The restyled-for-1979 Pontiac Firebird line is a love-or-hate look, but for the final year, the performance half of the civil war that was waging within Pontiac was still holding their ground with two engines: the 400ci Pontiac and the 403ci Oldsmobile. For 1979, that was amazing…Chrysler had finally let go of their big-blocks the year prior and the smallest Ford you were getting an engine of comparable size in was the LTD II with it’s 400ci unit. Pickings were getting slim for a performance junkie, and Pontiac, still riding high off of the successes of black-and-gold Trans Ams and Burt Reynolds’ mustache, had at least a few people left who were determined to keep the good times rolling. Sadly, ’79 would be the last year for those good times. Both the Poncho and Olds mills would be retired for 1980, replaced by the troublesome turbocharged 301 Pontiac mill.
Pontiac said that the 1979 400 cars were producing 220 horsepower. The NHRA called bullshit and claimed that 260-280 horsepower was more like it. Buyers didn’t care, they snapped them up anyways, to the tune of 116,535 cars, the best year for Trans Am sales. And this example at first looks to have lived a pretty charmed life over the last forty years. It’s not perfect, but we wouldn’t be embarassed to rock this car, either. Except this is Copart, the land of dreams gone haywire. And this Trans Am is in the lot for a reason…namely, an engine bay that got cooked like a properly done campfire marshmallow. It’s not burned to a crisp and unusable, but there’s certainly some heat damaged parts that need to be addressed and an engine that probably needs a go-through before we’d try to ever fire it off again. 
1979 was right in the middle of the Bad Old Days, but this Trans Am was doing everything it could to keep the fire going. The Olds 403 this particular car has could make some grunt even on it’s worst day, and the rest of the car is good enough to work with. Stay stock, rebuild with better parts, or go all-in on a much stouter drivetrain, it doesn’t matter at this point. It would be a shame to not give this F-body a second chance at life, don’t you think?
Um… That’s the Olds 403 under the hood… Not a bad engine, but the poncho has more potential..
The 400 is way more desirable! Who wants an oldsmobile engine in a transAm?
I remember cocking my head like RCA\’s \”Nipper\” listening to \”His Master\”s Voice\” when the \’79 Trans Am debuted. Like it or not my wife wouldn\’t let me get one because she knew me too well. 😉
At any rate, I wound up getting a Firehawk; supposedly the last black Firehawk east of the Mississippi as the salesman at Peruzzi Pontiac in Fairless Hills, Pennsylvania, told me. They\’d gotten it from Garnet Pontiac in New Jersey in early-July of 2002.
I (foolishly) didn\’t have the Firehawk for too long as I traded it in on a GMC Sierra with Quadrasteer to use on the beach for surf fishing. I\’d just installed a Stage II exhaust on the \’Hawk about a month prior to trading her in. It sounded glorious with that barely there set of pipes. I do rue the day I got rid of that beautiful Firehawk but it really amounted to my trying to fill the void of grief left by the passing of my wife from the after-effects of her fight with cancer over the previous eight years.
One of the joys I did get from that Firehawk was when I was leaving a truck stop on Route 80 in upstate Pennsylvania some 40 miles southeast of Williamsport, PA. There was a long, inclined ramp to get on I-80 and the sweep of the interstate lent itself my merging with traffic with a flourish. How nice it was to go through the gears as the Firehawk accelerated to highway speed.
Huh. Must’ve misread the VIN when I went to decode it. The fifth digit is “K”, which decodes to a 6.6L 4bbl engine. I missed the “producing division” mark in that decoding. You’re right, 6.6L Pontiac would’ve been a “Z” code.
The poncho is for red light to red light, the Olds is for long distance like hi way travel.
That’s completely fixable. Yes, the Olds needs a rebuild, but that car can be saved.
I’d take out the Olds engine and swap in a Butler built 455 in it.
Excellent choice. Butler is the best!
What 75Duster said!!
I had a \’79 black/gold 403 TA, bought it from the Pontiac dealer on Rt 37 in Toms River NJ in \’80. Used to cruise Seaside Heights and S\’side Park ALL the time with it. My mom used tell me to keep the T-Tops on because girls were always \”falling out of the trees\” into it.
Fun car for fun times. Miss this car.
Too bad it\’s an automatic. Also, I think it is a non-WS6 car.
Owned a WS87, I miss that car. Cut out the cats, re-worked the distributor, tossed the q-jet, modified Hedman headers. It would run a 145 after that. Note – Speed claim verified by Fort Worth PD. Copart car marked “sold” today but no $ listed. Wonder what.