I started out with a bone stock, mosquito killing, 82 Camaro coupe with a TH200 automatic. I purchased the vehicle for $600 bucks and was excited just to be able to drive it home. I bought it thinkin I might just fix it a little and drive it but come to find out the floorpans were were about rusted out under the two front seats and with the engine smokin like a freight train it became a full blown project quickly. I had the engine pulled and tranny out within the first few weeks of having it and started stripping out the floorpans to install new pre-bent replacement ones.
What the car looked like when I started with it (this was after I pulled the stock 305 and tranny.
Before and after shot of floorpans. Luckily it was only from the rear seat hump to the firewall I had to replace on both sides. Had to fab up new seat mounts as well being that they were gone too. Don't see how me and my buddy didn't fall through the floor when we first drove it home.
While the motor and trans was out, the underneath got rubberized undercoating and the firewall and underhood area primed and painted to match the color the car is latered painted on the outside. All so here is a photo of the first motor I had in the car. Its a small block 355 that I got from a local machine shop fully rebuilt for $650. I added a mild cam and roller rocker arms. I don't have any pictures of it, but I swapped the automatic out for a T-5 transmission that I rebuilt. Other mods I did at this time was adding subframe connectors and a 98' Camaro rearend with a posi and 3.42's along with a home fabricated tubular panhard bar because my original was bent.
It took me about a year to do the drivetrain and floorpans. I drove it for a short summer then put it back in the shop to do paint and a proper exhaust.
Here are just a few pictures along the way of painting the car. It actually took me 2 years to complete the full paint job because of only being able to work on it on the weekends (due to college during the week) and multiple mistakes and not getting color shades to match the first time around. There was also some slight rust repair that had to be done to the bottom corners of the door and the deck lid. A few patch panels were made and welded in and can't tell they were ever there. Also the body kit is off of an 84' Camaro so some custom fitting had to be done to get it all to line up properly. Hey it was my first ever paint job so it was a great learning experience. I was real happy about how well the stripping came out though... its easier said than done to get it to match up all the way down the car. The final product was well worth it though.
Heres a final picture with my Z06 tires and rims on it. 17x9.5's in the front and 18x10.5's in the back.
Heres a few pictures of my custom dual exhaust using a Flowmaster U-fit dual exhaust system. I made a custom crossmember that had exhaust clearnace humps and came straight back off the long tube headers. Once back to the axle the right side goes up and through the original exhaust slot and the left goes up and over the driveshaft to the same slot. It was tight fitting both exhaust pipes through there but it ended up working out quite fine with no clearance issues with the axle even with lowering springs.
My most recent project on the car was to rebuild the engine. My screw in studs started backing out of the head and when I went to retorque them down a piece of the iron head broke off so new heads were needed and I didnt' want to put stock heads back on. I pulled the 355 out that I'd originally installed, and installed a fresh set of rings and rod bearings. Since I wanted good street manners and efficiency I went with a set of Edelbrock E-Tec heads matched with Comp Cam beehive springs. I swapped my mild cam out for a Comp Cam XFI280 roller cam with matching Comp Cam roller lifters. Specs on the cam are 280/285 with 0.570/.576 lift. I also installed a new set of 1.6 ratio roller rocker arms and a set of stud girdles to top it all off. The intake is an Edelbrock Performer RPM for Vortec heads. The set up has yet to be put in and fired up, but I'm aiming for a good 420-435 hp.
I'll add some more pictures when I get it installed in the car and rolling. I have a bunch other mods on the list after the engine goes in including C5 big brake install for the front and LS1 disk swap for the rear, a T56 6 speed swap for the trans (because I feel like this motor will blow apart my puny little T5), and upgrade the rearend with axles, 4.56" gears, and a new posi unit.
Here's some update pictures on the new engine on finished and installed in the car. Had some difficulty getting it back in but finally got it all to line up. Break in was a pain due to timing issues so I burnt up a couple spark plug wires and melted my hydraulic line to the slave cylinder but finally got it all straightened out. Need to fix some leaks, do some tuning and possibly upgrade to a 750cfm carb but other than it runs good. Also have a picture of the custom paint job I did on the valve covers. It came out pretty good.
Next Page Interior Mods.
