I've been on this forum for a month or two now, and finally have a good group of pics to post about my Camaro and the build I am currently doing. I'm 20y/o and have been around cars my whole life, have quite a bit experience working on cars but not much building engines so far.
First off, my car is a 1984 Camaro Z28, 5.0 auto. Supposedly (P.O. info) the car lived much of its life in Tennessee, which is why the undercarriage is rather clean a almost 40 year old car in Ohio. P.O. put a B&M shift kit in, put a mild cam in the car, and repainted the rims. He sold it to me because he only put 100 miles on the car in over a year and a half, and the tilt steering together was loose and he didn't feel like doing that job. He told me before he owned it, someone blew up the original 305 and put in a carbed 305 out of a truck. The 305 is a absolute dog, and has a rear main seal leak. I'm assuming the car was originally a carb car because there is no badges for a TPI or TBI, nothing on the vin that I can tell says otherwise. Overall the car is pretty clean and has been taken somewhat good care of. So far, it's been a good learning experience, getting involved in performance, rather the 4x4 scene I've been doing with my '97 Jeep Cherokee.
Besides the rear main seal leak, the loose tilt steering and a dog of a motor, the only problems I've found have been a tear in the drivers side seat, the timing cover leaked out of the bottom where it meets the oil pan, and the wiring in the engine bay overall was just atrocious. The car also gets vapor lock extremely bad. There are short tube headers on the 305 and they are bare, no exhaust wrap or anything, besides some cheap insulation on the fuel lines to combat the vapor lock.
I've owned this car since September, and didn't really work on it too much for the first month and then I got going on it. I tore the tilt steering apart, and fixed the loose tilt (thanks to a forum post on here about it!) and then slapped a Grant wheel on and replaced the weird square steering wheel lol. After the steering was fixed, I replaced the timing cover gasket and fixed the oil leak. After that, I ordered a Spohn wonder bar, and also UMI Performance tubular lower control arms and a panhard bar for the rear.
I found a complete set of C6 Corvette polished aluminum wheels for $200. They are 18x8.5 up front, 19x10 in the back. These wheels will go on once I do a big brake up front and change the drums for disc brakes. They will be getting wrapped in Nitto Invos, as I plan to road race the car eventually, at least a lot of fun in the corners. I will be putting springs, struts, tubular control arms, and a bigger sway bar up front, as well as a bigger sway bar out back too. Depending on how the car reacts to the motor swap, I will be putting a torque arm off for a little while.
I ordered a Spohn wonder bar, and also UMI Performance tubular lower control arms and a panhard bar for the rear. Then I had to address the issue under the hood, the 305. The compression on this motor is so low it is crazy. I can turn the motor over on the crankshaft pulley with a standard 3/8" ratchet with a little effort. The motor burns oil like it was its job, and leaks just as much. My buddy bought a El Camino, and is building it into a LS swapped twin turbo drag truck. So basically, he had no need for the 350 that came with the Elco, it's a 2bolt main motor, but it will handle what I want to do with the motor, nothing crazy, just a good runner to scoot around with. I got a good deal on the motor, chased all the threads, honed the cylinder walls, replaced all the bearings, put a .450 lift cam in, new lifters, and set of Blueprint Engines cast aluminum heads. I got a set of Comp Cams cast high-energy rocker arms with poly locks. Put a Edelbrock Q-Jet Performer intake on it, along with a set of tall Mickey Thompson valve covers. I painted the motor in a cast iron silver to match the rims I currently have and the headlight buckets I also painted cast iron silver.
Over the last couple weekends, I have been pulling the 305 out of the car, now that the engine is out, it's time for a lot of cleaning and re-looming the engine bay. Next up is the solid motor mounts to go into the crossmember, deleting the AC completely out of the car, and I'm bouncing the idea of repainting the engine bay, and last but not least, final assembly on the 350, and then it's back in the car and going for a rip!
Hopefully I will have a update for you guys in a couple weeks with the motor in the car!
Happy to get involved in the community here, been using this forum for months and it has always been a big help and it is a well of information and ideas
Gonna be a nice car. I’ve got those same wheels I picked up for $150. I’m still not sure I’m gonna use them. One day they look great to me and another day they’re too big.
Pushrods came in today from Summit, so this weekend I'll do final assembly on the motor, transfer all the brackets and parts I need from the 305 and the 350 will be ready to go in!
I need to get the engine bay cleaned up and the motor mounts in and she should be going back in... Sooon
Gonna be a nice car. I’ve got those same wheels I picked up for $150. I’m still not sure I’m gonna use them. One day they look great to me and another day they’re too big.
For me, it's hard to tell how the wheels will look because I haven't been able to simulate the weight of the car on them, so I'm hoping it's not too monster-truck-ish. If it is, I have 1" lowering springs for up front that will go in eventually.
Something that I never noticed until I first washed the car, about a week or so after I bought it and looked it all over, did I realize that the driver side tail light, had a stripe of black painted on it, and the passenger side tail light did not. When I bought the car, the P.O. gave me pretty much all the parts that he had with the car, which was not really much. But included in those parts was driver side tail light that was not painted. Ever since I had noticed it, it absolutely drove me nuts. To me, it made the car look half done and kind of junky for lack of a better word. So I finally got around to changing that out, almost 7 months after I noticed it lol. It just makes the rear end of the car look *right*
Now that everything is in its place and right in the world, I moved on to the final assembly for the 350.
Pushrods showed up Wednesday, and I finally got around to putting them in. Needless to say, I'm very happy with how the top end of the motor turned out and the parts I bought. The Comp Cams high energy cast aluminum roller rocker arms were a breeze to put in with the allen key poly locks. My dad gave me a hand setting the lash for the first set and I did the rest. Once I had all the pushrods set, I threw some RTV around the cooling ports in the heads, and bridged the gap with RTV on the block and bolted the intake on with some ARP intake bolts. Figured they would look good next to the ARP head bolts I put on there.
With everything wrapped up internally and squared away, I decided to put the M/T valve covers on. Not sure why I did, I'm just going to end up taking them back off to get the motor back in the car and put the headers on. Guess I just wanted to see what it was going to look like lol. I put a couple of the brackets and heater hose fittings that transfer over from the 305 on the 350. As it sits, the motor is ready to go in, with the lift plate bolted on. I am PUMPED haha
After that, I had to do the dreaded job of changing the motor mounts. I went with a set of Trans-Dapt solid motor mounts. This is a street/track car, not too worried about vibrations from the motor. I still cannot believe the engineers who though it was okay to through bolt the mounts into the crossmember where getting to the nuts on the back side is almost near impossible. Using a 15mm universal joint socket, a slew of extensions and a another u-joint swivel, and a set of hands from my dad, we got the old mounts off, and the new ones on.
Before that was done, I got in there and scrubbed down the crossmember with Prep-all and laid down some matte black paint, just to clean it up some. Man, am I glad to get that out of the way.
Side note, the car is not originally this awesome metallic brown that you see in front of you. The factory color was actually white. You can see it where the heater box was, and on some of the hinges and door jambs.
I also have ordered a non-A/C heater box from Hawks, and that'll clean up the engine bay a little more and make more room around the headers when I put them back in.
After the nightmare of motor mounts was over with, I moved on to trying to clean some of this wiring up in the engine bay. And boy oh boy let me tell you, whoever did some of this wiring needs to have their fingers broken. It is a MESS... The more and more I dig, the more and more I find that I really don't want to find. Wires that are just cut, and stuffed back into the loom, groups of wires cut out of the plug going from the fire wall into the cabin and just taped together. Plugs stuffed into the harness, resistors shoved into fuse blocks, inline fuses spliced in by twisting wires together and taping them, the list goes on. I did the wires for the HVAC in the car, and the wires for the alternator, and I pretty much had enough with that for today. But, that half looks good now. Once I get the heater box in, I'll tack the main harness coming over to the top of the heater box and the face of the firewall and get the wires up and sort of out of the way. I ordered the braided wire loom, in a assortment of sizes, 1" 1/2" 1/4" and 1/8" the stuff is actually really nice and I am glad i'm doing it, but man does it suck doing it lol
Next update I'll most likely do is the wiring being cleaned up and the heater box in the car. I'm looking into reworking the transmission cooling lines, and the fuel lines coming in. Not sure if I'm going to mess around with this yet, or put it off until the car is all back together and the motor in place. I'm thinking this motor will be back in the car within the next two weeks, fingers crossed.
Alright, it's been a while. Was busy for most of 2020. Helped my dad built his dream garage on his property, a 34x50 garage with 11'8" ceilings, which is where my Camaro now lives.
Long story short. Got the 2bolt 350 together, got it running around May. Instantly started leaking coolant from the headgasket on both heads, cylinder 1 and cylinder 8. Took them off, replace the head gasket and head bolts, torqued everything to spec and got it running again. Started leaking out of the same spots again. Before I could address that issue, rod #5 spun and then started knocking like a sheriff with a warrant.
Decided after a week or two to just start over and get the engine I originally wanted. I picked up a ATK Performance SBC 355 (.040" over) from summit racing. 4bolt main, completely remanufactured and basically new.
Started from square one, pulled the 350 out, assembled the 355 and put it in. Had a couple issues with my timing, ended up replacing the distributor with a MSD (can't remember the part # it was almost a year ago haha) because the spark were weak and the cap was corroded. Once I got that all together it was around October. Time was spread thin building the shop last year but it paid off in the end.
Got the motor running, everything looked good until I looked around cylinder 1. Once again, headgasket leak. Same thing on cylinder 8. Leaking right out of the corners. Got on the horn with summit and they set me up for returning those Blueprint heads. Full refund, even though they had been on a running motor and purchased in Feb/March. I put that money towards a set of heads that I really wanted as well, but couldn't justify the price tag to at the time. I picked up a set of Dart heads (127322)
The quality difference is shocking. Not sure how I feel about Blueprint products anymore. They ended up being warped from the factory. I got the motor buttoned up and by that time it was the end of November. Moving day from our storage unit garage to our home shop was close enough I didn't want to go through getting it running and breaking it all in just to be either interrupted in the middle of it or have another thing go wrong and have to have it half torn apart while moving it.
Once we got moved into the shop, it was all systems go. Here's a couple pics of it in the shop with my dad's car there too.
Once we were moved in, I got it finally running and running right. Cam was broken in, the engine sounds amazing. Took it for the first drive since Nov. 2019
Also threw on some spark plug boot protectors and wrapped my fuel line with some DEI heat wrap and put a Mishimoto catch can in.
Caved in and bought some LED headlights, wired the low beams into the running lights for a (IMO) cooler look, and repainted my headlight buckets flat black. high beams running lights
In a couple pictures you can see a IROC rearend sitting in the background. It's a 88' rearend out of a car with 'supposedly' 20k miles on it. Guy bought it for a project of his, wrecked his car and then it sat in his garage for years. I ended up paying $250 for that rearend, that already had PBR brakes on it and a posi gear set in it, and a T5 trans out of a v6 Camaro. I don't think I'm going to use the trans but am definitely going to swap a 5speed into the car through the kit sold by Hawks. I cleaned up the rearend, paint the cover with AMC engine blue and purchased new LT1 brake calipers and rotors. Also picked up stainless lines from hawks and a new parking cable setup which I haven't put on yet.
Also, picked up a set of Spohn sway bars. 1.375" up front, 1" solid in rear. After those were installed, I bought a set of Spohn tubular a-arms, Eibach Sportline springs, and yellow Koni struts and shocks. The factory struts were completely blown, could compress them with no effort and they had no rebound at all. It was actually kinda scary to see how bad they really were.
I just got the front suspension buttoned up this weekend, along with a complete Moog steering rebuild kit with UMI Performance tierod adjusters. It needs a alignment, but its close enough to take it for a test drive or two and then get it down to a alignment shop.
So, that's how it sits now. Ordered a set of UMI subframe connectors today, those will be going on next. I think I will swap rearends and put on a C6 Z51 big brake kit in the fall, and 5speed swap it in the winter. Gave it its first wash, clay bar and wax in a year as well
I will be hopefully keep updating this thread a lot more than I did haha
Installed a summit racing electric cutout, I installed in place where the cat would've been if my car had one. Wired it up and got the extra remote kit, so no need for a switch and simplified wiring. Don't have any pictures of how it turned out, but it definitely makes a huge difference in the sound and aggression of the car. And it's exactly what I wanted, can choose between loud and obnoxious, or quiet, but still a good sound with the click of a button. I highly recommend the summit kit. Comes with everything you need to do it right, and at a good price of $250 for the cutout, wiring and remote.
And today, for the first time since I was 13 or 14, I went to a car show. Took my Camaro on the longest drive yet with the new motor and on the highway. Met up with my brother and his 1994 Mustang GT (we all can't be right in the head I guess, lol) I was actually surprised with how many heads were turned by my car and how many people stopped and looked at it.
Here's a couple pictures of me and my brothers car at the meet. He bought it with 26,xxx original miles, 5 speed car, 5.0 HO all original. Still had the original tires on it, absolute time capsule. He's done suspension mods and obviously wheels and tires, shorty headers and a full Borla exhaust. For a Mustang it sounds good Felt really good to cruise with him and finally get pictures of our cars together.
FWIW, Z28's are supposed to have that center black stripe on the taillights. The ones you have in there are out of a base Camaro. They can be easily painted, though.
How are the lower control arms working out for you? I was going to buy a set and the seller warned of no steering stops as they were designed for an aftermarket rack and pinion supposedly. Did you encounter any problems on a sharp turn?
How are the lower control arms working out for you? I was going to buy a set and the seller warned of no steering stops as they were designed for an aftermarket rack and pinion supposedly. Did you encounter any problems on a sharp turn?
Hey, I ordered the Spohn tubular a-arms (Spohn part # 782-F )
They have steering stops on them already, which maintain the factory steering stops, just beefed up. As far as sharp turns, no issues at all. When I first got the car back on the road after doing the suspension, I made sure to put it through its paces and it gave me zero issues.
Felt really good to cruise with him and finally get pictures of our cars together.
