merlot-fro

this is my "new" 86 Trans Am. Bought it for $ 1450. This the engine. I'm not sure its the 5.7 liter or 5.0 liter. i think its carburated too. what am i looking at guys?

bEtUr4dRustang

Unless hidden work was done...

That is just a factory Q jet carburetor.

5.0L LG4 with 155hp in a firebird and 165 in a trans am.

Don't hurt yourself with that beast

merlot-fro

They guy I bought it from said he had the engine replaced after 145,000 miles with a 5.7 liter V8 (350) with 60,000 miles. Is there anyway to tell which V8 I have? I want to know if was lying to me, or the guy who replaced the engine actually just put in another stock 5.0.

2 other things: I'm trying to figure out if this is a simple carburated engine or if I have some kind of throttle body injection or other such stuff. (Sorry, my other car is a 92 Bonneville. Carburated cars are alien to me. I got plenty to learn... and repair.)

2nd thing: should the air filter and that entire intake manifold area be covered in gasoline? That entire area is coated in fuel.

scottland

first off... go to the grocery store, grab a bottle or two of "simple green" its down the cleaning isle. then go down the baking isle, and buy some gallon size zip lock bags. (or some saran wrap and big rubber bands will work.)

take off your air cleaner, and put a ziplock bag over your carburator, one over your distributer, and one over your alternator, (or use saran wrap, and hold it inplace with the rubber bands)

then coat your whole motor liberaly with simple green, wait about 10-15 minutes, then hose it all off with a high pressure hose attachment (the kind you water your lawn with, with the pistol grip)

then rinse and repeat until clean. that should give you a clean engine.

Now as for you motor being a 305 (5.0L) or a 350 (5.7L)

there is only one true way of telling.

on the back of the engine block on the driver side, it should have a casting #, the casting # will tell you,

or on the back of the block it will either say, "GM 5.0L" or "GM 5.7L"

if you can't read what it says because it is too ditry, use some simple green

merlot-fro

that is simply the best idea for cleaning the engine bay I have heard in a long time. I'm gonna do that monday. The whole working on the Trans Am thing is complicated: its at my friends house because my parents can't know I bought the car. So I can't work on the car whenever I feel like it. I'll have him look at the casting # till I come back on monday.

If the engine is a 350, what kind of fuel system do I have. Somone gave me a list of all the possible engines for a 3rd generation Fire Bird/Trans Ams. I think all the 350 were all TPI, but my engine looks carburated. I need to do more research.

Petes 84Z28

That's definitely a Quadrajet...a 4-barrel carburetor.
WTF is that silver-ish ring just inside the air filter?

Pete

kanuck

I agree, that is a Quadrajet carb.

Just because the previous owner said he put in a 350 doesn't mean he had to put in a TPI. Obviously just reused the original Quadrajet. I think that's where you're confused.

So you either have a carbureted 305 or a carbureted 350. Not TBI, not TPI. It looks just like mine...except way more dirty.

merlot-fro

Do you have a normal mechanical Q-jet or a computer controlled one?

That may explain why the carburator needs a replacement. The air filter is really soaked with gasoline and so is the entire intake area. That would be a result of a problem with the carb, correct?

mrt89rs

yes

kanuck

A normal Q-jet in a thirdgen IS computer controlled. I have a Canadian car, so the Q-jet is not computer controlled.

Something is wrong if you have a gasoline soaked air filter. I'm not good at determining why. It could be the carb, it could be a bad PCV system. Somebody else will know.

Good luck!

GTA4ME

What if the # is not there. My wife's firebird is missing that plate, it says 41 GM and then there are 2 small holes. There is another # under that: 3970010. Any ideas???

onebad82z

iTrader: (7)

It's an older block..pre '85 IIRC didn't have the 5.0L or 5.7L castings...by those numbers (3970010 at least) it's a 350 though.

mrt89rs

that only tells you what block you have but not the crank. you could still have a 327 350 or 383 the only way to find out is to take the engine apart.

GTA4ME

How do you know it's a 350?

merlot-fro

Is there an advantage of having a computer controlled carb versus a non-computer controlled one? Still havn't found casting number however. Too many wires and crap. I also found some stuff in my engine that was just plain disconnected. Man I got so much crap to do.

GTA4ME

Man, that sounds an awful lot like my wife's 91 Bird!

merlot-fro

What happend to that car?

GTA4ME

The previous owner took out the 305 TBI and put in a Carb'd V8. I think it's a 350, but I can't confirm that yet. But he looks like he just threw it in the car because he ran out of money. All the emissions is missing, and half of the wiring is not connected or it doesn't work all the time. Here are some pics: https://www.thirdgen.org/techbb2/sho...hreadid=196343

Air_Adam

Yes, look at the back of the engine block, right behind the drivers side head.

If the casting number (a long number) ends with "010" then it is for sure a 350.

There is the off-chance it could be a 302 or a 327, but don't coulnt on it.

99.99999999999% chance that it is, in fact, a 350.

beasleybub

Pete,
Don't laugh but that silver thing you asked about in the air cleaner is actually a device that is filled with some sort of flame arresting material that resembles charcoal and it was intended by GM to stop flames from catching your air filter and not to mention your whole car on fire if for some reason your beast belched through the carb. Unless your car belches allot which if tuned and running right it should not you can grab hold of it with a pair of vice grips and send it to the glad bag hell it deserves, its only held on by some glue. All the darn thing does is restrict air flow and rob you of some HP.

Happy Pontiac greetings to all!:rockon:

Beasleybub

AlbertaFbody

frankly i do not like the quadra jets thus why i got rid of it and bought a edelbrock 600cfm thing works great then got an open air filter and all was good frankly i don't like the sounds of that gas soaked intake kinda scarry i would definately buy a 20$ fire extinguisher

five7kid

iTrader: (14)

The silver ring is a charcoal bed for the purpose of absorbing fuel vapors when the engine isn't running (from the fuel bowl vent). When the engine is started again, the air flow pulls the vapors back out of the charcoal (just like the vapor canister). It has absolutely nothing to do with "arresting flames". The factory didn't assume the carb would be backfiring in normal operation.

That is a factory computer controlled q-jet, by the way. You can tell by the shape of the bowl vent and the adjustment it has there vs. an open tube for a non-cc q-jet.

The q-jet is the best street performance carb out there. Head and shoulders above an Edelbrock Performer. If you had problems with your q-jet, it's your fault (or the ham-fist that worked on it before you), not the carb's. The CC q-jet is the best daily driver version of the q-jets, at least until you get into really large displacements and cam overlaps.

beasleybub

I totally forgot the part about telling him about the vapors but emissions was not the only reason for the ring. In addition to emissions That silver ring was used as a flame arrester. By way of allowing the fuel vapor to be injested by the engine. In fact it was created to keep those fuel vapors at bay during start up when backfiring through the carburetor was most likely to happen thus avoiding a flame up situation. I am right and know this because I asked the dealership personally and that's the answer I received. If you are going to try and correct me then give them all of the facts not just some of them.

Beasleybub

five7kid

iTrader: (14)

And dealer salesmen are generally known to be technically sound.

Sorry, there is no "flame arrest" intended in the design. You were given bogus info.

merlot-fro

I had no idea that the picture of my car I posted would spawn so much debate. Especially since I started this post back on 11/23/03. My car has actually back-fired twice since then when my friend was working on it and try to start the car. When the engine back-fired the 1st time the muffler exploded and the second time fire shot out that back off the exploded muffler. I didnt actually witness any of this 1st hand but this is what I was told happend. So based on that maybe you guys can determine what that ring is for. I personally think 57kid's explanation is the more logical one, (not that I have the mechanical know-how or expirience to judge) based on the fact that the factory most likely isn't going to put a car on the market that they know will belch fire into the engine bay. But who knows... either of you guys might be correct

Nate86

Are you joking?

Your car is sounding more like a bomb than a vehicle. I'd recommend you just sell the thing and buy a more "mechanically sound" car to drive, at least until you have more experience.

By the way, if you haven't done so already, I'd recommend saturating that air cleaner with Simple Green and replacing your air filter and PCV breather. It looks like your air cleaner is covered in oil.

merlot-fro

my car is in the shop right now....

WOW!!!!! there is so much stuff wrong with it

I can pretty much forget any kind of performance upgrades for a good long time.

the List:

2 leaky valves covers
exploded muffler
shot breaks not sure yet if i just need some new rotors and pads or if stuff is messed up in calipurs or brake lines
fan was hooked up all wrong (hot wired so the thing was on all the time, which eventually burn it out)
thermostat broken (not a huge deal, but still)
fan didn't work when hooked up to ecm, so the ecm might be broken

the car is actually running which is good, but I really want everything in this car to be in 100% tip-top shape if i want to start doing stuff to it

interior:
i could list all that stuff but it might be easy to put it like this...
if you gave two rabid wolverines speed and made them fight inside a trans am... it would end up looking alot like the inside of my car

five7kid

iTrader: (14)

The fan isn't controlled by the ECM. There is a thermal switch in the passenger side head that makes the ground to turn the fan on when the temp reaches a certain level (mine had a 238 degree F switch, I replaced it with a 195 F switch). The power is ignition switched, and there is a relay in the circuit as well (much more likely that the relay is at fault).

Stekman

five7,

If it was originally an LG4, wouldn't it have the good 'ol mechanical fan/clutch setup?

phoenix305

no i have an 86 lg4 and it has an electrical fan but i think that was the only year the lg4 had one cause my friends 85 lg4 has a mechanical fan on it. please correct me if i am mistaken anyone.

Stekman

That may be the case. I know i have an 85 LG4 and it has the clunky mechanical/clutch setup. (the original poster did not mention the year of the car).

five7kid

iTrader: (14)

The pictures look more like an '87 - small cap distributor with remote coil, A.I.R. diverter box. A look at the angle of the center two intake bolts would decide it.

I had thought '85 LG4 got the electric fan, because my '86 has it and both '85 & '86 got the higher compression and knock sensor (like the L69). I was corrected.

five7kid

iTrader: (14)

Wait, those look like center bolt valve covers, too!

Either that had an '87 engine put in it, or it is a very late '86 production unit that got the next year model's engine.

Stekman

After doing some digging around, the general concensus that i am getting is that in '86, GM switched over and gave the LG4 a single electric fan.

merlot-fro

the car is an 86 trans am... but it has the 350 not the 305 (it got swapped by previous the owner)

This means the car is an 86 with an 87 (or possibly later year) engine. Unless you were refering to someone elses car.

five7kid

iTrader: (14)

No, I was referring to your car.

Most of the time, when a switch occurs, only the "bare" long block gets changed - accessories and controls come from the car. This looks "different", to be sure.

merlot-fro

hmmmm so your saying they implemented some of the newer systems from the swapped engine into my car.... interesting...

that wouldn't cause any potential problems?

five7kid

iTrader: (14)

Only when you go to get parts. You just need to know which one you've got. Distributor cap & rotor, plug wires, etc.

RSFreak

Interesting... I have an '84 L69 which has an electric fan. Is this true of all L69s? Strange that GM wouldn't have given the LG4 an electric fan earlier than '86.

five7kid

iTrader: (14)

Not really. Electric is more expensive than engine-driven, so they saved the extra $1.98 per vehicle on the LG4's until it made more sense to give them all the electric (CAFE standards, economy of volume, or something like that).

CaysE

86 LG4 with electric fan here. My old 84 LG4 had the clutch fan.

five7kid: I'm looking to swap out my hammered to holy hell carb for a good replacement. I always read that the CC quadrajet is a good performer when tuned properly, so I'm looking to stay with this until I swap engines. Know where to get a replacement CC Q-jet? Possibly upgraded? Most everyone I see (Summit, JET, etc) only sells non-CC as far as I can tell.

ljnowell

Hey CaysE, if you can do without the car for a while, I know you can get most of the companies to rebuild your carb for you, but otherwise, if you call, you can buy the CC versions too.

five7kid

iTrader: (14)

Most chain parts store have them or can get one for you.

RSFreak

I would think that standardization would be cheaper.

merlot-fro

This might sound kinda off topic, but then again I did start this thread...

I got my car back from the shop yesterday and the car is still really slow (for a 350) but thats probably because I'm running the car with an exploded muffler and a bad air filter. I think I need to keep driving the car (its been sitting for soooo long).

Its kinda funny... even with this busted muffler the exhaust sounds awsome its loud and throaty not like when I first bought the car.

Although the car stalled twice in reverse... not sure what that means

five7kid

iTrader: (14)

The stock single-snorkel air cleaner housing is very restrictive. You can feel it with a stock 305, even.

An open element will allow it to breathe better, but that has two downsides: In summer, the hot underhood air causes power loss; and in winter, the lack of the thermovac warm air as the car warms up can produce downright dangerous driveability issues.

A dual snorkel air cleaner with ducts to cooler air solves all the problems.

merlot-fro

I would find this on???... Hawks, ASCD inc., SPOHN? I'm guessing I could also find this at Autozone or Muhray's (however its spelled).

Or even fabricate one...

ljnowell

A lot of the guys that I know found them in the junkyard too, I think they may have came on the l69 motors. But I'm not too sure as I dont have an L69 engine.

five7kid

iTrader: (14)

Classifieds on this board, sponsors above specializing in used 3rd gen parts, iroczdave, or make one of your own (there's a tech article on that, accessed from the thirdgen.org home page). You won't find it at the parts stores. GM used to carry it but stopped a couple of years ago.

Yes, it was a Camaro L69 item. I got mine from a member via classifieds on the board.

RSFreak

Here is a pic of the L69 air cleaner (in case you didn't know what to look for) minus the snorkels which are still in the back seat. This was taken right after I bought the car and hadn't had a chance to clean the engine bay yet. The car had been sitting for several years.