Street or Strip

Table Of Contents

Page 1 - Progress (you are here)
Page 2 - Fun with ThirdGens
Page 3 - Previous ThirdGens
Page 4 - Junkyard ThirdGens
Page 5 - Berlinetta ThirdGens
Page 6 - 3D ThirdGen
Page 7 - ThirdGen Parts For Sale
Page 8 - ThirdGen Style

Mods

Small Block Chevy bored and stroked to 388
Holley 750
Edelbrock Air Gap Aluminum Intake
Edelbrock Aluminum Heads
Comp Cams XE274H
Edelbrock Headers and Y-Pipe
Summit Aluminum Roller Rockers
Accel HEI Distributor
Flowmaster Exhaust
TCI Streetfighter 700R4 Transmission
TCI Breakaway Torque Converter
Auxiliary Trans Cooler
Aluminum Driveshaft
Limited Slip Rearend with 1LE Disc Brakes 
IROC Springs
WS6 Sway Bars
LCA Relocation Brackets
IROC Rims with 255 Drag Radials in back
Autometer Gauges
Grant Steering Wheel
"AC Delete" Heater Box
Straight Pipe where cat converter was
Poly Trans Mount
Relocated Battery
DRAC calibrated for tires and gears
Dual Electric Fans
Driveshaft Loop
Aluminum Front Bumper
PowerStop Brake Rotors and Pads

Progress

This picture is from the Auto Trader ad for the car back in '04. This rust free California Camaro looked like a solid foundation.

And here it is when I brought it home $1500 later. It had a 2.8 liter with low oil pressure and an automatic. Not exactly a formula for performance. I removed the bra, door moldings, emblems, decals, etc. that same day.

A Camaro without a spoiler just doesn't look right. So that was one of the first 'mods'. My brother let me remove the spoiler from his car car which gave me a template for the holes.

This is the 9 bolt Borg Warner rearend which is replacing the old single spinner unit. Check out the big 1LE discs and PBR calipers. And also notice the gas tank lying there. Since I converted the car from V6 with fuel injection to V8 with carburetor I dropped the gas tank and swapped out the fuel pump and pickup tube assembly.

My Dad came up with this spring compressor. It's a huge fine threaded rod and nut combined with a misc sprocket and some slightly modified hooks. We had to go this route because the engine wasn't installed at the time and the normal procedure (next photo) just lifted car higher rather than compressing the spring.

This is probably the better way to install the springs if you've got the engine weight holding the front end down. The springs don't really have to be compressed very far, and the safety chain is good for peace of mind.

More mods: WS6 sway bars, aluminum drive shaft, IROC wheels, and lowering springs. The red car is my brother's '84 Camaro with 327 and Tremec 5 spd.

6.4 liters of American Muscle... ~425 hp

Dropping the engine in was easy. But after that I accidentally dropped a bolt into the engine through a hole in the intake. I tried to fish it out with a magnet, but in the end I had to remove the oil pan to get it out. Next time I have the engine out I'm going to splurge on a new single-piece oil pan gasket to replace the cork one I have on there now.

Here's the "AC Delete" heater box being removed from a junkyard car. After sandblasting and a fresh coat of satin black, I used it to replace all the air conditioning junk that came on my car. The engine compartment looks way cleaner now.

The previous owner liked neon blue...

Now the interior is black again with a tach and some gauges... all business, no rice. [Update: The tach is acting stupid sometimes. Beware of the Summit brand name. Much of it is Chinese crap like this. I should have stuck with Autometer!]

A fire extinguisher sits where the back seat used to be.

Cowl induction on a budget - a $45 fiberglass scoop from the swap meet. I started with this fiberglass style filler for strength and then used regular body filler followed by some spot putty for a smooth finish.

I'm thinking about spraying the whole hood flat black but this works for now.

Got a Grant steering wheel for my birthday. Very nice. The steering column required some modification for this otherwise simple mod. The Berlinetta had cruise control buttons on the wheel as opposed to the twig found on most GM cars. But I'm not planning on using cruise control on this car anyway so no big deal.

I relocated the battery to the 'trunk' in an aluminum box by Taylor. This is a really nice product and looks way cooler than the plastic boxes for the same money.

The standard Berlinetta door conceals it nicely. Engine bay and trunk are looking very clean. I wonder if this will pass NHRA tech inspection???

Got this wiring diagram from Hot Rod's Operation Rumble Bee. They got their info from MAD Enterprises.This setup is the best for a couple of reasons. First, the main cable for the starter is operated by a solenoid. Its only hot when cranking, which is way safer than having 12 feet of live welding cable all over your car. Second, the alternator wire never gets disconnected (it IS fused however) so there's no risk of frying the alternator with a voltage spike when the disconnect swith shuts the car off.

This seemed like a good place for the disconnect switch.

Ready for the new transmission. What should have been a one or two day project turned out to be a 5 day thrash. Things never go as smoothly as I anticipate!

It's a TCI StreetFighter trans with a TCI Breakaway converter (2200 - 2400 stall). I ordered mine with a rotor aka 'exciter ring' on the tailshaft because my car has a digital speedo and is not cable operated. However, I soon discovered that ALL thirdgens have gears on the tailshaft, cable operated or not. The later model VSS-equipped cars eliminated the speedo cable, but that VSS is still gear driven in the trans. Since my shiny new trans had a rotor on the tailshaft, I bought a hall effect type VSS for $30 off ebay. Then I went to the junkyard and got a DRAC (Digital Ration Adaptor Cntroller) for $5 out of a '91 GMC Sonoma and calibrated it for my car. I've never met Chris Darby, but I'd like to thank him for his excellent instructions which I found at www.tbichips.com!

Time to upgrade the cooling system. It was fine just driving around town, but heavy traffic jams would push it over the limit. So this single fan setup had to go.

I found the 2 fans at the swap meet - $20 for the pair, but they didn't come with any of the mounting brakets. I ended up paying more for the brackets than I did for the fans, but a total of $79 is still way cheaper than anything out of a catalog. (Did I mention I'm on a budget?) Anyway I ran some numbers and the area covered by this new setup is about 14% larger than with the single fan, so I'm hopeful for some improvement. [Update: These things work great. No more worries about idling in traffic.]

I took off the enourmous factory bumper and went with some scrap aluminum from my Dad's garage instead.

These BFG drag radials are sticky...

And here's the Lakewood driveshaft loop. It's tucked way up in there so it doesn't cause any ground clearance issues. I'm very happy with it, although it's not the quickest part to install. Both front seats have to come out since it requires drilling the floorpans. The torque arm also gets unbolted and pushed aside during the install. But the fun part is removing the exhaust to drill the holes on the passenger side - You know exhaust is always totally cooperative and never rusty. Anyway this part should do the job and it looks great once installed.

I blacked out the headlight buckets.

New struts and PowerStop rotors and pads. The tolerances were a little tight on these brake parts - There was a little bit of drag such that the wheel didn't spin freely and the brakes were smoking after I test drove the car. I removed the anti-rattle shim behind one of the pads and all was well after that.

To Do List...

front brake lines
drivers side door hinges
fuel pump and fuel filter
seats
amp and speakers
O2 sensor and rich/lean gauge
tubular lower control arms
tubular panhard bar
subframe connectors
quick ratio steering box
get factory digital tach working

Links

Check out the other cars in My Garage