Look what showed at my house
 

My new 70 RA III, M20, 12 bolt 3.73.

https://i.imgur.com/Cfx8Zmol.jpg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lusj...ature=youtu.be

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gOg_...ature=youtu.be

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u1TX...ature=youtu.be

Super cool. Congrats.

Wow...very nice...love the vids.

More details??

Did you by chance buy that from John Kraft? He just sent one out recently just like that. Very nice! Good luck with it, I recently bought another TA as well. :drive:

Jealous. My favorite year and color.

I'd love another Firebird, but I haven't found a 79 Formula yet. Too many TAs out there. It seems like everyone had or has a TA. That was the reason I bought the 79 Formula brand new. And yes... the GTO would go if one was found that I liked.

Hi there everyone. So this is the same car that I had thread about in the 70-73 tech section about he headliner. It came from a seller in Maryland. I just got it here yesterday so I haven't had a chance to go through it. Overall, I'm happy with it so far. Nothing major that's major or obvious at this point. Really seems better than I expected. It does have few things already identified, most all of which I knew about before I bought it. Nothing insurmountable but it's got a few things. It's gonna take a little time to get to know her. But, no buyer's remorse yet.

I love Formulas. I had a 76 and a 70. Both very cool cars. For a long time I preferred them for the same reason, everyone had a TA. Everyone has their holy grail car, and for me it's the 70 TA. I can't remember the last time I saw on on the road.

Enjoy It!! It's a beauty!

Thanks a lot...for reminding of the one I regretfully sold a couple years back 😢

Yeah... I know the feeling. Hopefully that won't happen to me this time.

Nice find.

Sent from my Moto Z3 Play using Tapatalk

Congratulations, nice.

I’m loving that car. Congratulations and good luck. That car will be tons of fun to be behind the wheel of.

I think so, and I hope so. Hopefully it doesn't end up being a black hole that sucks all the money out of my bank account.

But as far as actually finding it, it was a bit obscure. I've been following these cars for sale online for years but just recently decided to buy one. This car was not listed on any of what I consider to be the sort of mainstream websites. I found it on a site called Autoblog that didn't even have a picture or detailed description. It did give me a link to a GMC/Buick dealership in Maryland which had a dozen or so muscle cars for sale. Turns out the owner has a little collection of about 30 or so cars. He bought this car at a Mecum auction in 2016. It had a frame off restoration done the was supposedly completed in 2014-2015, but there is no documentation whatsoever. When I got the car it had a business card from a guy named Rick Deiters at Trans Am Specialties of Florida in the glove box. So I thought maybe they did the restoration. I called and talked to Rick, who seems to be a very nice guy. He talked with me about the car for a while as he was searching through his records. Unfortunately, he could not find any history of the car ever being at their shop. So who did the restoration and when remains a mystery as does why there was a card from that shop in the car and they say they have no record of it. So who knows, I'll probably never know the history of it.

I do have PHS documents that confirm the car was restored to original spec except it came from the factory with a radio, which was deleted on the resto. The resto seems pretty good to me so far. The quality of the paint, panel fit, interior and underside all are very good. Sadly for me it is not a numbers matching motor. It has a correct WS code block though and #12 heads and correct exhaust manifolds. Fenders are correct. It has Rally II wheels but they are reproductions. the headliner definitely looks original, or at least very old. The headrests also look original. Motor sounds good. Shifter feels good, no slop, nice and tight. Clutch feels good. I haven't been able to drive it much because of the weather here and I just got my temporary tag yesterday. I'm working the next few days but hopefully I'll be able to get it out on the road a bit next week if the weather cooperates.

I'm an expert at nothing, and am envious!!!
I was wondering the the "silver" paint is correct on the wheels???

jhein, Very nice buy! The '70 TA was my lust-for car when they came out as a young teen back then. My brother and I loved to visit new car showrooms and grab a bunch of the new car brochures, and we nabbed a couple of new Firebird performance booklets at our local Pontiac dealer that we still have today...dog eared from years of enjoyment. And of course, we all want to see more pictures!

Dennis

She is a beaut
Hope you have many safe and memorable drives in her
Mick

Yeah, I'm not an expert either. These wheels have no stamps on them at all and look brand new so I'm sure they are aftermarket. Don't know if the colors are correct. Maybe someone will comment.

Thanks, and yes, especially the safe part.

Wow really cool car! Congrats, guaranteed fun time driving it. Can't say I recognize it coming from a Md Pontiac guy

1970 Trans Am
 

Congrats on your new acquisition. Super nice looking car. Enjoy it and don't sweat the small stuff. NONE of them are perfect. The important thing is to have fun with it!

We need more videos of her in action :)

Great car!

Congrats what a beaut!! Probably my favorite Poncho of all time.

Congratulations on a great looking (and sounding) car!!

Number matching is great, but not the end-all;
Numbers correct is every bit as good.

I hope you get many miles of enjoyment out of it!!

It's pretty neat that it's an M20/3.73:1 car!
I like spartan interior (no console), with what appears to be the correct non-console shifter arm, and correct black ball shifter handle!!

Thanks very much! I agree about the numbers matching. I knew it when I bought it. Didn't matter that much to me.

I also had to have a 4spd. I agree that I think the console delete and the short straight shifter look very cool IMO. Looks all business.

Now, the rear gear... It seems that somewhere along the line someone put in 4.10 gears. I kinda noticed right away but again, I was taking in so much I put that aside at the time. Today I had her out again and assuming the tach and speedo are reading correct, I'm doing 3000 rpm at 60 mph with 27 inch tall tires. That seems to suggest 4.10's. I need to verify that but if it's correct that's gonna need to be changed. Way too low of gear for the way I will use the car.

my car is a 3.55:1 car, and I seem to recall being pretty darn close to three grand on the tach at 60mph;
Granted, I never had GPS (ect) to verify what speed I was actually doing...

I just looked it up with 4.10:1 gearing you should be past 3k rpm at 60mph.

https://purperformance.com/p-29669-rpm-calculator.html

You might save 500 rpm with 3.73 vs 4.11 at (75mph+) highway speeds, you still will be 3500 rpm or more. No way out of that box without overdrive or tall gears the car didn't come with.

When I run the calculator using 60 mph, 27" tires and 4.11 gear I get 3068 RPM. For 3.73 I get 2785 and for 3.55 I get 2650.

This particular car was optioned with 3.73 gears but I think that 3.55 gears were standard. I get the originality thing but driveability goes a long way and it's easily reversed if needed. Hell, maybe I'll even go 3.42...

if I had a factory 3.73:1 car, I'd be hard pressed to change it.

Yeah, I'll give you that, but what if you had a factory 3.73 car that someone put a set of 4.11's in? In other words, if I'm gonna change it, after it's already been changed what's the difference? Also, I could just tell people it has 3.73's just like the guy who sold it to me!!! Ha ha. Although, honestly, I'm not sure he even knew.

It's possible the car has enough variance in the speedo & tacho that it could still be the 3.73's inside the axle.
The old "jack it up - spin valve stem 1 exact revolution" and count the exact number of revolutions the u-joint spins.
4 and a bit revolutions would be the 4.11
3 and 3/4 revs , the 3.73
Just for knowing.

After that i would be looking for a 3.07 or 3.31 gear set swap

Yeah, that's my plan. That's how we used to do it.

The 3.23s in my Formula are pretty nice on the freeway.

Just thinking out loud ...

Absolutely beautiful!

Maybe leave the rear gears and throw in a new TKX...now that would make for a great driver or occasional weekend warrior at the track. Nice either way.

If you want driveability on the freeway and be able to cruise 75-80.. I'd find a cheap 10 bolt posi with 3.08's and put your low geared 12 bolt on the shelf. That's be the cheapest easist way. My '70 had 3.55's and it sucked on the freeway. My '73 and '75 both have 3.08's and are tolerable at freeway speeds.

3.23 would probably be OK, but I don't think that's available for a 12 bolt and I don't want to change whole rear end. I'm leaning towards the 3.08. If I go to a BFG Radial TA tire that's 26.6" tall, that would give me 2528 rpm @ 65 mph. That seems reasonable to me. I don't think I'll be doing much, if any, interstate driving so 65 mph is about the fastest cruising speed I'll see with any regularity.

I am going to quote myself for a reason that should seem clear in a moment:

Then you recently wrote this elsewhere:

It's not a short shifter.

But I need to pause for a moment;
I never know if I should call it a handle, or an arm, or a stick, but for the sake of clarity, I will in the following bit call it a stick, and what I am describing is the chrome plated part that is inserted in the the Hurst shifter mechanism, and has the handle attached to it.

Ok, back on course now;
The shorter factory shifter stick was first used on 1979 model year cars, otherwise the factory used shifter sticks designated by the car and the options;
In the case of 1970 Firebirds:

1) cars with consoles were supposed to receive shifter stick #7244;
This same shifter stick was used on ALL 1972-1978 Firebirds with a Muncie transmission.

2) cars without a console were supposed to receive shifter stick #7945;
This is a straighter stick, that may create the appearance of a shorter shifter.

3) some Firebirds without a console were apparently built with the Camaro shifter stick #7433;
Again, this wasn't a shorter stick per say, but was a more straight unit.

4) the 1979-1981 shifter stick for all four speed Firebirds was #0800;
Some sources say that no 1980 manual transmission Firebirds were made, but those writers forgot about RPO Z49 cars which were destined to Canada, and had some different drivetrains available to them.

https://forums.maxperformanceinc.com...1&d=1615402681

In this image, left to right are:
0800, 7945, 7244

I can now see that the 0800 is set a little bit higher in relation to the other two, but hopefully you can see that the 7945 & 7244 put the shifter ball/handle at about the same height off the floor, while the 0800 does indeed move is down closer to the floor.

I believe that my brother has a 7433 in his four speed swapped 1973 Formula, and he quite likes it.

I hope this helps to clarify this for you.

Hello Unruhjonny. Yeah, I know it's the shifter lever. I was just being lazy, trying to avoid the extra keystrokes (like I'm doing now, LOL!!). I'm not a very good typist, or keyboarder as the case may be so I try to keep it to a minimum. I thought it would be OK since it was not a technical discussion of the part, just the appearance. So, sorry if that wasn't clear.

As for the differences between the levers, the 7945 looks to be shorter to me, compared to the 7244. Also, because of the bent shaft, the 7244 extends back further towards the driver so it has a "longer" reach back than the 7945. Of course, that is accentuated by the different knob, but even if you measure to the base of the knob, it still goes further back. Anyway, that's what I see. Maybe it's just the photos.

FWIW, I'm an average size person and I find the 7945 very comfortable to reach.

Shift on!! :burnout:

Ok, I was just trying to help clarify what read to me as a misunderstanding of sorts.
I hope you thouroughly enjoy your TA :D

I get it. These cars, this hobby, are all about specifics. Maybe I was a bit sloppy in my comments. Hopefully no harm.

275 60 15's rear I think I used 235 60 15 frt. if you like

Leave everything as is and add a Gear vendors under overdrive. imo
https://www.gearvendors.com/hrgm4sm.html
Nice ride.

I love the look on reproduction period correct white letter tires, but in years bygone I did ply with different sized BFG radial tires;
I believe that the actual radial size for our cars was 225/70r15 - (which I believe is an F-70-15);
I found that 235/60r15 was about perfect (and it should be, it's the reccomended size), but it also seemed a smidge small;
I went next to 255/60r15's and found that mounted on 15x7" wheels they would baloon and wear from the center of the tread out;
My opinion is the best modern radial size I found was 245/60r15, it's just a bit wider than the 235, it ever so slightly fills the wheel wells better than the 235, and there was no balooning effect.

I also like the same width and profile on 14x7" wheels.

I thought about the overdrive. Still considering all options but leaning heavily towards a 3.08. :eek: I know many will consider that sacrilege, but they did offer a 3.08 that year, just not with a 4 spd. Regardless, I need something for more comfortable cruising. And it's something easy to correct in the future if anyone wants to.

I do like the period correct look of the Polysteel tires. They look great from the side, but too skinny otherwise. I'll probably go with the BFG's eventually. Probably the 245/60. Although, if I went with 15x8 rear wheels, then I could put 255s on the rear, hmm...

Congrats, that is my dream car, and yours is beautiful.

I had 3.31 in an M20 (400) car and I thought that was a good compromise.