Help with Decoding my Cowl Tag

[In Relentless Pursuit]

Can someone help me decode my cowl tag

[T/A Addict]

1980 car, 2nd week of October built, black cloth interior, ontario gray paint
all the info you want right here
https://www.78ta.com/Pages/1980.htm

[In Relentless Pursuit]

Thanks Jeff !

[Maxthe222]

80 = 1980, 10B = built 2nd week of October, 2FS87 = Firebird model line, L = built at Van Nuys, California, 067166 = body number, 19B = Deluxe hobnail cloth black interior, 84L84U = Ontario Grey paint, W = water based paint, A51 = bucket seats, CC1 = Fisher T-Tops, B = Black interior appointments, 3 = power windows, rest is body sequence number.

[In Relentless Pursuit]

Thanks Max! I guess I need the VIV # to find out the original engine size ..The PO had an 400 put in it

[T/A Addict]

Yes the VIN will tell you the motor that was stock.

[firebirdparts]

T is Turbo ( ha ha)
A v6
S 265
W 301 Pontiac
Others letters are likely Chevy 305 in various non-standard emission tunes

It seems that W in the VIN applied to both the "T/A" 4.9 and the regular 4 barrel 4.9.  The regular 4.9 without electronic spark control was a delete option in the T/A, and you'd think this would have been a very unpopular configuration, but we parted out at least 2, and so I guess dealers ordered some of them, or maybe they had a chip shortage, who knows.

[5th T/A]

Lots of good information here. Thank You to all who have posted as it allowed me to figure out my build date.

My 1980 TA came with the standard 301 4BBL. I do have a credit of $180.00 on the window sticker where it says L37 4.9, instead of L37 + W72 noted on the left side of the sticker. I seem to recall the higher output 301 was 170 HP instead of 150 and it included a dual muffler system and 3.08 axel ratio opposed to a 2.41. I and probably most would have gladly paid the extra $180.00.

[firebirdparts]

According to Thomas Demauro, the hp was 140 vs 155.  That axle ratio especially would make a big difference.

[5th T/A]

Firebirdparts,

I did some digging and found this on page 195 of Rocky Rotella's Firebird & trans Am guide.

The W72 was a 1980 only option, the screenshot below shows the differences. Horsepower was 170 at 4,400 RPM. Pontiac changed the first gear ratio slightly on the Turbo 350 from 2.52:1 to 2.74:1, hard to believe it would make much of a difference. I am not sure of the 3.08 axel ratio, I might have read it somewhere else or got my facts confused. Regardless there were a lot of changes to the W72 engine package. On page 204 of the same publication Rocky mentions the W72 was dropped for 1981 and the L37 4.9 liter E/C became the standard engine for Trans Am rated at 155 HP at 4,000 RPM.

Document_2021-11-17_184447 by Lawrence Alexander, on Flickr

[another10th]

Many, many years ago, when I first met my wife, we both had '79 Trans Ams. Both were 301/4 speed t-top cars. How weird was that?

[firebirdparts]

That is pretty weird.

BTW, I do have a 1980 dealer manual with the 1980 car distribution bulletins in it.  (In fact I xeroxed it all and sent it to Rocky when he was working on his book).  The dealer manual does show the 2.41 / 3.08 axle ratio specific to those two engines and so that does match up with what I found parting out cars, FWIW.  So that seems right.  Some of those 1980 TH350's had lockup torque converters too.  I don't know if that was exactly a W72 feature, but I have seen them in the wild.  The shop manual covers them, but it's not clear on availability.  It was available on "several" applications.