6G Celicas Forums

The only reason I'll buy it is because I've wanted one for as long as I can remember and more so the fact it's a fantastic price for the shape it's in. May seem weird to most people, but it's my dream car. I don't know why but I just love them more than any other car, they're the coolest thing to me. If I get it I'm thinking about getting another Celica to use for a daily, as the Firebird would just be brutal on fuel... Find a GT to do the 1MZ swap with seeing as I'll have my RWD tire shredder.

As of today(yesterday to be technical) I'm officially the proud owner of a 1979 Pontiac Firebird. I pretty much stole it...and all I did was pay his asking price. Apparently was a good bit behind on bills, and wanted to have money for family Christmas. Was an older gentleman, seemed like a pretty cool guy. He served in Vietnam, so of course I had to thank him for his service. Everything was torn down and gone through, rides a lot better than I was expecting to and no rattles. Have pictures of the process and it even has a title, so wooo. It has a 350 4-bolt main from a '69 Chevelle that was gone through, bored .40 over, compression increased to 12:1 plus associated head work & porting, 3/4 cam, and Edelbrock intake, carb, & cleaner. The only thing it really needs is headers and the exhaust redone as far as all of that goes. TH-350 trans was also gone through and it shifts really smooth. I didn't use more than 1/8 of the throttle the entire way back home. Interior is complete and original, but needs some refurbishing. Body is surprisingly straight and clean too, but needs repainted. After catching some Z's and once the sun is up I'll have to snap a few pictures. Oh, and supposedly it'll get low 20's if you keep your foot out of it. Which going down the highway at 55 mph it was just lumbering along even with the 3-speed, so the rear gear must be pretty low. Now I can live the dream.

BOX HAS A CAR!!!!

And the model isn't that surprising given what you were looking at. Sounds like a great example. I actually got driven to my highschool Formal in a very similarly aged Trans-Am

Awesome! We always called it a Heavymetal shiithead-mobile.
My first car was a '79 Berlineta, It wasn't nearly that nice though. *Scooby doo flashback* /didlee doo didlee doo
White with Tee tops, 350 and all the power options, tall gears but no swaybars. I ripped the gas line trying to change the fuel filter on the quadrajet with only one wrench... it was only a kink on the front side I didn't see the break on the back of it and tried to start it. It wouldn't keep running unless I kept pumping the gas. Backed it out of the driveway and couldn't get it to idle, so I just pulled it back in to the driveway. Just as soon as I put it in park and reached up to turn the key off the exhaust got hot enough to ignite the gas that was dumping onto them... BOOM flames shot out of the fenders and nose, and of course the old heavy door wouldn't open the first couple of tries.
The fire department came and took an axe to my fiberglass nose and squirted foam down the carburetor. Sat in my driveway all cooked for months before I bought a black '78 Z28 for parts to put it back together. So I had the white berlinetta with tee tops, black Z28 hood and nose, black spoiler, then we used the motor and the rear end with the 3.73 and sway bars too. So I had the tranny from the tall gears and the rear end with low gears and it did 55mph at 3500
rigged the underdash wiring so I could run the blower motor on the heater with some speakerwire and a radio shack toggle switch mounted under the dash to have heat. Loved that car but didn't have anybody to help me fix stuff and do it right back then.

This post has been edited by VavAlephVav: Dec 7, 2014 - 10:15 AM

YAY Box finally bought a car!

Please, convert to EFI and run a modern transmission with 4 gears. A 4L80E with a LS ECM hacked up to run the 350 and a nice port injection manifold, with the right tune you'd be in the low 30's on the highway and low 20's around town. The 4L80E is a stout unit from the factory but can be built to be indestructible.

Or a manual trans with more than 3 speeds.

This post has been edited by Bitter: Dec 7, 2014 - 10:53 AM

Thanks everyone. I like it, obviously it's not the type of car I'm used to of late but it drove pretty easily. Of course the steering slop is abysmal as is the brake feel, but you just can't help but feel special when driving it. Can't tell you how many times people turned and looked on the way home. Will go out and take pics here in a minute.

Originally I had the idea of taking the LT1 and 4L60E from a 4th gen to use, but this one has a good motor. Good transmission too, just not so much for efficiency. I'll have to look into EFI conversion and using one of the newer transmissions. For awhile I had the thought of doing a 5.3 with a T5 for a cheaper LS swap that still offered a notable improvement. I have time to figure out what I want to do with it, sooooo many options which is something I'm not used to.

Here ya go. Already threw the passenger mirror back on, will finish up all the small things left in the following week or two.

So are you ****ing you cousin or your sister? Aw hell, who am I kidding, they're the same person!

Needs a HID retrofit STAT! Some Mini D2S 3.0's would be an easy install in some cheap eBay housings and give amazingly better light at night, so it's safe to drive.

This post has been edited by Bitter: Dec 7, 2014 - 3:45 PM

OMFG... YOU BOUGHT A RED CAR!!!

LMFAO

That is one beautiful car, just needs a fresh coat of paint and it will sparkle.

Is that another pontiac firebird in the background?

That's like old farm tractor red too!

Thanks! It actually came with the PPG O.E.M paint to respray it. Just have to decide if I want to use it and respray it the original red, or choose another colour.

Yes, that's my brother's 1980 Trans Am. It still has the lowly 301 though, he plans to swap it out as soon as possible.


It was too good of a deal to pass up, so I broke my rule. Plus on old cars like them just need to paint the panels and jambs, as under the hood etc... is already black.

So mean.

Lights aren't too bad, just need to adjust them and put in the replacement adjuster for the far passenger light.

Also, somehow I've already burned through $20 of fuel... Will have to put more into it and adjust the carb asap.

You should paint it gold.

Black gold! I'll have plenty of time to decide on what I want to do, as it'll be sometime in March before it's consistently warm enough.

Thinking midnight blue or purple would look good, and use the gold decals.

Black with some gold pearl mixed in so it pops in the sunlight!

Smokey and the bandit!! Rufus

I'd be lying if I said "West Bound and Down" wasn't playing in my mind at some point on the way home.

Black with gold pearl is a great idea if that's the motif I choose to do, would definitely help separate it from the other Bandit renditions. I haven't seen any in a dark purple metallic or pearl before, and purple is my favourite colour.

Gold is still my first choice, but my second choice is definitely black with a gold Chocobo on the hood.