Guys,

I have always heard that the 1992 Camaros got body enchancments that made them more structurally sound. I'm not sure if this is true but I have heard that some of these techniques were implemented in on the 4th gen cars aswell. What exactly did GM do to improve the structure of 1992 cars?

 

I think they used glue on some of the body welds to make them stronger.

 

Ahh I see. I thought it was something more substantial than that.

 

Well my '92 does feel a bit sturdier/Solid than my '87 did under heavy Acceleration and just cruising now I know why.

 

I have a buddy with a 92 Z28 and his car rattles like my 89. All 3rd gen F-bodys are built the same minus the seam glue in between the seams of the sheet metal which was exclusive for 91 and 92. Its all mental guys, if you get behind a wheel of a low mileage 89 it will be just as tight as a 91-92. I know cause my 89 Iroc had 54,xxx miles and it drove like a new car!!! Tight like a knot!!!!

 

Thanks for clearning that up. I've always wondered what exactly GM did to improve the structure. I've gotten underneath a lot of thirdgens before and seen some with the interiors removed in junk yards or project cars on this website. I really didn't see any structural difference between the 1992 models and the other model year cars.

The most flexible 3rdgen car that I have driven was a 1992 RS V8 T-Top. The bottom of the car was covered in rust so the entire floor pan would have needed to be replaced. This was 11 years ago when I was looking at getting my own 3rdgen. Obviously the rust on this car makes body flex and issue so its not a fair comparision. It was still very unnerving to drive that car. The floor pans moved a lot when I drove the car into the drive way (at an angle so the body had torsional twisting load on it) at the used car lot after I got back from the test trive. That amount of rust was very unusual for a car in California but, I didn't know the previous history of the car.

I also test drove a white '91 Z28 with the L98. It didn't have rust and felt very solid. It felt more solid than the car that I ended up purchasing but there wasn't too much of a difference. At the time that car had 164,000 miles. The fact that it was a hardtop car helped to.

The '88 IROC that I have now dosen't sqeak or rattle too much. When I got the car it had 153,000 miles. Now I have close to 200,000 miles on the body. It still is pretty solid. I have T-Tops but, I also have installed subframe connectors. Those should have been installed from the factory on all thirdgens.

 

Here is a pic of the glue on the dr side frame rail of a 92 formula

 

Thanks for the pic.

 

I test drove a white '91 Z28 L98 3 years ago and even with 191,000 miles on, it felt solid, unfortunately I didn't get the money together b4 someone else did. But I still remember the license plates on it and the vin by memory, that's how I know that car is meant to be mind. I WILL OWN IT ONE DAY

 

My son has a '92 that we stripped to the bare unibody and also the '90 parts car both were L98 hardtop cars. did not see any difference between those cars and my '88 L98 hardtop car. They did have seam sealer on all of the pinch welds but that would have been only to seal water leaks. I know that the 'verts have a extra piece under the car along the rockers to act sort of like a subframe connector also they have blocks on the top of the door to stiffen the body when the doors are shut.

Dave

 

If you have a mid to late 91-or a 92 you will have "the glue" in certain spots.
Its the same stuff the big 3 use 2 glue on their bedsides these days.
Unreal product really.

 

Another thing they did was adding reinforced gusset brackets on T-Top cars. They were attached behind those plastic nylon female receptacles that the T-top latch rod goes into when you latch the tops. You have to remove the A and C pillar trim panel to see them. I think this began in mid to late '91. The older cars just had the plastic receptacle without any reinforcing bracket attached behind it. The good thing is you can easily retrofit the brackets to earlier cars using the existing hardware.

 

Thats intresting. I didn't know that before.

 

I'd heard about the '92s being glued instead of welded, so I've avoided them for the last 10 years. I checked my '91 RS before I bought it, NO evidence of any glue. However, before buying my '95 Z28 convertible, it was glued and spot-welded, like the yellow Formula pictured above. I still don't want a '92 unless it's a Firehawk with the factory cage.

 

I got perfect condition quarter panels from a 92 V6 5speed last year for my 88 Camaro from a salvage yard. All of the seams were spot welded with a small amount of body glue on them. So the likely hood that the cars were just glued together is doubtful.

 

No worries, they used Super Glue!

 

Wow, those are the yrs of cars you want to have! They used the glue along with the normal spot welding so its waaaay stronger than the early cars. You can feel the diff when driving them.
The process started in 91ish and continues on cars today!