I finally got around to installing my chrome Bowtie valve covers this weekend...what a chore, but I got em on!

 

Now if I can only get that engine bay painted as well as that rusty block...

 

looks nice but you should have painted everything before you put the chrome on ...

regardless it looks very nice

 

nice job man, looks real good.

 

All you need now is a nice set of ceramic coated headers to match those great looking covers.

 

One thing that really makes an engine compartment look nice is new washer and coolant bottles. Will look good with your new chrome pieces.

 

This is what I had to work with last year when I bought the car...the car is in great shape, 68K original miles, only rust is surface, but this is what sitting does to a car...

 

OMG... I want mine to look like this. Here is what I have to work with:



What I want to ask you the most is with the mods you've done how much performance have you gained from stock? 20%. The daggum Performer TBI is roughly 350 bucks and seems to be the only internal mod you've done on the engine... no chip work? No cam? I'm planning on exhaust and ignition for sure...

Your LO3 is the model I think I could follow and remain street legal here in CA.

Thanks for posting these pics!

 

Great looking bay there dude...get even better reviews here

Bruce (90RS305)

 

I don't think it's quite that much new, but I have a brand new one for sale for $200.

 

nice lookin engine bay, very nice

 

Cadillac,

I have spent A LOT of time and effort into this 92RS mostly because of a stupid previous owner who just let the car sit around. You already have A LOT better looking engine cosmetically to start with than I did. When I got the car it looked like the picture posted below. The interior was good, but I cleaned the hell out of it and made it look like new (I'll post pics later), the wheels were corroded from sitting so I purchased a whole new set on ebay for $350 that were pretty much mint. I started out by replacing the ignition coil, cap, rotor, plugs, and plug wires. That made the engine run pretty smooth and consistant. Then I bought the Performer TBI manifold ($225 at Summit or Jegs), a TBI Rebuild Kit along with new IAC and TPS sensors. I cleaned and rebuilt the TBI (looks brand new), and installed the intake. I could tell a difference right away in idle, accelleration, and cruising. Much stronger pull through the RPM range, not A TON, but very noticable. Then I had the Flowmaster system with catco cat installed, plus open element. Car pulls much better, and sounds quite mean now. My next mod will be cermic coated headers followed by chip tuning. I'd agree with roughly a 15-20% increase in power. So, this is how the car came to me (pic looks better than it really was)...

 

sharp car, but lose the pin stripe.

 

Here is what it looks like with all my cleaning, plus new wheels and four 245/50ZR16 Sumitomo HTR+...25th, I agree about the pinstripe, as soon as I have the extra loot to get a good paint job its going.

 

I think with the red interior, that car would look bad *** with a set of red heritage stripes and maybe a z28 grill too.

 

One more...

 

Do you have that air scoop and hose on there still to pass emissions?

A extra piece of bling I have found is a fake chrome(plastic) master cylinder cover sold through JEGS for like $8. It's made by MR. Gasket and is only listed on the website not in the mag with the other covers.

 

No, the air scoop was just left on by mistake in the pics. However, I will probably have to put the stock one back on along with the breather tube to pass MD emissions.

 

Wow! That looks almost identical to my old LO3 (before I blew it up. )

 

a stock engine bay can look very nice with little to no money. i would have waited to put those on until the other modifications were done however it is your car.

definatley change the containers, clean up the strut braces, paint the block, clean up your lines, tie up some of those loose wires, etc. could go on for every...you get the idea. here's what $100 and a weekend of your time can do.

 

re-Routing half the crap that's in there will solve all sorts of problems......

Getting rid of AIR, Smog and moving the heating thing to a more conveinent location do wonders......

 

Very interested over here. I am waiting for the response of a question I have about that intake... Even though it's a stock replacement for the LO3, does it improve performance? Edelbrock says it does.

Any other comments/ideas about this queustion?

Oh... I disagree. It adds just the right "PING" to the finish,



In matters of taste...

 

Any chance you could snap a pic of the top of your engine with the air element removed? I'd love to see that. I'm guessing also that you are pretty satisfied with your MPG, no?

This entire post summarizes where I can my car to be within a year. Now if only some of the long shot stocks I've picked will come in.

Nate... I appreciate your advise/information. Thanks!

 

Here is a pic for you.

 

Thanks Shifty.

Here's what I can discern from that pic:

• HP Coil: MSD maybe?
• HP Distributor and Wires.
• TBI Rebuild Kit
• Is that the Performer TBI Intake or another (Single Plane maybe)?

I can't fgure out what the filter thing is on the hose furtherest on the left in the pic and I can't figure out where that same hose is going.

 

I'm not Shifty, but I can answer your questions, Cadillac.

Yep, the coil, cap, rotor, and wires are MSD (not sure if he has an MSD distributor, though).
Not sure if he rebuilt it, but I do see ultimate TBI mods
Yep, that's the Edelbrock Performer TBI intake manifold

That vacuum line is for a VAFPR (vacuum adjustable fuel pressure regulator). The "filter" is a vacuum delay valve that delays how quick the vacuum enters the regulator when you let off of gunning it, or something like that.

Hope this helps.

 

Dead on. The distributor is just stock. There is no need to upgrade really. The intake is not a single plane but just the regular performer TBI as mentioned. I have not rebuilt my TBI at all. It is as it has always been (not like you would really be able to visualy tell if I had rebuilt it).

 

That looks awesome man. The biggest downfall tho to any iron block is always gonna be the rust. No matter how much chrome you have on there, the eye will always see the rust first.

 

until he pulls all the pretty stuff off and tapes it all off and puts a nice purtey paint job on that block ....

 

Thanks for all the replies, and Cadillac I will take some more pics tomorrow with the air cleaner off, but mine pretty much looks like Shifty's. I know I should have painted the bay before really adding anything, BUT I don't have the time or $ right now to get it done right. I have already made the engine bay look 100x better than it did in the before pic. The stock covers had a few places where the paint had come off and had rusted. I had to replace those cause it was driving me nuts just seeing a clean intake and rusty valve covers. The engine bay itself doesn't really have any rust, its those stinkin strut tower braces. I'll either paint them or get new ones. I'll post more when the headers get put on hopefully sometime before the end of the year.