81 Nascar Project
 

Well, seeing how the 71 is now complete (mostly) its time for another project.

I just picked up an 81 Nascar today from the original owner. Its been sitting around since 1989 which oddly enough is the year he had the engine and trans rebuilt. The car runs good, but has trouble staying running. The Recaro interior is all there and in great shape which is the most important part!

He replaced the original hood with a nos GM hood because his buddy who said he could airbrush painted some god awful bird on it. He lost the original turbo wheels along the way, but I should be able to find some.

The car is actually very solid. The only trouble area is the rear window channel.

It came with tons of extra parts including nos decals. I plan on restoring it to drive quality, and while its under the knife the Recaro seats will be going in my 71 :cool:

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You are lucky to find that car,im envious.:)

Cool!

That's a bit of work - looking forward to this build.

I think I need a floor. :D Oddly enough the trunk, rockers, fenders, lower quarters, frame rails and tail panel are rock solid. So a "quick" floor job is all it needs.

Heres some pics from today. I gutted the interior to store it for the winter. They're are tons of nos parts, and I found some nifty magazines with some sharp looking cars on the cover! I also took pics of the nos hood bird.

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Winter is coming here in New England, so big updates will be few and far between. Im currently tracking down parts, and body work will start next spring. I did manage to get some pics with the rest of the cars.

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So I pulled the tank today to drain 8+ gallons of pure varnish, quickly blasted out the carb with some cleaner and it runs beautiful! Get this, even the A/C works I was sitting in the car listing to the radio with the A/C on because the holes in the floor make it get hot in there with the exhaust.

Has anyone seen a rear sway bar like this before? It has some tag on it about never running just one sway bar. Also the front one has these nifty adjustable end links and the bar is also red.

I took some pics of my findings. The decal pictured is the nos GM decal on the hood. The rear rails, trunk, and even the drop offs are rock solid.

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subscribed. i had a 81 p/c parts car that came with those same sway bars, must have been a popular option back in the day. but after searching i could not find any info on them or the brand. maybe they were a rancho product or some company that isnt around anymore. curious to know what they are. they are definantly beefy sway bars & the end links are nice. good luck on the project, these are a rare car. i did a resto on mine & plasyed with teh boost & a few other tricks & got it into the mid 14's which is pretty good considering they were a mid 16 second car from the factory.

You know what, now that you mention it I believe the owner said something about Rancho parts. I didn't think much of it because I associate Rancho with trucks.

Im toying with the idea of an LS1 4L60E combo and putting the original 301 on a stand. I've also been tossing around the idea of an 86-87 GN drivetrain.

i know rancho used to make stuff for cars, but havent been able to find anything on sway bars that look like these, maybe someone can shed some lite on what they are.

up to you on what mods you do, but IMO you should leave this pace car original, you can do an ls1 swap to any car out there, but these pace cars are getting very rare & once you do all the changes required for an ls1 or other custom driveline swap, chances are it will never go back to original, then all you have is a 301T engine sitting on a stand.

my vote is to keep it original & find another car if you need an lsi... or just buy a 4th gen with the lsi already in it by design. oops: looks like you already have a 4th gen....

if you havent already, check out 301garage for all the info or help you will need with a 301t car.

Yeah, but the 301 cant move out of its own way. I do like the engine though, and it runs great as the previous owner had it rebuilt. I do think I'll have to rebuild the turbo, but the engine seems to run real strong.

I don't have to chop the car up to fit an ls1 in, so there's nothing an ls swap would do that would affect the cars value down the road. I could even bolt the old TH350 to it and do adjustable engine mounts that way I retain the stock driveshaft. But whatever I decide it'll be a while before I get to it.

I've been working on cleaning up the Recaros the past few days. I cant believe how nice they are. There's a few small cigarette burns, but everything including the headrests are real nice :D

oh, they can run very strong with a little effort. i got mine into the mid 14's with only 1-2 psi over stock boost. the 301t got a bad rap due to low boost settings from the factory, some were sold with 5-6 psi, the engine was designed for 9psi & can handle up to 14-15 if youre carefull.

there is a member at 301g doing almost flat 12's in a nhra class that limits any major mods or head porting etc. thats pretty darn fast for a little 301. a stock 4th gen ls1 is only a low 13 sec car. the 301t can get out of its own way, if you want it to.

not argueing at all, sounds like it will be nice whatever you do. just pointing out the car is kind of rare & holds more value if original. but i guess i am biased being a fan of these cars & all.

We'll see.

I just picked up a compressor last night that'll run my tools better then my old one, so I should have an easier time with body work.

Would you suggest getting new repo steel for the floors, or cut them out of a rust free parts car?

yeah i noticed the floors... you are lucky the rest of the frame & wheel wells are solid with the floors being that bad. if you have or can find a parts car with good floors i think original is always best, but as cheap as the repros are these days they are a good option & fit pretty good from what ive seen.

good luck

Is that your car? It looks real nice!

Im still amazed that there is no rust other then the floors.

Your floor rust is probably from t-top leakage. Typical problem, even with the Fisher T-tops.

yes thats mine, thanks. took a couple pics the only time it was out this year, was busy with the 72 this summer so it only saw about 100 miles this year. i have the door decals but havent decided if i want them on or not.

Real nice! We're in basically the same situation, except the 71 is on the back burner now. :D

I hear ya on the door decals. I go back and fourth on them. I think the extra cost of them will be the deciding factor unless I get a good deal on them.

I just picked up a set of 79 Mustang pace car Recaro seats to repair my rotted passenger seat frame. That's been my mini project for now as its been cold as hell out.

yep cold here too, 60 one day & literally single digits 24 hours later. ridiculous.

well you got the original bird so that will offset the price of the door decals.... i like the cars both ways & will probably end up using them, but for now i just hang the decal sheet on my wall like a poster.

i've had a few sets of the t/a recaros & just sold 2 pair of the mustang ones you have, they are the same basic seat with a few small differences like the vinyl headrest & different hinges & recline dials, but the frames & foams looked identical. & be carefull when you get into the t/a seats, that fabric is not available anywhere.

funny thing is im actually considering selling the 81 next year & buying a nice 4th gen. i just dont drive it enough & im tight for space so i have to sell one to get another.

also if the car runs now, hook up a boost gauge & go drive it, (when it warms up) if its building any boost chances are the turbo is ok, these cars wont build boost reving the engine in park. or just remove the down pipe & spin & inspect the impeller, if it spins & isnt too loose it should be good. few tricks to adjust the boost & get it up to 9 or 10 & you might be surprised how good it runs. especially if it was rebuilt recently. worth a shot. ;)

Sounds good! I just bought the Stang seats for the frames anyways. I will say that if you do end up getting a 4th gen you'll have a hard time getting out of it!

Where are people tapping in for boost gauges on these turbo cars?

Also, the car starts and runs great but when its first started it wants to shoot up to around 2500rpm and stay there until it warms up. When I drop it in gear it goes right back down to 1000rpm. Its strange. Any ideas on where to start looking? I'll for sure be going through the whole car next spring, but I'd like to figure out the surge issue before the winter.

i have driven & riden in my friends 2001 ws6 & even mostly stock its a very fun car, they go for $6-8k in decent shape around here & real nice ones for arond $10k, so figured if i sold the 81 i would have quite a bit of $$ left in my pocket to justify the trade. plus 2 2nd gens is enough, gotta move on to some more modern technology.

best place to tap in for a boost gauge whether permanent or just one taped to teh windshield for testing is right where the vac controller gets its vac source from the engine, splice a t- fitting in the rubber line & run it where you want, easy to cap off if its not a permanent one. i just used a vac/boost test gauge taped to the windshield to set the psi but i do have a permanent one to put in one of teh a/c holes in the dash bezel.

the cold high idle is either the choke fast idle screw set too high, try turning it down a bit or backing off the choke dial a tad. or its the ISC (idle speed control) solenoid. they are known to go bad but can be rebuilt or replaced with a new one. the 81 cars were the first years of the computer control so the carb, timing & all controls are done by the ECM, you cant even adjust the base idle screw, the computer will over ride it. surprised you dont have some check engine codes going on too. best bet is to get a 81 gm manual if you want to work on it, or sign up at 301 garage & ask tons of questions or do hours & hours of research. im a long time member there (81pacecar) & the owner joe is an endless resource of knowledge & help. the manual is available at 78ta.com for $15 & worth every penny.

they are a bitch to work on but when running right they are pretty decent little cars.

Thanks for supplying all this good info! I'll try tweaking some things and report back. I'll also head over to 301G and post up!

I have a pic of my old Recaro passenger side base, and the new Mustang one. Clearly you can see I needed to fix it. :D Do you have any idea on how to remove the hinge off the seat back? It looks like a giant flat head screw but it wont turn.

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holy cow! i have never seen a seat frame that far gone, even on some of the parts cars i get up north that have been sitting in a field for 15-20 years!

on the t/a recaros its a big machine headed allen screw, mustangs may be a flat headed screw, either way it wont turn because the factory used loctite on the threads. CAREFULLY use a propane torch & direct the flame right onto the head of the screw with some thin metal placed around teh seat fabric area to shield them from the heat. after a minute or 2 the screw will turn out, just gotta heat up the thread locker crap. always fun tearing into a rare set of recaros!

let me know if you have any other questions, ive owned a few of these pace cars & have done just about everything there is to do on them as far as maintnance or restoration goes.

This car was in a no name storm up here that caused salt water to pour onto the streets. Supposedly the car had water up to the center caps of the wheels. That would explain why the floors don't exist anymore.

I'll give the seats another go today. I can hardly wait to put them in my 71 :D

I have a 1980 turbo pace car. While its no 455, or 400 W72, its really quite spunky & funny too drive. Where it lacks is right off the line when you floor it. Otherwise if you can live with a little turbo lag, they are quite fun to drive. Mine will even give a 2nd gear chirp many times. :)

I bought my car from the original owner with 52K (+/-) miles on it. She was selling because after years of storage from raising a family, time had caused the car to run horribly. She brought it to two local mechanics in her area who only exasperated the situation. Frustrated she put the car for sale in auto trader (back when it was only a magazine)

When I picked it up I could barely keep it running well enough to get it on the trailer to bring it home. After a long time of studying, I found all the problems to be vacuum related. The "mechanics" bypassed some of the hoses & adjusted things way out of spec. (timing, carb, etc)

I re-routed the vacuum lines correctly & I found two leaking valves. One I beleive was the manifold pressure switch (don't recall its proper name)
Once everything was back to factory correct & vacuum leaks eliminated, the car ran like a million bucks. Unbelievable night & day by comparison in fact. still to this day it starts great, idles smooth & very fun to drive.

I mostly wanted to chime in on this because these turbo engines really need to have everything correct (in stock form) to run correctly. Crazy sensitive with vacuum.

I bought the car because of its good looks, but I learned to have a small crush on the little 301 turbo. :D

68ragtop: agreed the 301t can run pretty good for what it is. they got a bad rap because of the factory keeping the boost lower than designed to avoid warranty issues with the little tested turbo, they could blow head gaskets or detonation from poor fuel owners might use etc. compared to a stock w72 t/a or mid 70's 455 they werent that far off. HP rating were the same as the w72 400 @ 220. it just came on differently. off the line they didnt have the torque so people thought they were dogs, but if you held the brake a little & built the boost for a second or 2 they launch like a little slingshot! & they would equal or maybe even beat the bigger engine cars from a rolling punch or highway punch. plus they handled better than other ws6 cars because the 301 was like 160lb lighter. & they got great mpg that a 455 or 400 could never get. cruising at 60-65 they can get 18+mpg.

as for the vac issues & poor running, that was another reason for the bad rap, only a certified GM tech knew how to work on the worlds only turbo v8 engine & what was very rare turbos in general.... "bubba's garage" had no clue how to work on them & usually made the problems worse. then to top that all off, the 81 cars got computer controls, which practically nobody knew how to work on for many years untill computer cars became popular, & even then the 81's were a 1 year only, they went to OBD 1 & 2 right after that, the 81 was pre-OBD. think q-jets are difficult to work on? try working on an electrically controlled one. that was alien technology back in the 80's & even the 90's. shoot, probably even worse today since they are so rarely seen.

the vac problem you described on your 1980 was related to the PEVR valve, its what controlled the carb, kind of a boost referance signal for the carb to supply the needed fuel under boost, without it they would run like crap & could cause major damage from too lean or rich conditions. you should have a threaded rod on the vac waste gate controller, if you want a little extra power, hook up a boost gauge to see where youre at, bet its around 5psi, then turn it a half turn at a time & raise the boost to the designed 9psi or maybe even 10psi. but be carefull if they are original head gaskets if you up the psi & be sure to run premium gas to avoid detonation. youd be surprised just how good they can run.

well worth keeping the 301t alive & its far time they got some respect for what they are... mine ran mid 14's with just getting the boost to stock levels, do some other minor common tricks & mods & they can run in the 13's pretty easily, & some are in the mid to low 12's with no head or intake porting. that is impressive no matter who you are. just think, if the 301t didnt get canned by gm after 2 years, the development gm could have done with a turbo v8 would have been just as impressive or more than what became of the turbo v6 grand nationals!

All good points guys!

I finished up the seat. I ended up using the whole frame from the Mustang. The seat back had holes rotted right through the frame :oogle:

I managed to keep the material in perfect shape, and combined with the mustang seats I now had perfect bolster foam!

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awsome, looks great! those bolsters are notorious for going flat from people just plopping down on them & pivoting to get the rest of the way into the seat. glad you were able to save the seat. i swapped a complete passenger side seat bottom to fix my crushed driver side boltser. the 2 sides are universal. hands down the best seat ever put in any classic american car.

did the heat trick work for the seatback screw? or did you get it out on its own.

Well wouldn't you know it, my torch was empty. So I took a chisel and made notches in the bolt, and hammered it out. It came out clean so I just grabbed another bolt off the Stang seat.

I ended up getting on 301G so I'll be posting up my thread over there also. I'll still be updating this one also!

glad you got it out. signing up at 301g is really the best thing a guy with one of these cars can do. no offense to most people on here & other forums, but majority of them will all telll you to swap a 455 in the car, or just badmouth the 301t. 301g will be a huge asset for you on any aspect of the car.... especially if i/they can convince you to leave the 301t in there. ;) ;)

im sure i will chat with ya over there too.

I realize I haven't updated this thread on this forum in a while. Progress has been slow, with other projects getting in the way, but I have an update. The rust is gone! The floors are in, the rear window channel is fixed, the dash looks like new, and the jambs have been painted.

Sorry some of the pics are small. They were from another phone, and for whatever reason they're little.

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any of the brown firebird in there? =)

Haha actually, there is!

I used the flat hood off the brown car to help repair the corners of the dash, and a small section in front of the rear wheel. There's also some little kick knacks that'll find their way into the car at some point.

How's your bird coming along?

Good, i fixed some odds and ends that needed some touch up. (headliner, window seal, clean up the engine bay, and removed the aftermarket radio) Besides that I havn't done much. i'm currently building a 400 for it out of parts i have laying around. should be in there later in the year I hope. I missing having power.

If you have it down that far I would think about welding the top seam completely. The T tops let it flex and the factory -at least on my 78- only used 3 spot welds per side to attach the Fisher roof. Then the leaded over it. On mine even pulling it and out of the body shop it would flex enough to crack the light skim of filler over the factory lead.

Cool! I'm sure after driving that 455 around, the 301 just isn't gonna cut it. lol

Funny you should mention that, there was actually a few cracks along the inside of the window channel, right near the top of the quarter where the roof meets it. All of those have been welded up. I really hope it doesn't come back.

Here are some more pics of the 81 in its current stage. I took some close ups of the body, showing how it now has zero rust anywhere! The white you see in the jambs is the actual body color, minus the clear coat. Same with the black around the window and t-top channels.

I just got the frame pulled off today. I'll begin tearing that down this week.

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I admire all of you guys who can pull a car that far apart and get it back together.

Any time I've gotten them that far - I've been parting them!

When I had my car to that point during restoration my brother looked at it and said ' I hope you know how it goes back together'. My reply was "Me too!"

Car is looking good. Nice to get rid of the rust and starting to get some real paint on it.

Believe me, if it wasn't a pace car, it would've been parted out. I probably wouldn't of bought it in the first place lol


I took extensive pictures before taking the car apart, so that should help. I've torn apart my 71 so many times, that most of the assembly is second nature haha. The stuff under the hood is all new to me, so that's where most of my head scratching will take place :gag:

Got the firewall stripped down with a flap disc and a DA. It looks really good now, although on these turbo cars you cant see much. I'll get the booster and master detailed up later.

I initially was going to have the sub frame powder coated, but seeing how well the firewall came out, I think I'll attempt stripping it and painting it first.

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Got the sub frame torn down today. No broken bolts, and everything looks pretty good except for a broken coil spring on the passenger side. The bottom most coil broke off completely.

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I also found a broken coil spring on my 79 when I took it apart last year, except that it was on the left side. It was the bottom coil too. Didn't know it was broken until I took it apart.

look at that wacky exhaust tube. ;)

Haha, the exhaust is funky on these cars!

Got the frame stripped down to bare metal, cleaned really good, and painted up chassis black. It looks like it was powder coated, so I'm pretty happy with it!

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Got the sub frame mounted up. I think it looks really nice against the cleaned up firewall.

I started degreasing the engine and front suspension components. The arms and knuckles cleaned up pretty quickly. I found the original color of the knuckles under the grease. The engine is still a mess, but at least it's cleaner than before. It still has a long way to go, but it's coming along.

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Looking good

I just read this whole thread from start to current. Good to see someone is rescuing one of these last 301t 2nd Gen Firebirds that could have easily ended up being crushed.
I'm a bit puzzled at the lack of engine paint, plus greasy grime, considering that it was supposedly rebuilt shortly before being taken off the road in 1989. Granted having sat around, as you say, for 25 years at the time you aquired it.
Not trying to stir up sh*t but I just don't see how the gaskets/seals would leak that much (and had time to collect road grime) even if the shop that did the work didn't believe in a fresh coat of paint.

The valve cover gaskets were torn, and the previous owner just said screw it, and kept running it. They're not the easiest things to get off on a turbo car. He did the same with a set of plug wires. They run under the carb, which basically rests on the valve cover, and the wires were sandwiched between the two. Instead of removing the carb and manifold it rides on, he just cut the wires and left them. lol

There is some traces of blue paint still on the engine. When they rebuilt it I guess they never repainted it? Whatever the case, I have the paperwork from the machine shop, with the VIN of the engine written on the paperwork. It ran well, and had good oil pressure. The inside of it is clean too.

Progress has slowed, with other projects taking priority. I got the rest of the front end components stripped down and repainted. The steering components are painted with POR cast grey paint, which seems to closely resemble the original paint I found on the knuckles. I did the knuckles, steering linkages, calipers, and steering box in the grey. I'm currently painting the dust shields in a bright silver.

After the front end is back together, I'll remove the rear end and give it the same makeover.

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