hey guys. I've lurked through these forums here once or twice before, never thinking I would own a 3rd gen, but, as fate would have it, I'm the new owner of a '89 formula 350! I feel like I made the right choice buying this car, and I feel like it has a lot of potential. I'll post pics when I can. Anyways its a black 1989 firebird formula 350, got it for a grand earlier. Maybe around six or so. Found it that it has a manual valve body style shift kit in it already. It also had a "system" that the first owner put in, but thats just a bunch of wires now.

Now, I am in no way an f-body guy, so bare with me. So far I have fallen in love with the car, but there are a bunch of little things wrong with it.

1. Probably the biggest concern to me, the headlights wont go up! I can pick them up with my hands, but they tend to fall. I dont think it's the motors, I can hear them working. I read something or another about a gear going bad? any idea?

2. The truck wont shut all the way! now mind you it does shut, and stay shut, but it's not flush with the rest of he car. kinda proped up, like when you pull your hood-pop button. It also needs new trunk weather strips//seals.

3. the previous owner chopped the pipes right before the cats. So no cats, means no inspection sticker. I'm hoping to get some headers for it soon. Long tubes would be nice, and I'd like to keep it true duals. Got any good ideas on an exhaust setup?

But besides a new windshield and some tires thats about it! Oh! The passenger window button is missing and the drivers sometimes doesnt roll up or down. hopefully I can find that in the classifieds.

Money isn't much of a problem here since its already payed off. I absorb things like a sponge guys, so all help is appreciated

 

First off, welcome. You'll find just about every kind of knowledge there is about these cars here; unfortunately, sometimes you have to wade through a certain amount of monkey-spank to get to it. But it's in there somewhere!!!

1. I don't have Firebirds; but from what I've seen, that's an EXTREMELY common problem. Sounds like first it had The Problem, then somebody just unplugged the motors so they woudn't run all the time. The Problem is some little plastic bushings in the motor, that wear out and crumble to dust, and then nothing in there aligns any more. Do a search on the forum for "headlight" "bushings", no doubt you'll find out more than you ever wanted to know about them.

2. Another very common problem with both the Camaros and the Birds. It's the pull-down motor. Take it out, clean it up, chances are that's all it really needs.

3. Screw the "true duals", it's VERY DIFFICULT to get it to fit right, and it just adds a whole lot of weight without much benefit to performance at all, at typical emissions-legal street power levels. The car is so hostile to that, it's usually WAY too much maze with way too little cheese at the end, to be worthwhile.

Best way to go is to get a set of CHASSIS-SPECIFIC headers; not "universal" ones, not the cheeeepest thing that says "yeah I'm headers" on the box, but good-quality, chassis-specific ones, designed specifically to fit these cars. SLP is one kind to look at, or Edelbrock TES. Both of those bolt right directly up to the stock cat. There are other brands; Hooker and Hedman maybe, that offer such things; but those all come with those crappy 3-bolt flanges that NEVER EVER seal for more than 5 minutes, if at all. If you go with one of those, throw that stupid 3-bolt crap away, and replace it with the Flowmaster ball flanges such as these which are available in a variety of sizes. Cut the dumba$$ 3-bolt flanges off and weld these things in, and then you have something that (a) doesn't leak, (b) you can take apart and put back together as many times as you like without destroying it, and (c) doesn't need a gasket. Whatever kind of headers you get, I strongly recommend getting them ceramic-coated; that reduces underhood temps dramatically, makes them last longer, and actually adds to HP. Get a stock replacement cat such as a Catco (also available from Scummit, Jeg's, and probably your local sped shop), and a good 3" cat-back system of your choice, such as from Hooker, Flowmaster, Dynomax, Edelbrock, Borla, etc. etc. etc. If you do it right, every bit of it will go right back where the stock stuff was, using the stock hardware and brackets, and will give you stock ground clearance or better. As opposed to the typical 2nd gen Camaro/Firebird malfunction you see as an example, where the exhaust becomes the lowest thing on the car by at least 3 inches, and has about the same chance of long-term survival as a snowball in the underworld.

 

Thanks for that info. I ordered the bushings today. I also got a few pics of the interior. Definitely shows I got some work on my hands with this project.

Been thinking a lot lately, and I'm thinking of going turbo. I wanted a n/a 400+ hp monster, but it doesnt seem to easy with tpi from what I've read, atleast not for a reasonable price. Dunno, maybe I havn't read enough.




snapshot of what it looked like when I got it, exterior-wise. tooken at night obviously. I'll get better pics tomorrow.



also, dont know what the heck these two red buttons do! I'm sure you saw them in the first pic. do they even go with the car?



Oh! and the lovely lady that came with the car. "Complementary". WARNING! Not work safe!

Ms. White

 

no those buttons don't look like they came with the car. you will have to do some wire tracing to figure out what they go to.


p.s. the "ms white" link is the same picture as above.

 

Fixed. The first picture also doesnt seem to be showing up.

 

ha ha ha, nice picture

 

The headers of choice for most people on the boards here are the Hooker Super Comp, part#2055. These have the ball flanges that Sofa referred to, and they also come with the matching y-pipe that fits right up to the stock, 3" cat. Make sure you don't mistakenly order part#2460. Those are the 3 bolt flange style, and you have to make your own y-pipe for them. As said above, the Edelbrock TES headers fit good too, but they don't hold a candle to the 2055's as far as quality goes. I have a set of each, and the difference in quality between the two is amazing. Also, the Edelbrocks use donut style gaskets at the collectors instead of ball flanges, and they're prone to burning out quite often. You can go to Jet-Hot's website to order the Hookers with good quality ceramic coating on them. They're expensive, but worth it in my opinion. If you decide the ceramic coated ones are too costly, you can get the uncoated ones from Summit for about half the cost of coated ones.

 

Thanks bro. I dont really need any of that now. I'm going turbo!