TireSmoke.org

It's not being worked on yet, but it can still lay rubber



put a new battery in it earlier this year and washed it before this pic was taken

< = Andy

These are from today:




Not sure where to start, but getting the dust off and putting air in the tires seemed like a good place. One of the early projects will be to pressure bleed the brakes. I have not been happy with the brakes since I went to manual brakes a while back. Also have a carb leak to fix, last time I moved it I saw it leaking from the rear accelerator pump.

talk about an OLD thread.

"crusty but trusty"

Since inquiring minds want to know, this car's best ET is 12.630 at 106.56 MPH.

The best 60' time is 1.71

All of this with factory seats and interior

Although I can appreciate "factory seats and interior", street legal tires and closed exhaust are better IMO.

Time to dust off the old 'Bird...

-BP

Er.. I actually drive these tires to the track - they are DOT legal. Not sure if I'll get another set or get drag radials.

As far as the exhaust, well, I like it LOUD

The only problem I've found with the drag radials is that you really need to heat them up. I could not do it without the line lock in my car, and I remember driving your car thinking it was hard to do a brake torque type burnout.

You can try mine out if you want...

-BP

After some soul searching I have decided to sell the Trans Am. It has not been at the track in a long time and I apparently am not interested in working on it. Since it has a checkered past prior to my acquisition in 1991, I decided to sell it for parts. I think it would have been harder if I was giving up racing.

I reasoned that the engine is worth $1000, the B&M racing trans and high stall converter is worth $1500, and the rest is worth $1800.

So far I have fetched $1000 for the engine with some accessories, and I have two people interested in the rest of the car. There are two more in reserve for parts if the whole car sales fall through. It is entirely likely that the car is worth more in parts than it is whole.

I think I can sell the car minus drivetrain in the $1800-2000 range, based on the two inquiries I had so far. That leaves the carb, headers and a few other misc items to generate additional cash.

If this goes to the current plan I should get close to my asking price in pieces. The engine buyer wants to put it in his 79 Malibu for drag racing. One of the car buyers has a big block and wants to put it in the car for drag racing. He came by to purchase a Chevy short block and we got to talking about the car. He said he travels a lot and would be interested as soon as the engine was sold. The other wants it to restore. I have not found any takers on the trans yet. The remaining parts will be sold on craigslist or at Canfield this summer.

What's important now is to make room for the new racecar.

The engine buyer came by Monday to hear it run and gave me half the money down. I have been busy since then pulling the engine out of the car.


The parts I removed are scattered along this wall on the benches, floor, etc.

Based on the picture on the bottom, the TA would have been a lot faster if you had taken
the box fan, plywood, extension cord, and cabinets out of it!!! Also, that's a sweet porcelain
oil drain pan!! I have the twin to it in my garage!!!

GMJohnny wrote:Based on the picture on the bottom, the TA would have been a lot faster if you had taken
the box fan, plywood, extension cord, and cabinets out of it!!! Also, that's a sweet porcelain
oil drain pan!! I have the twin to it in my garage!!!

LOL!

Yesterday the Trans Am left my garage for the last time.

The title showed it was purchased on 5/23/91 - almost 20 years with a car I picked up for parts but ended up being a lot more.

There was a time when it was my only running car, and as such it had snow tires and went out in the winter. When I first put it together the hood was red primer, the LF fender was white and the nose piece was yellow - with the blue on the rest it looked like a loaf of Wonder Bread. Slowly I got back on my feet and other cars started appearing, but it has always been there. It had a stock 350 from my rusted out Chevelle, then the 327 ("Floyd" for those who recall) which grenaded in 1997, then the same 350 got rebuilt. I had to put catalytic converters on it to get it to pass emissions tests until it made it to 25 years old. Once it was no longer a daily driver I could add a pinion snubber to get the weight transfer right and avoid wheel hop.
The drivetrain grew up also ending up with 4.56 gears and the B&M 4 speed auto once I gave up on the Gardner rebuild and the junkyard trannys. I also added a hi-torque lightweight starter and Hooker Super Competition headers to get faster. Since 2004 though it has mostly been sitting - a victim of changing priorities, and perhaps a little too much of doing more of the same thing for so long.

Recently the choice to sell it has been mostly a decision that it was time to clear out the garage for the new racing project. As it sinks in more it seems to be more that I've had this car for almost 20 yrs and since I can remember I've been interested in improving ETs. Apparently that part of me has also left. The ways I want to be competitive have changed and I think it will be a little while until I am completely comfortable with that.

The other thing that has changed is this car is old - over 30 years old and the technology is even older than that. Who was driving 1945 cars in 1975? Practically no one I'd guess, and certainly not with 1945 drivetrains.

This chapter is over. The next one has already started...

I guarantee that in a year you won't miss the car a bit. You will always have good
memories of it. It was fun while it lasted, got old, and you moved on. I'm sure that's
happened to everyone. It's happened to me many times. Starting a new chapter is fun.
Getting rid of clutter and old "stuff" is good too.

GM