terrorsquad77

Alright, I've always been a fan of keeping these cars original, but I have an mse trans am I'm restoring. I decided my 89.rs convertible can be used as a way to make all of the tuner kids in my area hang up the keys. That being said, the camaro is an 89 rs convertible, with the power house L03 (which I'm more than well aware won't be part if the equation.) 700r4. I have no skills with motors or swaps at all. So labor needs to be included into your mental calculations. The average labor rate is 85 an hour up here. . Can it be done? The budget its not the be all end all total , but would like to come in as close as possible or below. The car its entirely stock, and needs tho stay automatic so the wife can drive it, and needs good street manners as well. Gas mileage will effect path taken if results are similar. So, can it be done? What is the best way to build an animal on a relatively small budget?


All suggestions will be considered, and advice is greatly appreciated.

SiCkRs

iTrader: (6)

Sadly that budget will get you only to about mid to low 13s.

DIGGLER

iTrader: (1)

junkyard vortec motor with a carb on it, th350/400, drag radials, and a nitrous kit.
edit- the labor cost is gonna kill your dreams, though.

Sojer

And that's with the 305. The. Trans that will need to hold up to at least 550hp and that will cost you bout 2k, if they got to take yours out and put the new 1 in. I wish I had 2500 to put in my car. I found all the big parts for a LQ4 swap. I just need money, I can't get much for a modded LB9. Your rear end would cost 2500 lol

terrorsquad77

Th350’S run pretty cheap out here, they come up around 300 or so. The budget is workable. More cash just means more time ha. Sojer , are you saying I need to push about 550 HP to run a time like that?

FSTFBDY

iTrader: (33)

That budget isnt gonna cut it being you need to pay a shop to do the work.
Your gonna be looking at more then 1/2 that just on a engine/tranny swap.
Then your talking a decent built engine and Trans.
Suspension to hook it up to run the #'s you want.
Safety equipment

If your a DIY kinda person. or have friends are are all willing to learn.
350 swap with a Home built turbo kit. Good tranny and converter.

Atilla the Fun

You need a sweet score at your local Pick-N-Pull's half-price day, when you can score a 454 / TH400 combo for $200, and a better axle for $100. Probably July 4th. If you can't do that, forget it. But a peanut-port 454 can do 420 HP with no porting, so any 454 will do. You'll also need SFCs, drag radials, nitrous, headers, intake manifold, camshaft and exhaust. The labor could kill the deal. Double the budget, or get your wife's car out of the carport and learn to wrench. Driveability will be far better than a Vortec 350 with a bigger cam and a bigger nitrous kit. But either way, forget MPG. A built 700R-4 will eat 2/3 of your budget.

terrorsquad77

I can do some of the work, I do all of my suspension and brakes. I think I can pull the motor my self. I just have never had a car before that wasn't my only vehicle, so learning motors wasnt an option, because if I screwed up, I was stuck. The 305 in the Camaro is going to be my training wheels. I can raise the budget, it will just take a couple months.

five7kid

iTrader: (14)

A convertible will have to have a 6-point roll bar. Hard tops have to have a roll bar at 11.49 ET.

2007xl50

I'm going to say it cannot be done with even close to $2500 even if you did all the work or most of it. I have a buddy that has a 64 Cutlass it's about 3500 lbs-not that much more than your car. he has a built 355, built 200R4 with a 2500 RPM stall, 390 gears with posi, X-pipe exhuust with 2 chamber flows and some other stuff-the car is built good. The guy can drive and race. The best that car has done in the 1/4 is very low 14's. He just got some slicks so this weekend it should be in the high 13's. Let me tell you-he was way way more than $2500 in that build and he does alot of work himself. This is not the movies and it takes alot of money, planning and know how to get a car that runs 17's now get into the 11's.

Orr89RocZ

iTrader: (20)

Not a snowballs chance with labor included....

heat seeker

iTrader: (5)

Nope, not a chance....even if you did the labor yourself.

Orr89RocZ

iTrader: (20)

Well labor yourself with a junkyard vortec 350 with enough nitrous it may live 1-2 times for an 11 but its not a good idea. Chinese turbo kit with some pipes yourself, MAYBE see 11's on good gas for under 2500.

heat seeker

iTrader: (5)

I'm sure for $2500 you can find a large slingshot.

terrorsquad77

Challenge accepted.

1gary

Well if you do end up building a nitrous car,might want to consider not showing the wife what "that" button does.Could be you find a empty bottle alot.

2007xl50

And an empty block as well LOL!

Richboll

Aside from the fact that after paying for about 30 hours of labor the $2500 will be gone...Does your wife know what your plan is for what sounds like her car? I say take the $2500 and make the 'vert dependable, safe and good looking!

heat seeker

iTrader: (5)

Here's an idea, since you have some money to throw around:

I actually paid my neighbor (a certified mech) to teach me how to work on my car. I think it was like $600 or something like that. Best money I ever spent. He would basically tell me what to take off, how to take it off and what it does. When it was all said and done I learned how to build my own engines, and now I custom tune my own car.....priceless.

I can't even imagine what this car would cost me to race, if I paid someone else to work on it. Plus, the thought of having to wait on a mechanic every time I wanted to do a mod, would be ridiculous.

This hobby is expensive......but it's a lot cheaper if you learn to just do it yourself. You won't regret it!

Orr89RocZ

iTrader: (20)

How's that working for you? Car looks to be running great from the numbers in the sig.

I learned from just reading tech books/how to build type books, service manuals, etc. Trial and error is a great way to learn Just get your hands dirty

I went from nervous about doing replacement intake gaskets on my TPI L98 in '04 to building motor from bare block and twin turbo systems in winter of '08/spring '09! Alot in just 4-5 years

built91Z28

Same here. When I first started building my camaro, I could do a brake job. That was about it. Now, everything on my car has been built and installed by me. Some costly mistakes along the way, but you learn 1000 times quicker and more by mistakes than by doing something right. Sucks, but thats the way it is.

vwdave

Keep saving money up and do a proper build. Its just not doable paying someone else to do the work.

1gary

The hidden costs of you build it almost never given credit on a completed project is shop,tools,and equipment.

Said this before,David Vizard's how to build SBC's is a book you really need to buy.

terrorsquad77

I'll pick that up tomorrow. I agree this the best time to learn. Like I said, this is the first time I've owned a "spare" car. A place to build it is a different story ha ha!

vwdave

I guess the first question is, how large is your tool collection. Second is how much experience do you have with working on cars?

First off, your goals are unrealistic. Not by a small shot either. Theyre really out there. Ill list a few things that can help out making the car more fun to drive, not destroy the reliability or make the car a PITA to drive. Keep in mind, you may want to make good friends with someone who is either a mechanic, or a gearhead willing to help. If you have a hot sister, use her as bait.

Make sure the car is in good running order. New plugs/wires/cap/rotor, filters all around, maybe a open element (TBI forum has alot of info on it.) IIRC, L03's are setup to run 0* timing BTDC. Moving this to 6* should give you a little bit. Ask a relatively competent shop to do it. If it was me, I would charge $45, which is minimum for my shop.

I guess a good place to start is replacing the gears. You have a few options here. You can pay someone to change them, which can run $250-$300 for labor, plus all the misc stuff. One option I like is to find a 3.42 rearend out of a V6 3rd gen. Its going to be a open diff, but lets be honest here, youre not going to be drastically overpowering your tires enough to spend the extra money. Expect to spend $150. Bonus money saved if you can swap this yourself. Not really difficult, just kinda large and heavy is all.

Transmission modifications. A good budget converter is the early 90's 4.3l S10. On our cars they'll stall to about ~2000. If you want something a little looser, I believe the TPI Vettes stall around 2500 on our cars. A good shift kit and service should be done also. If you buy a reman converter from a transmission shop, they'll cost under $150. You have to remove the transmission to replace this, so possibly having a mild performance rebuild might not be a bad idea if your car has alot of miles on it.

Youve taken care of 2 of the best "bang for the buck" mods there is. Now turn to power.

Best option really is the vortec TBI engine. Cheap as dirt, good heads, most if not all were roller engines. You can get one of those, get either a LT1 or LT4 cam. I would also take the time to have the valvesprings replaced as theyre probably old as hell. A good set is the Comp Cams 981's. Cheap, good, fit the spring pockets exactly. I think I actually have a set of these from my old build laying around somewhere. Regardless a new LT4 (std) is like, $175 from SDPC, the comp springs should be about $60-$80. This is a very mild cam which is going to have stock like driveability without any annoying problems or tuning issues. You would have to have your TBI unit adapted to fit, I believe there is a performance vortec TBI intake, its been a long time since I was into TBI's, so things might have changed.

Last but not least, after the engine is in, done, all is good, you should REALLY find someone with tuning experience with the TBI EFI system. Make sure they are knowledgeable, reputable, and check sources. Dont go with someone "because they make the most power with their tunes" or "he tunes racecars." What you are looking for, is someone who knows how to tune a street car. The guy thats teaching me has a whole stable of cars hes tuned that are $100k+, 1000whp street cars with air conditioning. I used to work at a high performance shop and have seen numberous cars sold off and blown to pieces because of bad tuners.

Hope that helps.

mikebondi

My. 02 cents is labor will kill this. I had to pay to have an oil pan put on it was 450 dollars and I bought the pan. Gonna have to do it yourself

If you got a nice block from a vortec truck did a quick freshen up on that with a rering and new bearings reusing the vortec heads and a jegs or summit cam. Nice vortec intake and a 750 Carb on top. Should get you a solid motor maybe 1k doing all the work yourself. Probably 350 crank hp not gonna get you 11s but about all your going to be able to hook up without extensive suspension work. You can substitude extensive for expensive if you would like.

I make 422 rwhp and it wont hook up. I have everything in the suspension catalog except lcarbs and rear drag sway bar in there. With drag radials I'm sure it will hook but you really need a new rear end to start running those or disaster is not far out. A rear end for these cars is 2500 alone without install.

I think a solid 13 could be done for that amount at sea level for sure. Especially if Nos is envolved.

And your not going to find many ricers running 11s on the street. That's a pretty wild Honda build. Most of the kids have a cat back exhaust and an intake and think they run 10s

Good luck and take it in steps it doesn't hurt the wallet so bad. Also there are some great videos on building a 350 out there. The one that comes to mind is by a company called boxwrench. Follow that and I bet you will surprise yourself what you can do.

terrorsquad77

Thanks for the advice. Looks like I need to adjust my plans and budget. Here's my new plan, I am going to pull the L03 out, use that to learn how to build the motor. Since its not going to be used add the final motor for the car, if I screw it up I don't care. I can get one for 200 with low miles if I decided to go back to stock. I'll hunt for a decent 350, 98-2000 z28's come up totaled pretty often, for cheap money. Motors are easy to get cheap, I just need to hunt the back woods of new Hampshire. I can use what I learn on tree 305 and apply it else where. This plan is basically to save the vert from the crusher.

Atilla the Fun

Only if you're considering a new 12-bolt, S-60 or 9-inch. Those aren't the only options. Merely the easiest for guys with cubic dollars. And there are lots of full-weight LS1 fourth-gens running well into the 11s on the stock axle. Most are automatics, with built transmissions. Many are running a girdle and aftermarket shafts. But it's still the GM-installed 10-bolt housing, so I rightly call it "stock".

DIGGLER

iTrader: (1)

pick n pull's have left a sour taste in my mouth. i went on a 50% off day awhile back and bought:

2 front fenders
front bumper
rear bumper
intake manifold that was laying loose under a car
pair of foglights

i rolled it up to pay, and the guy starts marking EEEVERYTHING with his little paint marker.
it was rung up as:
fender, mudflap, trim piece, splash guard, mount bracket
fender, mudflap, trim piece, splash guard, mount bracket
bumper, bumper reinforcement, trim, support
bumper, bumper reinforcement, trim, support
intake, fuel rail, throttle body, harness
foglights, harness

after adding all that crap up, most of that stuff had a CORE CHARGE. first time i had ever experienced a core charge at a junkyard. WTF!?!?!

total came to $360. learned a valuable lesson that day.

Atilla the Fun

So you're mad at them for your own failure to read the fine print in advance? A 305 is adequate core for a 454. I know, I've done it. No hassle. To them a V8 is a V8, they don't distinguish between small block or big block.

DIGGLER

iTrader: (1)

are you buying a 454, or are you buying a block, pistons, rods, crank, head, head, intake, spark plugs, flywheel, balancer, rocker arms, pushrods, lifters, rings, bearings, waterpump, and distributor?

as for core charges, even if i brought all the cores back, i still would have paid $300 for a pair of fenders, intake manifold, and a pair of bumpers. i could have nearly bought new stuff for that.

Sojer

If the car run and drives fine, don't touch it. 11 sec is too much for a noob, u will kill yourself. Shoot for low 14s to mid 13s, trust me you will beat most cars on the street. If you can drive real well ppl will think you run 11s. All you need is about 250 rwhp, and you car can hold that. So all you need is a stock or mild 700r4 30 spline, a 9 bolt posi 3.27 or higher, 10 bolt 3.42, something like that. But buy a 350 and build it on a stand, so if u ever need to drive the car you can. Or spray it lol. 2500 you can buy my whole drive train, its a 305 but I'm sure it has a little more power than yours. LSX is verry cheap in MI.