New Project

[Mike C.]

Absolutely correct. I was planning to put some feelers out there for the proper tail lights as well as start looking at some junk yards. And I also plan on getting the single-piece blackout panel since the three-piece looks like crap.

yes... definitely do the one piece. I had that on my 84ta. I cable rigged the trunk lock to the interior so I did NOT have to have a key hole on the outside. Kinda reminds me now of the engine cover pull on the D, cause I used a hood release pull from a junk yard car.

I've only had 3rd gen TA's, never firebird body trims, so i've never really wanted to do a full KITT conversion, so really enjoying seeing this thread. Good luck! Oh, rip that shitty motor out and put some real balls in there But, until you get her looking good, it's a good "move the car here and there" motor.

[DMC02766]

If you are going to do it, there is a company that makes a lot of the parts for the conversion and they are spot on to the screen used parts:

http://www.markscustomkits.com/

The nose piece they make seems to look the best out of the ones you can get. Supposedly they have a mould from the one that was used on the show.

[DMC02766]

Looks like Marks Custom kits has the one piece black out too for $80..

http://www.markscustomkits.com/trans-am-exterior.htm

[DeMopar]

Sure thing. I will round them up when I get home from work and take a pic.

Gotta dig them out of the box. Will get the pic posted asap.

[Mike C.]

I was at TA Creations in Miami a few months back and he had 2 knight rider cars in there, including one with a Mark's custom kitt's nose on there. It was a later nose, but the fit and finish was horrible. I def hope you go do the KITT building forums and find a really good one. I've seen a few KITT's with some saggy and seemingly elongated noses and it just looks....bad

[ccurzio]

yes... definitely do the one piece. I had that on my 84ta. I cable rigged the trunk lock to the interior so I did NOT have to have a key hole on the outside. Kinda reminds me now of the engine cover pull on the D, cause I used a hood release pull from a junk yard car.

Shit... I hadn't even thought about the trunk release. Good catch there, man.

I've only had 3rd gen TA's, never firebird body trims, so i've never really wanted to do a full KITT conversion, so really enjoying seeing this thread. Good luck!

Thanks!

Oh, rip that shitty motor out and put some real balls in there But, until you get her looking good, it's a good "move the car here and there" motor.

God damn it, you're like the 15th person that's told me to do that.

If you are going to do it, there is a company that makes a lot of the parts for the conversion and they are spot on to the screen used parts:

Yep. Very familiar with that guy and his site. Thanks.

I was at TA Creations in Miami a few months back and he had 2 knight rider cars in there, including one with a Mark's custom kitt's nose on there. It was a later nose, but the fit and finish was horrible. I def hope you go do the KITT building forums and find a really good one. I've seen a few KITT's with some saggy and seemingly elongated noses and it just looks....bad

This, however, I was not aware of. And it's tremendously disappointing to hear since that's who I had planned on buying the nose from.

[ccurzio]

Just got off the phone with my mom, who saw the posts about my car on Facebook.

"So when are you going to grow up?"

Wow.

[videobob]

I have done a few of these, the 82 Firebird was my first car when I was 16 and I can tell you that these cars are some of the worst ever built.
They are just plain horrible, nothing ever works for long.
That is why that despite building hundreds of thousands of these, you can hardly find one anymore.
They all simply fell apart.
You are going to most likely have to replace the door hinges and pins, the headlight motors are made of a brittle metal that breaks easily
and the motors and relays rarely work.
You can almost never get the A/C to work without overheating the car, not that it matters because the KITT dash has no vent spaces in it.
Once converted, the interior will always smell like fiberglass resin at the sun bakes the dash.
The conversion steering wheel is deadly.
The gauges are difficult to calibrate and keep functioning.

Once you have faced all these realities and spent about $10K on the project, if you love it, really really love it.... you will enjoy it.
Sorry to be a Debbie downer, but I try to talk my clients out of their dream cars first, if after all the negatives are addressed and they still
want it do I know they really want it.

Good luck!!!

[ccurzio]

I have done a few of these, the 82 Firebird was my first car when I was 16 and I can tell you that these cars are some of the worst ever built.
They are just plain horrible, nothing ever works for long.
That is why that despite building hundreds of thousands of these, you can hardly find one anymore.
They all simply fell apart.
You are going to most likely have to replace the door hinges and pins, the headlight motors are made of a brittle metal that breaks easily
and the motors and relays rarely work.
You can almost never get the A/C to work without overheating the car, not that it matters because the KITT dash has no vent spaces in it.
Once converted, the interior will always smell like fiberglass resin at the sun bakes the dash.
The conversion steering wheel is deadly.
The gauges are difficult to calibrate and keep functioning.

Once you have faced all these realities and spent about $10K on the project, if you love it, really really love it.... you will enjoy it.
Sorry to be a Debbie downer, but I try to talk my clients out of their dream cars first, if after all the negatives are addressed and they still
want it do I know they really want it.

Good luck!!!

Thanks for the note! I certainly appreciate the expert converter's point of view on something like this.

While the 82 was indeed known to have a lot that were pieces of shit, as has been mentioned they DID get better as the years went by. Mine is an 86, so here's hoping a lot of the gremlins have been killed.

I went into this project knowing that I didn't want to make a tremendous initial investment on the car and that whatever car I found would definitely need some work. This car isn't perfect by any means, but for the price I paid it's a damn good deal especially considering that it still runs well AND has absolutely no body/frame rust whatsoever. Between that, the work I'm doing to it and already have done to it - the restored handling/suspension is already amazing - along with some modern upgraded components, I'm hoping that I can get a decently reliable car out of the mix. And if something DOES go wrong, the Pontiac Firebird isn't some obscure automotive wonder that nobody's ever seen or knows how to work on, like say... a DeLorean.

Luckily, the headlight motors work great on my car (and of course who knows for how long), but I had already given some thought to the AC situation with the modified dash. Have you found any kind of workaround for that? AC is kind of a necessity for me, so even if I have to reroute the vents I'll do that.

I already have a super reliable daily driver in the form of an Audi A4 as well as a DeLorean. The KITT car will be just another project/distraction to have fun with every so often. Believe me, I definitely want it.

[videobob]

With the A/C, I have found on most any old car, replace the radiator with a larger aluminum version and add an electric fan in FRONT of the condensor
to help with cooling, especially with parade work.
At least here in Texas it is a problem, maybe not where you are.

I had a creative idea for the internal A/C, since there are no vents built in the dash, you can route them just under the dash.
I was at Home Depot looking at the accessories for the Shop Vac's and they have a long skinny attachment used for sucking up water,
if it were mounted just under the dash along the bottom edge it would be a cool A/C vent.

Good luck!