TRANS AMS BACK THEN WERE OVERWEIGHT ILL HANDLEING SLUGGISH EMISSION CLOGGED GAS PIGS WITH LITTLE OR NO HORSEPOWER AND PROBABLY COULD NOT BEAT A STATION WAGON IN THE QUARTER BUFORDS CAR WAS PROBABLY FASTER AND IT WAS A 4 DOOR!!!!!!!!!!!
shareThere's so much work that could've been done to that car I don't know where to begin! For crying out loud, the guy's a SMUGGLER! Do you think his car is
going to be completely street legal?
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they only had 200 bhp??? what size engines do they have then?
sorry im not into my muscle cars that much, but i thought it would have had a lot more than that.
i mean you can get that sort of power from a 2 ltr diesel family car these days.
Because of the EPA and the gas crisis at the time we are lucky the Trans Am even exsisted. It and the Corvette were the only American performance cars at the time. The Z28 had been discontinued but was brought back after the popularity or Firebirds ,T/A's in particular,increased. Dodge actually had a pickup called the Lil Red Express,a D100 with E58 360,that could run with both of them easily in the 1/4 mile. It's how technology changes with time passing.
shareThey had huge engines but had to run low compression for smog laws. They didn't have the technology they have now. See my other post on this thread. The '77 6.6 had TORQUE and that's what you need on the street because of all the displacement they had. I owned a 76 TA with a 400. The movie car, a 77 with a 455 could have easily done the handling and acceleration shown in the movie. It never would have stood up to the abuse though. It was THE car at that time. The Vettes only had smogged up 350's by then and couldn't keep up. Plus you also have to remember, this was a time when manufacturers MASSIVLY under rated the advertised HP and torque of muscle cars. The shaker hood Trans Ams were no joke. Awesome cars....
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Your very wrong about the 70's T.A.'s.. They were the only real muscle cars left by that point and those engines had TORQUE baby and very light back ends!
Have you ever driven one? I had a '76 (the movie car was a '77) in the 80's (black with the bird, looked the same but with round headlights)only had the 400 cid in it and let me tell ya.. Stock that thing would smoke the tires and spin as long as you wanted, and that was with a power sucking auto trans. They had Posi and the "radial Tuned Suspension" handled VERY WELL. I saw nothing handling or acceleration wise in the movie that car couldn't do and I've been watching that movie since they played the hell out of it in the early 80's on Showtime.
Horsepower gives you top end.. Torque give you acceleration and they had awesome torque. No other American car at that time could touch em. I've owned a '70 Challenger R/T 383, a '67 SS 396 Chevelle, 5 Corvettes from '69 to right now and many others and have built many many cars. I know a fast well handling car. Especially from the 60's and 70's.
You have never driven one or were you even alive then and there is no way you could know what those cars could do. They were squirly fun quick cars that handled better than Vettes from the same era.
No way could it handle all of the abuse in the movie without breaking but your head is up your ass if you don't think a stock 6.6 455 T.A. could drive the way it did. It totally could bone stock.
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It would totally ruin my great 80's memories if I thought Marty didn't go back so He did... He had to....Right?
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Don't get me wrong, I was born a Pontiac enthusiast, however (and I hate to admit this) my friend's 1977 Volare Roadrunner with a stock 360 would kick the hell out of my '78 trans am. Actually, this Volare Roadrunner was probably the fastest quarter mile car of it's era.
shareOne thing to remember is that by 1977 manufacturers were required to give horsepower ratings at the rear wheels, not at the engine crank. If calculated from the crank the "200 h.p." 455 would have been rated at about 80 - 100 horse more. And while it's true that mid-70's T/A's were heavy & the motors were encumbered w/ smog controls & low compression ratios the T/A's & Firebird Formulas were not cars to be scoffed at. One of the quickest stock street cars I ever ran against was a gold '77 T/A 6.6L that flew from a 15 m.p.h. roll.
share"No way could it handle all of the abuse in the movie without breaking but your head is up your ass if you don't think a stock 6.6 455 T.A. could drive the way it did. It totally could bone stock."
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You keep referring to the 6.6 liter motor as a 455. It isn't. it is actually a 400 (403 cubes is 6.6 liters).
Now if that bastard so much as twitches, I'm gonna blow him right to Mars.
Agreed.
I had a 78 6.6L 4 spd. It was pretty hot when I bought it, far more powerful than the 69 Firebird, 68 Camaro and 70 Challenger I'd owned previously and it wasn't even close.
I got it used and soon had the engine rebuilt, bored out .030 over, racing cam installed, heavy clutch and a new 4 bbl carb. Believe it or not, that all cost me less than $2000, turning a robust muscle car into the Death Machine. I didn't lose a street race in that car unless I'd owned it several years and it was on its last legs. A guy in a new Mustang 5.0 broke my perfect record. I became a habitual wearer of seatbelts way before it was legally required thanks to this car.
Despite its reputation, the TA did not handle badly IMO. It hung in curves fairly well, was pretty responsive and didn't fishtail if handled properly, mostly I'll guess because it was a longer, heavier car than the Firebirds, Camaros and Mustangs of the 60s.
It was not durable. Like all late 70s GM products, quality was non-existent. AC was history before I even bought the car, window handles broke off, arm rests fell off, doors sagged, the windows leaked and so did the heater core. The paint and Firebird decal cracked and peeled, the headliner came loose, the fascia fell off and the fuel gauge never ever worked. The flywheel was also a known issue, it wore quickly requiring replacement. In fact, it was so common, it was very difficult to find a replacement flywheel in a junkyard, they'd all been taken. That's what forced me to finally sell the car, a failing flywheel and no interest in a complete overhaul of a vehicle that was literally falling apart before my eyes.
But, man was it fun to drive!
"You didn't come into this life just to sit around on a dugout bench, did ya?"
OP WHO CARES ABOUT YOUR LAME POST AND YES THE TRANSAM CAN DO THOSE THINGS CAUSE I SAW IT DO THEM IN THE MOVIE
f@kken loser
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behold, sublime genius: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WXRYA1dxP_0
I suppose you're going to go onto the Blues Brothers board next and say "MOUNT PROSPECT POLICE CARS CAN NOT DO THOSE THINGS IN THE MOVIE"
P.S. using all capital letters is considered shouting, or is your caps lock button broken and you're just too cheap to buy a new keyboard...
Your mother was a sluggish emission clogged gas pig. Just saying.
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