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Auto Detailing and AppearanceShare tips and tricks on how to make your Third Gen shine! Get opinions on products or how something tasteful looks on your Chevrolet Camaro or Pontiac Firebird.
Thanks for the nomination, amazing cars to be competing with. I'm very proud to of even had my car nominated! Here is some background on my history with the car:
I bought the car in Toledo, Ohio in April of 2014. I was 16, and really had no mechanical experience. Shoot, I never even noticed the car had a V6 in it I was that bad. I quickly hoped on forums and started learning as much as I could about the car in hopes to make something out of it. Here is a picture from when I first brought it home:
The first order of business was to repaint it. My dad bought me some 400 grit sandpaper, and taught me the basics of body work. It took me the whole month of April to get the car in decent shape for paint. I went over everything by hand, really having no idea what I was doing besides smoothing out the paint. Having a background in graphic design, I started to come up with some paint concepts. I decided on a red and black two tone with a silver pinstripe separating the colors. My dad painted the car in our garage, and well, it came out bad. Orange peel, runs, and dirt in the paint was really the major problems. My dad tried to wetsand it and buff it out, and it helped just a little bit. It was always a 20 footer.
I put 11,000 miles on the car that summer, but it all came to an end. The jeep in front of me locked his brakes up to avoid rear ending the person in front of him. My slammed my brakes and they locked up. I slid under the jeep at 5 mph destroying my hood, fender, and front bumper. It took me a while, and a lot of work, but I put the car back together.
I finished up the bodywork again and had a friend's dad paint the car this time. It still turned out bad, he really hung me out to dry. There are multiple runs in the paint, orange peel, and dirt. He didn't bother to take care of them at all, instead he handed me a pad and told me to do it myself. Gee, thanks. After some hard work and attention to detail, the car got to where it is now. Here is a picture before I took it off the road, and another 13,000 miles. I drive the car a lot.
So that is where I am at now. I'm currently finishing up my turbo setup thanks to the guys on the V6 forum. I actually just started the car up last night, so just a couple more things to finish up before the car is on the road. Here is a picture of the engine bay from last night before I got the spark plug wires on:
I will update the engine bay picture as I tidy things up. Thank you for the opportunity and good luck to everyone!!
Thanks for the nomination! I may not have the prettiest, or fastest car here, but I love it and have a hot of hours in it! 86 sport coupe I've had since freshman year. Small block auto car, has had a repaint. all work has been done by me and my dad. Been through the engine, trans, rear, brakes, suspension ect. Replaced the seats, dash, console lid ect. Pics speak for themselves, thanks again!
I've had my 84 for almost 25 years! It was the first car I ever bought, and I held onto it all this time. I drove this car every day for many years, put well over 150k on the original V6 motor. But overtime that took it's toll on it, and that motor finally was done, I was left with the choice of scrapping the car, or restoring it.
I decided to restore it, and make it better than it was when it was new. First was sanding it all down and getting it ready for paint. At this point I decided to add the 91/92 style GFX. Took a little modifications but was able to get all that installed. Then for the interior, I always loved the more modern 91/92 style dash. So out went the old dash, and in with the new. I also then replaced all the carpet and SEM all the plastics with a Graphite color scheme.
Next was the engine, it's a Camaro it deserved a V8. So in went a 5.7 from the 92 Z28 parts car that I had.
Finally it was painting time, I went with a Victory Red/Gloss Black theme. The gloss black really makes the car look mean driving down the road.
Lighting:
I was so happy to finally have it back on the road, but I wasn't done with my projects yet. I love LEDs and wanted the modern appearance that new cars have, so I opened up the rear tail lights and got some perf boards and started soldering 1000's of LEDs to get the look I wanted. I did this for brake/tail/turn and Reverse lights. I then opened up the front turn signals and did the same with those.
More LEDs in the dash too, the stock lighting of the cluster is very dim. So I added LED strips behind the cluster to give a very even look.
Next was the headlights, the stock halogen are terrible. So I replaced them with Bi-Xenon HIDs. It makes such a difference it's incredible.
Car Audio:
Car audio has always been a hobby of mine, and once the car was able to be driven again. I was so ready to start on the audio portion of the car. The first thing I did was built a fiberglass box in the rear hatch for 2 IDQ 12s, being run off a MMATS 1400.1 hidden in the rear glove box. I then built custom kickpanels with some Hybrid Audio 6.5s and tweets. Being run off a PPI amp also hidden in the rear glove box.
The next item was the head unit itself, I was able to fabricate a custom bezel to hold a double din sized unit. It almost looks like it came from the factory this way.
Will just post what I did last month. Will try and get new pictures this week.
Originally Posted by CharcoalBird
Thank you guys for the nomination. Especially since there were so many other clean examples.
I purchased the car in 2004 fresh out of high school. I was helping a friend find a car to buy. When we saw the car he immediately called his mother who just laughed at him when he said it was a Firebird. I told him if he cant buy it then I will. It was my daily driver for 8+ years. It has over 250k miles on it and since it isn't my daily driver, I drive it hard almost every time I drive. I have built it thus far to have fun in it and that is exactly what I do.
Here is a list of what I have done so far. There is still so much more I want to do, including an LSx/m6 swap.
-Repainted Dark Shadow Gray in 2010.
-Firebird Decals on the front bumper and sail panels air brushed on solid black.
-XXR 526 Wheels. 18x9 fronts and 18x10.5 in the rear.
-275/35/18 fronts and 295/35/18 in the rear. Tires are KDW2's.
-Founders strut mounts
-KYB shocks and struts
-1.75" LoTec lowering springs
-UMI Subframe Connectors
-Global West A-arm bushings
-Hotchkis strut tower brace
-Factory Wonderbar
-Founders adjustable rod-ended rear LCA and Panhard bar
-91/92 T/A taillights tinted
-Ram air hood is functional.
-Windows tinted
-New aluminum radiator.
-Dual LS1 fans.
Future plans
-Install the CTS-V brakes that I have already.
-LSx/T56 swap
This is the first carshow I ever attended with it. This was the 2004 Florida fbody meet.
First car show.
8 Years later I was finally able to get around to putting money into the car.
Engine bay - Still detailing it but here is an updated one.
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These last two are not professional photos by any means but for some reason, I love them.
Wish the sun was on the other side.
Last edited by CharcoalBird; 04-29-2016 at 10:29 AM.
I like all of these cars for different reasons.. This is tough..
I don't really consider RS base model though.. They seemed more like their own thing.. In between the base model and IROC.. That's just how I always saw it..
Would have been cool to see one of those late 80s base two tone Camaros with ground effects and the Z28 wheels.. Haven't seen one of those in good shape in a long time. Knew a guy who had a Dark Red/Gold vert one back in the day.
I owned a base 83 camaro sport coupe in 83 with V6. My first car
I did love it but I have become a bird fan so I have to go with the most stock one here (hard to keep em stock aint it?)
pgtr your 84 does it in pure stock look. man. great willpower!
Hats off to you pgtr. Always heard it was harder to leave a car alone than it was to mod it. Hard decision this month all of you guys have nice cars worthy of nominations.
Holy cow guys, talk about a tight race. I think it really shows how fantastic all the cars are this month, we all should be giving ourselves a pat on the back for sure. Good luck guys!!
how is that possible? pgtr only has one pic on this thread and is tied for 1st....?
Thats a good question. I simply don't get it myself. Since when does any car deserve a vote based off of ONE photo? I mean, don't get me wrong, I Love pgtr's car! The one photo of it reveals exactly what I remember those cars looking like in 84. From the one photo Its a great example of a car its vintage. But, PLEASE show some more pics so I can validate and justify casting a vote for it. It simply hasn't earned any votes in my opinion. It could have a missing headliner and a cracked up dash for all we know. At a car show you wouldn't cast a vote for a car that had its doors locked up tight and the hood closed and only allowed to view it from one side? Show them off fellas!!!! These are supposed to be in a HIGH QUALITY FINISHED STATE, not a dirty under the hood, dirt ground into the floor mats, paint with flaws all over kinda state. Show them off and do a photo shoot! Yall are scaring me with your style of voting since we have a presidential election coming up. Are ya gonna vote for the one with boobies just cos she has them? Come on!!!! lol
I'm usually all for bone stock original cars, but I was really impressed with CDoyle's transformation.
Very classy updates and not over the top while keeping the best parts of what makes a third gen what it is.
The before and after is awesome.
I really wanted to see some engines and interiors of the others.. I'm so used to IROC interiors it's cool to see the base model dash emblem, steering wheel, seats, etc..
04-20-2016, 01:49 PM
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