I decided that since i have big plans for my car, I should start a build thread for. My adventure with this car started on April 7th, 2009. I bought my car for $500 dollars. I had been looking for a camaro for a year, and I finally found one on craigslist that I could afford. Going to see the car the first time, I fell in love as soon as I saw the car. Its an 1983 Z28. The wheels had fresh silver paint on them, the tires were good, the underbody was decent. It still had stock exhaust on it. The car was a 305 auto, and as an added bonus (in my eyes) it was fuel injected! I did all of the regular maintenance that the previous owner had been neglectful of, along with changing the interior from the original tan to completely black. I had the car for about six months when the differential blew up. So I swapped the stock rear end and put in a 9 bolt rear end along with swapping from an auto to a world class t-5. After having the car for a year, I got another third gen that was meant to be just painted and flipped, but I fell in love with the aero ground effects and the tpi, so I put my 9 bolt and t-5 in that car. About 4 months ago, I was talked into trading that car for an "economy" car. This car was more of a money pit than my camaro's ever were. But this brings us up to present day.

After blowing the motor in my "economy" car (1992 Civic), I decided that if I was going to put money into any car, it was going to be my 1983 Camaro. I found a low milage t-5 from a trans am, and a 4th gen rear out of a 94 Z28 and went to work. After a year of sitting and neglect, my first sports car, my first camaro, is now my daily driver again.

The plan:
As stated, I have big plans for this car. The plan is to do a 383 build with twin turbo's a t-56, and borla exhaust for the drive train. The body will have shaved door handles and gas door, and will have a targa top to replace the current t-tops. The interior is still up in the air as to what I will do with that. The goal is to make the inside of the car as modern as possible, while keeping the car looking as stock as possible (aside from the door handles and targa top).

I'll have pictures up as soon as possible from when I got the car, and from where it is at right now

 

These cars were never intended to be targa or convertible, so be sure to do 2 sets of SFCs before converting your top. There are several threads on this in the Chassis / Suspension sub-forum.
Alston and similar SFCs run more inboard, and seem to be like what GM did under the '87-up convertibles. But there are other SFCs that run under the rocker panels. And you can combine the 2 styles. Guys doing it under hardtop cars are reporting dramatic results.

 

i have actually read a bunch of threads about doing targa tops, and I was actually already planning on doing sfc's because of the powerful drivetrain i have planned out for the car. also, i had a thought for the interior that comes from this thread here https://www.thirdgen.org/forums/inte...ml#post4921787

what i want to do is replace the whole top of the center console with plexiglass painted black on the bottom. the thought is that it will give it a "futuristic" look (as long as it doesnt look cheesy). i'd also put in leather 4th gen seats and maybe paint all of the plastics black and clearcoat them so that the interior is all very glossy, showy, and hopefully luxurious looking. if it looks bad, it'll be back to the drawing board lol

 

well, i guess its time for an update on this build. for the interior, the horrible red is almost completely gone. my red panels were hastily painted with some white krylon paint i found in our garage just so i could get an idea of how white would look in the car. it turns out i really like it, so the new plan is to strip the panels down, sand them completely smooth and make them all white doing a base coat and clear coat. i was never going to be happy at all with the carpet painted as i quickly learned after painting the rear carpet. so i went to joann fabric and bought enough black felt to completely cover my carpet for about 10 dollars. it looks a lot better than paint, it was cheaper, and it took a lot less time.

now for the engine. i found a 350 tpi motor on the local craigslist for 250 dollars that i want to pick up and put in next spring. the person said it had 90k when it was pulled out and it was running. the catch is that its been sitting out of a car since 98. but for the price, it could be worth it.

 

i have an question that goes out to anybody that can answer it or help me narrow down some answers. my car starts up and runs great when the engine is cool. as soon as it gets to about 100-120 degrees, the car suddenly has no power. on another note, this is a fuel injected motor. it has crossfire injection. as for the solution, everyone has said to replace the coil of course, but that didnt fix the problem. it doesnt seem like its the computer because the engine still idles very smooth and i believe the computer starts operating in closed loop at 160, a little bit warmer than when the power drops off. is it possible that this is a problem with the ignition module? i've always been told though that the ignition module is either good, or bad with no inbetween. and then also, there is a capacitor located on the firewall right behind the distributor. one side of it has a wire that goes into the distributor, and the other disappears into the rest of the wiring harness. any suggestions are welcome and very much appreciated

 

wow, its been a long time since i posted anything on here. well, here's the update. i ended up changing all of my bumpers and ground effects over to the 85-90 gfxs. i also put a daytona iroc hood on the car which looked pretty sweet. i managed to get a running 350 with goodies for $300 and found out it was a 4 bolt main when i did a gasket set on it. the car ran pretty sweet for about a month after that. about a month ago though, there was a little accident. the car backfired, which happened once in a while as i was still working on getting it tuned properly. this time though, the car didnt start back up. i tried a few times turning the key, but the engine turned over slow and would not start. so my cowork (this was right after work) pulled up behind me and we chatted for a moment. when we looked back at the car, it was engulfed in smoke and there was fire coming out from under the cowl. the fire fighters managed to make it to the scene soon enough to safe the interior, but everything under the hood is trashed. so here i am again, back at square 1. time to start my build over again