doesnt include putting it on 20 inch wheels lol )

 

Have fun with it, learn all the basic stuff like brake jobs, struts ect. After the car is mechanically solid then think about what you want. Looks, performance? Save money, do it right and leave the 20s in the shop.

 

listen to what the guys above said, learn anything you can from this car maintenance wise

my advice after that, IF you decide to go the custom route, don't bother with upgrading anything engine wise, do full suspension, get the car as rock solid as you can, that way when the day comes to drop a bigger motor in the bay, the car is ready for it

Beautiful car BTW

 

I almost forgot the most important thing.

1. Buy a shop manual
2. Place shop manual on back of toilet
3. Put the phone down and read like us old fellas use to
4. Profit

 

Wow, that is a beautiful car and a good find!

I echo what everyone else has said so far, that's the best way to learn.

 

Very nice car especially being from nj. I would recommend adding bigger sway bars and upgraded shocks, struts along with poly end links and drive the wheels off the car. These upgrades are very easy to do and will make the car alot more fin to drive. if it cant be fast you may as well have it handle well. Then do a big build.

 

Seeing that it isn't the most rare like almost all v6 cars, you should do performance stuff to it.

 

Welcome!! Very nice clean car!

 

Cool car! My first car was an 87 2.8 5-speed too, but a Camaro

Build the car how you want, don't worry about colletiblility or anything like that as it's a pretty standard model.

Are you going to keep and modify the V6 or swap in a V8?

Also, looks like I see strut tower rot on the front & back of the driver's side tower? That's bad. Need to cut that out and have it welded up properly so you don't end up shooting your strut through the hood on a big bump lol

 

Thanks for the replies and well wishes everybody! I have totally decided that I am going to take the custom route when working on it, both with looks and mechanics. I mainly am looking to make it more of a "looks" car than a performance car. I'd rather the exterior and interior look awesome then worry about dropping in or building the best engine I can.

Going to start with exterior body work and new paint (looking at coming up with my own concoction via HOK paints). From there I will move on to the interior.

Thanks for pointing that out Aaron. That is one of only two noticeable rust spots on the car and will be taken car of immediately with body work. I'm going to have the body repaired and painted professionally and then do the interior myself.

 

check out some of the the turbo builds , there sa few on here wer eguys had little mechanical knowledge and pulled the builds off for very lil money and got great results

 

Nice car. Let me second what others have advised, that beefing up the suspension is a good first mod. I installed a wonder bar (AKA steering brace) which prevents the steering box from tearing off the chassis. Most members recommend 36 mm front and 24mm rear sway bars. No other suspension mod I've done has made a much improvement in handling & stability than the thicker sway bars. You can probably find a 36mm front from a Camaro or Bird at your local junk yard (take your caliper with you). Here's my experience with upgraded wonder & sway bars: https://www.thirdgen.org/forums/susp...-handling.html

Also, if you're not very mechanically experienced, start with the easy stuff 1st. That was my situation & I quickly decided my dreams of a 3.4L engine swap were not realistic. But, I spent and continue to spend hours researching on this web site learning to diagnose & repair.

Our V6 engines are a pile of fun to drive. Love all that torque. Also, because the V6 sets lower and further back than a V8, it will out handle (not go faster) than a V8 with the same suspension, wheels, & tires.

Finally, if you want a little more power, installing a cold air intake (CAI) will give it a nice little boost. Of course, if needed, do a tune up first (plugs, wires, distributor cap, & rotor, timing). A tuned engine is faster than an untuned one.

Hope you have as much fun driving your bird as I have mine.