When I walked in the door from a road trip to Cleveland, OH this morning at 3am, I noticed that I had a voicemail on my cell phone. The message was from a friend telling me that he knows of a late 3rd gen (not sure on the year) that is a TPI 350/hardtop (non t-top) car that is for sale. It belongs to a female that he works with (as he said "a girl at work owns it", but I was trying to be more PC than that). It needs pads and rotors and possibly other brake work badly (that's easy....). It had been in a minor accident and he thinks it was all fixed, but not 100% on that. I asked for a price and pictures. I was told $500 to $600 (she bought it new, one owner, 100,000 miles). If it is not destroyed (looks good from 50 feet @ 50 mph), I plan to drag it home.

I should have more info in the next few days, but it looks like I finally found a 3rd gen project. I figure I can ebay off the extras (console, etc) and pay for 1/2 of the car (depending on condition).

I'll let you know as I know more.

Cool TB...you need one! don't you mean it has a 305? Maybe a 92 Pretty sure all the cars w/ 350s were mated to auto trans.

Thats a good base price for a build :drive:

I never said it was a manual, it is in fact an auto (and a 5.7 I'm told). I'll know after I check the VIN number. But, per my friends message (and a call today), it's a 350, non t-top, auto car. I think he said a 90? But, I'm not sure.

I've already done T5 and T56 swaps in 3rd gens. Other than the cost, it's not a bad job. Now, I have to verify that a T56 is legal for the classes I may run in (AV8SS, CMC, etc). I suspect it will be an AV8SS car (and I doubt I'd run anything else, but I could find myself in CMC).

Besides, I thought I might need a home for my shortened rear Koni DA's.

I'd rather have an auto and do the swap than have to swap motors (right off). I'll be building a motor for it anyway, but I can drive it as is for now.

No you didnt say. I was not sure you had known yet either Well also pretty sure the 3rd gens w/ 350s are not used CMC or legal whether a auto or stck.

But still sounds like you can make it into something for the American V8 supercar series. Especially if you have practice at trans swaps...

That's great Kevin, I hope it turns out. I sure would like to have my hard-top '89 Formula 350 back again!

Another thirdgenner on the board!! Even thou you've been here for a while.

Not quite yet, but hopefully soon.

I forgot that the 350 cars are not CMC legal. Oh well, my friends at AV8SS may be quite upset if I don't run it there. I guess I'll have to plan for CP/AV8SS. This is assuming that it all goes through. But it sounds like it will (so far).

I miss my '89 Formula.

You don't often hear of someone buying a project car in order to use a pair of butchered shocks :leaving:

I like to be unconventional, push the envelope a little. I mean, why not. I paid more to rebuild the shocks that I expect to pay for the car. I'll increase it's damping signifigantly, and double it's value.

I say the same thing about my car after I put gas in it

I've had a few like that. My $150, '77 Chevy 3/4 ton. 350/automatic. That was a special beast. The front end was so sloppy that a hard bump would make the steering linkage oscillate. To stop it, you either had to stop, or hang onto the wheel and get over 60 mph where centrifugal force would damp it. I simply pulled the power steering pump off, cut the hoses, looped them together and tossed the pump in the bed. That thing was an upper body work out all on its own after that. It was fun to pull a trailer with full manual steering on a power steering box. I think I put about 20,000 miles on that truck.

Great find... I hope you keep us updated as your build it up. That'd be great! Some day I'd like to build a CMC 3rd Gen. on-the-cheap so I'd be very interested to watch your build progress.

As for doubling car value... I have a '89 Mazda B2200 w/ 175k miles I got for $500. I'm going to pick up a set of Grand Sports on Victos and a set of Z28 rims on Hoosiers later... I'll more than tripple it's value while those are in the bed!

-TJ

Congrats on the project car.
That and $15k and you'll have a nice race car

I had about 30k in the last one and sold it as I got almost done. I hope this one goes better.

My friend was supposed to call her about it today. It's too late to call him, so I should know more tomorrow.