outtathaway2006

First of all, sorry if this post is frustrating to any of you, i dont have much experience with cars but I am just wondering if any of you may be able to shed any light on my situation.

After driving my girlfriends 99 V6 Firebird and loving every second, I recently bought a 96 Firebird V6, the dealer told me he had put an engine from a 98 Firebird in with 58,000 miles. However, almost immediatley something seemed not quite right to me. I am convinced that it lacks the power of my girlfriends 99 model, though the engine seems and sounds fine to me and everyone thats looked at it, including a mechanic at a service station. Im wondering perhaps if it's the transmission, because when accelerating sometimes, or if adding small amounts of power very quickly, the RPM increases with little overall acceleration. This seems to happen mainly in the high gears, particularly 2nd gear. Its definately not as snappy as my girlfriends, as with her car if you tap the gas pedal, you really feel the car jolt, much much more than mine does.

Secondly, if this is a transmission problem, from the way it sounds is this going to be expensive to fix, and what kind of price should i be looking at?

Its also worth mentioning that if i floor the pedal i do get some good power out of it, but it seems that if i give it 50% throttle its far behind that of girlfriends, so much so that I initially wondered if they'd infact put something like a grand am's engine in (the engine is however a 3800 series 2).

I really love the car, the way it looks and its still fun to drive, but obviously if theres a problem, i want to correct it.

Thanks for any help and advice any of you can offer

1 Bad Ass Formula

iTrader: (7)

Well I don't know if they would've dumped in a Grand Am engine since it a FWD. I just remember hearing once that even if it's the same engine that taking it from a FWD to a RWD takes some extra work. I don't know. How many miles does your 96 Bird have? Just curious, did you purchase from a little dealer or a large dealer? It seems the small corner dealerships tend to tell you whatever to get you to buy that car. Also how is your car optioned compared to your girlfriend's car? Maybe her Bird has better gears, transmission gear ratio, then possibly on top of that maybe GM tweaked the 3800 a tad between 96 to 99 model years. Just some idea's.

outtathaway2006

I really don't know the finer details of my girlfriends car, all i know is that her father had to have the transmission rebuilt when he bought it, but it drives so nicely. Its alot sharper in accelerating than mine, particularly when increasing the throttle slowly, and i would bet at full throttle too.
The engine in mine is supposedly from a 98 Firebird, with the transmission too. The guy i bought it from was a small time dealer, an older guy in his 80's that i felt more trust worthy than the many others i'd visited in the run-up to buying a car (like that could ever mean *****), and he also told me it had 58,000 miles on it (I had it checked out at a service station and they confirmed it was a new, or different engine than the original in there, they could tell this when looking over it) i've just been worried i may have been sold a dud, though people around me who claim to know alot about cars tell me from the look and sound of it that they think its a good engine. Its one of those things, i really liked the car and when its like that you have to either take it and trust them, or leave it.

as for the car generally, im fairly happy with it, i got it for $3200 after tax and plates and everything. Theres a few problems though, stuff like the windows leak somewhat (maybe to do with it being a T-top) and the window motors are on the way out, prob due to the leaking, and most commically the stearing wheel is turned at an angle when the wheels are pointing straight. But i dont really care too much about these things, mainly the engine/transmission bothers me, im just wondering if these symptoms sound familiar to anyone and if anyone can give me some advice.

blindxeyed

iTrader: (8)

The 2 cars probably have different rear end gears

Example.. You may have 3.08 rear end gears, and she may have 3.42's. Would be a noticeable difference between the two.

outtathaway2006

ahh yeah perhaps thats it. Is there anyway i can find out my gear ratio? I really knew nothing about these cars before, but trust me, i am learning, the hard way though.

blindxeyed

iTrader: (8)

You'll need to look for these RPO codes:
GU2 - Axle Ratio 2.73
GU4 - Axle Ratio 3.08
GU5 - Axle Ratio 3.23
GU6 - Axle Ratio 3.42

For your 96, the RPO codes sticker will be in the glove box. For your girls 99, hers will be on her drivers side door. Just look to see which code out of those 4 is on the sticker. Whichever one is on there, is the set of gears that the car came with. Obviously, this only applies if the rear end gears haven't been changed/upgraded.