utfan01ss

iTrader: (1)

Man that's beautiful! Cant wait to see the finished project...

ghettocruiser

iTrader: (4)

Holy moly!!

This has to be one of the most drastic transformations! Esp since you didnt have a shop do the metal work. So impressive!

Loving your color choice. Car looks amazing, and its not even done yet. Looking forward to seeing the finished product!

Justin

Barlow8869

iTrader: (1)

all i can say is WOW!

cam-

You guys did a great job. Great step by step documentation too. Im with above, looking forward to finished pics and maybe a vid or two

camaro1185

Are those lower stripes painted on? If not why were they put on so quickly after paint. My painter told me to wait a few weeks before decals or they may bubble up.

alan91z28

guys thanks for all the responses... clearly i have benefited from all the experience of TGO members on this forum and has been a great help in this and my other projects

to the question on the stripes, yes all the stripes you see on the hood, roof, deck, side body silver/black stripe are all painted and then under the clear... since i was going this far i decided to do all painting and no decals

i will be stopping by later this week and put up some updates, they should be making good progress as they were hoping to get it back to me end of next week... i am already starting to gather some parts

one thing that looks like is going to be more complicated than originally planned is since i need to go through the PA reconstructed process due to the salvage title, when i discussed it with the special inspector he strongly encouraged me to put in a '88 style engine / emissions package for the reconstruction inspection and then after i get my title back i can basically do what i want. he indicated this will save quite a bit of hassle with the re-title process since they are obligated to indicate emissions equipment is all present, etc... he was a very nice and experienced guy in this process and was giving me his take on it to avoid some difficulties he has seen others encounter... so this might be a swap and then a swap!

alan91z28

a couple more pics from this afternoon... they are getting the finish buffing going and should be starting re-assembly tomorrow

a big step in this restoration is coming to a close... still a long way to go in total of course, but getting to this point has been the big step

Citation X

I would say more of a gigantic leap. Not very many people would have attempted an undertaking like this one. Hats off to you.

alan91z28

coming together pretty good now, should get it back next week...

thanks again TGO for the great color suggestion... in person this color is really amazing IMHO... i am really liking the way it is coming out

starting to accumulate a lot of parts, i will have to get some views of those items for you guys... the 8.8 rear end from Hawks for example is a really nice piece, bruce is doing a great job on those

alex722607

iTrader: (3)

I was never a fan of the way Camaro's look, until I saw your car with this paint scheme, wow. I think HID's would really top it off IMHO.

what a great looking car!

alan91z28

a couple shots from today as they are now in final work before i get it back... looks like pick-up and back home this friday

87cam305

you are a lot braver than I am. Good work the orange looks great.

Flip 2

iTrader: (1)

Amazing what you have done with this car!
Love it! Love it! Love it!

alan91z28

Thanks guys this is quite a family project

While we didn't get anywhere near the amount of snow Buffalo got, we still got about ~10 inches last week so it has taken over a week of waiting for the pick-up

Fortunately the weather turned warm over the weekend and everything melted so we went and did the pick-up Monday.

Bonnell's really did a great job on the body / paint work and now with this milestone completed we have a pretty good handle on proceeding

Here are a couple shots back in my work garage

cam-

Fantastic!!! My Players car is in need of the same treatment. I almost started on it last year, then I sold it... deal fell through, now im dreaming of such a resto again thanks in part to this thread #dreamsneverend

alan91z28

We've been busy at church with a Christmas musical our family is in, but got some progress yesterday

For the first time in almost 2 years the camaro is back off the rebuild cradle and sitting free on the lift jack / jackstands

This procedure was a little involved and we took our time as the rear is quite a bit heavier right now than the front so it took a little bit to make sure the cradle released without pulling down the front or rear inadvertently as the rear and front most alignment pins on my cradle you couldn't pull out other than dropping the cradle down (if i do another one like this i am going to make the cradle so all pins can be removed with everything sitting still

anyways after a little thinking and deciding to cut the front cradle posts to make it easier to drop it wasn't too bad. we then had to cut the cradles rear shock posts as we didn't have enough height to roll the cradle underneath (originally i had the car in the other way when i first put the cradle on, but this time i wanted engine compartment facing front to allow using the engine lift without manually pushing the car on /off the lift)

we are ready for some fuel tank / rear suspension axle / front suspension next to get it sitting on its own wheels!

pmcruz781

That paint on your car came out perfect

edz88irocz28

So far flawless work! You are truly talented and blessed!

Irocall

Subscribed!!

Bullydawg

iTrader: (7)

Such a beautiful ride!

yzski

This just totally helped me out. I have a 1992 25th anv Z03 convertible with major rear end damage.
I want to save this car
I have the rear half and am ready to go
already have a similar jig just didn't know how I was goingto go aabout it
It's also a rust free California car
awesome job you did thanks for the thread
you put my mind at ease

ghettocruiser

iTrader: (4)

Wow... that came out absolutely gorgeous. Ide love to see that car in person some time!

Ive thought numerous times about going orange on my TA. But always talk myself out of it.

Such a great job on that car. Great job to everyone involved with it...

Justin

alan91z28

thanks guys for all the nice comments, i think it is coming out quite nice and glad you guys like what you see as well

my son and i have been busy on it over the Christmas break and have made some good progress

we started on the rear of the car so naturally first up was getting the gas tank in.

we started with a new spectra tank, new GM sending unit, and Walbaro 255 l/hr pump

for the cushioning material on top i got some silicon foam strip from mcmaster, the fuel tank straps i got from summit

also i did end up buying the GM fuel tank cam ring installer, it works really nice and is much easier than the two screw driver method... not an absolute requirement of course but like anything else the purpose design tool usually makes the job easier and higher quality

as a note i did need to do a little hammer tapping work on the tank sides where the straps intersect the body both front and back, it was mostly just folding further over the seam weld so the tank would fully mount up

alan91z28

after getting the heat shields in place we then began working on getting the rear axle ready to mount up

the rear axle i am using is a Hawks build of the Ford 8.8 inch with standard 3rd gen length and mounting points... it is a very nice piece

we put one of these in my son's Formula 350 this summer and it worked out great. It has lower losses than the 9 inch and pretty much just as strong

i had Bruce fit it up with a set of Baer discs on the back for brakes that are the PBR based calipers used on the late 3rd gens / early 4th gens

It came pretty much ready to mount up other than getting the brake lines set up.

For this i make a mount for the Tee piece that uses the rear torque arm bolt. I am using all stainless lines and have the flare forming tool from eastwood which works great for making the necessary 45 deg double flare that was needed on both ends based on the flex lines i have for the tee and the connection to the rear calipers

alan91z28

the remaining items for the rear axle assembly where pretty straight forward

- eibach pro drop springs
- air lift drag bag, note that since the 8.8 axle assembly has a lot higher rear spring retainer perch, i called air lift to get a shorter bag vs the standard one specified for the 10 bolt
- energy suspension sway bar mounting, note that do your self a favor and ditch their supplied 6" long bolt for the body to sway bar and get yourself a 6 1/2" to make assembly a lot easier
- UMI torque arm with front mount integrated into transmission brace, note that to get the rear bracket to fit you need to do some cutting on the top to clearance for the 8.8 gear case
- also note that on the UMI torque arm the top bolt / nut that bolts the torque arm to the axle bracket comes real close to the axle yoke. to give it more clearance i am going to use a short nylock nut on top vs the one they sent... i also think i will use some spherical joints to give it good compliance with no bending load (right now it does see to fit fine without any bending load, but am still thinking of the spherical)
- UMI adjustable lower control arms
- UMI adjustable panhard bar
- 16" iroc wheels

alan91z28

before we put the front suspension in, with everything out of the way on both sides of the firewall i wanted to get the mounting for the clutch master and pedals all worked out

in the end we spent a couple of days on this as i wanted to really figure out the best way to do it and also try and replicate with measurement the exact location of the holes

for this swap, we are going to use 4th gen pedals so the first thing was confirming those would mount up.

bottom line on this was the top two holes on the pedal set to firewall need opened up to allow the booster studs to pass through and you need to modify the top bracket hole location.

after looking at the top bracket, i decided to just remove the one that comes with the pedal set and make my own. i used a piece of 2X2 3/16" angle and drilled the holes accordingly. this piece is strong enough i didn't even gusset the side and now the holes line up correctly with the car without having a thin bracket that has a lot of rework

alan91z28

once we verified the pedal fit and got the top bracket made, it was time to figure out the clutch master firewall hole locations

the bracket on the 4th gen pedal has the potential for quite a bit of adjustment so while that gives a rough idea that wasn't going to be good enough to locate

so to get the exact location i went to another 3rd gen in my collection that came with a 5 speed and did some measurements that would be easy to transpose to any other vehicle

to do this i measured with a good drafting compass the measurements of the two clutch master cylinder mounting holes to two of the mounting holes of the steering column

by having to measurements from a known good fixed location (steering column) for each bolt hole you can then on the car that needs the holes drilled use the compass to draw a set of arcs. where the arcs intersect is the exact location of the bolts holes that the factory would drill

in the first pic are the measurements that i took off my reference car that had the factory 5 speed in it. Looking from the inside of the car to the firewall A is the top left steering column bolt, B is the bottom center steering column bolt, 1 is the clutch master top left bolt, 2 is the clutch master bottom right bolt. You can see the measurements in the pic.

(also don't worry in the first pic that the arcs don't line up as i didn't start with A and B on the paper in a measured position, all i wanted to do was get the distance and measure them on the reference car)

now taking your compass and using A and B steering column positions as your known reference points draw the four arcs... where each pair intersects you will have the location of the two master cylinder bolt holes. Note that the distance between 1 and 2 is 80mm. My set of arcs ended up almost right on the money.

after doing this with the compass we re-mounted the 4th gen pedal set to confirm the locations would mount up for the pedal and they looked great. i slight nudged the 2 hole to the right based on looking at the bracket hole and getting it to 80mm between 1 and 2 (it was a very small nudge)

you can see in the second picture the holes are already drilled and i also mounted up an old gasket to now draw in the center hole location for the master cylinder. the pic shows though also the idea of using the compass just as a reference to illustrate what i was talking about

alan91z28

so now to get the center hole for the clutch master cylinder drilled

as shown in the post above, with the two mounting holes drilled i used an old gasket from a 3rd gen master to mark in the position of the center hole

using a 1 3/4" hole saw i lined up where i wanted the pilot hole to be to have the hole saw in the right position and drilled it with a step drill... note i drilled most of these holes with a step drill as it makes cleaner cuts. also if you use a sharp high quality hole saw the cut is very smooth and clean. i was debating buying a punch out but didn't get around to it

after drilling the hole i confirmed the new set of holes with both a 3rd gen master and the new Tick 4th gen type master

both fit great without the need for any wheel well interference

alan91z28

now a very important part in the clutch master cylinder conversion from an auto...

you will notice that the firewall is relatively thin, the factory also recognized this and put a double plate in factory 5 speed cars to strength and stiffen the firewall so that you minimize firewall flex and potential cracking of the wall itself

the doubler basically acts as a giant washer and spreads the load on the bracket across a large surface area and greatly reduces the stress

you need to install a double plate to avoid trouble

i made mine out of .125 (1/8th inch) steel. the factory doubler is ~0.90" from my measurement.

the factory doubler was a little smaller than mine but basically the same idea. i used a piece of cardboard to make a template and get all the holes lined up and make sure i would have a flush fitting piece

also the bottom stud in the picture is not on factory 5 speed cars, it is the auto lock out cable tie down point i believe. i choose to leave it in since it isn't in the way and gives an anchor point for the doubler

the first pic shows my doubler, i cut the shape of mine with my plasma cutter and then drilled the holes with my drill press. you can make the same using a cut off wheel, it just will take a lot more time to cut the 1/8th inch material

the rest of the pics then show the pedals mounted back up etc and everything fits great

i am going to make a bracket that goes from the top of the pedal to clutch master cylinder mounting bolt "2" like the 3rd gens have. I will leave that for later and move on to the front suspension now that i am confident i have the clutch master mounting all worked out

pmcruz781

I wish I had a car with a five speed to take measurements from when I did this. This looks a whole lot easier then guessing off of other peoples pictures.

alan91z28

yesterday and today we worked on the front suspension

most of the parts for the front are UMI based
- UMI road race K member with spring perches
- UMI adj strut mounts
- UMI a-arms
- Eibach pro springs (1 inch drop)
- KYB AGX adjustable struts

The k member went up relatively smoothly, i made sure to tap out all the holes prior to mounting up and only need to use a taped rod in 2 of them to get them to line up with the k-member holes

the thing to remember is the bolt on spring perches need to face outward so make sure to double check as you put them up otherwise you will be taking the bolts back out

the big job with the front was of course the spring installation. it was quite a pain. now that i have done it though (my other swap i used coil overs) i could probably do another set much easier for sure

in the suspension section of the board there is some good advice as can be expected from TGO, a couple of particular good ones on spring install

https://www.thirdgen.org/forums/susp...y-install.html

https://www.thirdgen.org/forums/susp...g-install.html

in the end neither of these exactly worked for me, could be the actual springs and a-arm i am using vs what they had but both gave a very good set of ideas and basically i ended up adapting my procedure from both of these references

alan91z28

the stock front spring is taller than my Eibach's so that was part of the adjustment.

first i needed to make the spring compressor tool spacer as recommended in the first reference post. He used a 3.5" spacer with the stock spring, after an initial try with that and then stacking a bunch of washers, i needed to go to 4.75" as shown in the first pic

i then aligned the compressor hooks similar to the posted reference and cranked down on the spring. i was able to get it compressed well with the rod bolt slightly higher in the end then the top of the spring

the issue was while i could now place this compressed spring in the pocket, there was no way with this particular spring and the UMI a arm i was going to be able to get it to eventually line up with the swing bolts in the a-arm and trying to jack in the front ball joint area... the car basically just started to lift and even chaining it down wasn't help

so i ended up from the second reference post actually attaching the strut to the ball joint with the rear swing arms free. we then placed the spring in position and held it up against the top perch and basically brought the bottom up to it

after it was set in the top perch we started jacking with a scissor jack under the ball joint until the arms came up enough that i could position them to get the bolts in... while doing this made sure the spring was lining up properly on the bottom umi pocket with the end coil against the stop

after that it was basically loosening the spring compressor and then getting it out of the spring

alan91z28

so a couple of lessons learned from my son's and my efforts today on the spring install...

- when using the type of drop spring we had that is shorter with thicker coils you basically have to have the spring compressor hooks on the first full row of the spring, doing it any higher caused the spring not to be able to be compressed enough for a successful install

- alignment of the hooks becomes critical as since they are going to be in the pocket at the bottom and also close to the perch on the top, one hook on both the top and bottom is going to get pinched... this is ok if you plan for it in the right position as a little leverage from a pry bar will allow you to take the pinch off it and slide it till it is free (also i unscrewed the compressor hook bolts when removing it as you can't get it out without doing so, at least we couldn't)

in the end we got the springs in without too terrible an effort other than a lot of in and out of getting the hooks lined up correctly and learning that the hooks needed to be on the first full coil, etc... so it took us most of the day today to get it done

in the end i learned the hard way also on the hook alignment as when we had the final spring in i thought no big deal just un-pinch the hooks and we are done. unfortunately the top hook was in a position i could not rotate it enough after un-pinching to get it out as it could not slide by the spring perch support!!! i took my cut off disc and cut the hook after i pulled it out enough that i would not touch the spring with the wheel... we were not going to take the spring back down again!

the second pic shows the back perch support i couldn't slide by (in this pic i already had cut the hook and it is already out), if i would have been on the other side with the hook it would have been no sweat!

alan91z28

all in all though we ended today in good shape

front suspension is all up and camaro is back on 4 tires for the first time in over two years!

alan91z28

i have been negligent in posting updates, my son and i have been hard at work over the winter and have made a lot of progress.

for fuel and brake lines i got a complete set from inline tube

there set is very nice as besides the nice stainless pieces it also includes new fuel line hoses, etc so it is a very complete kit. they also have a nice mounting set although i suggest you will need two of the kits as at least in my experience i used more of the 3 piece clips than supplied in one kit

all in all the tubing all fit up very well and you can't beat stainless for long term durability

alan91z28

for cooling, we are going with a high capacity Be-Cool radiator.

this is sort of a direct fit, although to make it fit properly (ie without a top bracket extender that they supply), you need to trim back some of the upper rad support area so the thicker Be-Cool radiator can fully fit up in place, otherwise it will sit back and is why they supply an extension piece.

anyways we did some trimming and after we did some smoothing and touch up painting the Be-Cool now mounts right in place

also we went with their high flow double fan set up

alan91z28

for the past several weeks we have been focused on the engine.

as you know from my earlier posts, to get the salvage title off and a reconstructed title back on i need to go through an enhanced inspection and the recommendation was go original type emissions first then swap in the LSx

Since this is the LSx forum, i am not going to post all the details of what we have been doing at this point, but for the enhanced inspection requirement we are swapping in a ZZ5 crate engine with standard TPI top end.

If anyone wants the details you can PM me, but this takes a little bit of doing like all things and getting the top end all set up, the accessory drive, etc has taken a good month to get all sorted out

now we have the engine in the car and making some good progress

alan91z28

this weekend we have been working on the interior

for insulation we are using the eastwood floor insulator and then for the firewall, quiet ride makes a new OEM like firewall insulator

we then started to work on mounting the AC / heater case and that is a little bit of a chore. the replacement heater cores are an exact fit, but with a little bit of creativity you can get it mounted securely.

jbenge

iTrader: (2)

Thanks for the updates, looks great!

QwkTrip

iTrader: (22)

Beautiful car!

84LsxZ28

Awesome build thread. It inspired me to start on the replacement the whole floor on my car. Can't wait to see this done.

blakecharles

I've never seen a thirdgen restored like this!

Justin69

Do you by chance have the part numbers that you used? I'm in the middle of cleaning/painting the entire underneath the car also and am thinking about adding these also. Thank you in advance.

BTW, The car looks awesome. Mine will be orange someday also.

alan91z28

Thanks, here are the part numbers for the lines i used -

Inline Tube Stainless Steel Lines
- SCCF8801 - 88-92 Main Fuel Line to Pump V8 3/8", 3 pieces
- SCCF8802 - 88-92 Fuel Return line V8 5/16", 2 pieces
- SCCF8804 - 88-92 Vapor Line Drivers Side 1/4", 1 pics
- CCB208 Body Clips (used mixed amount of clips from 2 packs) (note i also used smaller sheet screws then they supplied, i believe i used 1/4")
- SCCB8602 86-88 4 wheel disk full brake set metric fittings, 7 pieces

alan91z28

been a while since we posted our progress, we have made some great progress but need to catch the forum up!

also i had this thread moved to the standard engine swap section as i am thinking about leaving this one sbc at this point vs LS as it has turned our really nice...

anyways back to the progress-

for the manual transmission hole in the floor i took my time and also worked to get good measurements... the pics and the measurements show how i ended up and it worked out very well and the shifter fits great in the standard console location

From the pics you can see my cut-out is 160mm front to back and 100mm total side to side. the very front starts at the bottom edge of the two round indents that are in the floor hump. the side to side measurement is referenced from the passenger side round indent and its right edge. i went 20mm further right from that edge... UPDATE - To accommodate other shifters that have an overhang on the passenger side i now make the cut-out 120mm vs 100mm side to side with the offset of 35mm vs 20mm to the passenger side dimple's right edge, still 160mm front to back

alan91z28

The transmission that i went with is a LT1 style T56.

I had Bruce do a complete level 2 upgrade on it and also had the tail section modified by him to also have the cable speedo interface. As i wanted to retain the original dash gauges this has worked out well for me and i like this better than the cable-x box i went with on my 85 IROC ls swap

For a bellhousing i used a Quicktime RM-9023. While this bellhousing is nice i am disappointed in it from the fact that it does not have the starter cut out correct for a standard starter. I needed to use a mini-starter

Also the bolts they sent with the bellhousing bottomed out in some places like by the engine oil filter housing on my ZZ5 so i needed to use 3/8-16 X 1.0"... note that the bottom two need to be allen head as the interface is so close to the quicktime shield

alan91z28

As i need to pass PA enhanced inspection right now i need to keep the exhaust on the original side and fully emissions legal.

To this end we kept the original exhaust manifolds for now and used the Magnaflow Direct Fit Dual CAT Stainless Steel #23479... with this kit i did not need to use the passenger side manifold to y-pipe spacer... need 3" long studs. Also we installed a wideband O2 bung in the passenger side

For the CAT back used the Stainless Works Exhaust and Muffler Kit #829239, as you would expect it is very nice

Note that the Stainless works kit interfaced easily to the Magnaflow CAT kit. The only welding we needed to do was weld the final y-pipe fit up on the Magnaflow kit and for the 02 bung

We also made a hanger for the CAT that mounts off the transmission mount brace bolt

alan91z28

i will post some more details of the work, but the good news is that yesterday we completed the PA enhanced inspection and my '88 Camaro is now back street legal... the last time i drove it on the road was 25 years ago, so this was quite a big accomplishment for my son and myself

the first pic is my son and myself starting the engine up for the first time back on July 11th... more on that 1st start and a lesson learned in a later post, but bottom line is we have a great running Camaro that is back from the salvage yard and running the streets again!

Flip 2

iTrader: (1)

SWEET!

ghettocruiser

iTrader: (4)

Awesome! This car came out sooo nice!

I love that he took his shoes off in the starting picture haha. Ide do the same thing! Just dont be afraid to drive her now!

Justin