/Drive Big Muscle Turbo Trans Am Bandit Bait

"Takuro Spirit" (takurospirit) 06/24/2015 at 14:40 • Filed to: bandit bait, trans am, emma in a past life

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WiscoProud > Takuro Spirit 06/24/2015 at 14:52

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200hp and 340ftlbs is a truck engine. Those numbers aren’t dramatically different than my land cruiser.

When he guns it, it even sounds like a truck. What wasted potential

Takuro Spirit > WiscoProud 06/24/2015 at 14:53

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Big iron lump up front, big iron leaf sprung log out back is pretty much a truck as well...

WiscoProud > Takuro Spirit 06/24/2015 at 14:57

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You're not wrong. Throw some swampers on that puppy and go muddin'

Kanaric > WiscoProud 06/24/2015 at 15:01

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lol this is a 35 year old car. What do you expect?

WiscoProud > Kanaric 06/24/2015 at 15:05

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Not all cars from that vintage sound like that though. I think a lot of it has to do with GM having no clue on how to design a vehicle that was both relatively clean and powerful. The old adage of putting the biggest engine in the smallest car didn't cut it anymore.

Jedidiah > Takuro Spirit 06/24/2015 at 15:08

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Everything in 81 was slow, but not everything looked that good.

All pontiac blocks are the same size externally, so the motor mounts and exhaust manifolds should work. Grab a low compression 400, slap the turbo manifolds on it, and enjoy.

These old smog cars are still made with the same old-school approach that the previous gen muscle cars were (albeit being built worse). You just need to bump up the compression and throw some old school speed parts at it.

Smog cars are baragins if you live in an area of the country where you won’t get in trouble for removing all the likely inoperable emissions junk.

lone_liberal > Jedidiah 06/24/2015 at 15:20

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Yeah, what people forget is that nobody left these cars in the state of tune that they came from the factory in. Back then you took things off from the engine in order to go faster like the cats (horribly restrictive back then), smog pumps, egr, etc. Then you could start adding intakes, cams and if you had the money better heads. Even just bumping the timing helped since they retarded the ignition and cam timing for emissions reasons.

Jedidiah > lone_liberal 06/24/2015 at 15:31

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All good points. My olds has 4 degreses of retard built into the cam from the factory, you can crank the timing up super high and it will never ping because the compression is so low.

I think smog era cars are unfairly overlooked sometimes, which is a shame because they have decent potential to be modified.

GM improved suspension geometry and steering boxes on the 70+ F-Bodies and the 73+ A-Bodies, so they can also be made to handle somewhat decently (at least for 40 year old cars).

The smog era base models also have better axles than the base models from the 60s, at least for Chevys. The corporate axle might be a bit weaker than the older BOP axle, but at least you have greater parts availability.

Good axles, good frames, good engine blocks, good suspension geometry (back then at least) at the expense of fit and finish and smog equipment. Sounds like a modder’s paradise to me; rip out the junk and put go-fast parts on it.