1972 Firebird in the shop.

[cleatus12r]

I have an old Firebird in the shop that belongs to a friend of mine. His father (the owner) died a couple years ago and now the son and widow would like to drive it around. Over the years, it's been to a few places and a lot of money has been thrown at it to make it run right. Basic rundown is that it idles REALLY fast, bogs and dies when put in gear, and tires chirp every time it's put in drive or reverse. I got it at the shop three weeks ago and started going over it with a fine-tooth comb. Here's a list of things I found wrong with it:

Big, lumpy camshaft.
Single plane intake.
Stock stall speed torque converter.

It's basically a mismatch of parts that don't work together for a stock long block and stock torque converter.

The PCV valve was plumbed into a single intake runner, the vacuum advance was hooked to manifold vacuum, the ignition timing was REALLY retarded, the choke pull-off lever was interfering with the air cleaner base and would never let the choke come all the way off, the #8 spark plug wire separated from the terminal at the distributor cap, and the spreadbore intake had a squarebore carburetor resulting in a vacuum leak.

It wasn't perfect when it left here 3 weeks ago, but the owner was really happy with the way it was running when he got it back and has driven it quite a bit! I told him that it'll be way better when I get the right parts.

I got the parts to fix it on Monday and now it's sitting in the shop with a Quadra-jet, dual plane intake, and higher stall speed converter (which is going in first thing in the morning since it's 95 degrees and I have a big job coming here in about an hour). I didn't want to break into the engine and change the camshaft so with any luck this will make it into a single-footer around town. Before, a fella had to have one foot on the brake and one on the gas. It's already way better than it was when it showed up this morning......I can't wait until the transmission doesn't kill it every time it's put in gear!