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The year was 1993. I was a fairly young person wanting a new more sporty vehicle. Found this 91 Camaro with fairly low miles that I could afford. Sure the parents wern't to happy when I came home with it (they called it a drug runners car). It became my daily driver. Fast forward about 9 years and I got married. Better job and a company vehicle so the Camaro became the new wife's daily driver. It had been banged up a few times had body work done, new coat of paint and now sported a 2" cowl and a z-28 fin. Still the same 305TBI motor. Fast forward a couple more years. The A/C and blower motor went out so I bought the wife a new car and parked the camaro in the garage. It sat under a cover gathering dust and being a nice place to set things for the next three years. Decided that I wanted the garage space back so I moved it up to my parents house and put it in a large shed on the property. I would drive it a couple of times a year and always tell myself that I should fix it up or sell it. Kids arrived in the picture and I really considered selling it. (life has a funny way of shoving you in a new direction from time to time.
Still it sat at my parents house. slowly turning green. Each year it became harder to start and I would just ignore it and move on. This last year my oldest son started to show interest in cars. He just turned 9. This was my cue. It was time to bring the old car back to life.
I didn't take pictures of this part but it took the better part of a afternoon to get the car moving. Time and I think a few furry creatures had taken it's toll on the car. Motor was siezed and nothing wanted to work. We spend a few hours loosening up the motor and finally got it to turn over. By the time it turned over the injectors for some reason would no longer work. So the image of my brother in law sitting on the radiator with wires running to the injectors trying to feed the motor fuel. We burned out one injector but got it the 150 feet to the garage finally. My kids thought this was the coolest part of the day. The old car belching black smoke, tires spinning, my brother in law trying not to fall off the hood and figure out how much fuel the motor wanted.
Didn't take to long to remove the offending motor. 180,000+ hard miles on the poor thing plus all the sitting
Now with the old motor out it was time for the new.... I have had a SBC sitting around that was supposed to go in one of my trucks for years now. It was a fresh rebuild but the oil filter plate slipped and the motor dumped oil in the first 10 seconds of life a number of years ago. I took it back down to a short block and replaced all gaskets and checked for any damage. Everything looked good so it was time to fit it down in the engine bay and get the old girl back on the road.
Rebuilt the 700R4 and added a few new parts. It now should handle close to 500hp without failure. I had considered going back to the tried and true turbo 350 but I really wanted overdrive in this car.
Always had helpers. This is my younger son but both of them fought over the creeper and wanted to pretend to turn wrenches and cut things under the car. I gave them a box full of the old wiring from the car and they turned it into confetti in a matter of a few hours.
Time to make the cuts on the hood. I'm sure anyone can tell from the shape of the cut what is coming next for the car. This was a big decision for me. I had always as a kid had the pictures of muscle cars with a scoop out the hood. I always wanted to own a car like that. I thought someday maybe I would be able to do something with one. Well here was my chance.
Fast forward to the present. Car is still up on jacks. Have had a few distraction from a race car for a month or so. I have temp exhaust on the car and hopefully this weekend I can break in the camshaft. Would love to get this on the ground and to the exhaust shop in the next week.
I will continue to update as I finish things and get the car back together.
A side note. Yes the car now has a brand new motor. It's a low compression fairly stock SBC. I had the opportunity to pick up a slightly better motor for a really good deal. it's more along the lines of 13.5:1 compression and 450+ HP. It's on my stand now waiting for the crank to come back from getting polished. So about the time that I get this back from the exhaust shop it will be getting another new motor.. Then I get to start beefing up the rest of the drivetrain to handle the new HP.
05-09-2016, 11:06 AM
