This past august, after paying off my first car, which is a '96 v6 mustang, i was finally able to convince my dad to let me get a third gen camaro, which is something i had been wanting since i was 15. Finally after months of searching i was finally able to find one that met all of my criteria; V8, T-tops, & manual tans. It wasn't the prettiest car but i was super excited to get it.
When i bought the car, it was running and driving, though somewhat roughly seeing as the torque arm bushing needed to be replaced. Soon after getting the car, i was able to replace the bushing as well as the master and slave cylinders for the hydraulic clutch assembly, making sure to bleed them well. After i did all of this i was able to finally drive the car though not for long lol.
One day i was driving and it just seemed to lose a lot of power suddenly. a few minutes later, the car died as i was pulling up to a red light.
I got the car started again and began to once again slow down for another red light, when it died again. only this time, there was a car in front of me, (A ford ranger to be exact) and i was not able to stop in time and ended up hitting it.
Luckily, there was minimal damage to either cars and nothing else really happened with that. Although i did have to get one of my friends dad to tow me back to my house.
But its all good since i was planning on replacing the gfx and front and rear bumpers anyway with some parts i have from a 90 camaro. But hopefully this summer, i will be able to pull the engine and rebuild it as well as get the car a fresh coat of red paint.

Heres some pics of it:
As you can see it needs a paint job pretty badly lol

 

Great find you got there. And welcome to the thirdgen family as others called it. On my 84Z I also replace the gfx with the newer one that have the areo package on them. I am not sure if that's the one you got. If you would like to see them I have them install on my car it is in the thread under "my 84 camaro" if you would like to check it out and see how it look. I only have the from bumper since I am gonna use my money to fix up my 350 with T5.
Keep me posted on the progress you do to your camaro

 

Man congrats lol.. I have an 84 Z28 H.O. I love the car to death and im goin to do the same thing u r by replacing the front bumper and GFX.... But if u want to see mine go look in my album "The Project"

 

Haha thanks guys! You both have some nice lookin projects going as well! And i will definetly keep you guys posted on the progress on my car. But As far as the gfx go, they're coming off of a '90 rs that i bought as a parts car for my 84. The only problem is that the gfx on the drivers side (both the piece going along the side and the rear quarter piece) got broken somehow so i will have to either replace them or attempt to fix them.
But the gfx will probably be later on after i get the engine (which is currently burning oil pretty bad and not idling properly) rebuilt. Sadly though, the rebuild will have to wait until summer, seeing as how i am also in high school and my parents want me to try and focus on school. But in the meantime i will continue working on it doing small things like attempting to fix the usual small leaks coming from my t-tops lol

 

Along with replacing the gfx i was planning on replacing the hood with one from a 85 - 92 Z28 or IROC-Z esp. since my hood has a dent in the front of it and the corners are bent down.
Here are some pics of the car i'm using for parts. They're not real good but they're the only pics i have of it at the moment. And its actually nicer than it looks (except for the scratched up chin spoiler and the broken gfx), it just has a lot of light reflecting off of it.

 

looks like a solid project, but keep it looking original! don't upgrade to later-year gfx, don't see too many 82-84's running around.

good luck.

 

I would keep them original but the drivers side is missing pieces and is kind of broken so i figured i'd just replace them with the ones from my parts car. The main thing i like about the later models is that the ground effects make them look lower to the ground without actually having to lower the car. But I am planning on keeping them incase i happen to stumble upon some replacements in good condion or if i ever want to change it back.

 

Man u are wanting to do the same thing as me lol. I was wanting to find an iroc hood and make a custom daytona hood out of it lol. but about ur idling prob i had the same thing that was wrong with mine i just got the high idle screw on my carb and loosened it and plugged up all the vaccum leaks.... That might help good luck

 

Yeah i think thats my problem but i haven't had time to check it out yet. No big hurry since it is after all a project car lol. But another reason i have to change the gfx is that my front bumper is messed up. It was like that when i got the car though, but since i have a parts car that has a good bumper on it i'm just gonna use it, which means i have to use the gfx for that nose, which means i gotta replace them all... otherwise it just might not look right lol

 

Well the little 305 thats in my camaro may not be getting rebuilt after all. Instead it may be getting replaced by a 350 i found on CL, which will be rebuilt over the summer instead of the 305 (If i get it). The guy selling it said that it was in a truck he bought and that the previous owner was going to replace the motor because it was making a knocking noise, which i guess eventually stopped, at least thats what he said. it is pretty much a complete motor and they guy who is selling it says he will give it to me plus all the extra stuff (the accessories and whatever stuff he doesn't need) for $200. I might be going to go look at it tomorrow and make sure its good, and if it is, I think i'm getting it

 

i highly doubt it stopped making the knocking noise i had the same prob wit my v6 and it was a broken rod but it might have stopped ive been proved wrong before

 

Well i did end up gettin the 350. It ended up bein $100 for a whole engine as well as a radiator and a couple other things. The only problem is that it was sitting for about a month and ended up getting some water in it which caused the pistons and cylinder walls to rust. We tried turning the crank but nothing happened, but we're hoping that it may just be frozen up cause of the rust. It wasn't sitting for a real long time so maybe there's still hope lol. But i figured for 100 bucks its worth a try lol

 

yeah still pretty good for $100. And i just found the turbo hood that i was going to customize from an IROC off of craigslist... best part $30 ill upliad pics tomorrow

 

Sweet find!

And yeah thats pretty much what i figured too. We're in the process of taking out the crank and the pistons right now, which is proving to be kinda difficult on account that we can't reach all the bolts for the pistons and we can't turn the crank to get to them lol.
Oh well, we'll figure something out i'm sure. Just have to keep trying.
Here is an example of some of the rust thats in the cylinders. The liquid is some penetrating oil that we used in a futile attempt to loosen them up lol


A lot of it seems to just be some surface rust though




Heres a picture of the whole block. You can see some of the rust here too




Here's another picture of the block with more rust. Some of thats some old paint too i think




I'll be adding more pics as we progress and i'll keep updating you guys as we make (hopefully) make some progress

 

Well we managed to get the crank out and all of the pistons as well as the cam and lifters. We were also able to clean a lot of the rust out of the cylinders but I I think we're gonna try and hone the cylinders a little as well and see if we can't clean them up some. Here's some pics of some of the cylinders without the pistons in them and the crank, before we cleaned them out. I'll post more pics and update my progress later

 

Heres some pics of one of the cylinders before and after cleaning them. We still need to hone them out and clean them up some more, which i'll do as soon as i get a honing tool to do it with.

Before:




After:




Next on my list is the honing and cleaning the block. Hopefully that all goes well too

 

Well, now that everything is all disassembled and all taken apart, I am planning on taking it to the machine shop soon but i haven't decided on a shop yet so i don't really know how much its going to cost or where i will be getting the work done. The problem is that I want a good price but i also want good work for my money. The best of both worlds i guess lol. But i had a friend recommend me to a place called accurate engine service, so i might check them out and see about how much its gonna cost me.

What i'm planning on having done is getting it bored, decked, line honed, having the crank machined, the block magnafluxed, and vatted. Anything else i might need to get done? Also, anyone have any estimates of about what this will cost me? Any suggestions?

 

Well I was finally able to get around to dropping my block and crank off at the machine shop and was finally able to get it back this past friday, two weeks later. Anyway, they bored it .030 over, vatted it, cleaned it up, pressed the cam bearings and freeze plugs in, turned the crank .010 over on the rods and the mains, and mounted the new pistons on the old rods and cleaned up the rods. All for about $400. Now I just need to get my xe262 cam, a set of vortec heads and an intake to match.

 

Well today I ordered the camshaft kit, comp cams k12-238-2 complete kit with the xe262 cam. I also got the paint for my engine and am hopefully gonna paint it pretty soon. But I still have to get a set of vortec heads and an intake which hopefully i can get soon. I'll put up pictures of the block and pistons and stuff after the machine work soon for those who care.

 

Got the cam a couple of weeks ago and will hopefully be ready to put the shortblock together within the next couple of days.

Here are some pictures of the block and one of the cylinders after the machine shop. Big difference for sure.

 

Sorry for the slow updates. Been kinda busy and haven't had much time to work on things. But here it is.

After several months of searching i was finally able to pick up a set of rebuilt 906 vortec heads last week for $275.00. Thank the lord for craigslist

Anyway, the guy said he had them milled .001 and had them checked for cracks and he said they also cleaned up the valves and everything. They look pretty nice for the price though. Here's some pictures:



Still in the bag from the machine shop







Next thing to buy will be my intake manifold. I'm thinking about going with an edelbrock performer intake 2116.