So I have this 88 Camaro RS. Its white. And I am restoring it. Long story short it has a rod out in it and it has the orginal 2.8 V6. I been waiting awhile to get a job because I just moved back to my home state from Virginia. I finally got one and tax season is coming up.

I want to of course restore my white 88 and put a bigger motor in it. I am currently really hoping to get this perfect donor car. Its an 88 Camaro also and its red. The only difference is of course the motor size and that this new one is a hard top. While mine is a T-top. The only thing wrong with the red one is that it needs a new exhaust. It drives and everything. But I want a T-top so bad that if I get this Red 88 I want to take everything off of it...some parts of the body, the interior... and of course the motor, mounts, and everything in it that I need is going into the white 88.

It would be alot easier just to put a new exhaust on this red 88 and drive it...and sell the white 88. So can you turn a hard top 88 Camaro into a T-top??? And if so...do you think there would be a shop that would do it? And any idea how much it could cost me?? I have all the tools needed to do the transfer but not the type of tools or skill to turn the hard top into a T-top. Answer me and let me know. I am posting this same post in the Fabrication category to get more answers.
Below is a link I found on how to do the T-top Conversion. However its done on a 4th gen and I know their roof build is slight different. This guy did his own.

http://members.fortunecity.com/gripe...onversion.html

 

It would be a lot easier to swap the parts then go from hard top to t-top. Is it possible, yes, and has been done plenty of times.

 

but also lacks structural rigidity which is bad enuf with a factory T-top. those lack a real cross-member between the tops

 

i'd sell the white one and get new exhaust for the ttop.
It'll save you alot of time and money.

 

The White 88 is the one with the knock in the motor and its the T-top. The Red 88 is the good running car and its the hardtop. I went to go see the Red one run and test drove it...I'm highly thinking of putting an exhaust on it and then turning it into a T-top I been looking up people who do it at home....which I am NOT doing because I am not that experienced nor do I feel great about cutting my roof off myself. It will probably cost me $1,500-$2,000 to do it. But thats including the parts. Which I may just get out of a junk yard or I could off of my White 88. But see if I get the Red 88 done then I wanna sell my White 88. So I don't really want to take the parts off of it. Ya know what I mean?

 

Here is a link to a thread on how to do it. This member did it himself--there is no way it would be worth it (financially) to pay someone to do this conversion for you IMO

https://www.thirdgen.org/forums/body...-top-roof.html

 

id change every thing over to the ttop if you start cuting in to the body on these cars or any cars you loose stability and have to stiffin up everything that means hundreds of dollars in pipe and welding equipment just to cut it not to mention you have to gut ur intire interior you would be better off just yanking off everything motor trans exhaust and transfering it youd be better off and safer because youll never get the t-tops to seal right even if you got lucky with installation

 

WOW! Thats the longest sentence Ive ever read!!

 

This looks like an old thread, but to the OP, if you still haven't worked something out, it would honestly be best to just buy what you want, ie. forget the red one, sell the white one, and find one you like that has t-tops, its always cheaper to buy the car you really want, than turn one into the car you want, t-tops cars being one example, or a convertible, or probably a big one, is a 3000gt...the non vr-4s are FWD, and non turbo, to convert one into a vr-4 would cost more than actually buying a vr-4....