[L695speed]

I've been on here on and off for a couple years now, and realized...I didn't have anything on the build I'm doing. At least on here. So I'm gonna start one, and copy/paste with dates some things from my build thread on earlythirdgen.com.

First, a quickie background. Dad bought a '77 301 Firebird with a 4 on the floor new in '77. Story was they didn't make a '69 Mach 1 Mustang anymore and that was the closest he could find. Long story short, after 4 wrecks and an attempt to make a fake TA later he scrapped the car. But not before he bought a '78 Espirit with a 305 and an auto. The '77 had a 10th anniversary interior put into it, that was transferred to the '78. He drove that car til '91 when he sold it. Don't know if this car is still around or not, likely isn't. In '90 he bought a '84 Trans Am with T tops, a 5 speed and the L69 engine. Drove the car daily til '94. Drove it mainly in the summers and for fun til 2002 when the engine blew up.

After sitting for 2 years I got tired of seeing it sitting around. Started stripping down the engine. Found it had a massive top end failure with snapped pushrods and all. I swapped for a freebie Caprice motor (I regret doing that looking back) that was a gamble. 500 miles later of nickle and diming and an oil pressure system failure, I decided enough was enough and ripped the whole car to pieces.

Dad passed suddenly in 2008. He never got to see the car run again as I got it running again in the summer of 2009. But I recalled discussion between us about swapping for a 350, and decided to take it one step further. In 2010 as I tore apart the car, plans began to unfold to rebuild the car as a restomod. Retaining the car's factory appearance was important to me, as were the upgrades. The goal here was to have a seemingly stock '84 Trans Am that handled on rails and would run 12s in the 1/4 easy, a simple, fast, great handling street car. I may be slow in transferring images over, but they will come.