This is my 97 Firebird. It has a 3.8L V6 with 195.221 miles on it. It's by no means the beast that it could be. It is basically bone stock. It has no performance mods (yet). I considered selling it, but its my dream car, so no way that is happening. It's going to cost north of $10,000 to fix it, and that's keeping the V6.
[Update 7-12-10] I had to park the Firechicken over the winter and get something that would be a more reliable daily driver. I bought an 03 Dodge Neon R/T. I know its a major downgrade, but its fun to drive for a small 4 cylinder. I plan to have a page for it soon, too.
Factory options:
T-tops
2nd Gear Start
Chrome wheels
Power windows and locks
And now for the mods:
Replica Flowmaster Dual Outlet Muffler
This is one of my tips before I was told about how well Mothers chrome polish works.
This is after. I HIGHLY recommend this stuff!
MBA Shifter knob
This is before:
and AFTER.....
This helped so much with shifting from park. From what I understand, Firebirds are notorious for the shifter being hard to shift from park. I thought that maybe there was something wrong in the shifter itself, or maybe the lock, but this one little mod has made a night and day difference . I got the knob and the shifter adapter from WS6project.com . If you just get the adapter, you can use any manual shifter knob to 'push down to shift.'
Old Air Filter
New Air Filter
JVC Head Unit
It changes colors.
Bosch 4-tip iridium spark plugs and wires
ceramic brake pads and red painted calipers
180 degree thermostat(this fixed my problem with the motor getting hot while idling)
pics coming....
[Update: 9/11/09] The Firechicken just rolled over to 199,936 and I am having major head gasket and transmission issues. I am trying to price rebuilding the entire top end of the motor, but I am also contemplating selling this and looking for a 98-02 Trans Am which is what I wanted from the beginning.
[9/28/09] I know this is a rather redundant update, but it finally rolled over to 200,000 about a week and a half ago. A Trans Am is looking like more and more of an impractability. Unfortunately (or fortunately depending on how you look at it) I'm looking at an 05 Dodge Magnum R/T AWD as this is much more practical for northern Indiana winters.
That's it for the mods for now, unfortunately. This is my budget project that I plan on slowly doing a little at a time. I have already priced several mods that should be coming in the near future :
Future plans:
Full suspension build
18" to 19" American Racing wheels OR Corvette wheels
Firebird phoenix decals (OEM Trans Am decals)
New crate motor (When this one gives out...it has overheated once badly At the risk of sounding cliche, I plan for an LT1) I am also toying with a turbo 3.8L from a Buick Regal GNX.
