New guy missing his old t-bird :(

Hey guys, My name is Steve and I live in Orlando. I'm an ex-T-bird-a-holic going thru withdrawls. I have since moved on to other cars and I now own a sweet Impreza but nothing replaces the bird. After seeing Todd Matsubara's T/C in an old Car Audio mag, I have been on the hunt for the past week for a good looking, good condition, relatively cheap T/C, but I've been finding alot of crap out there. I found one recently thru autotrader.com at a dealership around the block from me but I went to see it last night and it was kinda rough. New tires, interior was mint, but the guy said it wasn't building much boost. I haven't had a chance to take it for a ride but it has 176K miles, electronics susp is working, automatic trans. They are asking $900 for it. At this point I'm not sure if it's a good deal or not. what do you guys think?

Thanks,
Steve

Originally posted by deskjockey:
Hey guys, My name is Steve and I live in Orlando. I'm an ex-T-bird-a-holic going thru withdrawls. I have since moved on to other cars and I now own a sweet Impreza but nothing replaces the bird. After seeing Todd Matsubara's T/C in an old Car Audio mag, I have been on the hunt for the past week for a good looking, good condition, relatively cheap T/C, but I've been finding alot of crap out there. I found one recently thru autotrader.com at a dealership around the block from me but I went to see it last night and it was kinda rough. New tires, interior was mint, but the guy said it wasn't building much boost. I haven't had a chance to take it for a ride but it has 176K miles, electronics susp is working, automatic trans. They are asking $900 for it. At this point I'm not sure if it's a good deal or not. what do you guys think?

Thanks,
Steve

If you dont plan on modding the engine to get more power. Then I'd say its a pretty decent deal. The Automatic tranny cant handle much horsepower at all. Barely takes care of the stock horsepower alone. If your mechanically inclined, people on the board have done 5 speed swaps and if you did that you can take care of the turbo problem by upgrading to a T3 from an older turbo coupe. You can find T3s in the 200-250 dollar range. I have a World Class T-5 For sale in the for sale section of the message board. For 900 dollars maybe you can bring him down on the price by saying it'll cost you 500 dollars to get the turbo fixed (eventhough it wont).

All in all its not that bad of a price. I have owned two TC's. First TC I bought for 400 dollars and had just about everything wrong EXCEPT motor/tranny/turbo problems. I got it looking and operating perfect only to get hit and totalled. I then picked up a 43k mile Turbo Coupe for $3000. So Turbo Coupe prices can range anywhere. It all depends on how the previous owner took care of it. Take the car for a ride and see how it runs and let us know.


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Pat - [email protected]
87 TC - Bought w/ 42,000 original miles, K&N in fender, Fuel Pressure Guage on rail, Boost Guage on A-Pillar, Gillis at 17-18psi, 3" downpipe no cat into 2 1/2" ATR Duals, 255 HP Fuel Pump, AFPR, Timing at 12-13*, Chrome Cobra R's on 245/45/17's, Centerforce clutch
Sitting in garage - T3, Air/Water IC, 65mm T-Body, ported E6, gutted upper
Soon to come - Ported head/lower intake, Oversized valves, .450 lift Rollar cam
Down the road - T3/T04e Turbo, EEC Tuner, 42# injectors, 3.90 gears, BOV...

hey Pat, thanks for the input. Yeah I'm definately in the market for a 5-speed as the t-bird I had was an auto and it was pretty pissy. I called that dealership again today and they won't come down on that price ($900) as they feel it is worth that amount. After thinking about it, I don't think it is seeing all the body work it will need (left rear fender smacked pretty hard) I told them I'd give them $600 and the turned it down, so that's it for them. Like you said, that tranny won't take much more, if any power and I plan to tune it a bit. I can probably find a good deal soon, locally. Maybe after christmas I'll be more apt to search all over the southeast and be able to drive out and pick one up in another state.

Good luck selling with your sale man. You shouldn't have problems selling it since it's a strong, proven tranny.