I agree. You do have to be pretty careful with a heat gun and factory paint. It does not take much to melt that clear coat.

 

Black Friday car ****, and another dining room table photo-shoot.

I've got upwards of 5 months now to decide on pads and brake lines. I started a new thread here if anyone wants to give their opinion or advice.

https://www.myg37.com/forums/brakes-...ml#post4261735

 

Wow those came in fast! Too bad you can't install it as fast ;-)

 

The rotors look great! I looked at these on Z1's website for black Friday too and tried to justify ordering a set for the rear. My next thought was that you were probably ordering a pair. You will have to let me know how the rear rotors work with the e-brake. I've seen some mixed reviews on that.

What red car is framed on the wall in the background?

 

Thanks! It was a long time coming. And I didn't know there were issues with the parking brake. Hmm.

Good eye. That was my old Trans Am, when I was a kid. Actually, that picture is probably when I was 22, which means 1986.

The car was a 1982 Trans Am, with the 5.0 Liter Chevy smallblock. 1982 was the first year of the 3rd Gen F-body, and you might or might not recognize there's no offset hood-scoop on this car. That's because in '82, the only Trans Ams with a hood-scoop came with Tuned Port Fuel Injection. This particular car came with a carburetor, and no hood-scoop. 1982 was also the last year of the 4-speed Saginaw manual transmission, which was upgraded in '83 with the Borg-Warner 5-speed.

I bought the car in 1984, two years old with 12000 miles on it. And I bought it by trading in a new 1983 Firebird. (That was dumb, I know, but I wanted a Trans Am with a MT really bad.) Over the next four years, I had it modified with an Edelbrock intake manifold, a Carter 625 carburetor, Hooker headers and a Hurst shifter & linkage. It was a lot of fun, and a heck of a sleeper, because no one really expected actual power from this car. Granted, I went through a couple of transmissions, and a couple of rear diffs, before it was retired and sold off to a friend at 90K miles. Drove this car all through college.

Here, I scanned the photo you spotted. 35 years later, and boy does that wheel gap, little wheels and fat tires look ridiculous. Oh well.

The custom exhaust looks silly, too. For about a year I had this awesome set of side-pipes with 4 little square tips in a row, at the end of a tapered black skirt. Unfortunately, I ripped them off the car over a set of railroad tracks.

 

I see you decided to go with the sprinkle slot design so as not to mesh with the angled spokes of your wheels. I seem to remember you talking about that.

I think the issue with the parking brake had to do with adjusting it, but it did not sound too difficult to do.

That's crazy that it was a Trans Am. That was my second guess- I was originally thinking Camaro, but it was really hard to tell from the blur due to the distance. Then again, those cars had pretty much identical bodies, especially from a distance. Apparently, I have been doing this car thing way too long. (My entire life)

I think it's cool that you have been modding cars all this time and did a "muscle car" too. I'm not sure how much of a sleeper a bright red Trans Am can be with a V8, chrome wheels, and what looks like a blacked out hood center, but I can respect the sleeper attitude just like our G cars. I don't think anyone would know how much money we have poured into the performance of these cars until they hear them start. Just the way it should be. I would much rather have a car that performs well than one that just looks fast.

 

That's exactly what I was thinking. Plus, I think it's really attractive, without jumping the shark.

GTK

The frames were the same, the drive train identical, but the sheet metal and trim was totally different. Most Camaro owners never liked the Firebird, and the same vise-versa.

Good catch on the hood. That was a custom paint job I came up with and had painted. It looked OEM, but wasn't. I liked it a lot... gloss black with a hint of flake and bordered with a thin pinstripe, dipping into a rounded nose over the front bumper.

When I got that car in 1984, the new body style was only into its 3rd year. Very much like when I bought my G37 in 2011. I have super fond memories of that car and how it disproportionately fit into my life.

Here's a tiny pic of the engine bay. Sucks because I can't find the original print, or even the original scan image, just this goofy little thing. Oh well.

 

I was referring to the general shape and size of the car in the picture since it was so blurry. My eyes must be playing tricks on me though. The sheet metal looks identical aside from the restyled front and back ends. Looks like the same doors, hatch, rear quarter, fenders, windows, etc. GM is still notorious for sharing as much as they can and trying hard to make the same product look like 3 or 4 different vehicles.

I see where your penchant for color coding engine bays may have started. Looks like a fun car! Could you tell a difference with all of the mods before tuning and dynos became a thing? We have a guy at work with a '99 WS6 Firehawk and I am amazed at the performance he was able to add from simple bolt ons. It now has a supercharger and it well over 600 hp. It can't turn a corner, but it is fun at the drag strip.

 

Heck yes. Again, as I remember it, the car ran 17's in the quarter mile, like a full second slower than the fuel-injected model. For all its style and bluster, it was only rated at 155 hp. However, towards the end I took it to the dragstrip and clocked in a couple of runs in the 14's. I don't have the slips, but I swear 14.5 sticks out in my mind, and I was thrilled. That's a drastic change just from bolt-ons, and weight loss by dumping the AC.

Understand, most of these cars were really crap from the late 70's to the early 80's. But it was what it was, growing up in the suburbs during that time.

 

Wow, that's a huge difference in performance from the mods! I wish I was able to shave nearly 3 full seconds off my 1/4 mile time with just bolt ons on the G37. I don't know what's more surprising- your gains in performance or the fact that a big V8 only produced 155 hp. Now you get that power out of a tiny 2.0 L 4 cyl. base Sentra. Thank goodness times have really changed for the better for enthusiasts.

I am well aware of the crap that was produced in the 70's and 80's. Those were the cars my family had when I was a kid. But my dad either got "performance cars" or VW's with lots of "character" (ie. no performance to speak of). My favorite was a lime green VW Camper van that had around 40 hp (yes 40) and no heat. It was awesome to go camping in as a kid and pop the top, fold the green plaid couch into a bed and use the sink and stove. It was not fun to try to get it up any sort of incline.

 

IIRC, the tuned-port model that year was rated at 175hp. And in 1984 they came out with the the H.O. option ("high output"), which was was rated at 190hp. Maybe my numbers and memory are all wrong, IDK. Certainly looking back at things with today's perspective, it all seems kind of silly.

It also feels like a lifetime ago. Every once in a while I'll see a GTA on the road, and get all nostalgic. Even knowing they were pig slow and couldn't handle any better than my wife's SUV. Can't help it, though. Still wish I owned a car like this one here. Although maybe without the pimp velour interior.

 

I remember those cars brand new and always thought they were cool. About 10 years ago a guy at work had that exact same car above and drove it to work every once in a while. No one really thought it was anything special, but I liked it. Unfortunately, there were a disproportionate number of absolutely awful cars on the road at that time too. But I liked the 80's styling on some performance cars like the Lotus Esprit or the Ferrari 288 GTO. To this day, still two of my favorites. However, neither one had brake rotors as cool as your car. (How is that for getting your thread back on track?)

 

Right. That's enough reminiscing.

Rotors are off the table (literally), and back in their boxes, waiting for Spring 2020.

 

Do you plan to keep the rotor hats black or change the color on them? I've been toying with the idea but lazy to remove them off the car.

 

I'm not going to paint them. It was a fun idea when I first thought about it, but nah.

However at some point I really really want to get my calipers painted. But that's not a part of this project either.