Blake Noble

I guess it must have been a slow day over at Craigslist, right "James"?

Permaban for "James".

I remember you. The only other Kentuckian on the forums ...

An ideal 3rd-generation T/A would be a '82 - '84 black and gold Recaro edition car with a stick (finding one is like finding tickets to a David Allen Coe concert in Harlem) or a solid black GTA with a stick. Maybe a nice TPI Formula with a manual.

Update: Backed out of the deal. Discovered some issues with the title.

Oh, I'm still away and yeah, it will. I thought, I don't know, maybe I'll stop by to make one post and someone would say "Cool, nice buy" without a poorly constructed smartass comment. Guess not. Thanks for confirming that guys.

lulz i bought a rusty car lulz. Bought this today for $900: http://lexington.craigslist.org/cto/1537630301.html Runs, drives, minimal rust-through (one bad quarter panel, new one costs $50; what seems to be good floor pans), awful interior, anemic 301. Supposedly it has about 54,000 original miles. I dunno. I doubt it. At first I didn't really want it, but then I realized "How many Firebird Formulas do you see versus Trans Ams?" Plan? Make it look like this: But possibly with T/A lower body flares. I'm on the fence on that mod. Hopefully someone here can appreciate such a car without having their nipples hooked up to a set of live jump leads. I'll have $900 in the car, $900 in bodywork and paint, and $500 in an interior kit. Woo.

You know what, that's ok, I think I'm going to take a vacation from here for a bit ...

There really isn't any other way to bring in more cash except sell something else and I really don't have much of anything left to part with.

Scratch another car off of my list. Could someone please tell me where these cars have went? By the time I find one and call about I either can't a.) drive it back home or b.) someone's already bought it. I can already tell 2010's going to be a baddd year ...

Double negatives are funny. What feels like double negative wind chill, not funny. It's too damn cold here as well. At least it did snow a little bit today. I can forgive Winter for it's horrible temperatures and hideous, wasteland landscapes only when there's a nice dusting of snow on the ground.

The fact I went with another TH350 wasn't really due to the fact that I know they're a sturdy built transmission, but because the cost of the 307 was $350 with or without the transmission. The transmission was essentially free. An idea I've had in the back on my mind: if I buy an automatic T/A, a 200-R4 swap could be on the future upgrade list, although I can't quite remember if a 200-R4 could handle the torque of a 403 or 400. Hindsight is always 20/20, and I think a 307 was the all-around wrong engine to buy in the first place. I should have tried to hunt down a Buick 350, although I'm not much familiar with them as I am a Pontiac, Olds, or Chevrolet small-block. At first it really does take some getting used to, but as long as you trust and know the car well, it becomes less of an issue. In the end, the Regal really wasn't much a daily driver. I couldn't trust it, which is really what pushed me to sell it.

Did the '90 year model 307 use the 700-R4? If so, that would mean GM made 700-R4s with the B-O-P bolt pattern. If not, the only upgrade you could make from the TH350 would be a TH200-R4

Sounds like you had a TH200-4R, which was the better transmission for these low displacement V8s. I had a TH350-R three-speed automatic without overdrive. The previous owner put the 3.73s in the car. After he pulled the old 3.8 V6, he dropped in a 383 Stroker. I don't know if someone could easily access it, but there is an old picture of my car on Photobucket with the 383 sitting outside of the car, ready to be dropped in. If I had to venture a guess, I would say he had intentions of making the car a street/strip project. He pulled the 383 and swapped it out for a 350 Rocket shortly before he traded the car to me. I have no clue why. I do know now the Rocket 350 was already starting to go bad when he traded it to me. He dumped a ton of Lucas in the engine so that I couldn't hear the tick that would eventually become a knocking rod.

They can be brought up to speed easily, but not as inexpensively as someone might think. To remove the Computer Command Control system and that nasty e-Quadrajet these cars had, you're looking to spend $1,500 easily on a new carburetor, new intake manifold ... the list isn't long, but it adds up quickly in price. You just about have to remove them in order for the car to run like new again. Parts cars are few and far between. You have to travel to a junkyard literally in Podunk Central to find more than one decent G-Body parts car and don't count on finding any Monte SSs or Regals. About 9 times out of 10 you'll mostly find Monte CLs/LSs and Cutlasses. I think I might have ran across one El Camino, one Malibu sedan and one wagon, and one Grand Prix while hunting for parts before. A Le Mans or Grand Am parts car? Forget about it. Even still, the degree of commonality between each division's respective G-Body car is extremely slim. You can exchange cigarette lighters, a/c control panels, and lower door panels, but not instrument clusters or IP bezels. You basically have to order reproduction parts and they are not cheap compared to buying repro parts for their A-Body predecessors. Not a lot of folks are restoring these cars right now.

I'll never forget it, on the Interstate I got passed by a - ready for this? - what appeared to be a rusty '79 Honda Civic. That was the final nail in the coffin for the Regal. Oh, and with the 307, any incline of even the slightest degree becomes your worst enemy.

That is a sight capable of making any rational, sane person wear around a white bed sheet. I'm kidding of course, but what's worse? My attempt at a joke or that Corvette? EDIT: Looking at it ... God, it's like watching your attractive, blonde, supermodel wife die of cancer; it's heartbreaking.

The 307 is by no means great. It's a low-compression smogger V8 that you can't even milk an extra 10 horsepower out of with better manifolds, a higher CFM carburetor, and all of the emissions junk removed. Although the 3.73s in my Regal really helped what sort of dead-stop acceleration I could get out of the 307 - it would even occasionally chirp the tires if you slammed your foot in the pedal and, if you were really really lucky, kind of chirp the tires again on the gear change to second - but it would run out of steam as soon as you hit 60 mph. Driving it to Lexington on the Interstate the day I delivered and sold it wasn't a painful experience, but a grueling one. The engine had to be holding 4,500 to 5,000 revs the whole way there to keep the car at a constant 60. Olds engines, especially the 260 and 307, do not like to be kept at that rev range very long repeatedly. Usually the oil pump can't keep oil flowing where it needs to be and lifters, etc., start to wear out fast. It doesn't take too long for something to eventually fail catastrophically. I hated the floaty ride that Buick had. It's just like the road test where Jeremy Clarkson drives an early '80s Town Car; you could act like a baboon with the wheel and the car would still go in a straight line while it tossed you from port to starboard inside. The body roll is awful.

In the end, I wound up loathing both G-Bodies I had, but they still hold a special place in my heart, especially my old Monte SS. I wish that car was in better shape mechanically; the Computer Command Control system and e-Quadrajet ruins these cars if they aren't removed and start to break down. I wish my Regal was an actual T-Type or Grand National, maybe then I wouldn't have been so eager to unload it. After the Rocket 350 in it threw a rod, that car really lost its hold on me fast. After that it became just another Grand National clone with a tired 307 that could only hold 60 on the Interstate and a screwed up interior.

Really, it's a little of both. Getting a T/A has been a pain in the ass process since October. I would have traded what was left of my '98 Firebird to a '79 T/A project car and this could have all been avoided, but that stupid Regal needed another engine.

I'm .

No photos, but I wish I had some. My dad had a bunch of interesting or "colorful" cars: a Maverick Grabber with a straight-six that used front tires in just a few hundred miles because it had frame damage, a big Ford LTD coupe, two Dodge Magnum coupes, a Le Mans, a Ford F-100 Ranger that had the front wheel fall off a few minutes after he just traded it off, a black short-wheelbase '85 Silverado ... it's a long list. Mom had only two before she married dad; a '76 Nova Rally Sport and a horrible little Nissan Pulsar.

Allow me to step in and bring the demographic down a bit.

Outside of the late '70s Trans Am, this is my only favorite Pontiac of the late '70s era. It was, essentially, a GTO in concept and in spirit, just with a different name and gaudy orange graphics and the T/A's shaker scoop. On topic, I've always admired the '50s Facel Vega HK: It's a big, elegant, baroque French coupe with a Chrysler V8. Early European sex appeal, early American muscle. It's a win/win combination in my opinion.

I have a lead now on a complete '77 black-on-black body, very minor rust, good complete interior for $900. I still have the TH-350 that I pulled out of the Buick and the guy who has the body has a Formula with a running Pontiac 400 (he's only had the Formula and the '77 T/A for about a week and a half now and he hasn't started going through the Formula yet) that he would sell me. I'm thinking I could get the car and that 400 for $1,300. That leaves me with some cash for rust repair and a paint job ... I hope. I should know everything Monday.