so i went a bit crazy tonight and i bought some headers for my car. hopefully they fit lol
http://www.ebay.com/itm/CHEVY-CAMARO-IROC-Z-5-0-5-7-305-350-V8-CID-SMALL-BLOCK-STAINLESS-EXHAUST-HEADER-/150689513706?pt=Motors_Car_Truck_Parts_Accessories&hash=item2315cb80ea&vxp=mtr

 

Good news and bad news everyone. The car wasnt sold because ingot really screwed at the last minute. So now a week or so later I'm living in the mooresville area. Working yet again fir a parts store and the car made it here. About 600 miles on two tanks of gas (funny it only took 12 gallons each fill up) but it ran good all the way here. Its still running the power steering is ****. The alternator is kinda funny now. The windshield is cracked thw wipers don't work alot of the time. Its leaking water alot more in the ttops and cherry on top the harmonic balncer wobbles way more than a weeble ever did. So kinda lost on that i know that its bad but how bad? How aside from a bottom end rebuild or pressing on a new balancer what can i do?

 

so does anyone know if my stock l69 needs the 6.5 inch balancer or the 8 inch balancer? they're both like 60 bucks

 

So you didnt end up selling the car? And drove it 600 miles? Wow.

 

Thats exactly right i was 8 hours from handing over the signed title and packing up my silverado for this trip. Never happened. But he most remarkable thing happened. I filled up before i left she took 12 gallons barely. Then i didn't fill up again until i was deep in virginia. In the mountains and on the turnpike. And then i didn't get gas again until the next day when I'd already made it here. How did 24-26ish gallons of 93 get my historically atrocious camaro here at 80mph in 30 degree weather and some snow? How? Anyways here i am now and the harmonic balancer is ****ed. Thw windshield is cracked alot. The vin is gone. The exhaust is completely stainless headers to tips no cats and all the smog gear is gone. No way shes gonna pass inspection here. And i don't even have the title. Got lost that night. How screw ed am i?

 

Found this though I'm kind of an electrical wiz so hopefully I'll get everything working again

http://charlotte.craigslist.org/cto/4894130662.html

 

Well I'm kind of confused. So you lost the title while driving on the trip? And you are buying a BMW? Good luck to you in your adventure.

 

yeah im kinda confused too i don't know where the title could have ended up. i'm sure i'll find it somewhere. and a mercedes actually. i don't have 2500 dollars spare but if when i do its still for sale i'm gonna ****** it up to flip it

 

ended up flipping the merc and made some money. driving the camaro back hom today on 77 south and somehow whatever holds the rod (idk what else to call it) that opens and closes the primaries on came off and went through my engine but not without making one hell of a racket first. pictures coming soon! good news is i fixed the carb and the car still runs. the bad news is now it doesnt want to shift? what the ****ing hell guys. WHY DID I KEEP THE CAMARO AND NOT THE CLK

 

Pic of the carb after it came apart at 80 on the interstate. Made it home just felt like it didn't want to go any past 60 and it wouldn't shift up. Weird. Anyone know why that is? Why it still feels like its not shifting fast enough. It had just been running GREAT too

 

carb is back together but my transmission still sure is acting funny. it really doesn't want to shift when its supposed to. today it kicked out of first at 22mph and then from second to third around 45 and it wouldn't go any higher than that. i'm gonna cross post this post in the trans section with some vids i took while i was driving today.

 

good news! got a new TV cable gonna replace that tomorrow. hopefully solve my trans issues. and despite eating digesting and shitting out a bolt my engine is running fine as always. still stupid rich but eh its better than being way too lean

 

tv cable is not good thing to drive without, if you replace it and it still messed up, you might have smoked the clutches. the tv has to be functioning properly and adjusted correctly to operate properly. the thing you are pointing to is the choke, if its open shouldnt have anything to do with the running it just has to close to start in the cold but in warm areas stuck open is likely fine.

 

the clk is 5 million times more over complicated than the camaro. and 5 million times harder and more expensive to fix i would imagine. as far as running rich, if you dont have all the crap on the car that came with it, its never going to run right. your better off getting a pre electronic carb and hei from a 70s chev if you dont want to put much money into it. then look up putting a switch on it for tq lockup and you can get rid of the pcm and all that.

 

I gor the cable replaced and adjusted and its shifting better now than it used too lol. I can feel every shift now rather than just the 1-2 at WOT as far as running rich ohwell. Either a holley or a demon is coming soon enough that im not worried about thw Qjet much longer. Rich is better than lean lol. And yeah but the clk was pretty amazing for beong a v6 car it was ballsy. And it had just about every creature comfort i could imagine. I'll miss it but with how cheap they are i might end up with another. just so relieved that i don't have more transmission issues than a twelve dollar cable lol. That #collegelife is tough haha 😂😂😂

 

small block chevs are easy and cheap to fix. you dont need a holley or demon for a stock engine. they are for racing. a good carb for that gets good mileage once you to learn on is the qjet. the electronic portion is what is screwing you, need to find an older one in the yard probably 20 to 50 and get a rebuild kit because they are normally gummed up. they are under 10. my holley was like 500 and not necessary for you app. runing rich is not good for it either. as far as the ign all you need is a base that has a good icm and bearings last time i bought one was like 5 bucks, should replace the cap and coil for the sake of not having to troubleshoot it and those are pretty cheap too. just get a book for tuning these things, that what i did, nobody i know cares anything about cars and is more into the new stuff you can just plug the computer into and it tells you whats wrong. its a good challenge to me to figure this stuff out, very rewarding.

 

if you end up doing that get a half dozen base gaskets so you can put your old carb back on to drive it because everyone screws it up the first time. dont start messing with the ign at the same time, you dont want to inject two problems, makes you chase your tail

 

jwfirebird you seem to think i'm a novice and haven't ever tried any of these things to fix the rich condition the car has had since ive owned it. i've just about been through it all and i'm certain that i really just want rid of this q-jet. its certainly got the usualy well plug issue and aside form that im simply tired of always testing the choke and the tps and the mcs and everything else everytime it seems to be running rough. if anything i'll get a holley and leak some gas or an edelbrock and spend the extra money probably a 600 or 650 because thats whats around for cheap the q jet on my car can flow 750cfm and thats too large a carb for a 305 anyway.

 

Thats what I did and the car immediately had like 30 more hp, The carb and dist were supposedly matched to work together. all i know is it worked and worked well!

 

thats the thing they are matched to work together. and you can't change one without changing both. and probably the intake too because of all the vacuum fittings and the EGR and all that. and i'd rather not spend the money on a whole top end kit and the cc hei is way moor reliable and efficient than a vacuum advance distributor there is a reason they stopped using it. hell for all the trouble if i wanted an upgraded and new distributor i'd buy a vortech style and upgrade the ecm while i was at it. that could be done with a computer off of ebay for cheap and any parts store brand new dist.

 

im not trying to insult you just seems like alot of the mistakes are the same i see people make with this setup all the time and the same ones i made myself when i had your same engine, and i dont have the patients to type everything i tried to make this CC quad run right on the 305 i had(third engine of many). so that said its like bagging your head against the wall. and its currently on the shelf in my garage being a paperweight thats all its good for. in order to make it run right you have to have the billion tubes, wires, ecm, etc, blah, blah. all has to be exactly perfect and you cant have any mods. you said you didnt have money, aftermarket parts arent cheap. you need two wires to run a 70s hei and a 70s quad and they are cheap to buy and rebuild and once you do they run very well and get good mileage. and if you want to change the timing or the part throttle cruise fueling you dont have to be an engineer type

 

hey i understand the frustration i'm still driving the thing...... when it runs... lol and i'm right there with you and totally all for a new carb i just can't see why i should move backwards with the tech and not maybe just a bit forward to simplify things. if i had anything else to drive right now i'd of bought a junkyard vortech 350 done a re gasket and cleaning and thrown it in with a carb manifold and a new pump long ago. i'm so sick of some of this engine being advanced for the day (cc q jet and cc hei) and most of it being archaic (cast iron everything, flat tappet cam 2 piece leaking rear main) that i just want something better lol

 

not really a question of advanced or old. the 80s crap is over complicated and that makes it unreliable, after 30 whatever years of wear on all the tubes and crap there could be any one of a million things wrong with it and if you fix it its just going to break any of the other million things next week. the other things are just a matter of value and what you want to pay for reliability. if you buy and rebuild the old style setup you might have a hundred bucks into a good running setup. if you want newer aftermarket you are looking at like 700 to a grand once you get the proper intake, hei, adapters, for throttle cable and all the other nonsense and for a 305 i think its overkill and not necessary. you can seal off all the garbage at the intake you have and it will run good for quite a while and get decent mileage.

 

okay so set rep. where we are now. moved back home. in college again (broadcasting woo-hoo) on the way home. Charlotte, NC. to bridgeport, OH its around 600 miles. 25 minutes outside of Charlotte and....... stopped. dead stopped on an 80 degree day for about two hours in traffic, still no idea what the hell caused the traffic but at one point i saw a helicopter and they shut I-77 northbound completely down and detoured me through ghetto *** robocopville..... moving on.

finally find I-77 north again. cruising ****in perfect, about 85-90 mph with ease. barely at 1/4 throttle. car is loving it cruising so good. sounds wonderful. all my gauges are good. even my usually broken oil psi gauge is working fine. i cruise all the way through Virginia and just into West Virginia. stop for gas because one tank (weirdly only about 12 gallons) and i run inside and grab a drink (was trying to save my SURGE because i can't get it here but a gas station there sold it) and i notice a small orangeish/brown puddle under the front of the car. open the hood and the water pump is pissing coolant. now i thought the water pump had been changed not long before i bought the car. i guess not. because quite a bit of rusty brown coolant is running out the bottom of the water pump (weep hole) so i buy some coolant and fill a few jugs with water....

well the leak got quite a bit worse. to the point that the engine was running probably around or over 300* the gauge tops out at 26 and it was pegged as all hell. and the car was making some awful whining noises and didn't want to go over 65, like it didn't want to go any faster. bad enough i was stopping every exit to fill up with water that turned to steam as fast as i poured it in. i removed the t-stat on the first stop just to let something flow through... it helped a bit.... at one point in west virginia i was so far from civilization i had to pull off the shoulder and fill my jugs from a stream and fill the radiator. finally i cave find the nearest autozone, buy more coolant, a bunch of shop towels and a tube of RTV. i smear it all over the housing and the weephole. it holds suprisingly. however the car is still so hot that water getting poured in turns to steam. i let it sit as i pour water in and over the engine to cool it down. finally after an hour in the shade (keep in mind i left charlotte at 12:00 and its now around 630-7 o clock and i'm only barely into west virginia) its cool enough i can fill it completely up. and burp it in the autozone parking lot. (if you can call it that with no t-stat) and i set off on my way with the gauge having clambed back down from its maximum position to just under 260* i figure what the hell. this engine has eaten bolts. been overheated before. and had all manner of strange things turn up in the oil and it still runs. i can run it home hot.....

so i did. its full of 100%water which is still turning brown as i chug my way on through WV and into OH at about 70. its got an odd miss when i try to accelerate (fouled plugs? they're only a week old. and platinum) regardless i push on. i strategically switch lanes to keep the car out from behind anyone else so the most air can flow through the radiator. the fan is on MAX (turn your a/c system to max. especially when your car doesn't have any of the a/c anymore and slide the hot cold all the way to heat to let the heater core radiate) and long story summed up pretty quickly i made it home. and then the car chugged and dieseled and shutoff in my backyard where it sat until today.....

TODAY
so today i had already purchased a new water pump, thermostat, and a top end gasket kit for my specific 305. now my old hoses are very very old (or appear to be) because they seemed to be vulcanized to the housing and ends on the radiator. the clamps all broke as i tried to unscrew them. my cts was a bit melted.... (second time this happened the last time i changed it it was) i cleaned the new water pump up with brake clean and used my dremel to cleanup the t stat housing (says made in china. looks like shitty pot metal.... that normal?) anyways. i hit them both with some VHT aluminum ceramic engine paint. after using the dremel to polish the inside.

scraped off all the RTV i had smeared all over everything to keep from leaking on the long trip home. and even got some GUNK to clean it all up. i gotta say after a very long day the car looks pretty good. thinking about doing a new fuel pump and replacing all my hoses just for good measure. i'll be taking the intake off and using some of the VHT aluminum on it too. i gotta say it looks good. probably gonna do my valve covers and air cleaner with the Wrinkle black finish because i like the looks of it. after that i gotta say with college and me already having a much newer silverado as a reliable ( i had to ****in say that, knocks on wood) daily driver i might very well just sell it along to someone who can actually take good care of it and do the big **** it needs (bodywork, new windshield, new VIN, Paint, weatherstripping) because at the moment i'm having a hard time finding a part time job to work with my school schedule and i hardly have free time between class, studying and interning everywhere i can to get my name out there. idk guys. i re read my whole thread today when i was finished and as much as i love this car its kind of like how you need to send a child away to a private bording school to get a good education.... anyone understand that? but at the same time..... i watched "love the beast" again (50-60th time) with my dad and he got kinda nostalgic and talked alot about all the cars he wished he'd kept (68 barracuda, 65 impala, 79 nova, 78 camaro, 78 ford LTD, 70 chevelle 79 T/A... he had alot of cars and idk what i should do.

 

****, i totally forgot i've still never changed the rear end gear oil. i have mobil 1 synthetic 75-90 and it says it already has the lsd additive in it so that should be good

 

just keep it. you are going to regret selling it. i bought mine when i was 17 and obviously couldnt afford the best stuff and it sort of fell into disrepair when i was in college and that and i ended up just leaving it in my parents barn for a number of years while i drove a series of old beat trucks and that. but after school and 5 years or so and a couple jobs later and my own house had some money to start getting it back into shape, glad i didnt sell it. but doesnt really cost anything to let it sit until you have the money to fix it right

 

i probably will. probably have to. i just had to say something. fuel pump in the truck nuked itself today when i was going up a grade on the interstate. so the truck is parked until i can come up with 300 some dollars for a new pump


fu-ck me.

 

wish i could say it gets better. one nice thing about having more than one car though is when one is down you have something else to drive, doesnt matter how new or old the car they all break.

 

that trucks been damn reliable for a beat on work truck with 300k miles on it though. it probably has transmission issues too though. fluid is blacker than the gear oil i changed in the camaro rear end. have i mentioned that i'm broke and put all my money in camaro fix up parts....... need to get some more pictures up soon. show my weak *** progress if you can even call it that lol

 

the 4l60s usually last 100 to 150 so if its got 300 and only rebuilt once you are doing pretty good.

 

good thing about that though is the trans shops do a ton and sometimes you find a deal. like the 4t60/65s i have in my bonnie and monte and old gp the guy in my rural area said they do half dozen a week and said 900 plus any weird broke parts. its 2k at most places and 4 at the dealer for those just like the trucks.

 

don't think is ever been rebuilt. i thought transmission because it shifts a bit hard and it wouldn't go when i floored it and wouldn't kick down or shift up. but with the fuel pump failing and the engine not getting gas would it do that? idk. i'll do a filter and some new fluid and pray. but i gotta do a fuel pump first and with no money right now and it costing around 300 bucks its gonna be awhile.

 

could be fuel, the newer transmissions more often fail where the rpm goes up and the vehicle wont go anywhere.

 

yeah i won't even start now. fuel pump went fast. whining to nothing in a few hours. on the upside the car is doing better. still need to get pictures lol. was running a bit choppy then here i come inspecting things and i find the dist cap isn't on all the way only two of the hold down screws were in and it was shifted a bit. and then i find the #7 plug wire is just hanging lol. that'll do it. all fine now.

couple questions for everyone or anyone watching. the sunpro 3 gauge pods. i plan to mount mine right under the A/C vents but how are you guys doing your wiring/plumbing to all the sensors underhood through the firewall? same with my supertach. although i have another mount idea for it

 

new tach wired and mounted. love it. you guys my car never breaks 3500 rpm. not when driving anyway. neat

 

and i changed the fluid in my rear diff. my car has the RPOs for a 3.73 posi. it is a 3.73 car. i counted the teeth and did the math. however


as far as i can see. its a peg leg 3.73 :/

 

and finally after a long rainy spell i actually washed my car. i think a buffing could maybe do some good to it. it doesnt look completely awful and trashy when its clean

 

dont think they had 3.73, especially if it doesnt go over 3500. most had 2.73, some had 3.05, some special ones had 3.23 or 3.42. normally have a stamp on the ring gear like 4:11 and you divide them

 

https://www.thirdgen.org/1984-chevy-camaro/

its a 3.73. i've played with my trans alot and 3500 is as high as ive seen it go on my sunpro tach. its sits around 3000 at 90mph and around 23-2400 at 65-70

 

i didnt think they had them on 305s, says it has to be a l69 though. i have never seen one. could have been swapped who knows after 30 years

 

they dropped it after 85 if you look at the other years

 

yeah, its a nice rear gear but i hate that its a peg-leg

 

with a 305 you dont have to worry about traction too much, lol

 

i do actually lol. mine runs good that one wheel that spins likes to spin alot. but hey atleast i only have to buy one rear tire at a time

 

JK, mine came with a 2.8 and posi and that would spin em sometimes. a little more with the 305. crate 350 is were you get into real traction problems

 

"crate 350" lulz. i'd rather swap in a vtec honda engine and i'd probably have more power haha. the gm crate 350s are jokes. i have the 5.3 for now but so help me after college i may just go insane with an engine swap for this car i have many many ideas

 

big range of crate 350s, mine started with 350hp, before the ported heads, cam swap, gasket match, etc... so its only more than 3 times more that what it started with and a ton more power than any vtec, and likely lighter with all the garbage bags of junk i took out of it

 

this is what the "joke" did to the first th400 and first double thick wall driveshaft i tried.

 

there is a big range of crate 350s, and any decent one costs more than the car did, and then on top of that you put money time and work into it. just not worth it to me if i wanted to stay gen 1 sbc i'd find a good junkyard core block and build what i wanted from there and probably be able to beat the power numbers cheaper than GM does it. i don't give a damn about warranties its a 31 year old car I AM THE WARRANTY

 

by the time you buy the parts and pay for the machine work its the same cost. 350 blocks arent cheap and you take the risk of it being bad and having to deal with that aggravation