The camaro build

[Fredo]

The RX7 thread made me realize I don't really have any documentation of the camaro build out on the internet. I figure this is as good of a place as any to put it. It began with a cryptic ad in the Dallas Morning News classifieds. "92 camaro, green, v8, 972-XXX-XXXX" I call on it, and it turns out it's a green with tan leather convertible. After going and looking at it with St.John, I decided I needed it. The girl I bought it from and her father both thought it was a "mean" sounding car. St.John and I disagreed since we had driven over there in his Dad's 65 impala convertible equipped with a nasty big block chevy with dual 4" exhaust. A few days later, with the loan terms worked out with the Bank of Dad, I was the proud owner of a 92 RS Camaro convertible equipped with a whopping 175hp TBI 305 backed by a 700r4 auto hooked to an awesome 2.73 geared peg leg 10 bolt. Here she is on day one:


After the first day of driving it, I realized the EGR valve was jacked. Once that was replaced, the engine returned to it's 175hp of awesomeness. I figured an engine swap was in the future for this car but financially I didn't see this happening for quite a while so I did what I could to get the most out of the car. I did the normal tune up/maintenance to the car along with a k&n filter, a throttle body spacer, a set of headers that I got a sweet deal on, along with a high flow cat, 3" exhaust, and a flowmaster muffler. I swear, it was the toughest sounding 305 ever to fear a honda accord with a v6. Yes sir, my pimp hand was indeed strong.


So I cruised the car this way for awhile, even attemping to run down the 1/8th mile, mustering a horribly slow 10.ish run or two. I didn't care, I had a convertible that sounded good. So one fateful saturday night, my friends and I decided to cruise out to Keller's Hamburgers in dallas for their cruise night. All was well until one of my best buddies, Denton, rearended my camaro with his TJ on 35's in his driveway when a cow from his pasture blocked his driveway and I had to slam on my brakes. Needless to say, I was not happy.

This however started a new chapter for the camaro after St.John got me hooked up with a grumpy New Yorker that ran a rod shop. A month or so lafter, the camaro was back on the road and I had a new job, building hot rods with a potentially bi-polar new yorker. So after this point, it became more of a priority to make my car cooler than it was. Luckily, about this time the torque converter of the mighty 700r4 decided to take a dirt nap. It might have had something to do with St.John and I screwing with manually locking the converter via a wire jumped in the ALDL port, but that wasn't something we felt like mentioning to my father at the time. I had always wanted the car to be a 5spd because of my hatred for all things automatic at the time, so my father entertained the idea of a 5spd conversion. After going to multiple car shows and seeing LT1s starting to make a big splash on the scene, we had decided that if we were going to go to the trouble of putting a 5spd in the car, we "might as well" do a couple of other upgrades while we were at it. Soon, I had somehow convinced my dad that an LT1/T56 6 speed swap was the way to go. I honestly think that it might have been like pouring gasoline on a fire when it came to convincing him, but none the less, with a generous loan once again from the Bank of Dad, I was on the way to finally not fearing a v6 accord.

After locating a donor drivetrain from a 97 Ram Air Trans Am, I was on my way. This is day one of the tear down:

[Fredo]

After I started teardown, I sent the wiring harness of the car, and the new engine down to a company called Fuel Injection specialties. Not realizing I had it in me to build the harness, I farmed it out and ended up with a really nice harness that worked out beautifully. As you can see, St.John was there to help with the 'fishing" of the harness.


So while I waited for the harness to come back, there were many things to be done. Here we are, mocking up the fitment of the new power plant.


Along the way, I had found something interesting in Autotrader. Yes, we actually used to read autotrader's parts section before the invention of Craigslist. I found a wrecked 91 1LE camaro. For those of you would don't know what that is, it's the factory road race package for camaros. It included 12" front and rear disc brakes with aluminum PBR twin piston calipers up front and single piston PBR calipers in the rear, 36mm front sway bar and a 32mm rear sway bar, an aluminum driveshaft, a 3.42 geared 10bolt with an Eaton posi, and an aluminum spare for weight reduction. I was able to get the sway bars and brakes from this car, along with the 3.42 rear axle, but unfortunately the other parts were already sold. So now, along with the drivetrain swap, I was now swapping the brakes, sway bars, and upgrading the struts/shocks along with a newly installed set of eibach lowering springs. The parts list was starting to get exciting.

However, once the car was torn down, I remember walking into the shop one day after class and saying to myself, "Holy ****, what have I done." I thought for sure that this project would never reach fruition.




But, all I could do was take it one day at a time. Luckily, Jimmy's roommate at the time was this douchebag that had a 911 porsche that he believe to be the have-all/be-all of cars to motivate me to finish it.

[Fredo]

So, once the harness returned, things started coming together.


Along with the slew of upgrades, I was convinced by St.John to chunk the 3.42 gears inside the newly acquired 10 bolt for a set of 4.10 gears. Later I realized this was in fact a very wise decision due to the fact that 6th gear is pretty much worthless with 3.42's. So with that, the first of many a ring and pinion were installed in not so mighty 10 bolt gm axle.


So, after three months, the camaro was mobile again under it's own power. A quick drive down the street and back in the dark, with no headlights proved to be a worthwhile experience. What you can't see in the picture, is the **** eating grin on my dad's face.


So, the camaro saw the light of day again. The first day I took it out to the exhaust shop to get the exhaust plumbed, some jackass in a ford taurus SHO decided he would try and pick on the innocent little RS. He was quickly shown the error of his ways. I was pleased. I also dynoed the intial setup to see what kind of power I had. The first time I dynoed the car, it had 297hp and 310ish torque. Needless to say, I was happy with how strong the stock LT1 ran, and it turned a few heads at the dyno day who did not expect that drivetrain under the hood.

Time went on, and many an unsuspecting car was shown that this wasn't your normal RS camaro including a certain porsche 911 that ended up punching holes in 4 out of 6 cylinders trying to keep up. About a year later I decided to address the issue of the traction limited 245/55R16's and upgraded to a set of Torque thrust II's wrapped in 275/40R17's in the back and 255/40r17's in the front. Traction and handling was much better. Unfortunately, less than a month after getting the new wheels and tires, this stupid ***** in a honda accord decides to run a red light. I tried my best, but couldn't get stopped in time. No one was hurt, but if the driver of said accord would have been male, he would have been in the hospital and I would have been in jail. Funny thing about the whole thing is I called my boss, the guy who ran the rod shop, before I even called my parents. Without even knowing how bad it was, he said, "Don't worry, we can fix it."

[Fredo]

So after a battle with insurance companies about the car being totalled, my receipts prevailed and they ended up not totaling the car and issuing a check for the amount to fix it. After welding in a new core support and fender inner structure, we decided to go ahead and paint the whole car while we had it apart.





I need to point out, that while we had the front end apart, I decided it was as good a time as any to do some performance upgrades. I went ahead and swapped the factory cam for an LT4 hotcam, chromoly pushrods, and a sweet set of 1.6 GM Performance roller rockers. Now I thought for sure the exhaust note would give away the true nature of the beast. Here's a shot of the first night I brought her home from Wade's Rod and Custom.

[8Runner]

Glad you decided to do this, Fred. I was always curious about the history of the car. From the few stories Jimmy told me, I think you should add in more about your bi-polar boss from the rod shop too

[Fredo]

Apparently the exhaust note was subdued enough that it didn't raise suspicion. I had a few mustangs that didn't recognize cam lope that quickly realized they picked a fight they couldn't win. From an S281 with nitrous, to a turbocharged 4.6 liter GT, I quickly gained a reputation/respect with the Mustangs of Dallas crowd. I had never really raced anything with my dad in the car, but one time this "1969 Dodge hippymobile", otherwise known as a 69 Charger decided to mess with me one time from a light. He revved his engine, and my dad looked over at me like, "what are you going to do about it?" So I turned to him and said, "Watch Dad, this is going to be funny." The light turned green, and subsequently, all that guy saw was a green blur blast away from him. My dad was laughing the whole time. The car has been a lot of fun.

It's been to Detroit for the Woodward Dream Cruise. A trip that has far too many stories to tell here.


Jimmy and I took it on the Power Tour back in 2003. Shortly after discovering I had shelled yet another set of 4.10's in the car, we decided we needed to throw the 2.73 axle back in, but not after modifying it for disc brakes. We got great gas mileage on that trip, but not really the best gearset for starting trouble in the streets.

After a few hours of work, we were on our way. Stopping deep inside Louisiana for our first gas stop, we found the camaro to be averaging over 27mpg while running 80+ with the 2.73 gearset.

Unfortunately, that wasn't our only problem to overcome on this trip. After having issues with my electric fans/water pump setup, we made a stop by Andy Vincent's place to rewire the fans hoping that would fix the problem.


As with everything that happens with the camaro, this did not fix the cooling issue. The problem was discovered the next morning when the radiator decided to jettison one of the end tanks and dump coolant EVERYWHERE. Luckily, we had a casino parking lot to work in, and a Vatozone in town had a replacement radiator for the car in stock.


So after some wrenching, St.John's dad hitting a slot machine for some winnings in an amount I don't remember, we were once again on our way. Definitely a fun trip with a lot of stories. "Vic Edelbrock?...That sum***** still owes me 5 bucks!"

Anyway, the car has been a blast and a pain in the ass over the years. Definitely a lot of fun with a history to boot. This is a very condensed version of the past 8 years. I just wanted to get something down since I really don't have the car's past documented.

[Fredo]

Here's a few more.

[Seth]

Good stuff. I like the shots in the last post.

[Fredo]

I'll probably go back and add more to this later. I found this picture that I took right after I painted it. Very Tamoresque.

[breckboarder55]

not to bad

nice build

[BMFScout]

I've had the most seat time out of anyone riding shotty in this car. It might be different these days, but 5-ish years ago when we cruised it all the time any street car even with a few bolt ons was going to get it's ass handed to it. I'm not talking about ridiculously fast cars like vipers and whatever, but your run of the mill camaro and definitely mustangs were going down. Partly because the car is fast, partly because I've never seen someone bang gears like Fred, he knows that car. It was so much fun to watch their disgust as Fred ripped second or third and pulled ahead by a car length or two (in some cases much more) Some people would get violent wanting to know why you just embarassed them in front of their date. I would usually reply, "It's all stock, your car must not be that fast." I was the designated **** starter, good times. I'm not going to lie though, there have been a few times I have closed my eyes and wondered if he knew what he was doing. We always came out on the other side, on 4 wheels.

[TMatheaus]

I've had the most seat time out of anyone riding shotty in this car. It might be different these days, but 5-ish years ago when we cruised it all the time any street car even with a few bolt ons was going to get it's ass handed to it. I'm not talking about ridiculously fast cars like vipers and whatever, but your run of the mill camaro and definitely mustangs were going down. Partly because the car is fast, partly because I've never seen someone bang gears like Fred, he knows that car. It was so much fun to watch their disgust as Fred ripped second or third and pulled ahead by a car length or two (in some cases much more) Some people would get violent wanting to know why you just embarassed them in front of their date. I would usually reply, "It's all stock, your car must not be that fast." I was the designated **** starter, good times. I'm not going to lie though, there have been a few times I have closed my eyes and wondered if he knew what he was doing. We always came out on the other side, on 4 wheels.

like the curvy road in hartsfield

[BMFScout]

Hartsburg, but yes exactly like that. Have you ever been through something and once it was over you said, "Wow, that was awesome. Never want to do that again!" I wasn't afraid of Fred's driving, I was more concerned of a cow coming out in the road or some jackass cutting a blind corner or something.

[CheapJeep]

That's the cleanest 3rd gen I've seen yet... Good build thread too.

Do you have 4.10's in it now?

[JB]

Is it still driven often?