Back in the Formula

 

In summer 1992, I was working at the law library at George Mason School of Law, after my second of three years, putting books on the shelf for $5.50/hr.   I was driving a fairly new 1991 Toyota Tercel, not a bad car aside from being short four cylinders.   At some point during the year I had acquired the 1992 Pontiac catalog, which included the Firebird.  I fell in love with the Formula: its hood, spoiler, wheels, and clean lines without ground effects.  Moreover, it was available with the most powerful engine offered, the 240 HP 5.7L V8.  A small blurb on the bottom right of the page promised, “another 50 HP is available at the parts counter: ask about the SLP Package”.   But good luck getting any such car on $5.50 an hour.

By October my situation had changed:  I was now earning $10/hour, working twice as many hours per week, for a real attorney on real cases.  I could now afford a new Firebird, although not a Formula.  By that time, a year after the 1992s had gone on sale, the Formulas with the 5.7L V8 were long gone.  I bought a base Firebird, black on black with T-tops, loaded with options, and the 5.0L V8, 170 HP.  Not nearly as fast, but with more than enough torque to get out of its own way and let me know there was a V8 under the hood.  For the first time since my father was a priest in the 1950s, our household had a car with a V8. 

Fast forward to June 1995, I was now licensed in Virginia and Maryland, and making enough to buy a used 1992 Firebird Formula, dark aqua metallic, black interior, and with the 5.7L V8 with that SLP Package.  That package included a performance PROM (ECM chip), cool air intake, larger throttle body, siamesed intake runners, headers, 3” exhaust from the dual cats, and a performance muffler.  In 1998 I had it painted black, and also beefed up the suspension, modifying the four speed 700R4 transmission with a shift kit and a 2800 stall converter, and upgraded the rear gears in the positraction rear axle from 3.23 to 3.73 gear ratio.

This was my daily driver from 1995 to 2012.  That year, when I was working at the office, it caught an engine fire and ended being history.  The engine was removed and wound up in a machine shop in Fairfax (now in Midland), while the car eventually wound up in salvage in California.  My daily driver became a new Honda Civic (black on black), then a 2009 Dodge Charger R/T (also black on black), and finally my mom’s Chevrolet HHR, yet again with a 4 cylinder engine.

This July I finally managed to buy another Firebird Formula “350” (5.7L V8), 1991 model year, black with a grey interior.  Sadly, it’s fairly stock, but it does have power windows.  It took me ten years to find one.  By now, these cars are thin on the ground.  The newest are 30 years old, and a 1982 Firebird is 40 years old.  Many have been “Uncle Cletus’d” – horrible modifications and butchered in various ways – or simply rusted out and totaled, whereas the mint condition, low mileage survivors have owners asking $15 - $40 thousand depending on the model.  Somehow I managed to find one in the sweet spot: decent shape, running, with no major problems, though far from mint.  Sadly, it’s not nearly as modified or fast as my 1992 was, but it’s good enough to satisfy me.  If and when money comes in, I’ll pay off the machine shop and have the prior engine installed. 

Now I’m a bit older and look back on these cars differently as of 2022.

Firebird Formula.  In 1970 the F-Body (Chevrolet Camaro and Pontiac Firebird) was redesigned, a body style which lasted until 1981 and included the famous Smokey & the Bandit (S/E) Trans Am of 1977.  With the body change came model changes.

1970-81 Firebird models:  base, Esprit, Formula, and Trans Am.  Base was entry level, either a six cylinder or low power V8 engine; Esprit was semi-luxury, with a V8; the Formula was the budget performance car, with forward facing hood scoops but the engine, transmission and suspension of the Trans Am.  Finally, the Trans Am was the top model:  shaker hood, spoiler, top engines and suspension, and – from 1973 onward – the ever-popular hood bird, aka the “Screaming Chicken”.  Burt Reynolds’ “Smokey and the Bandit” Trans Am was a 1977 Special Edition. 

In 1982 they dropped the Formula model and replaced it with a quasi-Esprit type model, the S/E.  In 1987 they brought the Formula back in place of the S/E.  The Formula got the bulge hood from the earlier Trans Am, the wing spoiler from the Trans Am, its own pattern Deep Dish 16x8” wheels, and NO ground effects, which had then afflicted the Trans Am.  If there’s one style feature of performance cars I can’t stand, it’s ground effects.  To me they make the car look fat.  The slim lines of the 87-92 Formula – or, for that matter, the 1982 Trans Am before they ruined it with ground effects – are the #1 feature. 

 By that time, Pontiac V8s were long gone, replaced with Chevrolet 305 cubic inch, or 5.0L V8s, either with an electronically controlled Quadrajet, throttle body injection, or the performance electronic fuel injection system, Tuned Port Injection (TPI).  A few Formulas received the Trans Am/ Z/28 / Corvette 5.7L V8, also with TPI.  From 1987-90 the door decals said “FORMULA 350”; for 91-92 the hood bulge had a decal, “5.7 LITER F.I.”.   More than just 45 more cubic inches, the 350 was the best small block Chevy V8.  350 powered cars were much faster than the 305 ones. 

Now these cars are very rare.  Days and weeks go by without seeing any Firebirds, of any year (1967 through 2002) on the street.  For that matter, the much more numerous Camaro is also fairly rare as well.  This car is now 30 years old, and has 120,000 miles.  For a daily driven car, I can expect to put 10,000 miles on it per year. 

Second, aesthetics.  I realize this is extremely subjective.  But when Pontiac redesigned the Firebird for its third generation in 1982, they hit it out of the ballpark.  Although it shared the same body as the Camaro, the Firebird’s front and rear were better looking, to the point where the Knight Rider TV show saw fit to use a 1982 Trans Am as the basis for KITT.    Too many cars, especially economy cars, SUVs, and crossovers, all pretty much look the same.  They’re not built to look pretty, they’re built to get you from point A to point B reliably. 

Third, performance.  Somehow I doubt the engine is putting out its stock number, and even if it was, 240 horsepower isn’t much these days.  It was respectable in 1992.  The handling is still great:  I can take curves much quicker than prior cars, even better than my ’09 Charger R/T.  Seating is somewhat reclined: my mom used to complain that the passenger seat in my 92 Formula was too much like sitting in a dentist chair.  For me, with the four wide wheels, low ground clearance, and WS6 Performance Suspension, it’s a car that handles well whatever engine is under the hood.

Type A, B and C.  To me, things in life are either pleasurable (type A), neutral (B), or painful/unpleasant (type C).  Type A includes sex (obviously), great music, great TV shows or movies, and delicious foods.  Type B includes most bodily functions, most job work, and simply going from point A to point B.  Type C includes pain, taxes, boredom, rape, torture, etc.  If you can reduce pain or unpleasantness and bump something from C to B, so much the better; the same with making something which might otherwise be neutral (B) to pleasurable (A).  A few months ago, I replaced my old comforter on my bed with an UGG variant.  WOW, amazing!  So sleeping went from merely neutral (B) to actually pleasurable (A).

When I was driving the HHR, simply driving from point A to point B was merely neutral.  However, it certainly beat having no car at all.  But in the Formula, now it’s no longer B, it’s A.  A car that moves immediately, and takes corners like a knife, now is actually FUN to drive – and we’re talking just driving through a parking lot or down the road, except maybe being stuck in traffic, which is C territory no matter what car you’re driving.  So right there I’ve improved my quality of life.

The flip side is reliability.  My main concerns are starting and cooling.  Fortunately the car seems to start up cold and warm (far easier warm than cold), and hasn’t overheated – even on superhot days in August, stuck in traffic.  The A/C doesn’t work, but fortunately the compressor and equipment appear intact, so hopefully it will just need a recharge – albeit with R134a (a conversion I had done with my 1992 model).  I missed having the row of gauges on the dash, and fortunately these read what they should: oil pressure normal, coolant temperature where it should be, alternator voltage normal.  The fuel economy is far less than what it should be, about 7 mpg less than what I was getting from the 92 Formula, which not only had the same type of engine and transmission, but was substantially modified.  Moreover, it has a rough idle.  Usually, in a performance car that would be a good thing, due to a hot camshaft, but with the poor fuel economy and no corresponding huge power gain higher in the RPM band, the most likely cause is a vacuum leak.  With the rough idle and aftermarket exhaust, it certainly sounds like a performance car.

As noted, the engine from the 1992 is still around, albeit in a machine shop, rebuilt, balanced and blueprinted with aluminum cylinder heads and performance camshaft.  If and when the money comes in, I’ll have it installed in the 91 Formula.  One more thing to look forward to in the future….