The '82-'84 Firebird Zone

Since my Trans Am is going in for a nice new paint job this week, I figured this would be a good time to post up the pictures I already have of it and update the thread as the paint work progresses. Here are some pictures that I believe I took during the summer of 2005. The original bulge hood bird is still on there, but it was very very faded and the glare from the sun just about made it disappear!











Here is a picture of what the engine compartment looked like when I bought the car in 2003:



This is after I had the engine bay repainted Bright Platinum Metallic and had the inner fenders smoothed. That's the first engine I swapped into it, a 350 TPI out of a 1988 Formula.





this is next to its second heart donor, a 1995 Z28 that gave up its LT1 and T56 for my bird




in surgery:


and off to post-op treatment:



I'll have to get more recent engine and interior pictures online in the next week, and I'll also post up how it looks in its current multi-color state before it goes in for its latest surgery

I may be a bit biased here, but I think the white/gold looks so pretty on that car...

I'm sure it will look good in the silver, too, of course...guess I'm just a sucker for the two-tone early birds.

I agree, that white and gold with the gold GTA wheels really looks sweet

I am sure the silver will look good too though! The color in the engine compartment looks good.

Will you be using the aeropackage? Will it be body color or...?

Nice work with the factory A/C delete box, that is the right way to do it. I'd like to get one for my car.

Thanks to both of you. I must say that over the past several years, I have fallen for the beige and gold two-tone appearance. But I'm going to a solid color now with the platinum. I will be keeping the original style aero package and the body modifications will be kept to a minimum. The look I'm going for is a more modern interpretation of the 1984 Trans Am, but not a dramatic departure. I was tempted to stay two-tone, but the only color that would go with the silver is black, and I think black ground effects would make them kinda disappear altogether, especially at night. There will be some black in it though with a black hood bird. I decided to go with a different hood bird than the original louvered one, but approximately the same size. I'm still debating if I'll do original style black vinyl "TRANS AM" decals for the front fenders, but I'm leaning towards it.

Have you thought about perhaps going with a grey or silver for the decals? It would not stand out as much as the black and would be nice and subtle.


Just thinking about the Comp T/A. Silver with grey stripe and badges...

On the flipside, black GFX at night would give that "Phoenix" true meaning.

Oh, decisions, decisions...

TAdan wrote:Have you thought about perhaps going with a grey or silver for the decals? It would not stand out as much as the black and would be nice and subtle.


Just thinking about the Comp T/A. Silver with grey stripe and badges...

Can you show me pictures of the Comp T/A you're referring to? I dont think I know of it and it'd be interesting to see. I could see maybe charcoal being a good compliment.

Here are some pictures I just took after freezing my butt off in my garage tonight. the current temperature here is 13 degrees, enough to make my beer turn slushy on me! She's ugly right now with all the mis-matched colors, but all the body panels are in very good workable condition for the painter.






I fabricated new mounts for the front and rear ground effects to make them hold together better and resist warping. The originals are something like 22 gage steel straps with studs that stick through for a nut to pinch the ground effects to the bumper cover. They tend to bend easily and not hold the two pieces of urethane together well for the space between the studs. I made new ones out of 1/8" thick steel, drilled holes, spot welded bolts in them and ground off the heads, giving me just enough room to fit them in. I noticed a big improvement on the seam in the front ground effects and expect that it will be just as improved between the rear ground effects and the quarter panel. I'll try to remember to take a picture before putting the rear ones together.


I'm sure all of you can see my biggest departure from stock form, but I think it's tastefull and not too different. What do you guys (and girl) think?

jeremynyr wrote:

TAdan wrote:Have you thought about perhaps going with a grey or silver for the decals? It would not stand out as much as the black and would be nice and subtle.


Just thinking about the Comp T/A. Silver with grey stripe and badges...

She's ugly right now with all the mis-matched colors. You hush your mouth!! A T/A is never ugly!!! She's just...patriotic.




I'm sure all of you can see my biggest departure from stock form, but I think it's tastefull and not too different. What do you guys [b](and girl)[b] think?

HAHA!! LOVE IT!!! Thanks for remembering me... On a different note, I really like the spoiler! It's different from stock without being obnoxious. You pegged it! One question, tho...is it mounted to the 1/4s or the hatch? It looks like the 1/4s, so how would you open your hatch?

Here is my Comp. #5 of 164. Built by SLP 95-97... Good example of the color combo.



And one with the 25th...

Is that a Firebird 500 or a MSE spoiler? Either way I think it looks pretty good.

I believe it was referred to as a Firebird 500 spoiler. I don't know the complete history of the design, but I saw someone on thirdgen.org with it on his 86 T/A and liked it. He told me he got it from wingswest.com, so i ordered it from them. It's design was definitely based off the original pedistal spoiler. The pedistals themselves are identical to the stock spoiler, it's just thicker with a little dove tail on the top back edge and the outside "legs" extend towards the front of the car.

Once your fingers thaw, can you get a couple different shots?? I visited their site and all I could find was stuff for the 4th gens.

Nice work, Nice looking car, and TAdan I need to try to see if I can sneak off with that comp ta now...oh wait never mind it doesn't have t tops.
My 84 TA is Charcoal Gray with silver gfx from the factory. I have photos of it here. viewtopic.php?f=25&t=140
Just so you know what kind of Gray it could be. Just giving you photos for visuals I am guessing you might want to reverse the silver and gray for what you want. Good luck with the paint shop. Look forward to seeing it done.

jeremynyr wrote:I fabricated new mounts for the front and rear ground effects to make them hold together better and resist warping. The originals are something like 22 gage steel straps with studs that stick through for a nut to pinch the ground effects to the bumper cover. They tend to bend easily and not hold the two pieces of urethane together well for the space between the studs. I made new ones out of 1/8" thick steel, drilled holes, spot welded bolts in them and ground off the heads, giving me just enough room to fit them in. I noticed a big improvement on the seam in the front ground effects and expect that it will be just as improved between the rear ground effects and the quarter panel. I'll try to remember to take a picture before putting the rear ones together.


I'm sure all of you can see my biggest departure from stock form, but I think it's tastefull and not too different. What do you guys (and girl) think?

I would love to see pictures of your new GFX mounts as I would like to eventually replace the factory mounts on my Daytona 500 TA.

I had that same spoiler on my '83 for a day.

here are pictures of the drivers side rear ground effects mount I made, which mounts the rear ground effects to the rear quarter panel:





For these sections, there was enough clearance where I didn't need to grind off the bolt heads. The front ground effects was tight enough that it was required to grind them flush. Notice that I also added one more bolt to the mount. the rear ground effects have a spot for it, but the car didn't have a hole drilled for it. So I drilled one more hole to make the gap shorter and to hold it tighter. I tried to add one more hole at the front where there is also a spot for it in the urethrane ground effects, but it lines up too close to the wheel well to work. It's strange that they made the ground effects with one hole that they didn't use and another that's impossible to use.

And yup, that's the same spoiler posted above! It looks great on the daytona. Did it touch the rear quarter panel on yours? It does on mine and I don't know if it should or not... I don't want it to rub against the paint, but then again, having it slightly raised might make it vibrate and rub the paint worse.

I also had to make new aero package mounts for my '84 T/A when I removed it all to see how much rust was hidden underneath. Just about every stud twisted off. I made mine out of stainless steel. Don't have to worry about that again.

the steel i used has some kind of zinc coating. I'm not very concerned about rust since it won't be seeing rain often at all. BLG0720, I missed your one post before.... they are mounted on the pedestals on the deck lid, no mounts on the quarter panels. The spoiler SHOULD utilize the stock mounting holes, but the reproduction spoiler that I bought for some retarded reason has the bolt holes randomly placed in the pedistals so I had to drill new holes in slightly different positions than the originals. I'm sure the original Firebird 500 spoilers were a direct bolt-on replacement, and it's very irritating that this aftermarket company couldn't get the bolt placement correct because it would be very easy to do!

here are some more views of the spoiler from when i originally test-fit it 2 years ago, along with some matching angles of the stock spoiler. forgive the poor alignment at the time-

What are you going to do with the GTA wheels?? If your car isn't gold anymore, are you going to keep those and paint them or get new ones?

Just curious...

I was originally going to paint the gold part platinum and keep them, but now I plan to go with aftermarket rims... 18" with tires that are 1" larger in diameter than stock so I still have some sidewall and it'll fill the wheel wells nicely. So those rims will hopefully be for sale this summer!

Just be careful with your sizing. I had 225/60/15s and had rub on the front. I think I have 215/65/15s now and they don't rub anymore. I'll double check those numbers in the morning...tooooo cold out there right now.

My '82 T/A has 245/60/15 tires on it and the front of the wheel flares and the black plastic inner wheel well shields are all torn up.