Hi all... This forum is great. New kid on the block here and I know just enough to be dangerous, so this site will help immensely.
I just picked up my first Trans Am over the weekend and after driving all day to check it out, I wasn't in the right frame of mind when it came to the sell. The body, interior, undercarriage and engine all looked great but when I asked to start it I knew I just got craiglisted. I was told the starter was bad and that was it, so I took their word for it, trailered it home at the full asking price (8K), and replaced the starter with a Summitt Mini the next day. It started up and engine was rough and missing somewhere and after running compression test, I found #5 cylinder had about half the compression as the others in this supposedly pumped up 400.
I thought about replacing the engine and tranny to an LS, or a pumped up 5.3 or 6.0/6.2, but after reading a lot of the info here, a lot of the guys here keep the 400 and maybe go with fuel injection. I'm looking for some reliability, maybe 17-20 mpg, and a smooth somewhat quiet driver with some horsepower. The guy that had this car before looks like he had it designed for 1/4 mile and with just the flowmasters on it, it sounds like an earthquake is happening when I start it up in the neighborhood.
If the engine is fixable at a cheap price maybe a fuel injection system is the way to go, but if it's costs a couple grand to repair I might as well spend another 3-5k on a complete swap.
Please chime in... Any info is appreciated... And it's ok to call me a dumb-a** for not driving or starting it before I handed them the cash. My wife has been doing that for a week now
....LOL
