Long story short, my buddy Gab told me about one of his buddy's that had a project 3rd gen Camaro that he lost interest in. I got word that he just wanted the engine from it since it was a built 350 and was going to sell the roller cheap. This guy ended up paying Gab $150 to pull the motor out which ended up being completely filled with water due to being parked for 5 years without hood louvers. The car has also been sitting in the very back of his property all that time and was stuck in mud with 4 flats. Once the owner got word of the flooded engine he had enough. When I asked how much he wanted for the roller his answer was simple. "If you can pull that piece of **** out of my property without me having to lift a finger, Ill give you the signed title". Before he could change his mind I got my 4x4 suburban and borrowed my buddys 20' car hauler with its 9500lb wench and hauled *** over. I ended up having to pull 2 trucks out of the way to get to it and then with was just a matter of pulling it up the trailer with the wench. Then I had to use 4 low to get out now with a loaded trailer but in all took me less than an hour total and I was the new owner of a 3rd gen. When I got home I checked the title and looked over the car. At first, I just heard free 3rd gen Camaro and didn't really car what it was but it ended up being an 83 Z28 T top crossfire injection car. No engine or tranny of coarse but I did find that it does have control arms, lowing springs, welded in subframes, grant steering wheel, and even 2 Kicker 10 inch subwoofers. Looking it over there is rust in all the usual spots and the T Tops are leaking as expected so the interior isnt in very good shape but who is complaining? Not me. Now I have to figure out what I want to do with it. Hmm, I do have an LS motor laying around and have been wanting to get back into street.... I mean drag racing. What to do what to do!!!

 

Congrats! Nothing beats a free 3rd gen!

 

It's my favorite price!

Good luck with it.

 

Looks pretty good. I'd just throw the Ls in with a few bolt ons and go racing on unprepped surfaces. Leaving it as is would make a nice sleeper and stay with the budget build theme

 

Yup, this is going to the be the biggest budget build I've done so far and probably the cheapest car built on this site. My goal is to spend as little money as possible since I don't make much of it anyways and have a family to support. luckily, I have been saving random parts over the last few years and just picked up a blown junk LS block to use for mock up. The other parts I have right now in the garage are an LS1 short block out of a 99 corvette (has 160K miles on it but had good oil pressure. The owner gave it to me after I installed a new LS2 for him) a set of 5.3L truck heads (another freebee, Don't remember how I got them it was a long time ago but they have some kind of dual springs on them) LS6 intake and f body T/B (came off my buddys 02 Z28 after a FAST install), 400TH tranny (came out of my neighbors 77 suburban he was about to scrap. Still shifted ok he said.) High stall torque converter (out of my buddys 79 corvette. I don't know what kind it is or how much it stalls but is suppose to be a good one) Convo Pro wheels off my 69 camaro (Im not sure if the backspacing is correct but going to see if they fit. Also the tires on them are completely gone so Ill have to buy new ones), Im going to look around my garage tomorrow to see what else I have for this project. I think I have a nitrous bottle and a nozzle somewhere haha.

 

I will definitely be following this thread. I'm trying to build a track day car entirely from free, cheap and traded parts right now.

 

Finally got this thing on jack stands for a complete check up. Looking it over I found that the it doesn't have any signs of being in a wreck. Everything is straight as it should be although it does have some rust in the usual places but the floors are solid. Good enough for me. Also it was originally red but someone painted it black and did a horrible job at it as a lot of the paint is cracking and fading. On the inside was a ton of stuff as this guy was using it as a storage for all those years. Cleaning it all out I found nothing useful except the wheel lock. Don't ask me why it had wheel locks on 14 inch rusted plain steel wheels but it did. After everything was out I sat down and was amazed that the interior is complete and in very good shape. Except for the dash pad which suffered major sun damage, and a broken radio console which probably got broken by whoever stole the radio. Also the carpet is completely dry and with all the rain we have had tells me the T-tops don't leak. One of my first plans with this car was to completely gut out the interior and install a cage since I figured it was trashed but now seeing that its in good shape I'll probably replace the dash and get a cage built around the factory interior. Still not sure yet.

 

After looking it over and cleaning out the interior I hooked up a battery and checked all the electricals. Needs one headlight but everything else works turn signals, wipers, everything I could try without the motor. Also the brakes work and fill firm but I'm going to replace those anyway. The factory 700R was actually in it but my buddy that helped me get the car called dibs. No problem because I can use it for what I'm doing.

 

Dude, you're batting 1000 so far!