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What 1st gen Firebird had the flying butress

2K views 10 replies 6 participants last post by  Larger Dave 
#1 ·
Was it called a panther or?
Many yrs ago saw a white one at Pomona swap meet....was shocked to see one in person saw it in the great camaro book as a kid
Owner drove it everywhere..it was rough but never knew it came to production always wondered about it


Anyone have info on it?
Know its a camaro board but same car in my book and love oddball stuff. he wouldnt sell it to me no matter what I offered lol.
 
#5 ·
The Pontiac FireBird Trans Am edition with the WS6 option used the "Wonder Bar" which was a brace to strengthen the attachment of the steering gear box to the front sub frame by adding a cross-member. This single add on made the FireBird out perform the Camaro in road racing. It improved steering response by preventing the frame from deflecting. This was designed by Herb Adams a Pontiac Chassis Engineer that developed the Firebird for Trans Am racing.

https://www.chevyhardcore.com/features/not-forgotten-herb-adams-and-the-vse-cheverra-racer/

He left Pontiac in 1973 to start VSE a mail order suspension upgrade company. He also wrote the book Chassis engineering which is a written for the racer rather than another engineer (no math).

Big Dave
 
#7 ·
People didn't like the whale tale rear spoiler but it loaded the rear axle with nearly a thousand pounds of down force at 200 mph.Herb got the idea from Porsche engineers who had it on the 911. He tried it and it worked. Same for the nose that had air ducts built in for the front brakes as well as the radiator; but it was used mostly as an air dam to redirect the air out from under the car. The modifications were functional not cosmetic. He covered these mods in his book on chassis building.

Big Dave
 
#11 ·
It was a Pontiac only thing and only on the Firebird equivalent of the Z/28 option on a Camaro. If you see rear disc brakes on a Firebird then it had a wonder bar. They were used on first, second, and third gen Fire-turkeys.

It was invented by Herb Adams after driving the TransAm in competition. He noted that the steering wasn't driving the car into corners the way he expected. Examined the car in the lab by loading the chassis and saw the front sub frame bending as cornering forces increased. Simple fix reinforce the frame with another bolt in cross-member up front to transfer some of the load to the opposite side of the car.

I have no idea why Chevrolet engineers never copied the idea for their Camaro or Nova SS cars. Not like Pontiac would sue Chevrolet over doing so. I used to have a photo of the brace/cross-member: but I lost 4,583 pics (according to Photobucket when they tried to get me to buy a subscription limited to 2,000 pics) so I can't show you now. I found it on line originally so it must still be there some where.

Big Dave
 
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