Hot rod parts for a decidedly non-hot car - advice?

White & Nerdy
I'm also expanding my search to Eastern WA since I have family in the area and there are plenty of fish in that particular sea.
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That is my region... Spokane or what? Weird how small the world is at times, as my mother's sister and her family lived in Anchorage for years, working for Safeway.

I'd caution to beware anything seemingly a great value, as rebuilt salvage titles that have been washed by buying licensed in Idaho and then Washington are fairly common.
 
Azuremen
That is my region... Spokane or what? Weird how small the world is at times, as my mother's sister and her family lived in Anchorage for years, working for Safeway.

I'd caution to beware anything seemingly a great value, as rebuilt salvage titles that have been washed by buying licensed in Idaho and then Washington are fairly common.
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Mainly Yakima, though I'll search the entire area. They seem to have a pretty strong hot rod culture, so something decent should show up sooner or later.
 
Please don't sink 6k in a Sunbird.

White & Nerdy
Almost all the F-bodies have t-tops, which I specifically don't want. The modern ones are usually V6s. Or they're early-90s V8s that are automatic, very obviously beat (as in major collision damage apparent from photo), or "just need a little bit of work to fix that knocking noise". 3rd gens are often 305s (often with AT as well), in really bad shape, or are already hot-rodded and thus might be a federal felony on wheels (catalyst). Fox Mustangs are all garbage and SN95/SN99 cars are either automatics or need major engine work. I'm not buying an I4 (although I might let one that was turbo'd from the factory slip through, to broaden my search a little bit and because turbo Chryslers are cool) or an FF Honda.

As for the Corvette, I've found one in budget, it's a 1985 for $5,999. And don't those tend to snap loose and kill you on rough roads anyway?
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http://anchorage.craigslist.org/cto/4429425612.html - Low miles, good condition, AT

Most are beaten, but you don't want to rush buying a new(er) car. I've wanted my Bird for over a year but I waited until I got one with the mileage, price, condition, color and drivetrain I wanted. Widen your search as much as possible. I got my car in Seattle and car plenty of other nice lower priced ones in the state.
 
This would be a whole lot easier if EVERY SINGLE V8 CAMARO, FIREBIRD, OR MUSTANG EVER (well, close to it anyway) didn't have a stupid automatic. I mean, what were people even thinking when they bought them automatic? "Yes, I'd like my muscle car slower, soggier, and significantly less fun to drive."
 
Because autos are faster in the long run. In a stick, you gotta know your stuff to pull a mid 13 in a stock f body. In an auto my grandma can jump in and make a low 13 pass.

Manual cars are dyno queens, autos are track queens.
 
Its not hard to convert them to a semi-manual. Put at $150 manual valve body kit in it and shift it when you wnat. Basically a clutchless manual.


Swapping a tranny in isn't exactly hard either. The automatics shifter stupid fast.
 
Well you still have a torque converter in there softening response. Besides, there's just something about shifting it yourself that's cool. It just sort of feels right. I don't think a manual valve body auto or for that matter a paddle shift could match it.
 
Do a swap. Pick up a cheap tranny and parts, and do it with a buddy. Take a Sunday afternoon and do it.
 
Well for me that would be a Friday afternoon, because I work in retail with the associated stupid schedules. But I'm getting really, really, sick of that place and will turn in my two weeks as soon as I get away with it, so that might change soon. There's a good chance I'll just end up stocking shelves at another soul-eating store, but I might end up as a lot assistant at a Ford dealership, or a greenskeeper at a golf course a couple neighborhoods over.
 
I've had these plans for a while, and I'd planned to stay at that store for a couple of years. Now I'm running for the exits. It'll probably get better eventually - I heard of the greenskeeper job through a freind of the family who knows the owner, and it's apparently a really good place to work. The problem is, golf courses shut down in the winter, and I'm looking at that lot assitant job as a possible ticket to higher education, since I've heard that dealership will send you to mechanic school on Ford's dime if you show interest in the mechanical side of their operation. That's how a freind of mine got a six-figure job with a North Slope oil operation.
 
White & Nerdy
It'll probably get better eventually
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That is not the best basis on which to be budgeting for major changes to your car.

My advice:

Sort out what needs doing on the car. That means fixing soggy shocks and other things that actually affect how safe the car is, and not putting cherry bombs on it.

Then ensure your job situation is heading in the right direction. "I have a modified Sunbird" is great (if that's your thing), providing it's not accompanied by the words "but I don't have a job".

Once the job is sorted, do whatever you like. You may hugely overplay your car's talents sometimes but at the end of the day it's your own car, and anyone who has a set of wheels of their own must at least vaguely understand that sort of affinity with a car (and some members' criticisms are a bit rich considering the cars they drive - if they drive at all).

Personally, I like the suggestions to buy an old Camaro or Firebird or something - even if it means flying to a different state and driving it back, you'll have a car and a road trip out of it and probably spend less than trying to maintain your existing car.

But if you want to modify the Sunbird, go nuts. Just don't do it if you don't have a solid, realistic budget to work with.
 
White & Nerdy
I've had these plans for a while, and I'd planned to stay at that store for a couple of years. Now I'm running for the exits. It'll probably get better eventually - I heard of the greenskeeper job through a freind of the family who knows the owner, and it's apparently a really good place to work. The problem is, golf courses shut down in the winter, and I'm looking at that lot assitant job as a possible ticket to higher education, since I've heard that dealership will send you to mechanic school on Ford's dime if you show interest in the mechanical side of their operation. That's how a freind of mine got a six-figure job with a North Slope oil operation.
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Are you seriously telling us a friend of yours claims he went to a tech. school on Ford's dime and then came out making six-figures working for an oil company? LOL, I don't think it works that way when the manufacturer is paying for the education.
 
Please excuse my bluntness here, I like that you have an interest in modifying, that's always good.

But Sunbirds are not worth any money put into them. There is no resale value to one, no demand for one, no want for one, and 99% percent of the world thinks of them as total rubbish. Save your $6k, and buy something that's actually worth putting your money into. S13, S14, Miata, RX-7, older Celica, MR-2, Mustang, Camaro, Firebird, Corvette, 300ZX, etc. Hell even a Civic, S2000 or VW GTI are so much better of a platform. After you spend all your money on it, you're still going to be left with a car that doesn't go real well, doesn't stop real well, doesn't turn well, doesn't pull chicks real well, doesn't look real good, but gets you to work and back on time.


And how is that any different than how it sits now?


My advice would be fix what you need to, to keep it mechanically alright as a DD, and buy a project that will actually allow you to meet your goals
 
McLaren
Are you seriously telling us a friend of yours claims he went to a tech. school on Ford's dime and then came out making six-figures working for an oil company? LOL, I don't think it works that way when the manufacturer is paying for the education.
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It doesn't, and I know some chem engineers that would have loved to know that before going to the University if it was...

Also I don't know any tech school that gives a technical certificate that an oil industry is dying to pay six figures for. Unless he went to school for welding, but even then upper five figures is the most I've met people obtaining in that field. Also if Ford is paying for people to do that I wish I knew that before getting my first degree...
 
LMSCorvetteGT2
It doesn't, and I know some chem engineers that would have loved to know that before going to the University if it was...

Also I don't know any tech school that gives a technical certificate that an oil industry is dying to pay six figures for. Unless he went to school for welding, but even then upper five figures is the most I've met people obtaining in that field. Also if Ford is paying for people to do that I wish I knew that before getting my first degree...
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I have a few friends from high school making 60-75k doing hard manual labor for an oil company....80hrs a week.
 
Of course he didn't get there immediately, there's probably some agreement that you have to work for Ford for 3-6 years after (not that @Slash would mind). But that's where he got his training. Blue-collar type skills are highly in demand here.
 
Probably? There definitely is. If a company is sending you to school on their dime, you are repaying them for that service by sticking with the company for a set amount of years. That's why they agree to send people in the first place.
 
Slash
Do a swap. Pick up a cheap tranny and parts, and do it with a buddy. Take a Sunday afternoon and do it.
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Transmission swaps aren't that easy. It me several days to do the swap in the Neon and that was working with two people that knew exactly what they were doing because they'd done it several times before. Parts to do it are not necessarily cheap either unless you get them out of a junkyard, and doing that is risky. We got a trans out of a junkyard Neon and it continues to be a throw away part for the car since a vast majority of them have seen better days.

@White & Nerdy if you want a manual, get a manual to begin with.
 
Exactly. Automatics are what you drive if you're only ever going in a straight line and want to remove as much skill from the equation as you can.
 
Last I looked, it didn't take a degree in rocket science to drive a manual.

Local races, one of the girls had never driven a manual before they started race school. Still came in mid-pack. (Against boys who "knew" how to drive a stick)

Manuals are fun. Manuals give you something extra to do with your right hand and your other foot. They give you that nice, warm, cuddly feeling inside that you get when you're sipping on a cup of hot cocoa and propping your feet up on the railing on the porch, watching your dog howl at the moon.

But pretending that all automatic cars are automatically bleh is kind of rich if you haven't actually experienced any of them.

Of course, if it's your automatic... three speeds, no manual mode, and not much power behind it... by all means, dump the granny tranny.

But it still makes more sense to simply trade in the car for something else. Even a Sunbird with a stick... working out the niggles on another secondhand Sunbird will be much less aggravating than working out the niggles on your own, swapping the transmission, cutting into the firewall for the new pedal and master, banging your knucles against more than a few things, getting it wrong, doing it again, fixing whatever secondary issues arise, and re-swapping the transmission if there are issues with the secondhand box you first bought.
 
It's a factory 5MT, though if it's in any shape to work with I don't know. It guzzles trans fluid like a black hole and the internals probably aren't in such good shape.
 
Again, sell on, buy a new one in better shape.

If you really plan on building up, you want the best platform possible.
 

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