| Junior Member
Join Date: Jun 2010 Location: MI U.P.
Posts: 23
Car: '84 Z28 Engine: carbed 350 Transmission: WC T5 Axle/Gears: stock 9 bolt, 2.73 | 84 Z28 project
Ok, gonna be a long first post guys, hope you bear with me. Spring of '09, I decided I'm going to build my first engine. I decided on a carbed 350: they're simple, cheap, and everywhere. After some digging around I decided on a 3rd gen camaro to receive it. From there, I spent a full year searching craigslist and researching 3rd gens, which brought me to this site. Earlier this summer, I found what i was looking for: an '84 Z28 with T-tops, originally a V8 manual, but no engine or trans in the car. With the car came a saginaw 4 speed and a 350 long block, no clue to the origins of either, but i'm fairly sure the saginaw came out of the 82 camaro he had previously. Before this guy scrapped the 82, he saved pretty much everything removable, so I got two of each front fender, 2 of each door, 2 rear hatches, 2 complete interiors, and 2 sets of rims. The plan for the car was to tear the engine down, replace anything that was bad, throw it in the car, maybe a quick paintjob, and drive it. Things didn't go as planned. I ended up stripping the interior, repainting all the panels, fixed the hole in the driver's side floor pan, new front seats, redying all the seats, cleaning and redying the carpet, new headliner, complete new sound system. The front fenders, front bumper, and sideskirts needed to be put on, and the whole thing needed a lot of body work. When I got the engine torn down, i found that the bottom end had a fresh rebuild with only a few thousand miles on it. (I vaguely remember the PO telling me this, I wasn't really paying attention). I tore the heads down and cleaned them up and did a quick lap job. This was my first time ever tearing into an engine. So, as of now, the engine is back together, the body is all put together, the interior is only missing the headliner and the few panels that hold it up.
The saginaw's shifter was shot, so I ordered a "universal" 4 speed shifter from summit. Come to find out, it was for all saginaws BUT the one I had. So... we made it work... I think. Got the tranny under the car, and the cross member bolts didn't line up and the torque arm was way to short and a few inches to the side. After staring for a while, I found two more holes for the crossmember that were packed with sand, so I'm assuming the T5 originally in the car used different mounts for the cross member. I looked at the spare axle that came from the '82, and found that the torque arm and driveshaft were a few inches longer than the one in the 84. Right now, I'm hoping when I swap torque arms, it'll line up with the tranny and fit *crossing fingers*
After that, it's just a matter of dropping in the engine and tying up some loose ends.
I wanted to start this thread when I first got the car, I'm very interested in your opinions and two cents here and there, I just hate being the guy that puts up 100 before pictures and not a single after picture, so I figured I'd wait until I was balls deep to start anything.
The engine is a late 70's 350 4 bolt main, the heads are mid 80's 305 heads (not sure how I feel about that), it's got a weiand stealth intake and a 750 cfm holly carb (which I'm assuming is way too much), he also tossed in some shorty headers to go along with the car's true duals with flowmasters.
I have many, many pictures if anyone is interested in any specific areas, and everyone's two cents would be appreciated, I'm pretty excited to get it running. | | | |
