I might be selling my v6 in favor of a 1976 firebird formula with a 400ci big block. It has an automatic trans. My question is how much horsepower and torque does this car produce? Are there any known problems that the car has? How reliable is it gonna be? I was looking online at a similiar year trans am with a 350 and the article said that it made 150 horsepower. I'm hoping this car will make much more power than that. Any help is appreciated.

 

http://users.castel.nl/~hofmg01/TT74.html

This should help.

 

Hate to say it,but your 3.4 makes almost as much power and is probably as quick in the 1/4 mile.The 400ci in 1976 put out a whopping 185hp.Here are the best specs I could find on a stock car:


Pontiac Firebird Trans Am 400
0-60 = 9.8 sec
1/4 = 16.8 sec

Hope this helped.
Kevin

 

thanks for the info, i guess i saw it had a 400 cubic inch motor and got a little excited, if its not significantly faster than my v6 i'm not interested.

 

It could, however, be made faster for pretty cheap I'd imagine.

 

I know the formula 400 isn't all that fast stock. I can do cool burnouts stock though. But there is one around here that is very fast. I know those engines have a lot of potential.

 

Carb tune up, headers, true duals and intake manifold will have you runing pretty good. Youll def turn atleast low 15s with that alone. The major restriction is in the heads and cam. Get some headwork and a mild cam and youll easily be running 13s, even faster... its all in how much you want to spend.

 

175 horses is what's claimed for my '79 Z with a 350. The stock 400 should make more than that. Back in the day, Ponitac almost always pushed slightly more power than Chevy did with the use of an engine that Chevy wasn't making available to Camaro buyers.

It should have 185 horsepower. BUT it also has 310 Ft-lbs of torque.

Since it's a '76 it comes with a catalytic converter. If you were to do as said and swap the headers, depending on what state remove the cat, and run a dual exhaust. With a good intake. You should see low 14's, not 15's.

My '79 Z is faster than my V6 Camaro which runs a 14.9 to 15-flat, and although not stock, my Z has very little work done. And an open differential. It feels like a mid 14 second car as is (have not taken to the track yet)

So, you should easily be able to knock down a high 14.
Good luck.

 

Just curious, what have you done to your Z to make it feel like a 14 second car? Does it have 3.73s?

 

Stock 3.42's.
I ran a set of long tube headers from Headman,
a 1405 series carb (600cfm),
a more aggressive cam profile (under .500's lift),
and a Trans-Go stage II shift kit.

The engine is also de-smogged (not by me)

haven't seen you around in a while, holler at me on AIM sometime Steve. What up???

 

The 400 is not a big block, by the way. That horsepower rating seems pretty close. My old '72 Buick Skylark with a 350 was factory rated at 195 hp. Of course I had to spend over $2000 souping it up to about 300 hp, only two spin it out and bending the rear-end. Sold the whole car for $1000 a few months later. I miss that car.

 

'94 V6 Auto = 3288 LBS. Power to weight ratio .0486
'76 Trans Am= 3820 LBS. Power to weight ratio .0484
160HP vs 185HP = equal.

'94 V6 Auto = 3288 LBS. Power to weight ratio .0608
'76 Trans Am= 3820 LBS. Power to weight ratio .0811
200 Ft-lbs vs. 310 Ft-lbs = really not equal!!!

Very True. And although this is most likely not the case, it is possible for a 400 to be a big block, since the 396 was the smallest of the big block family. With a .030 over bore that figures to about 400 cubic inches of discplacement. Take it for trivia I guess?

 

The Pontiac 400 is not a big block. the Pontiac 326, 350, 400, and 455 all use the same basic block, just different bore and stroke.

 

Yes, I believe we covered that.

 

In Bliggida's last post he still thought that the 400 could be a big block. I was just clarifying the fact that Pontiac motors use the same block and that's why it's not a big block.