Vehicle
Pontiac Firebird
The F-body coupé built alongside the Chevrolet Camaro, and that is where its information lives — same platform, same engines, same transmissions, so Camaro data covers nearly all of it. The fourth-generation cars from 1993 are the ones still commonly met, and their recurring faults are electrical rather than mechanical: the optical distributor on the LT1 sits behind the water pump and fails when coolant seeps into it, producing a crank-no-start or an intermittent stall that reads as an ignition-module fault; and the VATS resistor-pellet key system on earlier cars degrades until the car refuses to start. The LS1 cars from 1998 drop both problems and share the Corvette's engine management.
Generations
-
Third generation 1982–1992
Carburetted and early throttle-body cars with VATS theft deterrent — a degraded key resistor is a common no-start.
- Body styles
- Coupé · Convertible
- Platform
- GM F-body
- Engines
-
- 2.5 four-cylinder — petrol · 67 kW (90 hp) · Iron Duke
- 2.8 V6 — petrol · 76–101 kW (102–135 hp)
- 5.0 V8 — petrol · 108–153 kW (145–205 hp)
- 5.7 V8 — petrol · L98
- 3.1 — petrol · 6-cylinder, US market 1990-1992
- Transmissions
- 5-speed manual · 4-speed automatic · 3-speed automatic · 4-speed manual
- Drivetrain
- Rear-wheel drive
-
Fourth generation 1993–2002
LT1 then LS1; the LT1's optical distributor fails on coolant ingress and reads as an ignition-module fault.
- Body styles
- Coupé · Convertible
- Platform
- GM F-body
- Engines
-
- 3.4 V6 — petrol
- 3.8 V6 — petrol · 149 kW (200 hp) · Series II L36
- 5.7 V8 — petrol · LT1
- 5.7 V8 — petrol · LS1
- Transmissions
- THM 4L60 4-speed automatic · THM 4L60E 4-speed automatic · Borg Warner T-5 5-speed manual · Borg Warner T56 6-speed manual
- Drivetrain
- Rear-wheel drive
Information, not instruction
CarGeek is a reference, not a service manual. Its pages are written from public sources and from what other people have found, never from a manufacturer's own service information, so they can be wrong or incomplete for your particular vehicle. Some of what they describe carries real risk: high voltage, fuel under pressure, stored energy, hot and moving parts.
Have anything you intend to act on checked by a trained person against the manufacturer's own procedure for your vehicle. Nothing here replaces that procedure.
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