How much Horsepower does a 1980 trans am with a high performance 400 cid make?

Question

How much horepower does a 1980 trans am with a high performance 400 cid make?

Answer 1

The engine in your car is not original. Pontiac 400s could have put out anywhere from 200-370HP. So depending on the vintage of the engine, it could be almost anything...

BTW, the last year of the big poncho was 1979, and those only came with 4 speed standard trannys. There was a 403 Olds motor that was mated to the automatics. The last year the 400 was used with an automatic was '78.

Answer 2

Sorry but Pontiac did not put a 400 (nor used the 400 any more) in the Firebird line-up in 1980, '79 was the last year an hp was 220.
In '80 the most you could get was 210hp out of the 301 Turbo.

Answer 3

As RAIV said, the 400 engine isn't original to your car.

The easist way to "guess" the HP of a 400 engine is to look at the cylinder heads. There is a two or three digit number cast into the center exhaust port. That will tell you if you have high compression or low compression heads. Typical codes are 5C, 670, 16, 6X, 6H, 4X, etc.

Easy way to ID pontiac engine made '67-'78 (P350, 400, 455): Oil filter is on passanger's side, and points down. There is a valley cover below intake, distributor at rear of engine, starter on driver's side. Most blocks have displacement cast into driver's side of block, in front of driver's motor mount. Date code is by distributor hole. The wimpy 301 has the oil filter mounted horizontal on block.

more info:

www.performanceyears.com

Answer 4

They didn't put a 400ci engine in the 1980 Trans Am. The "big" engine for that year was a 301 ci turbocharged "T code" engine putting out a wopping 210 HP.

Answer 5

Well they didn't put high performance engines in an 80 T/A . But maybe somewhere around a whopping 190.

Answer 6

They were choked with emissions components those years.