99 Firebird - Orig V6 auto, now Cammed LS1 6spd
06-20-2011, 05:44 PM
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Staging Lane
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99 Firebird - Orig V6 auto, now Cammed LS1 6spd Just curious on what the worth would be on my car. Don't see myself selling it soon but I've been curious how much people would be swayed away from it due to it being a v6.
The car is a 1999 pontiac firebird. Originally was a 3.8L / Auto, cloth interior, teal paint. Unknown miles on body.
Unfortunately the previous owner didnt know much about the car, he traded a boat for it, was an older guy and figured it'd be easier to sell the car than the boat which it was. He had no contact info from the previous owner before him.
However what the supposed story is, the guy who traded it was a middle aged fellow who bought it from a fleet auction for cheap as his trans am had been t-boned. Supposedly he bought my firebird with the v6 needing motor work, and swapped everything savable from his Trans Am into the v6, including all emissions, the 6speed, full leather interior, console, dash. He also kept his T/A rear bumper and hatch&wing and his ram air hood and put it on the car. He did no modifications to the car at all, it was still a bone stock LS1 / 6speed. I have reason to believe it does have a better clutch in it though.
Anyways, I picked up the car in March. being that the dash was also from the donor car, the mileage is true for the trans/engine which is now at 85k, was at 82k when I bought it.
Car was stock aside from a crappy muffler delete when I bought it.
I have all the receipts for what I've done to it. It was stock until May, when I decided to dump some money into it. Mods now are: Pacesetter Longtubes, SLP Loudmouth 1, Pacesetter Y-Pipe, custom Isky Cam 236/240 110lsa 598,606, isky springs, manley chromely pushrods, slp lid, pro 5.0 shifter, drilled&slotted rotors. Car was tuned at Speed Inc and put down 383whp. The car had problems when I took it to get tuned, I got behind schedule and the car was only finished days before tune date and had a lot of bugs which resulted in my tune not really being 'finished.
Car pulls good and did put down good power. It has only been ran on the street once and slightly outpulled a supposed 11.9 t/a. Never ran at the track, about 500 miles since the build. Everything else was also replaced, headgaskets, seals, timing chain, poly mounts.
The problems with the car:
Speedometer does not work, they worked fine prior to the cam swap. This will be fixed asap, I work a lot and its hard for me to shelf the car as it's my DD. I already put in a new speedo sensor and no luck.
Reverse Lockout is also engaged due to speedo sensor not reading right, just have to put a little more grunt moving the shifter over to reverse.
First time I drove it with the swap, I was doing about 50 when my headlight cover flew off, it busted the screws from the plastic headlight bracket. I still have the cover. The headlight still goes up and down and works perfect, just no cover on it till I find a new bracket.
Only real problem that affects driving is the tune as I said isn't really finished due to issues I had from the o2 sensors, speed sensor, and actually just the massive humidity during the tune session. It still drives a bit crappy around town sometimes, its also from the cam though itself as its rather big for the stock 3.42 gears. It doesnt like taking off from low rpms and long periods of sustaining a lower RPM will result in light bucking.
Lastly, the car itself isnt perfected. When the orignial motor swap was done, since the guy switched many body parts from his T/A to this car, he repainted it. They did a very good job overall. However you can find a few paint bubbles up close in some places, they did not spray underneath the carpet and the very back of the engine bay. There are a decent number of rock chips on the car. They are not really noticable unless you're up close though as I touched up every chip I could find ( i did it the right way, excessive cleaning and buffing).
Car has full black leather interior without any rips, t-tops, overall 9/10 interior. Exterior is about a 7/10 I'd say. Only thing that really bothers me about the car right now is the headlight cover and how damn loud the car is. Loudmouth + headers + cam = way too loud.
Anyway, the motor swap when it was done definitely is no hackjob. They did a very good job and there are very very few things to make an unsuspecting onlooker suspicious. The engine runs great, the trans is truly the smoothest shifting t56 I've ever seen, it feels like butter and it just feels tough. My buddy said it looks like it had to of been rebuilt or is newer. I have no proof of this though.
Anyways I'm just curious. I've kept selling cars the past year and a half with the reasoning being "I need money for my move when I finish college" and then I sell them and regret it and buy something else.. and now I'm actually finally getting months away from graduating and moving and no way have enough money for the move.. Not to mention I've had less and less time to play with the car, hell it only has about 500-800 miles on it since the cam swap. Most of its all from going to work and back and the drive to chicago for the tune.
I definitely dont see myself selling it yet but I'd like to get an idea if it would even be worth it to sell the car complete if I did. I'd really like to try to get it to the track and do a few more upgrades like gears before the summer is over.
The + side to being a v6 title (clean by the way), I pay $32 a month for insurance, whereas for a formula it would of ran me $74 when I asked my agent.
here are a couple pics of it
The car is a 1999 pontiac firebird. Originally was a 3.8L / Auto, cloth interior, teal paint. Unknown miles on body.
Unfortunately the previous owner didnt know much about the car, he traded a boat for it, was an older guy and figured it'd be easier to sell the car than the boat which it was. He had no contact info from the previous owner before him.
However what the supposed story is, the guy who traded it was a middle aged fellow who bought it from a fleet auction for cheap as his trans am had been t-boned. Supposedly he bought my firebird with the v6 needing motor work, and swapped everything savable from his Trans Am into the v6, including all emissions, the 6speed, full leather interior, console, dash. He also kept his T/A rear bumper and hatch&wing and his ram air hood and put it on the car. He did no modifications to the car at all, it was still a bone stock LS1 / 6speed. I have reason to believe it does have a better clutch in it though.
Anyways, I picked up the car in March. being that the dash was also from the donor car, the mileage is true for the trans/engine which is now at 85k, was at 82k when I bought it.
Car was stock aside from a crappy muffler delete when I bought it.
I have all the receipts for what I've done to it. It was stock until May, when I decided to dump some money into it. Mods now are: Pacesetter Longtubes, SLP Loudmouth 1, Pacesetter Y-Pipe, custom Isky Cam 236/240 110lsa 598,606, isky springs, manley chromely pushrods, slp lid, pro 5.0 shifter, drilled&slotted rotors. Car was tuned at Speed Inc and put down 383whp. The car had problems when I took it to get tuned, I got behind schedule and the car was only finished days before tune date and had a lot of bugs which resulted in my tune not really being 'finished.
Car pulls good and did put down good power. It has only been ran on the street once and slightly outpulled a supposed 11.9 t/a. Never ran at the track, about 500 miles since the build. Everything else was also replaced, headgaskets, seals, timing chain, poly mounts.
The problems with the car:
Speedometer does not work, they worked fine prior to the cam swap. This will be fixed asap, I work a lot and its hard for me to shelf the car as it's my DD. I already put in a new speedo sensor and no luck.
Reverse Lockout is also engaged due to speedo sensor not reading right, just have to put a little more grunt moving the shifter over to reverse.
First time I drove it with the swap, I was doing about 50 when my headlight cover flew off, it busted the screws from the plastic headlight bracket. I still have the cover. The headlight still goes up and down and works perfect, just no cover on it till I find a new bracket.
Only real problem that affects driving is the tune as I said isn't really finished due to issues I had from the o2 sensors, speed sensor, and actually just the massive humidity during the tune session. It still drives a bit crappy around town sometimes, its also from the cam though itself as its rather big for the stock 3.42 gears. It doesnt like taking off from low rpms and long periods of sustaining a lower RPM will result in light bucking.
Lastly, the car itself isnt perfected. When the orignial motor swap was done, since the guy switched many body parts from his T/A to this car, he repainted it. They did a very good job overall. However you can find a few paint bubbles up close in some places, they did not spray underneath the carpet and the very back of the engine bay. There are a decent number of rock chips on the car. They are not really noticable unless you're up close though as I touched up every chip I could find ( i did it the right way, excessive cleaning and buffing).
Car has full black leather interior without any rips, t-tops, overall 9/10 interior. Exterior is about a 7/10 I'd say. Only thing that really bothers me about the car right now is the headlight cover and how damn loud the car is. Loudmouth + headers + cam = way too loud.
Anyway, the motor swap when it was done definitely is no hackjob. They did a very good job and there are very very few things to make an unsuspecting onlooker suspicious. The engine runs great, the trans is truly the smoothest shifting t56 I've ever seen, it feels like butter and it just feels tough. My buddy said it looks like it had to of been rebuilt or is newer. I have no proof of this though.
Anyways I'm just curious. I've kept selling cars the past year and a half with the reasoning being "I need money for my move when I finish college" and then I sell them and regret it and buy something else.. and now I'm actually finally getting months away from graduating and moving and no way have enough money for the move.. Not to mention I've had less and less time to play with the car, hell it only has about 500-800 miles on it since the cam swap. Most of its all from going to work and back and the drive to chicago for the tune.
I definitely dont see myself selling it yet but I'd like to get an idea if it would even be worth it to sell the car complete if I did. I'd really like to try to get it to the track and do a few more upgrades like gears before the summer is over.
The + side to being a v6 title (clean by the way), I pay $32 a month for insurance, whereas for a formula it would of ran me $74 when I asked my agent.
here are a couple pics of it
06-20-2011, 05:51 PM
#2
Staging Lane
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Just to add, the car runs absolutely great. I drive it to work every day, drove it 4 hours up to chicago and 4 hours back when I had it tuned at Speed Inc. I'd trust it to go anywhere.
Sorry about the long post, just want for you guys who give your input to see exactly what info I'd give if I decided to sell it. I tried to make sure I cover anything and everything. I take good care of it! Just trying to work out the little kinks yet that I listed.
Sorry about the long post, just want for you guys who give your input to see exactly what info I'd give if I decided to sell it. I tried to make sure I cover anything and everything. I take good care of it! Just trying to work out the little kinks yet that I listed.
06-20-2011, 06:05 PM
#3
TECH Junkie
I actually read all of that and I commend you for your honesty in giving details about the car. What a nice change from the one sentence, "I have a '99 red WS6 6 speed , what's it worth?" with no further information.
Now the bad news. Read some of the heartbreaking posts in this section about incredible modded cars that don't bring anything close to the value of the car. I mean these sound like really nice cars that can't find homes due to the heavy mods. They will eventually sell for huge losses to the owners, if at all, unless they get very lucky or they just keep the cars. Where does this leave your original V6 car?? Sad to say, but it has basically very little value. It will not fetch anything remotely near what you are probably hoping. Just keep it and you will need to find another means for your move. Congratulations on your graduation!! I bet you will have a new 2013 or 2014 car in your garage soon.
Now the bad news. Read some of the heartbreaking posts in this section about incredible modded cars that don't bring anything close to the value of the car. I mean these sound like really nice cars that can't find homes due to the heavy mods. They will eventually sell for huge losses to the owners, if at all, unless they get very lucky or they just keep the cars. Where does this leave your original V6 car?? Sad to say, but it has basically very little value. It will not fetch anything remotely near what you are probably hoping. Just keep it and you will need to find another means for your move. Congratulations on your graduation!! I bet you will have a new 2013 or 2014 car in your garage soon.
06-20-2011, 07:18 PM
#4
Staging Lane
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definitely a no on the new car haha, my ideal garage eventually is a 92 awd dsm for a drag car and a third gen LS swap for a dd/street warrior.
If I sell the car, I would hope to get maybe 6800 out of it? probably still going to struggle, even though that is very close to the price I payed for it when I got it bone stock.
If I sell the car, I would hope to get maybe 6800 out of it? probably still going to struggle, even though that is very close to the price I payed for it when I got it bone stock.
