You need to stop by Oregon Raceway Park over here by the Dalles in Moro.. up in Grass Valley, Oregon. They have a 2.4 mile track and are putting in a dragstrip at some point as well. Brand new track.. if you're ever in Oregon come and tear some ground with that awesome machine of yours!!

Nah...phantom II's are just backlit from the numbers, otherwise they're the same as the phantom I's. Those look like the ProParts Spek gauges that NASCAR uses. Might be a different brand, but they look fully digital. Probably a ton of adjustments on them. I want those so bad haha. But I could never afford to outfit my entire dash to those suckers.

J.

Sorry, I forgot to reply to your question....the gauges are made by Defi and they are daisy chained into a controller box which allows you to set audible alarms for each gauge..i.e. low fuel pressure, oil pressure or high water temp. I am sure there is alot more to do with the controller box but haven't taken the time to read the destruction manual

In the next couple of days i'll get back to dealing with the fuel leak and also will start checking the brake system for leaks. I do have to mill down the pass front caliper adapter bracket so the caliper will be centered over the rotor.

Oooh pricy

Well guys, I am almost ready to try and drive this thing! After a couple days of tending to the brake system..bench bled the master cylinder, loaded the calipers and bled them AND hopefully fixed a couple leaks. Last Friday I added brake fluid to the entire system and bled the calipers......Saturday morning, looked under the car and found all the brake fluid in a nice puddle I wasn't surprised, I knew there had to be a couple leaks....so I tightened up the fittings and tried again....so far so good, no leaks! I am crossing my fingers that the leaks have been delt with successfully, though we will see once I start driving it.
If the rain ever lets up i'll DRIVE (instead of rolling) it outside, continue with tuning and shoot another higher quality video hopefully in HD.

Paint does not like brake fluid......Hope you WASHED the underhood area where the brake dripped down on to, real good.

Would really suck to have custom body & paint, only to have it screwed up, before you ever even drove the car!

no probelm there, leak was under the car and did not come in contact with paint. I had the two connections under the hood surrounded by towels.

good to hear man , hope the maiden voyage goes perfectly for ya . 1st drive on projects like this are always 1/2 excitement and 1/2 pins and needles , lol

and add to that: half "i really hope i didnt forget anything"

Test Drive #1 - "The Open Road"

I am here to fill you in on the maiden voyage of Neil's 1987 er I mean 2010 IROC Z28.
He has been busy at work but relayed the story of the first voyage of the Beast. He had finished his brake lines but they were "still a little soft and mushy" due to air in the lines but he figured they would be good enough to stop the car.

So he FIRED it up!!! Put in reverse, and rolled it back about 2 feet. Stopped. Put it in first, rolled forward about 2 feet....*BONER*(his words not mine). He then got racy and went backwards 5 feet, then forwards 5 feet. So far so good.

Throwing all caution into the wind he DROVE it down to the end of the drive way (let's call it 15 feet). Back into first and drove....sputter...sputter....died. He didn't tell me how long it took him to figure out that he had ran out of gas (I'm sure the incline of the driveway contributed) but I'm guessing a good minute. In his defense he did not have the gas gauge hooked up. All in all a successful journey.

So to recap:
Miles Driven: 29 feet
Average speed: 1 mph
Number of noise complaints from neighbors: 1
Shifting into first and going forward with "Born to be Wild" playing on the radio...PRICELESS

The scientific analysis of the recap.....

"Boner" was from sniffing paint/solvents/and or brake clean from the mess he made of the brake lines...

Brake pedal mushy - see above, legs may have been numb from the sniffing of the solvents....

Ran out of gas - due to that motor only getting 4.2 gallons per mile (poor quality tuner maybe)?

Neighbor's complaining - specifically due to him having the only "beater" or clunker if you will, in a complex which contains mostly BMW's etc..

But, gotta give props because the car DID move distance without pushing or a tow truck!

SWEEET, atleast he didnt stall it haha

That is fricken priceless 29feet. I know his excitement having fired mine up back in the day after 5 years of building. Not as radical as this mind you. Great work Neil, let's hope to see it soon in GM High Tech or Camaro Performers. Hell, Pass Time on speed would be fine as well.

Get some gas in there and get some HD videos...

delete

Bro, you are too freakin' funny! The only problem with your recap of my "maiden voyage" was that I wasn't playing "Born to be wild" since I don't have a radio in the car yet.....but hey it's all good....i'll roll w/ it

1bad91Z.....man quit sniffin the glue, just stop! Anymore negative outbursts from you and i'll ban ur a$$ from this thread

So, I have been tightening and re-tightening all the brake line fittings in the hopes that the ss flares will eventually seat. So far so good, it's getting better! 2 down and one to go. I'll check tomorrow evening to see if the leaks are gone and then bleed all the calipers again. THEN, put more gas in tank and start her up again. More videos to come this week!

Did the leather on the recaros conform better to the seat overtime like the shop said they would ?

Actually, I have the seats wrapped in plastic so I haven't checked in a while. But I will be pulling all that plastic off soon when I clean up the interior more and I'll take video and show you. If not, they will be fixing those bad boys!

I am surprised you remembered that I commented on that a while back.

Sir, I am waiting patiently for video If you're ever in NY, would you mind signing an autograph in the asphalt with your tires?

very awesome! thats awesome that it is running and operational. way to go, hard work has paid off for you

Alrighty, here's a teaser vid!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HPKt5Bk-1WA

I am still working on tuning the ecu and in doing that I am also having problems keeping the laptop PC communicating with the BigStuff ECU. I might try a resistor style spark plug in hopes that will cut down on electrical interference. Kind of difficult to tune when the computer cannot collect data.

Where did you get your rocker emblems? Car is looking slick!

Thanks, the emblems were painted on by Maxwell graphics.

what camera are you using?!!





you make my car loook like.... eehhhhh

Dude, your car looks awesome! I still want to get a side-by-side photo of our cars. The camera I am using is a Canon 5D Mark II.

HAHAHAHA OMG!!!!!!!!!!!

Wow, this car is amazing!

man neil, that is one of the nicest camaros ive ever seen... i ruined my screen with the engine bay shots shots haha...

Words aren't really enough to express this car... Neil, hats off to ya man, this whole project is absolutely incredible!! Incredible work!! I have no idea how this thread has slipped past me all this time, but I'm glad I found it now!!

That's a beautiful car,nice job

Thanks guys! So, after taking several photos of the car on the ground and with the engine in I still need to do a couple things in addition to seeing if the SS hood will fit.
1) the rear coilovers need to be adjusted to get the correct ride height, the car is a little too high in the back for my liking and 2) the rear spoiler needs to be modified, 5" is just a little too much in my opinion. When the car is back in the body shop for paint chip/peeling fixes, i'll probably take 1/2" to a full inch off the spoiler height and also curve the spoiler ends more since they are too square. Oh, one more thing, since the widening of the rear bumper did not work as well as planned (paint is lifting and the bonding agent used seemed to have settled??) I will have a new bumper custom made and will also have the bottom skirt which flares out removed and have it made so the bottom of the bumper is more smooth.

Here are some more pics and one of me driving

After I get the brake lights working and the PC to communicate better with the laptop i'll get her out on the street for some real video

Neil, Neil Neil... *sigh* the hood... a see through lexan hood would be nice, or one indented enough and cutout so that the intake can peek through.

And, while I do favor that spoiler you have, its pretty good looking, I can understand having something with a lower profile, that's why I ripped the 91-92 spoiler off of mine that someone stuck on and put an 85 spoiler in its place, it was that or the 88 with the center light.

I have had paint lifting probs too after shooting the rubber bumpers, meh, sucks I know!

Just wondering, once you hit the dyno, with your cam/heads and insane intake, combo... what do you envision your rwhp readouts to be? Figure 6-700 hp with a mild LSX 454, feeling a 800+ with your combination of fueled erotica on four wheels?

ohhh Edit:
Will you be selling raffle tickets for a spot in your will to be the beneficiary that receives said fueled erotica on four wheels? Thanks Neil

Neil man the car is very cherry. Chiming in regarding the urethane bumper covers and paint. Been through this many times myself and the following steps have to be taken to prevent bubbling/flaking/peeling etc. Almost ten years on the paint on my car now with no issue at all.

1. Wash the hell out of them with dish soap and water
2. Wipe thoroughly with plastic friendly degreaser
3.This is the bad part... Any paint that is on there that is not OEM needs to be sanded off. Any cracks in the paint need to be sanded down to the urethane and carefully feathered out
4. wash with soap and water again
5. wipe thoroughly with degreaser again
6. spray with adhesion promoter
7. prime with 2K epoxy and flex additive
8. top coat with flex additive and be sure the paint used is suitable for flexible parts ( not all are )

For instance I have HOK shimrin white base but I used RM mid coat clear and HOK silver pearly paste then topcoated with Diamont DC92 and DF25 flex additive. ( IIRC those products are still available under new nameplates )

Anyways for whatever reason ( maybe they used too much mold release agent during manufacture? ) but third gen bumper covers have got to be the WORST dang things to paint trouble free.

Hope this helps good luck Neil.

cam-

Dang Neil I need your money! Looks great!

Hey man, what is that hose that is hanging down in front of the passenger side front wheel?

I think Neil was refering to the paint lifting on the center split of the bumper. That material where they widened the bumper is not urethane.

Neil, the car looks amazing... I have been checking this thread every day to see pics of the full car at ride height and it was worth the wait!

If you do end up having a new rear bumper cover fabricated, they could always take mold from the one you have now and then make a solid piece out of hand laid glass and resin. I'm still not sure why the body shop thought FRC would bond to PUR... the rest of their work seems to be top notch.

I didn't like the sharpness of the hawks spoiler either, so we ended up making our own:

Everyone, thanks for chiming in, I really appreciate hearing everyone's experience and suggestions. I would like to respond to each of your posts individually, but I think doing that in one post would be easier.

Resinlake - good idea and yes have thought about going with the clear Lexan look to see the intake peeking through, we'll see how the hood fits first. Hey, if it fits I am not going to customize it now, that can wait til later......need a break As for my last will and testament......my bro will get it. He'll probably turn it into a roundy-round NASCAR or something of the sort, lol.

Cam - thanks very much for the nice comments and your detailed protocol for prepping and painting urethane! The main problem is where the bumper was widened in the center. Approximately 5-6" of metal plate was used to widen the bumper (you can see pics from this much earlier on in the thread). Now, I know this was not the best technique and I and the shop was aware that we might be doing this again. I however opted to have a custom bumper made, I believe the place is Rod-n-Race, they specialize in making fiberglass parts for our cars and many others. When I do get it, I will follow your suggestions to a T. I already copied and pasted your post into a word file


1bad91z as for the "hose" hangin down, it's not a hose, it's about 15' of power cable. Since that crap was so expensive I didn't want to cut it! Also, I will likely be relocating the battery to the trunk so I will need that power cable intact.

JohnyIROC - man, your car is beautiful! Great pics in the snow too! Like your spoiler alot, I like especially how it follows the lines of the car above the taillights from side to side. Hawks seemed to have not follow this line well and the spoiler hangs below the body line of the car/trunk lid area, I hope I am making sense! But anyway, I will shave some more off the bottom of the spoiler to better follow the contour of the car.

Now, an updated list of things I still need to do:

Will have John at American Race Components do the following:
1) Fabricate a strut tower brace to run under the front of the intake manifold-TB area (painted to match car)
2) Air induction tubes/piping, hopefully dual 3" and will have them chromed or something that's stupid shiny, lol
3) Valve covers will be painted to match car and will have a the polished billet strip that goes on the cover engreaved or laser etched with something, not sure what yet.
4) A scrape plate to protect the fuel and brake lines will have to be fabbed.
5) Brake light LEDs from Spaghetti Engineering have been ordered (LED reverse and LED corner bulbs as well)
6) Ordered new lenses, all smoked red and smoked clear for reverse.
7) Can't wait to see 5&6 finished
8) Working on the passenger side A-pillar, should have that finished by the weekend! Then will cover certain parts in suede (the B-pillars) and then others with a faux leather. Not sure what I am going to do with the rear interior paneling yet. The sub box/amp rack will dictate how that will look. Of course also have to add in the stereo, still planning on the Kenwood DDX-812 with navigation. I already have a JL Audio W6 12" sub, so I think that would be plenty for me with a 500w amp.

That's all I can think of for now, thank gawd!

You may want to consider dual 3.5" like I've said in the past. It's going to need to breath!

Jim and I just did a dual 3" for a "stock" LS-1 in a Tangelo Orange '56 Bel-air. I'll get a pic of it today.

just skimmed through the thread. car looks amazing. awesome build.

holy sh*t batman did u see that 87 iroc build on TGO that car in top notch and beaitiful... lol I love the build not in love with the spoiler, but don't take that to heart. just reminds me to much of the 79-81 spoiler which I liked but only on that bodystyle. now we just need strip times and a vid of the pass to see the amazing machine at work. I had to go through the whole thread because when I started i couldn't stop til I saw the finished product. so I've sat here for 3 hours and I even skipped over paged I'll have to go over each page some other time since it's 6am here now. well excellent job neil thx for the post I may have to steal the quarter panel idea from u someday in the future those wheels look the they actually came from the factory that way and there wasn't any tubbing done which is awesome.

Brandon M.

I'm sure that Neil will have some updates for us all tomorrow...
Neil man,all the coin you got in this car so far coulda put a pretty down payment on a 2010 SS! I like your approach better though,really means something when it is yours and built by your own hands.. A huge congrats from Tim Taylor and Binford tools!(LOL!)

I know Neil's *** is sore to hear this, but he can testify to this.... he has WAY more money in that car than the cost of a 2010 SS camaro....

A 2010 SS is roughly $38,000 plus ttl. I'd be willing to say he could have bought a 2010 SS AND a 2010 RS and probably still would have enough money left over to buy a cheese burger or two for the cost of his build.

He's got the disease...

you are friggen high if you are saying that neil could have bought two new camaros for the cost of his build.

you must be pretty clueless, considering a hogans fabricated intake like neils alone cost around 3000$, plus the one off custom billet wheels, and the large amounts of custom bodywork. get a clue

the Hogan intake was the first thing to come to mind when I was reading the previous posts... anyhow.. Neil, glad you built one instead of buying one that might have weights adhered to the rear calipers.. haha, yea I said it! I mean think about it, Neils car is possibly the greatest thirdgen on the road right now (is it on the road?) For the price of his intake, you could buy one, -half way decent used thirdgen, maybe two. His car is siiiick.

...... im tryen to figure out what to say!?! .......
WOW comes to mind!
congrats Neil, how does it feel to be a proud father? you've got one nice looken baby there!

so you are saying this build cost, was what.. 60 thousand?

well considering the wheels and tires were probaly close to 10 id be willing to be its more like 80-90, look at the components that went into this build, its absolutely top notch, ive dumped dam near 15g into my car, and its barely modified, when you look at the fact that this has a bigstuff3 setup, leather recaros, etc etc... this isnt a budget build, its a extemely badass example of what can be done with our cars. I dont think its anyones business except for neils to know the $$ value invested in this car, but im going with a safe guess in saying it probaly wasnt as cheap as you think it was

You are high or are at least ignorant to the costs associated to do a high end build.

Where I work, the cars we build for auto-rama are in the $100,000 area and up from start to finish.

It would be nice if Neil could have built it for $60,000. He would have alot more funds in the savings account right now!!

BUT, don't get off topic. Do you guys really care how much he spent? It's not your money or car. When you are building something custom that is exactly what you want in an auto AND you can afford to have it exactly your way, then the money doesn't matter. Just enjoy and appreciate what he built.

I've said it before.... asking someone exactly how much money they have in their car is like asking someone how big are his wife's tits. It's kind of personal.

Neil, once again, great to see this thread and your build generating so much buzz amongst the 3rd gen crowd. I'd hope to see your ride in a publication sometime soon, i.e. camaro performers, GM Hi-Tech, etc, etc.

The cost/build question was pretty "noob". Once you get into a serious build you stop counting $'s and really just focus on time (years).

I spoke to Hogan a year or so ago regarding a custom intake setup much like the design of Neil's and it was certainly up there for costs. BUT, you get what you pay for.

On a closing note, Neil, when are updated vid's coming?? We don't all live in a drive year round climate ya' know (Connecticut has already had snow).