As a young man about 22, I was looking at an '84 Corvette. The salesmen who had a soul told me "You don't want this car son, you won't be happy". God bless that man. He must have had children my age.
Cool. What else Chevrolet did he recommend? I liked the Chevrolet big car for 1984. 1984 Chevrolet Impala, 1984 Chevrolet Caprice Classic, and the 1984 Chevrolet Celebrity too. The Chevrolet 350 is best for the fat Chevrolet. Chevrolet 60 degree V6 was pretty good with HO or standard. Celebrity used V6. The fat Chevrolet did fine with Chevrolet 90 degree V6 or Chevrolet small block V8. However, they were slow machines. However, it was cool that you checked out the new Corvette for 1984. My family got a dog for 1984. The 1984 Dodge Caravan. It was a dog. First 2 years was a lemon. After 2 years, it was more reliable. Still a dog, though after spending $2000 in repairs. In 1980s money.
@@bryantint1339 that 2.8L 60 degree turned into the 3100, 3400, 3500, and 3900 engines ive got a 3.1 with 325,000 miles on it.... lifter/rocker ticks till it gets warm, but still runs great . LIMs at 180k..... then LIMs again at 300k because the head gasket went now i have a timing cover leak....... leaking coolant . . i have two 400 SBCs..... and its better than a 350 in every way just not gas mileage (unless you change gearing for the added torque) . a 77 400 out of a K10 will put down 245-265 hp......380-400 foot pounds removing your heat raisers/intake cross-over, EGR, and adding a bit of initial and mechanical.... it will wake it right up .. the larger 400 bore makes the exact same head (and/or cam) flow just a bit better .... due to "valve unshrouding" . . . one is factory original in my 77 K10 silverado (TH400 NP203 full time 4..... its a GAS HOG! but runs PERFECT!) other is in a 68 impala 2 door hard top......(NOT factory lol..... needs a LOT of work)
@@bryantint1339 a W-body car with a GM 60 degree is the easiest car to work on ever . if they didnt keep changing the damn plug.... i could of had my fuel pump done in 10 mins access hatch JUST behind the rear seat (can even reinstall the butt cushion for comfort on the job..... just dont spill) . water pump takes like 10 mins on the 3100/3400 PS pump is right their..... alternator is on top.... . . pretty much EVERYTHING is 5.5, 8, 10, 13, 15, 18, 21, 33 or 35 depending on exact wheel bearing brand 325,000 miles on a 99 buick century.... and im a mechanic . i know a thing or two..... because ive seen a thing or two like now my timing cover is leaking coolant..... . . honestly didnt even know that was possible on the 3100 but after thinking about it for 10 seconds..... ya, the "divorced" (aka easy to change) water pump.... gotta get coolant from somewhere
and looking at the gasket kit.... which includes 2.8 parts.... the block is just a v6 SBC.... with tiny little main cross bolts . the gasket for the 2.8 is for a "center" mounted water pump, like on a 350 they just moved it to the top right on the 3100/3400
I remember going to swap meets in the 90’s and seeing these systems sitting in cardboard boxes for dirt cheap. People called them “Missfire Injection.”
Me too bud. Also,, diagnostics were horrible back then so you had to experiment and figure it out for yourself mainly. Learned a lot though. I remember our scanner: The Tech 1: Truly awful! Car's computer was about 10 times faster than what that scanner could read.
In 1982, I ordered a Z28 Camaro with this exact engine. At the time, it was difficult for me to choose between the Z28 and Trans Am as I loved the styling on both these vehicles. The Cross-Fire Injection in my Z28 worked flawlessly during my ownership. Sometimes I think I got the only one that ever worked as GM intended. As you state, the 305 was not a powerful V8 engine. I did order my Z28 with the optional 3:23 “performance” rear axle ratio. That 305 needed all the torque multiplication it could get. While these vehicles had utterly unremarkable acceleration with the 305, both the Trans Am and Z28 had fantastic handling characteristics for the time. Especially for a completely stock GM vehicle. I amazed myself numerous times on how hard I could push that Z28 Camaro through curves! Love the series! Keep up the great work, Adam!
My dad ordered the same Camaro, and hated it so much he returned it and never went back to American vehicles again after he bought a toyota 4x4 pickup and loved the reliability. He just gave in and finally got a Scat Pack 392 Shaker a year ago
Your perspective is based on owning a new car, most of these yahoos were trying to piece together something out of things that had been sitting or abandoned thirty years ago, without the benefit of any product familiarity or technical expertise whatsoever. That Cross-Fire system was nearly flawless in daily operation, it just wasn't a high-performance unit.
Also 750cfm is way too much for an engine this size and HP 470cfm is plenty. These were low performance engines due to having to meet mileage and pollution targets.
As an owner of a daily driven 84 corvette, I haven't really had any problems with the crossfire setup. I mostly do the work on the car myself and it's actually a fun learning experience. Going off the engine specs, the CFI is actually a pretty high performance engine of it time. Its just that the crazy restrictive intake manifold kills a ton of power. I honestly think that GM never gave the engine a chance to prove itself and to iron out the main issues in its short 3 year life span
Actually the cross fire 350 had more horsepower potential than the one that replaced it. It was purposefully strangled to make the next engine more desirable. The intake is the problem but can be fixed with a process called extrude honing. I think you can buy a intake that flows much better than the stock, my brother did it to his 84 vette but it was a decade ago at least.
it was called the Renegade intake and yes epa did this I own an 84 Corvette and yes I yanked the engine out and when I tore it apart guess what it had hog trough one valve relief forged pistons in that bad boy just an Edelbrock intake and a carburetor it made more horsepower than any vet alone until lt1 300 hp in a 3088 lb
I can tell you from personal experience since I owned a 82’ Vette for 12 yrs and yes when I first bought it the CFI had lots of issues. But.. I was on a quest to fully understand and make it the best it could be. First off from what I read when the CFI came out in 82 the were developing the TPI and the CFI was making more power so they closed off a 1/3 of the intake ports to reduce power. I spent a week porting the stock intake and it was a huge seat of the pants difference and pulled hard to redline. Yes had vacuum leaks and had to replace the bushings then had to balance the TBIs. Once done it ran and idled great. I averaged 18 mpg and my foot was on the floor quite a bit. Shortly after this there was a company in AZ that developed the new Renegade intake that had proven dyno numbers of 30 rear wheel hp. I was one of the first 10 customers that installed one for R&D. Another drawback was the ECU, it was extremely slow 64 bps but I had piggybacked a ECU from a 88 Z-28 and also made a world of difference. At this point I pulled the engine for a freshen up and installed Edelbrock heads and a Comp cam along with new bored tbs. Was able to dyno it it Chicago and had 423 rear wheel hp so for all the people out there that say these motors can’t make power not so. I sold that car four years ago and a gentleman at the gas station one Sunday asked if I would be willing to sell it and told him everything is for sale kidding around. Well he gave me a offer I couldn’t refuse and he took delivery that Tuesday. I still have that original intake that I ported and would wake up any 305 or 350.
At the age this CFI system is now, if you plan to use the car there's no shame in removing the original pieces, putting them in a safe place and putting in something like a non-invasive Holley system. It's best to have it all locked away in a safe place for reinstallation when it comes time to sell the car. Those parts are getting too hard to get and unfortunately everyone what's the OEM stuff still on the car, no matter how awful it was
I will agree with most of what you said, but you are entirely wrong on why they shrank the intake ports. If GM didn't want an engine to make more power then an upcoming engine, they simply lied. Take the 1996 LT4 vs the 1997 LS1 as an example. They advertised a 360hp engine as 330hp to make the upcoming 345hp engine look better. Back to the Cross Fire, they made an engineering decision based on marketing, and they were stuck with it before they realized how bad it was. The Cross Fire was supposed to be reminiscent of the old Z/28 cross ram intake. The problem is that that 302 is a 7000rpm racing engine with two 4bbl carburetors, a huge camshaft, and no emissions or fuel economy requirements. The 1982 Corvette had 2.87 rear gears, 0.7 overdrive, and 27" tall tires in an era of 55mph federal speed limits, meaning the engine had to chug along happily at 1400rpm on the highway. It simply couldn't meet emissions and fuel economy requirements as designed, and they were in too deep to change course. The intake ports were shrunk to increase velocity so the fuel didn't drop out of the air at low speed and load. The loss of top-end power was an unwanted side-effect. Now that we're in an era of 70mph+ speed limits, and we can install whatever rear gears we want, the main design flaw is easily overcome. My '82 Corvette has the intake ported to full-size, and the rear gears are swapped to 4.09. I don't need to worry about what's happening at 1400rpm anymore. Additionally, it has Dart heads, a slightly larger Howard's camshaft, Comp Cams 1.6 rocker arms, oversized throttle bodies, external fuel pressure regulator, Hooker headers, 2.5" exhaust, and a 1984 Corvette ECM. Next, I'm going to upgrade to a 1991 TBI ECM from a Caprice to gain an air temperature sensor for more consistent performance, and I'll replumb for a single idle air control at the same time. I'm also considering going to 3.73 or 3.54 gears, because the 3.06 first gear is useless with the 4.09 gears. Where is Mr. Rare Classic Cars & Automotive History? Come over for a drive. You'll like it a lot better, and don't be so scared of your TH200C. It's the TH200 from the late '70s that's total junk. The TH200C isn't a great transmission, but my '87 Cutlass was still going strong at 140,000 miles when I swapped the engine and a TH350C.
I had began on a flat top plate and porting to replace the 2 tbi with 2 600cfm Holley carbs and there wasn't a good choice in head and cam profile that I thought would work right, so I never completed it. I think the top plate is still laying around somewhere
I have a great story about an 84 Corvette with the crossfire. In the mid 90s my buddy had the 84 Vette. I had a 91 Ford Taurus SHO (still own a low mile 92) Yamaha built V6, 5 speed. You being a car guy I’m sure you know about them. My buddy gave me a ride in that vette. To say the least, I was not impressed. I told him “ my Taurus would smoke this thing.” He laughed. We lined them up down a road we’d go to drink. Called it Vampire graveyard (don’t know why. Stupid” anyways, we line up, I burn the damn tires off it in first through second, trying to control the wicked torque steer. Once I got traction, I embarrassed him. In front of 20 people. I put well over 200k miles on that car. Extremely hard miles. I gave it away about 8 years ago.
@@mdotguy That is all the first gen had as they did not make an automatic that could handle the power. Ford did this with many of their 80s performance vehicles. Most of the time if it had an auto it had a lower rated horsepower than the manuals.
Thanks again Adam. Yes there have been a number engineering fumbles over the years. These cross fires were indeed available at many meets for little money but I have actually never actually seen anyone take one of these and install them into a project hot rod.
I still don’t understand why the cross-fire engines are still getting a bad wrap. I’ve owned two cars with cross-fire engines. Both were very reliable, and ran perfectly. A 1982 Camaro Z/28, and a 1984 C4 Corvette. I still own the Vette, and in runs great.
I have a 84 corvette and it had some issues at first from sitting in a garage for so long but after fixing the fuel system and rebuilding the injectors it runs great! The car to this day has 27,000 mi on it and is all stock and I plan to keep it that way because every 84 vette I have seen is destroyed and although it doesn't have the most power among other things it is still a cool car that I and I'm sure others love so just drive it for what it is and take care of it
How long did the car sit up? I just bought a 84 that sat up for 25 years and only has 6K miles, it runs good but has a slight stumble/miss off idle even after a full tune up, plugs, wires & coil.
Keeping the era in context , the 84 corvette was almost blistering fast for the time . 0 to 60 in 6.8 seconds … a lot better than a chunk of the 70s models . The TBI system ended up being very reliable though .
My toyota tundra pulls 0-60 in 5.9 seconds lmao.... thats with over 1000lb of tools in the back, ive beat jeeps, ford and chevy trucks, bmw. I know they aren't comparable but its just weird to think my work truck is faster than a corvette of any year
In the Cease Fire engines defense, the short block is pretty nice. My son bought an '84 Vette with a rod knocking. We pulled it apart to fix it, and it had a windage tray, steel crank, X rods, and true flat top pistons! The rest of the engine is garbage.
Actually those throttle bodies were used on many GM cars of that era so they have been around a long time. All they did was double the system to get them by for the V8 Corvette because the delays in the development of the T.P.I. system which finally came out in 85. Originally the Crossfire wasn't supposed to happen.
@@douglasb.1203 That’s because they didn’t need it anymore. The TPI was available for performance applications, and there just wasn’t a need for a performance TBI setup anymore.
You really got it wrong on the runner lengths. Longer runners are good for lower rpms and short runners for higher rpms. It's all about the pulses that are generated by the valve events and the pistons creating high and low pressure areas. There are specific rpms that these pulses tune to and will create a ram effect down the intake runner. That is why you have variable intake runner lengths now. At low rpms they use the very long runners and high rpms it will switch over to very short runners. The pooling of the fuel or the fuel falling out of suspension is more of the extremely large plenum area that's inherent on an intake like this. It has nothing to do with the runner length.
I'm wonder where he is getting his info from cause he has made some basic errors in other videos. In another video he didn't even know that Pontiac never had a big block
I was a Chevrolet Service Advisor in the late 70's to mid 80's and we were inundated with what we dubbed 'Crossfire Infection' issues. Your analysis is spot on. Then I went to Cadillac for the glorious HT4100 and 'downsizing' era...
My family owns an 82 Vette with the Crossfire. My uncle bought it from the original owner when it only had 2000 something miles. It now sits with 4000 something miles and still is beautiful. It’s a Time Capsule that’s in storage and is waiting to see summer this year. I’ll be driving it around soon and I’m very excited.
My dad had an 84 Corvette and loved the engine. The crossfire injection was his favorite part because it looked kind of like an old Mopar Max Wedge cross-ram manifold. Never had any complaints about performance or economy or anything. The one nightmare was getting it to pass Oregon emissions. That thing just utterly refused to get past the DEQ station most of the time.
I have owned an 1984 Corvette Z51 since 1990 (32 years) and no problems with crossfire injection at all. Only changed plugs, wires and cap a few times along with a rad, water pump, ac compressor and coolant hoses. I still have original exhaust and change all fluids regularly. Not bad for a 38 year old summer car that looks and sounds good and gets lots of attention and decent gas mileage.
I had a 1984 corvette for a long time, I really liked it, those throttle bodys are the same ones the 4 cylinder cars had and they were very dependable and simple to diagnose and repair, yes the intake does not flow well, I got power for mine by milling the heads 40 thousands and some port work, 1.6 rockers and a 10 pound nitrous bottle, the injectors are pulse width modulated by the pcm I just wired the ground to the nitrous switch so they were wide open did not run any fuel lines, just had to find the correct nozzle it worked great, it was faster than the tuned port cars and got 26 mpg on the highway, the nitrous makes the bad intake design a non issue, so the rare times you really want that power it is there
I bought a 1982 TransAm in August of 1982 from Tabor Pontiac in Atlanta. It was black with gold trim, W6 suspension, crossfire TBI with cowl air induction, Recaro seats, and T-tops. It had a faulty temperature gauge that would read hot when it was normal. Front hubcaps would come loose from turbine wheels. $16,000 in 1982...
You just described my best friend's experience of his 1982 Z/28 he purchased in 1990. When he was in college in 1995, it was replaced by his grampa's 1982 El Camino.
I was a GM tech and I became alarmed when I learned that GM did R&D on the road using the customer as a test driver, for example they had 8 different brake systems on one car model with the plan of using the one with the least problems the next year of production and ditching the other 7 systems. that was in the late 80s I hope they are better now.
Which is why you should never buy the first year of any new generation of a GM car. I typically try to buy the last year of any generation, by then, GM has all the bugs worked out and perfected the design of the car. You'll know when GM has perfected a car.........they kill it the very next rear and replace it with something with a ton of quality and engineering issues.
I had a 84 trans am but it had quadrajet wit offset functional hoodscoop .That car ran great for a 5 liter and give me 200k fairly trouble free ,such as fuel pump and water pump . I sold it to a guy that put another 100k on it and he had to put a cam in it after it wiped some lobes,and the mild street came woke it up considerably.
When compared to the mid 70s L48s the L83 was a barnburner. One thing to look at on the cfi engines that run rich is the engine coolant temp sensor, the early ones were very troublesome and wouldn't give the right readings to the ecm. GM updated them by 85, I changed a few ect sensors and pigtails when I started out as a mechanic in the early 90s. Also check for vacuum leaks and bad ecm grounds (back of pass side head).
I worked on many "Cease fire" injection systems as i have been a GM dealership tech for over 30 years. And every single thing he mentions is absolutely true. You also needed a special "manometer" to synch the throttle bodies or you would have tremendous hesitation problems. A good friend used to drag race his 1984 Corvette and we changed the cam, swapped the heads for TPI "canted valve" heads, opened the intake ports (which were more like half ports), had a custom chip, headers, HP coil & cranked up the fuel pressure. It ran 15.20's because it still ran out of breath at 4,000 RPM: Then, we just put an Edelbrock carb and intake and a vacuum advance HEI - The car did 14.10's easily and from there, we just kept adding things. By the way, All the car companies struggled in the late 70's, early 80's: Ford & Chrysler had no better systems!
Datsun and their 280ZX turbo sure did. I loved finding mustangs and camaros of the era that thought that they were hot stuff. Showed them my tail lights every time.
A “special” manometer? There’s nothing special about an manometer. I use an old Dwyer, but I have made them for less that $5. Clear tubing and a yardstick. As far as the minimum air adjustment and syncing the TBs, it is LITERALLY a 10 minute job, and should not have to be done until the TBs need to be bushed (which is common on ANY high mileage TB). I made a video on my channel that details the TB procedure. I have been daily driving CFI cars for almost 30 years. I’m not at all saying the CFI doesn’t have a list of drawbacks, but they are easily overcome. I’m going 14.40s with my 83 LU5 with very basic modifications, and I manage 17mpg city and 26mpg hwy at the moment. People badmouth what they don’t understand. People badmouthed electronic ignition when it came out in the 70s, and many were pulled in favor of a points distributor when a faulty module confused people that had no experience or understanding of them. Just out of curiosity, what “custom chip” did your friend have in his 84? A 6026 ECM can’t be tuned/hacked. A 7747 or 8746 can, so unless he repinned a newer ECM in the car like I did, he more than likely had an off the shelf Hypershit PROM or equivalent, which usually run worse than the stock PROM.
I've been coming back to your channel a lot lately. I appreciate the simple, straight forward nature of them as well as the content. I grew up around older BMWs and some other mostly older german cars. My current car is 1994 jeep grand cherokee and she's a gem. Really changed my perspective on American cars.
Back in 1990, I took a '83 Camaro with a 305 CFI, ported the intake to match the heads on a 383 SB as a sleeper. It was a great sleeper with monster torque! I also replaced the ROM chip with a Corvette 5.7 L chip. I had to port the hell out of the intake to balance it. I went with an aftermarket TBI, with a Turbo 400 trans and 3.73 rear gears.
A guy I worked for specifically worked on these cross injection systems. He says turn up the PSI on the regulator to 12 for daily driving and they're smooth as butter. Performance or boost turn it to 15 - 17. I think a little more thought into the intake runners would of helped the most.
Do you think every Corvette owner is a mechanic and can do that with simple tools and minor mechanical knowledge,didn't they even have the air/fuel mix capped,and what would raising the fuel pressure up do to the emissions when you went through inspection.
@@duster71 Actually it can be done with “simple tools”, and you don’t need to be an ASE Master tech to adjust the fuel pressure. Bumping the fuel pressure does make a HUGE difference in the behavior of the car. As far as emissions, once in closed loop, it is kept at a stoich 14.7:1. GM “recommends” 9-13psi for a stock application. Most of the untouched ones I have checked are in the 8-9psi neighborhood.
That picture of your 1982 Firebird brought back memories of my very first new car purchase right out of college, which was a 1985 Trans Am, two tone paint, dark blue with silver paint around the bottom edge of the car, T-tops, cloth seats. It had the 305 HO, 4bbl carb, which was 180 HP. I put 120,000 miles on it with only problem was the transmission governor and the front brakes kept wearing out too quickly. That car gave me a lot of good times.
If you believe long run wet runners are best for high rpm power, why is a single plane manifold with short runners better than a dual plane in high rpm racing? I think the long runners might be another part of why the Cross Fire hits the wall so soon. This was also true of the long ram TPI that replaced it in the Corvette.
On a street engine or even a mild perf build a long runner is good for low end torque and short runners are good for higher end torque. Look at ford's, they love dual runner manifolds in the 2000's. All the perf engines that didn't use a m90 Eaton used long to short switching manifolds.
I am so thankful for your videos ! I can't explain it but learning about all of these issues, features, and general information on these vehicles I cherished as a kid - is very satisfying !!
Had a friend of mine who owned the ‘84 Vette and let me drive it once. If memory serves me correct about that car, cross fire injection wasn’t the only major complaint about that car. It was the kidney crushing ride quality that got softened in ‘85.
Have an '82 Vette with 55,000 miles I bought in 2011 to flip. Haven't gotten around to flipping it and hardly ever drive it, but it starts right up after sitting for months at a time. Haven't experienced any of the gremlins mentioned.....yet.
I remember as a little kid when the '82 F-bodies and '84 Corvette came out. I thought they were some of the most gorgeous cars I had ever seen. I would stare at them on the covers of automotive magazines for what seemed like hours. Too bad about the early quality issues.
I remember falling in love with the new Camaros z-28.....looking at them in magazines . I was old enough to buy a new one and it was nothing but a POS. Lot's of problems early on with the transmission, windshield wipers would stop working in the rain, just a rolling bucket of problems. T-tops leaked like a tin can full of holes.
It's like you reached into my brain to create this video. I have an CFI '82 T/A, just like yours, only mine is white with a maroon interior. Dream car since I was a kid watching Knight Rider reruns. Found it for what felt like a steal in 2014. Suffice to say I have, through sheer necessity, become an expert on the electronics that govern the Crossfire system. I swapped a 350 into mine when the original 305 overheated blew some seals and warped the intake... elected to keep the crossfire to preserve originality at car shows. I made it a little higher compression with aftermarket pistons, threw a little hotter cam in it with some stiffer valve springs, opened up and ported the CFI intake, gave it a decent exhaust, and ended up replacing the ECU with a Megasquirt system and wide-band O2 sensor, so now I've got endless tuning possibilities to try and overcome some of these design flaws while keeping everything LOOKING mostly stock -- I'd be lying to you if I said that I've truly "woken up" the setup or reached its true potential, but it makes a great noise and can chirp the tires if I ask it to. My only regret is that I didn't swap to a 700r4 when I had the drivetrain out. Your comment on the th200 is spot-on, what a dog! ... but if I want to go fast I've got other cars.
I have owned two of these, When they are set up properly they run good and return good fuel mileage. the problems show up when someone who should not be under the hood touches it and it goes downhill from there.
I was working at Maroone Chevrolet when the "Cross-Failure" injection came out and it got my full attention as I was a Corvette specialist and drivability specialist, the only one at the dealership. I was tasked with retrofitting the corvettes with tuned port injection starting in 84' ,(wiring harness,computer, fuel pump and all other needed parts.) I was doing 2-3 a week when we stopped retrofitting the Corvettes.
These videos are just amazing. It is great that you are sharing your real world experience. Even with these problems your enthusiasm for your Firebird still comes through.
You're correct on the fuel pooling. My buddy had an 83. He had really hard starts hot. It would foul plugs and o2 once a week. He fought with it for 4 yrs( so did the dealer) and bought an 87 T/A 5.0 tpi with the 5 speed, cuz he swore off GM auto transmissions. Fun fact, the dealer wouldn't take the 83 on a trade in! He had to sell it privately!
I've had 1983 Z/28 Crossfire car for over 30 years. It's my first car. I used to commute back and forth from Phoenix to ABQ. I was getting 20+ mpg on the highway about 15 or so in town. I have problems with the engine itself, but I went through two 700R4s.
Nothing wrong with the Crossfire system if you actually study how the system works. Turn up the fuel pressure to 15psi with the regulator which most the time the factory set them at 9psi which is not enough to operate the system correctly especially after they have aged. I've owned 3 of them and all ended up being very reliable and ran smoothly. My 82 Collectors Edition and 84 Corvette I owned got great highway mileage.
So every owner has to be a knowledgeable mechanic? Corvettes wer junk after 67,the door panel ripped from their attaching points,the driver seats would tear up within 20,000 miles,brakes were always a problem,I'm not talking just about mine,I owned 4 77-80,but everybodies.Id rather own a 69 Dodge Dart slant 6 with a bench seat than any Covette after 67.Sounds like this guy knows all about the problems with the Crossfire.
My good friends dad has one of these cross fire corvettes. He bought it on the cheap because the cross fire wasnt working but since he is an ex air force mechanic he got it back running pretty easily. Ive driven it, definitely not fast but torquey enough to break the wheels loose...looks cool too. I think its an 82 Vette.
Great summary. I can totally relate. I had an ‘83 Trans-Am with the turbine wheels. Got rid of it for an ‘86 with the tuned port. I now have an ‘82 Vette also with the crossfire that I’ve owned since ‘90. It has 16,000 miles on it. Runs well except when it’s cold, for the first 2-3 minutes it idles like it has a wild cam in it. After those few minutes, the mixture get adjusted and it runs smooth as silk. Crazy!!
My Dad bought a new '84 Corvette in April of 1983. I got to drive this car a lot. It actually got 22-24mpg on the highway. I also topped it out at 130mph. It had the Z51 handling package and man, could that car handle the twisties.
Idk. I’m a Mopar guy. The Ramchargers. A group of Chrysler engineers were the first to experiment with the “ram” effect on normally aspirated engines. On the big block Chrysler the long ram was good for low end torque, and wasn’t very good above 4500 rpm. The Max Wedge and later the Hemi utilized the short ram for 6500 rpm. I think the “cross fire” was just a restrictive design.
I too loved Knight Rider (Im 52). When I turned 16 I bought a lease return GTA from the LA Auto Auction, 305 TPI auto (due to the T-Tops). The car was beautiful (Gray, gold BBS wheels, orange digital everything, total showroom glitter) and a perfect pile of junk. In the 80's (Valley) every home had an F-Body in the driveway because somebody worked at the Van Nuys plant and got the employee discount. My High School (El Camino) was full of them, Firebirds, IROCs, Z28''s, TAs... The design flaws were ridiculous. You turn too fast and the gas moves to one side of the tank and the car stalls. You turn the wheel to max and the front tires grind the wheel wells. The doors had to be realigned every few months (warrantee) due to the swish-cheese body movement... I gave up after six months and ran it back through the same auction. Memories...
Fantastic video overview! My brother and I were looking at an 82 Camaro last night and I tried explaining just what made the Crossfire a disaster...sending this video, you did a much better job explaining it than I could! Honestly this engine is a sad low spot for otherwise really great cars. I find it ironic that this system was probably the first fuel injected cars many people drove, yet it failed to deliver any of the marketed benefits of fuel injection over a carb- efficiency, power, and reliability.
Likely not the first fuel injected car that most people drove, as the crossfire was a pretty rare, performance car only, option. TBI isn’t as good as port injection, but it’s simple, reliable and works well.
I think the cross fire was a great idea for the day. It complemented the beginning of the new muscle car era beautifully! It had long runners to make power. Again, it had long runners to make more POWER (TORQUE)! You all that are living in the past, are correct. Short runners make more POWER (NOT TORQUE)! Think about it, in 1982 Long Runner's made more POWER (AT THE SEAT OF THE PANTS)!!
I have to disagree with some of your crossfire thoughts. I had an 82 vette and the only time it gave me problems was when the fuel pump went weak. As far as mpgs went, now this was back when the interstate speed limit was 55 so everyone was going 62/65 I consistently got over 27 mpgs on the highway, never hit 28 though. Powerwise they were detuned for the time, ( they all were to meet fuel and emission standards ) and a 2.72 rear end didn't give much off the line. Also I never had an issue with the 700R4 trans.
I don't know how old you are, but I just turned 43, and you look less than 2/3rds my age? Certainly much younger. So your appreciation, and wealth of knowledge, regarding cars that were already outdated even when I grew up... but loved, is awesome.
Great series and another good video. I agreed with you on the ford 460 as I've had several, but I think these cross fire engines got a bad rap because nobody knew how to work on them at the time. My 84 Corvette runs very nice and how mileage isnt bad. People need to realize that this was the early years of efi so of course they aren't going to run like something made now but I'm happy with mine. That being said I'm not using it for daily transportation, as it's now a 38 year old collector car.
All ECM's of this era had problems with the drivers of on/off solenoids they operated and if the resistor in the solenoid went open the resulting 100,000+ volts the coil collapse would send back to the ECM when it commanded the solenoid to turn off would blow the ECM up! So they came out with "Quad Drivers" to dissipate that voltage to protect the ECM. One other funny thing that showed sometimes cheap engineering would actually incentivize the car companies to do something better was the "speed/density" programming in the PROM chip inside the ECM, and what it caused. Depending on the car, the fuel tables in the PROM (programmable read only memory) would meter a specific amount of fuel to the injector(s) and the parameters it would look at were the speed of the engine, the vacuum in the manifold and the position of the throttle. All of those were keyed to a measurement the ECM took when the key was first turned on. If you turned the key on at, say, Miami Beach, the ECM would use a speed/density table for sea level. If you were in Colorado Springs, which you know has significantly lower air density than Miami because of the altitude, when you started the car, it would use a 6,000 ft altitude table. The ECM would use whatever altitude table it "saw" when the key was first turned on for as long as the ECM was on. Once you turned it off, it would lose that and use whatever table it "saw" the next time you started the car. The sensor used to take this measurement was the same one that was measuring vacuum when the engine was running, the MAP sensor (Manifold Absolute Pressure) and it took it's reading from inside the intake manifold. Key on and engine not running, as when you first turn the key, it took this barometric pressure reading. After the engine was running it was sending a vacuum reading to the ECM. So if you were in Hays Kansas for instance, (altitude 1000 feet) when you started your trip to Colorado Springs, by the time you got there you'd be trailing a black smoke screen a mile long and smelling rotten eggs because the ECM was dumping too much fuel for the air of 6000 feet. It was using a 1000 ft barometric pressure table. Customers who were still under warranty would pull up in the local GM dealership service drive, turn off the car (fixing the problem BTW), get out and go scream at the service writer, *"I just bought this thing...".* It didn't take too long for the technicians to school the service writers as to what was up. *"Whatever you do, DON'T go out there and crank the thing up to confirm the problem. Just write up the warranty ticket and AFTER THEY LEAVE, **_THEN_** get the porter to park the car.* Of course the technicians knew exactly what to do. The dispatcher would give the ticket to his favorite technician who would write on it, "Connected car to CAMS for diagnostic. No problem found", and get paid 1/2 hour for his handwriting. CAMS stood for Computer Assisted Monitoring System and it was a big cabinet with a CRT touch screen on top and long leads to hook up to the ECM and such. Of course the bean counters at GM figured out the scam before too long. OH, BTW many customers who were out of warranty were being robbed blind from crooked mechanics over this. But it was GM paying dealerships their hourly rate for the 0.5 hours they were paying the techs every time this happened, *_and it happened a lot,_* that caused the engineers to finally adopt the MAF sensor (Mass Air Flow) and end the days of speed/density fuel management. A MAF sensor very accurately measures, not just how much air, but how much Oxygen is entering the engine by taking a reading of the static charge Oxygen atoms make as they rub past the wires in the air stream, and is a much better parameter to use than a calculated measurement of air from vacuum, throttle position and RPM. As an aside, Chrysler used a very simple device to measure how much air was going into the engine from the earliest days of electronic engine controls, and it worked quite well because the amount of Oxygen in the air varies only slightly from say, Chicago to the Amazon rain forest where it's maybe 0.1 percent higher. Chrysler used a little door in the pipe going to the intake manifold that had spring trying to close it and a position sensor to tell the ECM how far open the door is. When the engine was running it would make a vacuum behind the door, opening it against the spring. The wider the door was open, the more air that was entering the engine. It served the same purpose as the much more expensive MAF sensor and did almost as good a job: good enough for the emissions and CAFE standards of the day. I think Chrysler was still using it well into the 2000's.
I've owned several C3 and C4 Corvettes around this time (but no crossfire) and GM was nothing but cheap. They abandoned fuel injection in the 60's in favor of big block engines leaving them nowhere to go in the 70's. Their competitors invested in fuel injection early on and avoided the embarrassing malaise era engine output for the most part. All GM had to do was call Bosch at the time and that would have solved all of the problems. My brother did just buy an '82 Corvette that I made a point to drive. I thought the engine pulled pretty good and close to a L98 down low but just as this video said the party was over at 4000 RPM. Hardly a sports car, but a good cruiser because people do seem to love the shape of C3 Corvettes and it drew a crowd wherever I took it. But on the L98, you can get them running low 13's easily and rev to the moon even with TPI on the stock lower end. ua-cam.com/video/_o2EUVbQh7E/v-deo.html
I bought a brand new 82 Indy pace car Z/28 with a 305 crossfire. Functional hood scoop as I remember. The engine was good however every polyurethane bushing was replaced along with the entire rear axle differential assembly Many other bugs had to worked out and repaired. After a year I had enough and traded it. It was however at the time a very cool car in my youth
Oopsy at 5:54 ... runner length tunes the resonant pulses that serve to "ram" the mixture into the cylinder. Think of them as pipe organ tubes... longer tubes means longer wavelengths means lower frequency of resonance means greatest resonance at low RPM. That's why the LT1 (1992+) went with shorter runners to address some of the high RPM breathing issues of the Tuned Port Injection (L98 and LB9) setup, and why engines like the LT5 (the Lotus-influenced ZR-1 of 89-93 (?) ) had twin runners... one long for in-town driving and a short set for high RPM. The Tuned Port Injection engines of 1985 and later (305 LB9 or 350 L98), especially the quicker-brained versions from 1986+, were worlds better even if they were "batch-fire" instead of individually fuel injected (meaning, all 4 injectors on a bank fired at the same time, so ultimately there was bound to be some puddling in the runners near the heads). I can get 25-27 mpg (US) on my 1987 Trans Am GTA (with the 305 TPI automatic of all things) without effort at 68-70 mph cruising speed over very long trips. And driveability is just phenomenal, with amazing throttle response and a feeling of having an engine that isn't shy to pull at very low RPM... I will often climb bridges at 38-40 mph with the transmission in overdrive with the lowest of pedal travel, the engine just hums effortlessly at what seems to be 1000 RPM, converter clutch still engaged. In that respect, the engineers really succeeded in making the smaller engines feel like the larger ones they replaced, with significantly reduced fuel consumption. I imagine your 1982 Trans Am must have a fairly nice sound if it still retains the dual-resonator exhaust setup. I think those years still used a pellet-style catalytic converter and you could get away with such a stupidly unmuffled exhaust setup due to the converter. That would never pass regulation on my 1987 GTA, LOL!
As a licensed dealer for 20 years, I went back into my inventory and searched Corvettes of this era and we turned 16 of them through our inventory. Those vehicles were 20-25 years of age when they were sold. None of them had any type of significant issues and according to my records on each vehicle, three of them required throttle body rebuild/reseal kits, two needed intake manifold gaskets and one needed a throttle position sensor. Other than oil leaks and other maintenance, that was it. We made money on each of them, the high profit was $8,700 and the low was $4,400. I'd hardly agree that these are among the "worst engines of all time". Nonetheless, the theater here is great.
Just one more thing. Great video and info👍 Ironically, Pontiac Motor Division was supposed to be General Motors performance division. In the early 80s the cliché was, “We build Excitement!” Obviously not with only 165 hp, and then you have to baby it or the grenade will explode, 😂 I purchased a brand new 1993 Forest Green Trans Am with the 5.7 L Tuned-Port injected motor. That engine was literally junk. I had issues that would've been similar to vapor locks in the 60s and 70s. Long crank times, and half the time, it never idled correctly, and when you opened the gas cap, it sounded like high pressure air coming out of a balloon. Ironically the vehicle was stolen (and used in a high-speed chase). Subsequently (with the insurance) I bought a Mitsubishi Eclipse. Happy ending😉
Had a first year Eclipse. Nothing but fond memories, what a tight car. Miss the Mitsu brane that once was. That was my Japanese epiphany back in 1990. Never looked back😉
I have a an all original 126,000 mile 84 vette with its original crossfire and I daily drove all last summer. It didn't give me any lip. Ran great and I got better than 17 mpg on city driving.
@@ErikDB6 then why were they bad if adam' s explanation is wrong. He got the explanation of one of the issues right from an engineer's, who worked on the project, mouth. That seems pretty credible to me.
As for the "Engineering" of this new model F-body ... AMAZING !!! Any manufacturer can take metal and produce a car. It took real engineering to take cardboard & plastic and produce these Cameros / Firebirds!
I usually can't watch best of, worst of videos most are click bait hatchet jobs. You did a great job explaining the short comings of the CFI by making good points and backed them up with knowledge and experience
"Feedback controlled" puts it ahead of the previous 85 years of engines Adam. It also had early obd diagnostics. We've found that those who don't understand how it works are the ones that hate it. This is a repeat of history the Rochester mechanical injection released in 1957. Those who hated it and couldn't understand it's superior system either, and simply downgraded it to a carburetor. Very sad.
I see what you're saying, but not everybody that buys a car wants to "understand it". Most people just want it to work correctly and not be costly to own and maintain. Needing to understand it usually means that it's giving the owner problems.
@@ErikDB6 That's true, you are right, but I think this video is about if you bought one of these things when they were pretty new. There was no internet, nobody really had a lot of experience with repairing them then. Now there's lots of information out there about them that just didn't exist back then.
My first car was a 1983 Z/28 Crossfire. It was a great car. I never had any issues with it. It had theses cool hood flaps that opened wide on full throttle. I wish I still had it. Everything was slow in 1983. F bodies were everywhere in the mid 80's. Everybody wanted one.
Gms are superior to fords and chrysler in every way. I have a '98 Safari with 248,000 runs like a top and I smoke kids in little fart pipe cars all the time. My '73 impala has only had the engine changed to a mild stroker and regular maintenance , it drives like a new car.
@ronin rolling tracking devices . And they will rat on you with their black box. No thanks, I'm a very competent mechanic newest I'd ever own is 2000 before they were made tracking devices .
@ronin when the air bags deploy the blackbox records rpm,throttle position , brake usage, pretty much every metric the ecm knows. Those WILL BE USED AGAINST YOU IN A COURT OF LAW. The second is ofc an opinion, but I've been wrenching on cars since '83 bought and sold more cars than I can remember and ford straight up sucks. Dodge and Chrysler are fine but hunting parts ain't my favorite hobby. Can't believe you didn't know your car will rat you out, folk that. I've built at least 20 motors without a failure and inside engines is where you really see that ford sucks. Ford has a team that goes to junkyards and see which parts last so they can redesign them cheaper . They started that when Henry was still in charge. If you hear nothing else hear this, madmen and small children always speak the truth.
Great channel! Really appreciate your knowledge and clear understandable delivery. Well done! And so far have not disagreed with a single one of your program points.
probably a bad motor mount . when it runs right and ya rev it up and it actually makes power...... mount flexes (or is tore) engine lifts up.... usually only stops when it hits the hood.... which pins the linkage . . if you put it into neutral and the RPMs drop its a motor mount almost 99.99% . if RPMs stay high...... stuck cable or carb linkage binding, stuff like that
Or, you could drop in a sales pitch "typical of a vehicle only driven by an old lady to church on Sundays". My mom bought a 5yo '83 Mercedes 380SE from another old lady and idled around in city traffic in that thing for 15 years before selling it to me for cheap "because it was too big". Always serviced on time & looked after, however the plugs would periodically foul-up because she was just idling around that V8 without ever giving it much throttle. Anyway, as soon as I got my hands on it I gave it the beans and the throttle stuck wide open at 6500 RPM & I had to kill the ignition and coast over to the kerb. Checked out the throttle linkage and sure enough; the cable had stuck because it had never been opened more than 1/3 throttle by the old women that had been driving it, causing the linkage to jam because that portion of it had never been used in 20 years. After a good clean & lube lube and several repeated WOT events it came good.
We lost the 301 4.9 L turbocharged V8 for that. We could have had Firebirds with EFI turbo V8's ahead of the curve, but we had to get that Chevrolet garbage
I have a 1982 trans am with the LU5 84K on the clock and I tell you keeping the fuel system CLEAN and ALL TBI gaskets new and replace ANY crack VAC lines make a HUGE difference !!
Speaking of flex, I️ believe that most of the basic structure of the 4th Gen f-bodies from somewhere around the drivers seat back was a carryover from the 3rd generation, even though they aesthetically are markedly different.
You are correct. I purchased a used 1985 Corvette (in 1992) and it was a hobby car for me. The 1985 had the Tuned Port Injection and I think 230 horses with a 350cid. Never a problem with the 1985 and I traded for a new 2001 hardtop Corvette. The 1984 Vettes were called 'ceasefire injection' back in the day. I have seen a few over the years. We knew back then the Crossfire was a poor design. My GF purchased a 1983 Cadillac with the 4100 engine. It was known at the Cadillac dealership the mismanagement of metal alloys in the engine was bad engineering. She had that thing for 6 months and it mysteriously disappeared (friends in high and low places took care of that). Leaked oil terribly. My driveway has Toyota vehicles now. Bought my first Camry in 2003 and drove 300K miles for business and I bought two more and a Honda. Never an issue with those vehicles. I remember a 1982 Silverado 1/2 ton with the 305 cid engine (carbed) I purchased new. It was my ultimate POS. To stay on-point you are correct about those crossfire units. Glad it is 2022 with great engines available today. I have three i'm building now. A 327, 454, and just finished a 428 Cobra Jet. My retirement years are fun.
By experience I became a very good mechanic on these. I was also a computer nerd and worked with Colorado School of Mines. We found how to run methanol. Ask me about open/closed loop. BTW they sucked in water with those hoods and air cleaners. In addition I lost vs GM on a Lemon Law case....
I’ve been building, restoring, and daily driving CFI cars for almost 30 years. They’re an extremely simple system, and very reliable. The 6026 ECM of the 83-84 cars was a much better unit than the 5055 of the 82 cars. My current daily is an 83 LU5 T/A. I ported the base, and did the typical thirdgen stuff; L98 manifolds and y-pipe, and a 3” catback, 3.73s, 13psi fuel pressure, stock cam. The car runs 14.40s, gets 17mpg city, and 26mpg hwy. The best thing I have done was to ditch the 6026 in favor of an 8746. I have driven literally hundreds of thousands of miles in CFI cars. I have NEVER had a single CFI specific problem. The TBs are easy to sync, and can be done in less than 20 minutes. They weren’t meant to be a high horse setup, and the ECMs of the day were horrible. However, with very little work they wake right up and run very respectable. @14:25; you’re dead wrong about the arrival of the L69. The L69 was introduced mid-year 1983, and was rated at 190 horse. It was produced in the F-bodies from 1983-1986, but was only available with MM5 in 1983, 1985, and 1986. 1984 was the only year you could get an L69 equipped f-body with MD8. The L69 long block is identical to the LU5 with the exception of the induction. The LU5 did use the 14088839 cam, whereas the L69 used the 14088843 cam. Very little difference between the two. The main difference between the LU5 cars and the L69 cars is the exhaust and gears. The LU5 used the LG4 exhaust, with the N10 dual resonator exhaust, while the L69 used larger 2.25” outlet manifolds, larger y-pipe, corvette monolith cat, and a 2.75” I-pipe into a transverse muffler. Put the L69 exhaust and gears into an LU5 car and they run door to door. It was not uncommon to see L69 cars dipping into the 14s back in the day. My 83 LU5 went 16.01, box stock. Exhaust and 3.73s put me to 14.90-15.10, and now it’s running in L98 territory, again; stock cam, and the heads have never been off it.
Those early F-bodies were the worst of the worst. Add those to the X-cars and GM's shitty diesel engines and you see why GM is in the shape they are in now.
Yes, the bean counters took over and they still influence gm today. I mean, who takes their logo an neuters it to lower case letters? Their catering to the woke tik tok crowd. Pathetic...
Yeah, because even GM didn’t have the resources, either engineering or financial, to comply to the contradictory regulations that the government forced on them. They basically had to change every piece on every car, while the Japanese just kept updating the cars they were already building.
@@keithjackson286 Don’t forget the Vega debacle to start the decade. Basically, GM did everything wrong in the 70’s. My Dad owned a 81 Eldorado with the LM7 and that experience is why I don’t own a GM product 41 years later.
GM and the Big 3 fumbled through the mandated emissions problems. Catalytic converters, AIR injection pumps, EGR, and charcoal fuel canisters all had to work together. Import cars still ran leaded gas until 1978. Unfair trade practices killed Detroit.
I had an 82 trans am just like yours with tan interior. Your comments are spot on, even the overlay about the soft camshafts. Mine had a flat cam shaft lobe that made repairs more than the car was worth. Great handling car but weak power train and absolutely atrocious build quality. Worst rattletrap I’ve ever owned and the car only had 60k miles on it when I bought it in 1987.
Hi Adam. I am a GM/Delphi retiree that worked at the plant that built the TBIs, CPI, SCPI, the Multec 1, 2, and 3 port fuel injectors, as well as Bosch port fuel injectors under license. A side story to this story is that our plant was originally built to produce the fuel pump for the Olds diesel. Obviously, that didn’t happen so they moved TBI production from the Diesel Equipment Division plant to that new plant. That move had apparently anger Chuck Gifford, who I think was the plant manager at the Rochester Products plant in Rochester, NY. Of course, RPD was our primary customer, so this caused numerous issues for us over our 1989-2006 existence! Indeed it was speculated that Mr. Gifford was instrumental in the decision to close our plant in 2006.
The photo of a 302 at 5:15 is of one equipped with the experimental canted valve aluminum cylinder heads. According to Smokey Yunick "They weren't worth a damn." He said that they managed to make 450 HP at 6,900 RPM, but they were making 475 to 500 HP with the conventional heads by then. They had really cool looking valve covers though.
Getting into overdrive? C'mon! Like my Harley Fatboy 1450cc, it would slow down when put into 5th gear at 100mph, but it would go 113 in 4th. I have a video here showing what I just described
While working in an automotive machine shop in the late 80s, my co-worker and friend Carl and I took an 82 crossfire Z28 and replaced the anemic 305(5.0L) with a 72 350 +.030 short block with TRW forged flat top pistons that resulted in a compression ratio of approximately 10.3 to 1. We used a set of 69 350 - 300 hp 8947041 heads installed 2.02 intake and 1.60 exhaust valves, screw in studs, guide plates and replaced the exhaust seats with hardened stellite seat inserts and cleaned up the intake and exhaust runners and matched ports @ intake manifold gasket and heads. A Comp Cam 268H cam was chosen, lift was .485/.485 , duration was .218/.218 @ .050. With the original 2.73 rear end ratio and the steep 1st gear in the 700r4 that replaced the 2004r, it was an absolute beast to drive and a barrel of fun. Never got an accurate measured 1/4 mile time, however my step son, who I built the car for at the time said it gave a ZR-1 Vette a good run for its money on I80 west in Pa on his way back to college in Bradford Pa. The car was a tire melting sleeper to the 9th degree. I loved it!
As a young man about 22, I was looking at an '84 Corvette. The salesmen who had a soul told me "You don't want this car son, you won't be happy". God bless that man. He must have had children my age.
Cool. What else Chevrolet did he recommend? I liked the Chevrolet big car for 1984. 1984 Chevrolet Impala, 1984 Chevrolet Caprice Classic, and the 1984 Chevrolet Celebrity too. The Chevrolet 350 is best for the fat Chevrolet. Chevrolet 60 degree V6 was pretty good with HO or standard. Celebrity used V6. The fat Chevrolet did fine with Chevrolet 90 degree V6 or Chevrolet small block V8. However, they were slow machines. However, it was cool that you checked out the new Corvette for 1984. My family got a dog for 1984. The 1984 Dodge Caravan. It was a dog. First 2 years was a lemon. After 2 years, it was more reliable. Still a dog, though after spending $2000 in repairs. In 1980s money.
A wise man.
@@bryantint1339 that 2.8L 60 degree turned into the 3100, 3400, 3500, and 3900 engines
ive got a 3.1 with 325,000 miles on it.... lifter/rocker ticks till it gets warm, but still runs great
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LIMs at 180k..... then LIMs again at 300k because the head gasket went
now i have a timing cover leak....... leaking coolant
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i have two 400 SBCs..... and its better than a 350 in every way
just not gas mileage (unless you change gearing for the added torque)
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a 77 400 out of a K10 will put down 245-265 hp......380-400 foot pounds
removing your heat raisers/intake cross-over, EGR, and adding a bit of initial and mechanical....
it will wake it right up
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the larger 400 bore makes the exact same head (and/or cam) flow just a bit better .... due to "valve unshrouding"
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one is factory original in my 77 K10 silverado (TH400 NP203 full time 4..... its a GAS HOG! but runs PERFECT!)
other is in a 68 impala 2 door hard top......(NOT factory lol..... needs a LOT of work)
@@bryantint1339 a W-body car with a GM 60 degree is the easiest car to work on ever
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if they didnt keep changing the damn plug.... i could of had my fuel pump done in 10 mins
access hatch JUST behind the rear seat (can even reinstall the butt cushion for comfort on the job..... just dont spill)
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water pump takes like 10 mins on the 3100/3400
PS pump is right their..... alternator is on top....
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pretty much EVERYTHING is 5.5, 8, 10, 13, 15, 18, 21, 33 or 35 depending on exact wheel bearing brand
325,000 miles on a 99 buick century.... and im a mechanic
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i know a thing or two..... because ive seen a thing or two
like now my timing cover is leaking coolant.....
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honestly didnt even know that was possible on the 3100
but after thinking about it for 10 seconds..... ya, the "divorced" (aka easy to change) water pump.... gotta get coolant from somewhere
and looking at the gasket kit.... which includes 2.8 parts....
the block is just a v6 SBC.... with tiny little main cross bolts
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the gasket for the 2.8 is for a "center" mounted water pump, like on a 350
they just moved it to the top right on the 3100/3400
I remember going to swap meets in the 90’s and seeing these systems sitting in cardboard boxes for dirt cheap. People called them “Missfire Injection.”
My brother was a mechanic and referred to it as the ceasefire.
Old simple technology gets everyone flustered , Hilarious
@@cswango1714it did have issues though.
@@cswango1714 You nailed it.
Because people didn't know how to work on them, mechanics included. Electronic fuel injection was seen as voodoo.
I was a Chevrolet dealership tech when these came out,we called them cross flood or cease fire injection.Boy we had some bad products back then.
Me too bud. Also,, diagnostics were horrible back then so you had to experiment and figure it out for yourself mainly. Learned a lot though. I remember our scanner: The Tech 1: Truly awful! Car's computer was about 10 times faster than what that scanner could read.
GM still does!
In 1982, I ordered a Z28 Camaro with this exact engine. At the time, it was difficult for me to choose between the Z28 and Trans Am as I loved the styling on both these vehicles. The Cross-Fire Injection in my Z28 worked flawlessly during my ownership. Sometimes I think I got the only one that ever worked as GM intended.
As you state, the 305 was not a powerful V8 engine. I did order my Z28 with the optional 3:23 “performance” rear axle ratio. That 305 needed all the torque multiplication it could get.
While these vehicles had utterly unremarkable acceleration with the 305, both the Trans Am and Z28 had fantastic handling characteristics for the time. Especially for a completely stock GM vehicle. I amazed myself numerous times on how hard I could push that Z28 Camaro through curves!
Love the series! Keep up the great work, Adam!
My dad ordered the same Camaro, and hated it so much he returned it and never went back to American vehicles again after he bought a toyota 4x4 pickup and loved the reliability. He just gave in and finally got a Scat Pack 392 Shaker a year ago
Your perspective is based on owning a new car, most of these yahoos were trying to piece together something out of things that had been sitting or abandoned thirty years ago, without the benefit of any product familiarity or technical expertise whatsoever. That Cross-Fire system was nearly flawless in daily operation, it just wasn't a high-performance unit.
Long runner intakes are terrible for high RPM engines. The longer the runners (within reason) the more you encourage low end torque.
True with these engines were terrible for revving anyway. If you went above about 5000 RPM you risk having your inside parts become outside parts
Also 750cfm is way too much for an engine this size and HP 470cfm is plenty. These were low performance engines due to having to meet mileage and pollution targets.
I was surprised Adam said that.
He’s accurate 98% of the time.
APPARENTLY, you have not seen the Holley Sky Ram intake. UA-cam only. Lol
This is correct. It was a terrible system, but not because of the runner length
As an owner of a daily driven 84 corvette, I haven't really had any problems with the crossfire setup. I mostly do the work on the car myself and it's actually a fun learning experience. Going off the engine specs, the CFI is actually a pretty high performance engine of it time. Its just that the crazy restrictive intake manifold kills a ton of power. I honestly think that GM never gave the engine a chance to prove itself and to iron out the main issues in its short 3 year life span
Actually the cross fire 350 had more horsepower potential than the one that replaced it. It was purposefully strangled to make the next engine more desirable. The intake is the problem but can be fixed with a process called extrude honing. I think you can buy a intake that flows much better than the stock, my brother did it to his 84 vette but it was a decade ago at least.
it was called the Renegade intake and yes epa did this I own an 84 Corvette and yes I yanked the engine out and when I tore it apart guess what it had hog trough one valve relief forged pistons in that bad boy just an Edelbrock intake and a carburetor it made more horsepower than any vet alone until lt1 300 hp in a 3088 lb
I can tell you from personal experience since I owned a 82’ Vette for 12 yrs and yes when I first bought it the CFI had lots of issues. But.. I was on a quest to fully understand and make it the best it could be. First off from what I read when the CFI came out in 82 the were developing the TPI and the CFI was making more power so they closed off a 1/3 of the intake ports to reduce power. I spent a week porting the stock intake and it was a huge seat of the pants difference and pulled hard to redline. Yes had vacuum leaks and had to replace the bushings then had to balance the TBIs. Once done it ran and idled great. I averaged 18 mpg and my foot was on the floor quite a bit. Shortly after this there was a company in AZ that developed the new Renegade intake that had proven dyno numbers of 30 rear wheel hp. I was one of the first 10 customers that installed one for R&D. Another drawback was the ECU, it was extremely slow 64 bps but I had piggybacked a ECU from a 88 Z-28 and also made a world of difference. At this point I pulled the engine for a freshen up and installed Edelbrock heads and a Comp cam along with new bored tbs. Was able to dyno it it Chicago and had 423 rear wheel hp so for all the people out there that say these motors can’t make power not so. I sold that car four years ago and a gentleman at the gas station one Sunday asked if I would be willing to sell it and told him everything is for sale kidding around. Well he gave me a offer I couldn’t refuse and he took delivery that Tuesday. I still have that original intake that I ported and would wake up any 305 or 350.
good job
At the age this CFI system is now, if you plan to use the car there's no shame in removing the original pieces, putting them in a safe place and putting in something like a non-invasive Holley system. It's best to have it all locked away in a safe place for reinstallation when it comes time to sell the car. Those parts are getting too hard to get and unfortunately everyone what's the OEM stuff still on the car, no matter how awful it was
I will agree with most of what you said, but you are entirely wrong on why they shrank the intake ports. If GM didn't want an engine to make more power then an upcoming engine, they simply lied. Take the 1996 LT4 vs the 1997 LS1 as an example. They advertised a 360hp engine as 330hp to make the upcoming 345hp engine look better.
Back to the Cross Fire, they made an engineering decision based on marketing, and they were stuck with it before they realized how bad it was. The Cross Fire was supposed to be reminiscent of the old Z/28 cross ram intake. The problem is that that 302 is a 7000rpm racing engine with two 4bbl carburetors, a huge camshaft, and no emissions or fuel economy requirements. The 1982 Corvette had 2.87 rear gears, 0.7 overdrive, and 27" tall tires in an era of 55mph federal speed limits, meaning the engine had to chug along happily at 1400rpm on the highway. It simply couldn't meet emissions and fuel economy requirements as designed, and they were in too deep to change course. The intake ports were shrunk to increase velocity so the fuel didn't drop out of the air at low speed and load. The loss of top-end power was an unwanted side-effect.
Now that we're in an era of 70mph+ speed limits, and we can install whatever rear gears we want, the main design flaw is easily overcome. My '82 Corvette has the intake ported to full-size, and the rear gears are swapped to 4.09. I don't need to worry about what's happening at 1400rpm anymore. Additionally, it has Dart heads, a slightly larger Howard's camshaft, Comp Cams 1.6 rocker arms, oversized throttle bodies, external fuel pressure regulator, Hooker headers, 2.5" exhaust, and a 1984 Corvette ECM. Next, I'm going to upgrade to a 1991 TBI ECM from a Caprice to gain an air temperature sensor for more consistent performance, and I'll replumb for a single idle air control at the same time. I'm also considering going to 3.73 or 3.54 gears, because the 3.06 first gear is useless with the 4.09 gears.
Where is Mr. Rare Classic Cars & Automotive History? Come over for a drive. You'll like it a lot better, and don't be so scared of your TH200C. It's the TH200 from the late '70s that's total junk. The TH200C isn't a great transmission, but my '87 Cutlass was still going strong at 140,000 miles when I swapped the engine and a TH350C.
I had began on a flat top plate and porting to replace the 2 tbi with 2 600cfm Holley carbs and there wasn't a good choice in head and cam profile that I thought would work right, so I never completed it. I think the top plate is still laying around somewhere
How did you make it run on the later z28 ecu? Please and thank you.
This ‘down-in-the-weeds’ detail is so well presented. It’s never boring and my attention never wavers. Great job.
I have a great story about an 84 Corvette with the crossfire. In the mid 90s my buddy had the 84 Vette. I had a 91 Ford Taurus SHO (still own a low mile 92) Yamaha built V6, 5 speed. You being a car guy I’m sure you know about them. My buddy gave me a ride in that vette. To say the least, I was not impressed. I told him “ my Taurus would smoke this thing.” He laughed. We lined them up down a road we’d go to drink. Called it Vampire graveyard (don’t know why. Stupid” anyways, we line up, I burn the damn tires off it in first through second, trying to control the wicked torque steer. Once I got traction, I embarrassed him. In front of 20 people. I put well over 200k miles on that car. Extremely hard miles. I gave it away about 8 years ago.
those SHO Tauruses could boogie, that's for sure! even stock, i love the exhaust note they make.
Those SHO's where really good sleepers I've always wanted one with a 5 speed
Yea they were a cool car with the 5 speed but not super fun to work on
@@4playpowerful heck I didn't even know they were available with a 5 speed. that's awesome!
@@mdotguy That is all the first gen had as they did not make an automatic that could handle the power. Ford did this with many of their 80s performance vehicles. Most of the time if it had an auto it had a lower rated horsepower than the manuals.
Thanks again Adam. Yes there have been a number engineering fumbles over the years. These cross fires were indeed available at many meets for little money but I have actually never actually seen anyone take one of these and install them into a project hot rod.
I still don’t understand why the cross-fire engines are still getting a bad wrap. I’ve owned two cars with cross-fire engines. Both were very reliable, and ran perfectly. A 1982 Camaro Z/28, and a 1984 C4 Corvette. I still own the Vette, and in runs great.
People are ignorant Frank. Most have zero knowledge of cross fire
You got lucky, it's all I can say.
Cuz it’s a 🦮
@@danielsteward5090guess I got lucky as well lol
Mine runs goid pulls strong@@CallforthePriest
I have a 84 corvette and it had some issues at first from sitting in a garage for so long but after fixing the fuel system and rebuilding the injectors it runs great! The car to this day has 27,000 mi on it and is all stock and I plan to keep it that way because every 84 vette I have seen is destroyed and although it doesn't have the most power among other things it is still a cool car that I and I'm sure others love so just drive it for what it is and take care of it
How long did the car sit up? I just bought a 84 that sat up for 25 years and only has 6K miles, it runs good but has a slight stumble/miss off idle even after a full tune up, plugs, wires & coil.
Keeping the era in context , the 84 corvette was almost blistering fast for the time . 0 to 60 in 6.8 seconds … a lot better than a chunk of the 70s models .
The TBI system ended up being very reliable though .
I think a V6 Buick Grand National is faster...
@SH00T TH3PUMP The 84 GN wasn’t faster than the 84 Corvette, but the 86 GN was
My toyota tundra pulls 0-60 in 5.9 seconds lmao.... thats with over 1000lb of tools in the back, ive beat jeeps, ford and chevy trucks, bmw. I know they aren't comparable but its just weird to think my work truck is faster than a corvette of any year
@@rjmac3001 no it doesn't. Even the twin turbo 3.5 in the brand new tundra is just capable of 6 seconds flat.
@@rjmac3001 3.5 ecoboost will pull on you every time especially with the 10 speed
In the Cease Fire engines defense, the short block is pretty nice. My son bought an '84 Vette with a rod knocking. We pulled it apart to fix it, and it had a windage tray, steel crank, X rods, and true flat top pistons! The rest of the engine is garbage.
GM ditched it after 2 years. They NEVER ditch anything that quickly unless it's unmitigated garbage. 'Nuff said. Great video, sir, as always!
Actually those throttle bodies were used on many GM cars of that era so they have been around a long time. All they did was double the system to get them by for the V8 Corvette because the delays in the development of the T.P.I. system which finally came out in 85. Originally the Crossfire wasn't supposed to happen.
@@chickenjo23 granted they used throttle body but lost the cross fire intake manifold.
@@douglasb.1203 That’s because they didn’t need it anymore. The TPI was available for performance applications, and there just wasn’t a need for a performance TBI setup anymore.
Dead wrong. It was a time of great change and development, and there were a lot of engine packages that only lasted a year or two at the time.
True! They usually wait to get all the kinks worked out, then cancel it!
You really got it wrong on the runner lengths. Longer runners are good for lower rpms and short runners for higher rpms. It's all about the pulses that are generated by the valve events and the pistons creating high and low pressure areas. There are specific rpms that these pulses tune to and will create a ram effect down the intake runner. That is why you have variable intake runner lengths now. At low rpms they use the very long runners and high rpms it will switch over to very short runners.
The pooling of the fuel or the fuel falling out of suspension is more of the extremely large plenum area that's inherent on an intake like this. It has nothing to do with the runner length.
Solid explanation
Thinking of my VW Mk4 vr6 intake changeover rod as he spoke, they had a long/short runner setup and a rod to move flaps to change between runners.
I know every other tbi intake design by GM have very small plenum, the tbi v8s has those awful swirl port heads.
I'm wonder where he is getting his info from cause he has made some basic errors in other videos. In another video he didn't even know that Pontiac never had a big block
@@jerrycann6374To keep things in perspective, remember this is the hipster wannabe car collector channel.
I was a Chevrolet Service Advisor in the late 70's to mid 80's and we were inundated with what we dubbed 'Crossfire Infection' issues. Your analysis is spot on. Then I went to Cadillac for the glorious HT4100 and 'downsizing' era...
Short runners are known for performance for high rpms, low rpm driveability and torque is what long runner are for.
Yeah, he’s got this backwards. Long runner is great for the street, which Im sure contributes to the low peak power.
My family owns an 82 Vette with the Crossfire. My uncle bought it from the original owner when it only had 2000 something miles. It now sits with 4000 something miles and still is beautiful. It’s a Time Capsule that’s in storage and is waiting to see summer this year. I’ll be driving it around soon and I’m very excited.
My dad had an 84 Corvette and loved the engine. The crossfire injection was his favorite part because it looked kind of like an old Mopar Max Wedge cross-ram manifold. Never had any complaints about performance or economy or anything. The one nightmare was getting it to pass Oregon emissions. That thing just utterly refused to get past the DEQ station most of the time.
We have emissions tests? Whole state or is it just around Portland like I think it is?
@@thespacedpirate Depends on the county. We were in SE Portland at the time, so we had to deal with it.
I have owned an 1984 Corvette Z51 since 1990 (32 years) and no problems with crossfire injection at all. Only changed plugs, wires and cap a few times along with a rad, water pump, ac compressor and coolant hoses. I still have original exhaust and change all fluids regularly. Not bad for a 38 year old summer car that looks and sounds good and gets lots of attention and decent gas mileage.
I had a 1984 corvette for a long time, I really liked it, those throttle bodys are the same ones the 4 cylinder cars had and they were very dependable and simple to diagnose and repair, yes the intake does not flow well, I got power for mine by milling the heads 40 thousands and some port work, 1.6 rockers and a 10 pound nitrous bottle, the injectors are pulse width modulated by the pcm I just wired the ground to the nitrous switch so they were wide open did not run any fuel lines, just had to find the correct nozzle it worked great, it was faster than the tuned port cars and got 26 mpg on the highway, the nitrous makes the bad intake design a non issue, so the rare times you really want that power it is there
I bought a 1982 TransAm in August of 1982 from Tabor Pontiac in Atlanta. It was black with gold trim, W6 suspension, crossfire TBI with cowl air induction, Recaro seats, and T-tops. It had a faulty temperature gauge that would read hot when it was normal. Front hubcaps would come loose from turbine wheels. $16,000 in 1982...
You just described my best friend's experience of his 1982 Z/28 he purchased in 1990. When he was in college in 1995, it was replaced by his grampa's 1982 El Camino.
I was a GM tech and I became alarmed when I learned that GM did R&D on the road using the customer as a test driver, for example they had 8 different brake systems on one car model with the plan of using the one with the least problems the next year of production and ditching the other 7 systems. that was in the late 80s I hope they are better now.
Which is why you should never buy the first year of any new generation of a GM car. I typically try to buy the last year of any generation, by then, GM has all the bugs worked out and perfected the design of the car. You'll know when GM has perfected a car.........they kill it the very next rear and replace it with something with a ton of quality and engineering issues.
I had a 84 trans am but it had quadrajet wit offset functional hoodscoop .That car ran great for a 5 liter and give me 200k fairly trouble free ,such as fuel pump and water pump . I sold it to a guy that put another 100k on it and he had to put a cam in it after it wiped some lobes,and the mild street came woke it up considerably.
When compared to the mid 70s L48s the L83 was a barnburner. One thing to look at on the cfi engines that run rich is the engine coolant temp sensor, the early ones were very troublesome and wouldn't give the right readings to the ecm. GM updated them by 85, I changed a few ect sensors and pigtails when I started out as a mechanic in the early 90s. Also check for vacuum leaks and bad ecm grounds (back of pass side head).
But compared to the L82 that the L83 replaced, it was not a barn burner.
@@corvettejohn4507 but the L83 was standard.
I worked on many "Cease fire" injection systems as i have been a GM dealership tech for over 30 years. And every single thing he mentions is absolutely true. You also needed a special "manometer" to synch the throttle bodies or you would have tremendous hesitation problems. A good friend used to drag race his 1984 Corvette and we changed the cam, swapped the heads for TPI "canted valve" heads, opened the intake ports (which were more like half ports), had a custom chip, headers, HP coil & cranked up the fuel pressure. It ran 15.20's because it still ran out of breath at 4,000 RPM: Then, we just put an Edelbrock carb and intake and a vacuum advance HEI - The car did 14.10's easily and from there, we just kept adding things. By the way, All the car companies struggled in the late 70's, early 80's: Ford & Chrysler had no better systems!
Datsun and their 280ZX turbo sure did. I loved finding mustangs and camaros of the era that thought that they were hot stuff. Showed them my tail lights every time.
@@gurnblanston3210 stock maybe but who said mine was stock?
A “special” manometer? There’s nothing special about an manometer. I use an old Dwyer, but I have made them for less that $5. Clear tubing and a yardstick. As far as the minimum air adjustment and syncing the TBs, it is LITERALLY a 10 minute job, and should not have to be done until the TBs need to be bushed (which is common on ANY high mileage TB). I made a video on my channel that details the TB procedure. I have been daily driving CFI cars for almost 30 years. I’m not at all saying the CFI doesn’t have a list of drawbacks, but they are easily overcome. I’m going 14.40s with my 83 LU5 with very basic modifications, and I manage 17mpg city and 26mpg hwy at the moment. People badmouth what they don’t understand. People badmouthed electronic ignition when it came out in the 70s, and many were pulled in favor of a points distributor when a faulty module confused people that had no experience or understanding of them. Just out of curiosity, what “custom chip” did your friend have in his 84? A 6026 ECM can’t be tuned/hacked. A 7747 or 8746 can, so unless he repinned a newer ECM in the car like I did, he more than likely had an off the shelf Hypershit PROM or equivalent, which usually run worse than the stock PROM.
I've been coming back to your channel a lot lately. I appreciate the simple, straight forward nature of them as well as the content. I grew up around older BMWs and some other mostly older german cars. My current car is 1994 jeep grand cherokee and she's a gem. Really changed my perspective on American cars.
Your '94 prolly has the first Magnum 360" engine with good power and MPG... '93 and earlier were horrendous 9 MPG city and 11 MPG hiway!
Car Wizard needs to comment on this vid! Hes a huge cross fire vindicate!
Back in 1990, I took a '83 Camaro with a 305 CFI, ported the intake to match the heads on a 383 SB as a sleeper. It was a great sleeper with monster torque! I also replaced the ROM chip with a Corvette 5.7 L chip. I had to port the hell out of the intake to balance it. I went with an aftermarket TBI, with a Turbo 400 trans and 3.73 rear gears.
A guy I worked for specifically worked on these cross injection systems. He says turn up the PSI on the regulator to 12 for daily driving and they're smooth as butter. Performance or boost turn it to 15 - 17. I think a little more thought into the intake runners would of helped the most.
Do you think every Corvette owner is a mechanic and can do that with simple tools and minor mechanical knowledge,didn't they even have the air/fuel mix capped,and what would raising the fuel pressure up do to the emissions when you went through inspection.
@@duster71 Actually it can be done with “simple tools”, and you don’t need to be an ASE Master tech to adjust the fuel pressure. Bumping the fuel pressure does make a HUGE difference in the behavior of the car. As far as emissions, once in closed loop, it is kept at a stoich 14.7:1. GM “recommends” 9-13psi for a stock application. Most of the untouched ones I have checked are in the 8-9psi neighborhood.
@joesfoxbodyandmusclecargarage so how do you turn up the fuel pressure?
That picture of your 1982 Firebird brought back memories of my very first new car purchase right out of college, which was a 1985 Trans Am, two tone paint, dark blue with silver paint around the bottom edge of the car, T-tops, cloth seats. It had the 305 HO, 4bbl carb, which was 180 HP. I put 120,000 miles on it with only problem was the transmission governor and the front brakes kept wearing out too quickly. That car gave me a lot of good times.
If you believe long run wet runners are best for high rpm power, why is a single plane manifold with short runners better than a dual plane in high rpm racing? I think the long runners might be another part of why the Cross Fire hits the wall so soon. This was also true of the long ram TPI that replaced it in the Corvette.
You are correct. Richard Holdener has shown this repeatedly on the engine dyno. His UA-cam channel is a great place to learn about this stuff.
On a street engine or even a mild perf build a long runner is good for low end torque and short runners are good for higher end torque. Look at ford's, they love dual runner manifolds in the 2000's. All the perf engines that didn't use a m90 Eaton used long to short switching manifolds.
Chevy made up for the crossfire with the tuned port injected 350 in 85.
@@dcdanger6151 sort of. It still had it's drawbacks
@@robsorgdrager8477 Yes but you have to give them style points for cool looking intakes.
I am so thankful for your videos ! I can't explain it but learning about all of these issues, features, and general information on these vehicles I cherished as a kid - is very satisfying !!
Had a friend of mine who owned the ‘84 Vette and let me drive it once. If memory serves me correct about that car, cross fire injection wasn’t the only major complaint about that car. It was the kidney crushing ride quality that got softened in ‘85.
I have the base 84 suspension and yeah even it is rough but new shocks and tires made a big difference. Sticks like glue.
Have an '82 Vette with 55,000 miles I bought in 2011 to flip. Haven't gotten around to flipping it and hardly ever drive it, but it starts right up after sitting for months at a time. Haven't experienced any of the gremlins mentioned.....yet.
I remember as a little kid when the '82 F-bodies and '84 Corvette came out. I thought they were some of the most gorgeous cars I had ever seen. I would stare at them on the covers of automotive magazines for what seemed like hours. Too bad about the early quality issues.
I remember falling in love with the new Camaros z-28.....looking at them in magazines . I was old enough to buy a new one and it was nothing but a POS. Lot's of problems early on with the transmission, windshield wipers would stop working in the rain, just a rolling bucket of problems. T-tops leaked like a tin can full of holes.
It's like you reached into my brain to create this video. I have an CFI '82 T/A, just like yours, only mine is white with a maroon interior. Dream car since I was a kid watching Knight Rider reruns. Found it for what felt like a steal in 2014. Suffice to say I have, through sheer necessity, become an expert on the electronics that govern the Crossfire system. I swapped a 350 into mine when the original 305 overheated blew some seals and warped the intake... elected to keep the crossfire to preserve originality at car shows. I made it a little higher compression with aftermarket pistons, threw a little hotter cam in it with some stiffer valve springs, opened up and ported the CFI intake, gave it a decent exhaust, and ended up replacing the ECU with a Megasquirt system and wide-band O2 sensor, so now I've got endless tuning possibilities to try and overcome some of these design flaws while keeping everything LOOKING mostly stock -- I'd be lying to you if I said that I've truly "woken up" the setup or reached its true potential, but it makes a great noise and can chirp the tires if I ask it to. My only regret is that I didn't swap to a 700r4 when I had the drivetrain out. Your comment on the th200 is spot-on, what a dog! ... but if I want to go fast I've got other cars.
The Crossfire sure had a cool engine cover. I believe it was cast magnesium.
It was and is definitely cool
On the 84 L83 C4, yes. On The 82-83 LU5, and 82 L83, it was stamped steel.
A great review. Watching the cross-fire injection in action back in the 80s remains unforgettable.
I have owned two of these, When they are set up properly they run good and return good fuel mileage. the problems show up when someone who should not be under the hood touches it and it goes downhill from there.
I was working at Maroone Chevrolet when the "Cross-Failure" injection came out and it got my full attention as I was a Corvette specialist and drivability specialist, the only one at the dealership. I was tasked with retrofitting the corvettes with tuned port injection starting in 84' ,(wiring harness,computer, fuel pump and all other needed parts.) I was doing 2-3 a week when we stopped retrofitting the Corvettes.
Do a video on the 82! 👍
Waiting for a decent day! It has been a long time coming.
These videos are just amazing. It is great that you are sharing your real world experience. Even with these problems your enthusiasm for your Firebird still comes through.
You're correct on the fuel pooling. My buddy had an 83. He had really hard starts hot. It would foul plugs and o2 once a week. He fought with it for 4 yrs( so did the dealer) and bought an 87 T/A 5.0 tpi with the 5 speed, cuz he swore off GM auto transmissions. Fun fact, the dealer wouldn't take the 83 on a trade in! He had to sell it privately!
There is no 83
@@kdsboosted4954 No 83 Vette, but I think Adam meant 83 TA.
@@greggc8088 your probably right
There is no 83 vette
@@kenfrievalt7826 - I think there were about a half dozen '83 Vettes...
I've had 1983 Z/28 Crossfire car for over 30 years. It's my first car. I used to commute back and forth from Phoenix to ABQ. I was getting 20+ mpg on the highway about 15 or so in town. I have problems with the engine itself, but I went through two 700R4s.
Nothing wrong with the Crossfire system if you actually study how the system works. Turn up the fuel pressure to 15psi with the regulator which most the time the factory set them at 9psi which is not enough to operate the system correctly especially after they have aged. I've owned 3 of them and all ended up being very reliable and ran smoothly. My 82 Collectors Edition and 84 Corvette I owned got great highway mileage.
I call bullshit.
So every owner has to be a knowledgeable mechanic? Corvettes wer junk after 67,the door panel ripped from their attaching points,the driver seats would tear up within 20,000 miles,brakes were always a problem,I'm not talking just about mine,I owned 4 77-80,but everybodies.Id rather own a 69 Dodge Dart slant 6 with a bench seat than any Covette after 67.Sounds like this guy knows all about the problems with the Crossfire.
@@duster71 you're a real Mopar guy🙂yep a valiant with a 340 is pretty good. Even a 170 is all right.
@@duster71 if you don't like it buy new car
I heard that you could make the ones in Corvettes work well... not the 305 in the F-bodies tho
The crossfire were doing fine in the warm climates like Arizona, but in the north in winter time, good luck
My good friends dad has one of these cross fire corvettes. He bought it on the cheap because the cross fire wasnt working but since he is an ex air force mechanic he got it back running pretty easily. Ive driven it, definitely not fast but torquey enough to break the wheels loose...looks cool too. I think its an 82 Vette.
I don't care if they are slow, they are soooo sexy and still enough torque for a good time!
@Shawn 🏴☠️ Stafford it is kind of a tan pewter color with silver accents on parts of the hood and other areas. So yeah, i guess.
Great summary. I can totally relate. I had an ‘83 Trans-Am with the turbine wheels. Got rid of it for an ‘86 with the tuned port. I now have an ‘82 Vette also with the crossfire that I’ve owned since ‘90. It has 16,000 miles on it. Runs well except when it’s cold, for the first 2-3 minutes it idles like it has a wild cam in it. After those few minutes, the mixture get adjusted and it runs smooth as silk. Crazy!!
These engines were built at GM Powertrain plant in Flint, MI. We referred to them as "Cease Fire".
My Dad bought a new '84 Corvette in April of 1983. I got to drive this car a lot. It actually got 22-24mpg on the highway. I also topped it out at 130mph. It had the Z51 handling package and man, could that car handle the twisties.
It actually did over 140 mph! Impressive speed for 1983.
Idk. I’m a Mopar guy. The Ramchargers. A group of Chrysler engineers were the first to experiment with the “ram” effect on normally aspirated engines. On the big block Chrysler the long ram was good for low end torque, and wasn’t very good above 4500 rpm. The Max Wedge and later the Hemi utilized the short ram for 6500 rpm. I think the “cross fire” was just a restrictive design.
The Chrysler cross ram had two designs, 30" for street and the first 15" siamesed tubes to give 15" runners in the race version...
I too loved Knight Rider (Im 52). When I turned 16 I bought a lease return GTA from the LA Auto Auction, 305 TPI auto (due to the T-Tops). The car was beautiful (Gray, gold BBS wheels, orange digital everything, total showroom glitter) and a perfect pile of junk. In the 80's (Valley) every home had an F-Body in the driveway because somebody worked at the Van Nuys plant and got the employee discount. My High School (El Camino) was full of them, Firebirds, IROCs, Z28''s, TAs... The design flaws were ridiculous. You turn too fast and the gas moves to one side of the tank and the car stalls. You turn the wheel to max and the front tires grind the wheel wells. The doors had to be realigned every few months (warrantee) due to the swish-cheese body movement... I gave up after six months and ran it back through the same auction. Memories...
Fantastic video overview! My brother and I were looking at an 82 Camaro last night and I tried explaining just what made the Crossfire a disaster...sending this video, you did a much better job explaining it than I could! Honestly this engine is a sad low spot for otherwise really great cars.
I find it ironic that this system was probably the first fuel injected cars many people drove, yet it failed to deliver any of the marketed benefits of fuel injection over a carb- efficiency, power, and reliability.
Likely not the first fuel injected car that most people drove, as the crossfire was a pretty rare, performance car only, option. TBI isn’t as good as port injection, but it’s simple, reliable and works well.
I think the cross fire was a great idea for the day. It complemented the beginning of the new muscle car era beautifully! It had long runners to make power. Again, it had long runners to make more POWER (TORQUE)! You all that are living in the past, are correct. Short runners make more POWER (NOT TORQUE)! Think about it, in 1982 Long Runner's made more POWER (AT THE SEAT OF THE PANTS)!!
Runners of CFI and TPI too long... runners of '92/'93 & on too short... LSX got runners in the middle for better all around power...
I have to disagree with some of your crossfire thoughts. I had an 82 vette and the only time it gave me problems was when the fuel pump went weak. As far as mpgs went, now this was back when the interstate speed limit was 55 so everyone was going 62/65 I consistently got over 27 mpgs on the highway, never hit 28 though. Powerwise they were detuned for the time, ( they all were to meet fuel and emission standards ) and a 2.72 rear end didn't give much off the line. Also I never had an issue with the 700R4 trans.
I don't know how old you are, but I just turned 43, and you look less than 2/3rds my age? Certainly much younger.
So your appreciation, and wealth of knowledge, regarding cars that were already outdated even when I grew up... but loved, is awesome.
You and I are actually not far apart in age.
200 r4s can be built to handle big horse power and they are same length as a turbo 350
Great series and another good video. I agreed with you on the ford 460 as I've had several, but I think these cross fire engines got a bad rap because nobody knew how to work on them at the time. My 84 Corvette runs very nice and how mileage isnt bad.
People need to realize that this was the early years of efi so of course they aren't going to run like something made now but I'm happy with mine.
That being said I'm not using it for daily transportation, as it's now a 38 year old collector car.
All ECM's of this era had problems with the drivers of on/off solenoids they operated and if the resistor in the solenoid went open the resulting 100,000+ volts the coil collapse would send back to the ECM when it commanded the solenoid to turn off would blow the ECM up! So they came out with "Quad Drivers" to dissipate that voltage to protect the ECM.
One other funny thing that showed sometimes cheap engineering would actually incentivize the car companies to do something better was the "speed/density" programming in the PROM chip inside the ECM, and what it caused. Depending on the car, the fuel tables in the PROM (programmable read only memory) would meter a specific amount of fuel to the injector(s) and the parameters it would look at were the speed of the engine, the vacuum in the manifold and the position of the throttle. All of those were keyed to a measurement the ECM took when the key was first turned on. If you turned the key on at, say, Miami Beach, the ECM would use a speed/density table for sea level. If you were in Colorado Springs, which you know has significantly lower air density than Miami because of the altitude, when you started the car, it would use a 6,000 ft altitude table. The ECM would use whatever altitude table it "saw" when the key was first turned on for as long as the ECM was on. Once you turned it off, it would lose that and use whatever table it "saw" the next time you started the car. The sensor used to take this measurement was the same one that was measuring vacuum when the engine was running, the MAP sensor (Manifold Absolute Pressure) and it took it's reading from inside the intake manifold. Key on and engine not running, as when you first turn the key, it took this barometric pressure reading. After the engine was running it was sending a vacuum reading to the ECM.
So if you were in Hays Kansas for instance, (altitude 1000 feet) when you started your trip to Colorado Springs, by the time you got there you'd be trailing a black smoke screen a mile long and smelling rotten eggs because the ECM was dumping too much fuel for the air of 6000 feet. It was using a 1000 ft barometric pressure table. Customers who were still under warranty would pull up in the local GM dealership service drive, turn off the car (fixing the problem BTW), get out and go scream at the service writer, *"I just bought this thing...".*
It didn't take too long for the technicians to school the service writers as to what was up.
*"Whatever you do, DON'T go out there and crank the thing up to confirm the problem. Just write up the warranty ticket and AFTER THEY LEAVE, **_THEN_** get the porter to park the car.*
Of course the technicians knew exactly what to do. The dispatcher would give the ticket to his favorite technician who would write on it, "Connected car to CAMS for diagnostic. No problem found", and get paid 1/2 hour for his handwriting. CAMS stood for Computer Assisted Monitoring System and it was a big cabinet with a CRT touch screen on top and long leads to hook up to the ECM and such.
Of course the bean counters at GM figured out the scam before too long. OH, BTW many customers who were out of warranty were being robbed blind from crooked mechanics over this. But it was GM paying dealerships their hourly rate for the 0.5 hours they were paying the techs every time this happened, *_and it happened a lot,_* that caused the engineers to finally adopt the MAF sensor (Mass Air Flow) and end the days of speed/density fuel management.
A MAF sensor very accurately measures, not just how much air, but how much Oxygen is entering the engine by taking a reading of the static charge Oxygen atoms make as they rub past the wires in the air stream, and is a much better parameter to use than a calculated measurement of air from vacuum, throttle position and RPM.
As an aside, Chrysler used a very simple device to measure how much air was going into the engine from the earliest days of electronic engine controls, and it worked quite well because the amount of Oxygen in the air varies only slightly from say, Chicago to the Amazon rain forest where it's maybe 0.1 percent higher. Chrysler used a little door in the pipe going to the intake manifold that had spring trying to close it and a position sensor to tell the ECM how far open the door is. When the engine was running it would make a vacuum behind the door, opening it against the spring. The wider the door was open, the more air that was entering the engine. It served the same purpose as the much more expensive MAF sensor and did almost as good a job: good enough for the emissions and CAFE standards of the day. I think Chrysler was still using it well into the 2000's.
I've owned several C3 and C4 Corvettes around this time (but no crossfire) and GM was nothing but cheap. They abandoned fuel injection in the 60's in favor of big block engines leaving them nowhere to go in the 70's. Their competitors invested in fuel injection early on and avoided the embarrassing malaise era engine output for the most part. All GM had to do was call Bosch at the time and that would have solved all of the problems. My brother did just buy an '82 Corvette that I made a point to drive. I thought the engine pulled pretty good and close to a L98 down low but just as this video said the party was over at 4000 RPM. Hardly a sports car, but a good cruiser because people do seem to love the shape of C3 Corvettes and it drew a crowd wherever I took it. But on the L98, you can get them running low 13's easily and rev to the moon even with TPI on the stock lower end. ua-cam.com/video/_o2EUVbQh7E/v-deo.html
I bought a brand new 82 Indy pace car Z/28 with a 305 crossfire. Functional hood scoop as I remember. The engine was good however every polyurethane bushing was replaced along with the entire rear axle differential assembly
Many other bugs had to worked out and repaired. After a year I had enough and traded it. It was however at the time a very cool car in my youth
They definitely looked the part.
Oopsy at 5:54 ... runner length tunes the resonant pulses that serve to "ram" the mixture into the cylinder. Think of them as pipe organ tubes... longer tubes means longer wavelengths means lower frequency of resonance means greatest resonance at low RPM. That's why the LT1 (1992+) went with shorter runners to address some of the high RPM breathing issues of the Tuned Port Injection (L98 and LB9) setup, and why engines like the LT5 (the Lotus-influenced ZR-1 of 89-93 (?) ) had twin runners... one long for in-town driving and a short set for high RPM.
The Tuned Port Injection engines of 1985 and later (305 LB9 or 350 L98), especially the quicker-brained versions from 1986+, were worlds better even if they were "batch-fire" instead of individually fuel injected (meaning, all 4 injectors on a bank fired at the same time, so ultimately there was bound to be some puddling in the runners near the heads). I can get 25-27 mpg (US) on my 1987 Trans Am GTA (with the 305 TPI automatic of all things) without effort at 68-70 mph cruising speed over very long trips. And driveability is just phenomenal, with amazing throttle response and a feeling of having an engine that isn't shy to pull at very low RPM... I will often climb bridges at 38-40 mph with the transmission in overdrive with the lowest of pedal travel, the engine just hums effortlessly at what seems to be 1000 RPM, converter clutch still engaged. In that respect, the engineers really succeeded in making the smaller engines feel like the larger ones they replaced, with significantly reduced fuel consumption.
I imagine your 1982 Trans Am must have a fairly nice sound if it still retains the dual-resonator exhaust setup. I think those years still used a pellet-style catalytic converter and you could get away with such a stupidly unmuffled exhaust setup due to the converter. That would never pass regulation on my 1987 GTA, LOL!
As a licensed dealer for 20 years, I went back into my inventory and searched Corvettes of this era and we turned 16 of them through our inventory. Those vehicles were 20-25 years of age when they were sold. None of them had any type of significant issues and according to my records on each vehicle, three of them required throttle body rebuild/reseal kits, two needed intake manifold gaskets and one needed a throttle position sensor. Other than oil leaks and other maintenance, that was it. We made money on each of them, the high profit was $8,700 and the low was $4,400. I'd hardly agree that these are among the "worst engines of all time". Nonetheless, the theater here is great.
I had a 1982 Pontiac Trans Am with the crossfire fuel injection and the car ran flawlessly for many years. All I done was regular maintenance
Just one more thing. Great video and info👍 Ironically, Pontiac Motor Division was supposed to be General Motors performance division. In the early 80s the cliché was, “We build Excitement!” Obviously not with only 165 hp, and then you have to baby it or the grenade will explode, 😂
I purchased a brand new 1993 Forest Green Trans Am with the 5.7 L Tuned-Port injected motor. That engine was literally junk. I had issues that would've been similar to vapor locks in the 60s and 70s. Long crank times, and half the time, it never idled correctly, and when you opened the gas cap, it sounded like high pressure air coming out of a balloon. Ironically the vehicle was stolen (and used in a high-speed chase). Subsequently (with the insurance) I bought a Mitsubishi Eclipse. Happy ending😉
Tuned port injection ended in 92 (91 for vettes)..so a brand new 93 would of been a lt1..
Had a first year Eclipse. Nothing but fond memories, what a tight car. Miss the Mitsu brane that once was. That was my Japanese epiphany back in 1990. Never looked back😉
Sorry to hear about that LT1 experience. Perhaps the Opti-Spark needed attention.
Thanks 👍 You’re spot on..
The Service Advisor kept it for a week and gave it back scratching his head..🤔
I have a an all original 126,000 mile 84 vette with its original crossfire and I daily drove all last summer. It didn't give me any lip. Ran great and I got better than 17 mpg on city driving.
Don't let water get into it through the hood openings...
Long runners are better for low end power tho, this is why ITBs with velocity stacks are so short on high rpm engines
Crossfire gave birth to Tuned Port -and everyone loved those.
I worked at a Chevrolet dealership when these came out in 1982. They ran like shit right off of the transporter.
I enjoy your videos! The late 70's, 80's, and 90's was nothing but trial and error!
Hey Adam, thanks for sharing another informative porch chat!!! Try to stay warm. By the way, it was 87 degrees here in Southern California today!!! 🙄
Always heard they were bad. You're the first person I have heard to explain why. Thank you.
You heard wrong, and sadly for the first time, Adam’s explanation is wrong.
@@ErikDB6 then why were they bad if adam' s explanation is wrong. He got the explanation of one of the issues right from an engineer's, who worked on the project, mouth. That seems pretty credible to me.
As for the "Engineering" of this new model F-body ... AMAZING !!! Any manufacturer can take metal and produce a car. It took real engineering to take cardboard & plastic and produce these Cameros / Firebirds!
Love this channel. I was a young mechanic early 1980’s. Drove and serviced most of these cars. I drove a pumped up 1968 SS Chevelle. Glory days.
I owned a ‘70 SS Chevelle. At the time, most fun I had with my clothes on! 😉
@@Primus54 pretty much the coolest car ever imho.
I hope that at some point that you will address the 3800 Series II and Series III
Did they have issues?
Pre series I was excellent
I have two cars with 3800 Series II engines.
I usually can't watch best of, worst of videos most are click bait hatchet jobs. You did a great job explaining the short comings of the CFI by making good points and backed them up with knowledge and experience
"Feedback controlled" puts it ahead of the previous 85 years of engines Adam. It also had early obd diagnostics. We've found that those who don't understand how it works are the ones that hate it. This is a repeat of history the Rochester mechanical injection released in 1957. Those who hated it and couldn't understand it's superior system either, and simply downgraded it to a carburetor. Very sad.
I see what you're saying, but not everybody that buys a car wants to "understand it". Most people just want it to work correctly and not be costly to own and maintain. Needing to understand it usually means that it's giving the owner problems.
@@johnz8210 But any 40 year old car will require lots of work and understanding to keep it running right.
@@ErikDB6 That's true, you are right, but I think this video is about if you bought one of these things when they were pretty new. There was no internet, nobody really had a lot of experience with repairing them then. Now there's lots of information out there about them that just didn't exist back then.
But these videos make great theater even if they are not factual!
@@GoldenGun-Florida Hehehe :)
My first car was a 1983 Z/28 Crossfire. It was a great car. I never had any issues with it. It had theses cool hood flaps that opened wide on full throttle. I wish I still had it. Everything was slow in 1983. F bodies were everywhere in the mid 80's. Everybody wanted one.
Over the last 50 years I've had 5 or 6 gm products and they all worked out ok. I must have been lucky.
You were
Nothing runs like shit longer than Generic Motors
Gms are superior to fords and chrysler in every way. I have a '98 Safari with 248,000 runs like a top and I smoke kids in little fart pipe cars all the time. My '73 impala has only had the engine changed to a mild stroker and regular maintenance , it drives like a new car.
@ronin rolling tracking devices . And they will rat on you with their black box. No thanks, I'm a very competent mechanic newest I'd ever own is 2000 before they were made tracking devices .
@ronin when the air bags deploy the blackbox records rpm,throttle position , brake usage, pretty much every metric the ecm knows. Those WILL BE USED AGAINST YOU IN A COURT OF LAW. The second is ofc an opinion, but I've been wrenching on cars since '83 bought and sold more cars than I can remember and ford straight up sucks. Dodge and Chrysler are fine but hunting parts ain't my favorite hobby.
Can't believe you didn't know your car will rat you out, folk that. I've built at least 20 motors without a failure and inside engines is where you really see that ford sucks. Ford has a team that goes to junkyards and see which parts last so they can redesign them cheaper . They started that when Henry was still in charge.
If you hear nothing else hear this, madmen and small children always speak the truth.
Great channel! Really appreciate your knowledge and clear understandable delivery. Well done! And so far have not disagreed with a single one of your program points.
"The throttle sticks sometimes but other than that its a good car"
What a sales pitch man LOL
Only people like us would put up with that.
It was just part of General Motors master plan to sell a lot of Japanese cars. It was very effective
probably a bad motor mount
.
when it runs right and ya rev it up and it actually makes power...... mount flexes (or is tore)
engine lifts up.... usually only stops when it hits the hood.... which pins the linkage
.
.
if you put it into neutral and the RPMs drop
its a motor mount almost 99.99%
.
if RPMs stay high...... stuck cable or carb linkage binding, stuff like that
@@kainhall except he said he had documentation which shows this was a problem when the car was new
Or, you could drop in a sales pitch "typical of a vehicle only driven by an old lady to church on Sundays". My mom bought a 5yo '83 Mercedes 380SE from another old lady and idled around in city traffic in that thing for 15 years before selling it to me for cheap "because it was too big". Always serviced on time & looked after, however the plugs would periodically foul-up because she was just idling around that V8 without ever giving it much throttle.
Anyway, as soon as I got my hands on it I gave it the beans and the throttle stuck wide open at 6500 RPM & I had to kill the ignition and coast over to the kerb. Checked out the throttle linkage and sure enough; the cable had stuck because it had never been opened more than 1/3 throttle by the old women that had been driving it, causing the linkage to jam because that portion of it had never been used in 20 years. After a good clean & lube lube and several repeated WOT events it came good.
We lost the 301 4.9 L turbocharged V8 for that. We could have had Firebirds with EFI turbo V8's ahead of the curve, but we had to get that Chevrolet garbage
I own an '84 Corvette and would never make the same mistake again.
I heard the 350 actually ran better with the system... Guess they were wrong?
TPI...
@@keithjackson286 Nope, you heard right. The Cross Fire worked pretty well. Gave great performance for the time.
I have a 1982 trans am with the LU5 84K on the clock and I tell you keeping the fuel system CLEAN and ALL TBI gaskets new and replace ANY crack VAC lines make a HUGE difference !!
Speaking of flex, I️ believe that most of the basic structure of the 4th Gen f-bodies from somewhere around the drivers seat back was a carryover from the 3rd generation, even though they aesthetically are markedly different.
4th Gen was a upgrade to gen 3
The fbody had the same frame from like the 70s to the 2000s
Thank you, I was thinking of buying an 84 Vette I don't think I will now
Hemmings had a comprehensive article and comments on the Cross Fire a year ago. Bottom line? JUNK
I've owned 3 of them. They were quite reliable, but I actually studied the system and know how to work on them. They run very well.
You are correct. I purchased a used 1985 Corvette (in 1992) and it was a hobby car for me. The 1985 had the Tuned Port Injection and I think 230 horses with a 350cid. Never a problem with the 1985 and I traded for a new 2001 hardtop Corvette. The 1984 Vettes were called 'ceasefire injection' back in the day. I have seen a few over the years. We knew back then the Crossfire was a poor design. My GF purchased a 1983 Cadillac with the 4100 engine. It was known at the Cadillac dealership the mismanagement of metal alloys in the engine was bad engineering. She had that thing for 6 months and it mysteriously disappeared (friends in high and low places took care of that). Leaked oil terribly. My driveway has Toyota vehicles now. Bought my first Camry in 2003 and drove 300K miles for business and I bought two more and a Honda. Never an issue with those vehicles. I remember a 1982 Silverado 1/2 ton with the 305 cid engine (carbed) I purchased new. It was my ultimate POS. To stay on-point you are correct about those crossfire units. Glad it is 2022 with great engines available today. I have three i'm building now. A 327, 454, and just finished a 428 Cobra Jet. My retirement years are fun.
By experience I became a very good mechanic on these. I was also a computer nerd and worked with Colorado School of Mines. We found how to run methanol. Ask me about open/closed loop. BTW they sucked in water with those hoods and air cleaners. In addition I lost vs GM on a Lemon Law case....
They sure did.
Too bad Steve Lehto wasn't around then!
Yeah, water damaged the CFI...
I’ve been building, restoring, and daily driving CFI cars for almost 30 years. They’re an extremely simple system, and very reliable. The 6026 ECM of the 83-84 cars was a much better unit than the 5055 of the 82 cars. My current daily is an 83 LU5 T/A. I ported the base, and did the typical thirdgen stuff; L98 manifolds and y-pipe, and a 3” catback, 3.73s, 13psi fuel pressure, stock cam. The car runs 14.40s, gets 17mpg city, and 26mpg hwy. The best thing I have done was to ditch the 6026 in favor of an 8746. I have driven literally hundreds of thousands of miles in CFI cars. I have NEVER had a single CFI specific problem. The TBs are easy to sync, and can be done in less than 20 minutes. They weren’t meant to be a high horse setup, and the ECMs of the day were horrible. However, with very little work they wake right up and run very respectable.
@14:25; you’re dead wrong about the arrival of the L69. The L69 was introduced mid-year 1983, and was rated at 190 horse. It was produced in the F-bodies from 1983-1986, but was only available with MM5 in 1983, 1985, and 1986. 1984 was the only year you could get an L69 equipped f-body with MD8. The L69 long block is identical to the LU5 with the exception of the induction. The LU5 did use the 14088839 cam, whereas the L69 used the 14088843 cam. Very little difference between the two. The main difference between the LU5 cars and the L69 cars is the exhaust and gears. The LU5 used the LG4 exhaust, with the N10 dual resonator exhaust, while the L69 used larger 2.25” outlet manifolds, larger y-pipe, corvette monolith cat, and a 2.75” I-pipe into a transverse muffler. Put the L69 exhaust and gears into an LU5 car and they run door to door. It was not uncommon to see L69 cars dipping into the 14s back in the day. My 83 LU5 went 16.01, box stock. Exhaust and 3.73s put me to 14.90-15.10, and now it’s running in L98 territory, again; stock cam, and the heads have never been off it.
Unbelievable how Detroit went from the best cars of the '60s-early '70s to the worst cars a within scant 10 years later.
Pathetic.
Those early F-bodies were the worst of the worst. Add those to the X-cars and GM's shitty diesel engines and you see why GM is in the shape they are in now.
Yes, the bean counters took over and they still influence gm today.
I mean, who takes their logo an neuters it to lower case letters?
Their catering to the woke tik tok crowd.
Pathetic...
Yeah, because even GM didn’t have the resources, either engineering or financial, to comply to the contradictory regulations that the government forced on them. They basically had to change every piece on every car, while the Japanese just kept updating the cars they were already building.
@@keithjackson286 Don’t forget the Vega debacle to start the decade. Basically, GM did everything wrong in the 70’s. My Dad owned a 81 Eldorado with the LM7 and that experience is why I don’t own a GM product 41 years later.
GM and the Big 3 fumbled through the mandated emissions problems. Catalytic converters, AIR injection pumps, EGR, and charcoal fuel canisters all had to work together. Import cars still ran leaded gas until 1978. Unfair trade practices killed Detroit.
I had an 82 trans am just like yours with tan interior. Your comments are spot on, even the overlay about the soft camshafts. Mine had a flat cam shaft lobe that made repairs more than the car was worth. Great handling car but weak power train and absolutely atrocious build quality. Worst rattletrap I’ve ever owned and the car only had 60k miles on it when I bought it in 1987.
I do agree that the styling on the early third generation Trans Ams is excellent.
Hi Adam. I am a GM/Delphi retiree that worked at the plant that built the TBIs, CPI, SCPI, the Multec 1, 2, and 3 port fuel injectors, as well as Bosch port fuel injectors under license. A side story to this story is that our plant was originally built to produce the fuel pump for the Olds diesel. Obviously, that didn’t happen so they moved TBI production from the Diesel Equipment Division plant to that new plant. That move had apparently anger Chuck Gifford, who I think was the plant manager at the Rochester Products plant in Rochester, NY. Of course, RPD was our primary customer, so this caused numerous issues for us over our 1989-2006 existence! Indeed it was speculated that Mr. Gifford was instrumental in the decision to close our plant in 2006.
Experienced this misery!!! Thank you for covering this...
The photo of a 302 at 5:15 is of one equipped with the experimental canted valve aluminum cylinder heads. According to Smokey Yunick "They weren't worth a damn." He said that they managed to make 450 HP at 6,900 RPM, but they were making 475 to 500 HP with the conventional heads by then. They had really cool looking valve covers though.
Getting into overdrive? C'mon! Like my Harley Fatboy 1450cc, it would slow down when put into 5th gear at 100mph, but it would go 113 in 4th. I have a video here showing what I just described
ua-cam.com/video/ipDmsxQVxIM/v-deo.html
While working in an automotive machine shop in the late 80s, my co-worker and friend Carl and I took an 82 crossfire Z28 and replaced the anemic 305(5.0L) with a 72 350 +.030 short block with TRW forged flat top pistons that resulted in a compression ratio of approximately 10.3 to 1. We used a set of 69 350 - 300 hp 8947041 heads installed 2.02 intake and 1.60 exhaust valves, screw in studs, guide plates and replaced the exhaust seats with hardened stellite seat inserts and cleaned up the intake and exhaust runners and matched ports @ intake manifold gasket and heads. A Comp Cam 268H cam was chosen, lift was .485/.485 , duration was .218/.218 @ .050. With the original 2.73 rear end ratio and the steep 1st gear in the 700r4 that replaced the 2004r, it was an absolute beast to drive and a barrel of fun. Never got an accurate measured 1/4 mile time, however my step son, who I built the car for at the time said it gave a ZR-1 Vette a good run for its money on I80 west in Pa on his way back to college in Bradford Pa. The car was a tire melting sleeper to the 9th degree. I loved it!