There are a variety of places the negative cables can go and as lo g as one goes to the frame and another to the engine you have at least done the minimum. You want to use the same gauge as the power cable or two cable that are 1/2 the area of the power cable. You also want the heads grounded to the block or each other and the block to the firewall and frame rail. If you don't have good grounds that's how you get the feedback noise in the stereo and if your group de are really bad it can make your engine sensor feeds noisey.

 

Any recommendations on battery cables to use? I'm going to look them up next week. I need to clean the engine bay and prep it for paint before I throw the motor back in in 2-3 weeks.

 

Got the rear end out today. Wasn't that hard but I had to use my torch twice. Which really surprised me considering how long this car sat. Only broke 2 things, driver side sway bar end link nut broke off and another nut for something else but can't remember. I also cut the rubber brake line but I am replacing that anyways and it was just a faster way to get the rear end out, as every line was flexing and about to break when I tried to loosen them up. I sprayed the hell out of it with grease lightning and scrubbed it with an SOS pad a few times and rinsed a few times. Way better now. I need to find some sort of sanding bit for my dewalt drill to start grinding rust and clumps of crap off the housing so I can paint it when I'm done checking it. Posi seems functional still as both wheels spin in the same direction and at the same time as each other. Brakes are completely rusted and need to be replaced which is probably happening this week. I need to find that stainless braided brake line kit I saw a few months back that had the fronts and the rear for like $120.










I'm probably going to paint this black and paint the sway bar blue to match the car, assuming I stick with blue. That's another thing I need to decide in the next few days as I have to get stuff off to the powder coater as well as the plenum and runners to the polisher. I think I'm going to have the plenum polished and the edelbrock runners polished and the lower intake manifold 're powder coated. Not sure yet if I'm going to paint the engine block block black or blue. Not sure what contrasting will look the best once everything is assembled.

 

Also if anybody wants the stock tpi setup, plenum, throttle body, intake manifold, and runners, I'm selling all of it. $100 to get rid of it now. I have no idea what shipping will be but I'm willing to ship. Everything needs to be cleaned and I will clean somewhat before shipping if not picked up local but it will still need cleaning before used.

 

You can use any cables you want. Wal-mart usually has the cheapest but they are a lower strand count, you should prefer a high strand count which would give flexibility and the ability to move more electrons. Sometimes you can get some good deals on welding cable. I would use the biggest power cable you could get for the starter and the alternator. The main grounds should be the same size or multiples of smaller gauges. I have 1 or 2 gauge for power and grounds but I bought some 0 gauge for the convertible I'm doing.

 

I got the rest of the exhaust removed today. Also picked up my headers from the guy who was ceramic coating them for me. Still waiting on my heads to be done. Rear end seems good when I opened it up so I'm just going to flush it really good and buy a new seal and call it good. I'm probably going to paint the rear this weekend at some point as well if I have time.
Old gas tank is almost out. Just have one of straps holding it in until I disconnect the fuel lines then it should come right out. Already have my new gas tank from summit. Also have a new oil pan that I got from summit. The paint I bought is a 2k ceramic paint so it doesn't last longer than about a day or so, I'm going to probably paint my engine while I'm painting the rear end, just because one can will do more than just the rear end. I have some new brake stuff but only about 25% of what I need. I kind of pushed everything else back in priority to get the engine done and running. I bought some paint for the engine bay today as well. I'm going with Hyper Blue Metallic or Blue Me Away Blue, depending on where it comes from. It's the blue metallic color on the 2016 camaros. I saw one driving down the freeway last week and decided I like how it looks a little better than the ultra blue metallic I did my 88 in. Hopefully have the engine bay painted by next weekend so I can drop the engine in.


Currently my workshop while I get this back on the road. This is the work bench I built specifically for this project.



New gas tank

 

http://www.casperselectronics.com/store2/

This is the place that I got my battery cables from, a little pricey, but they are top notch.

 

Awesome build by the way.

 

Does this company specialize in third gen f bodies? I just typed in battery cable in the search bar and the 5th result down I think it was says 84/87 negative cable. Looks like the cable on these cars.

 

How much the ceramic coating for the headers cost? I've got some on the way myself.

 

I paid $150 for the guy to do them. He works from home and has all the stuff set up in his garage. They were ceramic coated and then polished to a chrome finish.

 

Cool. I don't have anyone local who does it as far as I know. Especially not at home. I've heard some people say header paint works but some say it doesn't.

 

Mine usually disappeared. I went to the header wrap, I use the more expensive lava stuff, forget what it's called but that has helped prevent burnt wires and seemed to lower underhood temps.

 

I'll look into that. Never ran headers before.

 

Was it DEI, Tibo?

http://www.designengineering.com/cat...ps-accessories

 

Yeah, their titanium lava rock wrap. I did a review on it with a bunch of pictures.

 

Cleaned prepped and painted the subframe this weekend. It was pretty awesome trying to get the old motor mounts off. I didn't know until I started approaching it that the bolt for the control arm had to be removed and the control arm drop down in order to access the nuts on the motor mount bolts. The control arms are pretty badly corroded so I'm just going to replace them. Just going with OEM style for now. I'm doing upgrades where I can afford to right now and new control arms weren't in the budget. After seeing the subframe I really wanted to swap it out for another too but that was also not in the budget. I used a high temp paint on this; 950° is what it's rated at so I figured it would be good for the high temps in the engine bay. I bought enough paint to do the rest of the engine bay and some parts with the color I'm going to be painting the whole car. It's a blue metallic from the 2016 Camaro.




This is a better shot of the rear end done. Well, done as in cleaned and painted and I replaced the gasket on the cover. Still have to flush and fill it. I used Eastwood's 2K black gloss engine paint. It kind of looks and feels like powder coating which is pretty cool. I didn't prep the tubes very well so you can see it up close but it looks better than most used rear ends I have ever seen.



New oil pan that I painted which will eventually match the color I'm painting the whole car.



This is the best picture I have of the new gas tank. I know this was kind of unnecessary and sort of pointless but I figured why not.



Got the intake parts back last week from the polisher. These looks awesome. I'm super excited to have these bolted on. I'm leaving the lower intake manifold powder coated black because on a tpi setup you don't see a whole lot of the intake manifold with everything bolted in place.



And here is my new Elgin cam. Literally just got it as I was typing up this post. Figured I'd throw it in with the rest of the updates.

So I'm still waiting on the heads. Hopefully I will have them this week sometime. After that, I have almost everything I need. Still need to get all new brake lines which I'm currently trying to find aftermarket ones that run to the passenger side and to the rears. Also, I need to get the power steering pump and reservoir since I don't have one. And then a fuel pump and sending unit. Also need to send the chip in to get burned for my setup. I pretty much have everything else though. I'm hoping to get the engine bay painted either this week or next week and then immediately after getting the engine back in the car. I pulled all the steering out and the brakes still need to be replaced but hopefully I am only a few weeks away from starting it up.

 

Got a new negative battery cable. $40 but it's pretty intense so hopefully I will never have grounding issues from it. Also got ARP head bolts and studs kit for the heads, which I'm still waiting on. I'm definitely not going to the shop I went to ever again because 5 weeks is a ridiculous time to wait for machine work on heads that are already good to go.

I also finally painted the engine bay today. I painted the subframe a week or 2 ago with some 950° black gloss paint I had but the engine bay is the color I'm painting the rest of the car. blue metallic color from a 2016 Camaro.










I'm astonished at how well this turned out because I used a paint gun I bought on sale at harbor freight for $10. I wouldn't recommend it ever for stuff you want a show quality finish, but I figured being the engine bay and there are so many bends and crevices that there never is a huge flat surface area that is going to be visible, I'd risk it. The gun didn't fail once and didn't shoot out blotchy paint even once. When I was clearing it it did shoot out a 5" strip of clear in an excess amount though and it was on the passenger wheel well which is one of the most obvious spots under the hood. But all in all, I'm very happy with how this turned out.

 

That polished tpi looks awesome man.

Nothing wrong with the harbor freight gun. I've seen some nice paint jobs with one of those cheapos. Idk how you painted the engine bay with all those wires still there though. lol

 

I didn't feel like removing everything. That is the best way to do it, but this isn't going to be a 100k camaro when I'm done. I just wanted it to look cool. I taped all the plug ends so they wouldn't get paint in them, masked off the booster and steering and fuel lines, and since I painted the subframe a different color a few weeks ago I masked that too. I basically painted over everything else. The wire looms are all dry rotted and I'm going to replace them so I figured it would save me time masking if I just didn't touch them and if they got paint on them it wouldn't matter. I definitely would have liked to remove everything and blasted it before I painted it, but I'm way too lazy and in a hurry to do that.haha.

 

Trust me, i understand. Taking an engine bay down to metal is tough work and i won't do it again. The only reason I went down to metal on a previous car was because there had been an engine fire. My current project will get a good clean and scuff before paint. That's it. lol

 

I wish I owned the house I'm in. I'm only renting and it's a pretty nice house and I am very lucky to have the space I have to work on this. But I couldn't really do any huge pressure washing where it was or I'd mess up the flagstone that's right behind it. So I washed it by hand using those magic eraser pads which we used in the navy to wash the helicopters and it took paint off. So they work really well. I grinder the few small surface rust spots off with a wire brush on my dewalt cordless. The clear cost was non exsistent in the engine bay so it didn't need much scuffing really. The subframe was way more work than this. That sucked. I started looking up replacement subframes when I started cleaning it because I was so unexcited to prep it for paint.

 

Yeah that sucks. I just wish I had a shop, or at least concrete. I'm gonna have to temporarily wall in my carport when it's paint time.

I had an 88 camaro before my current project car. That's the car that had the engine fire. I had stripped and primed the engine bay, and also stripped and coated the cross member in por15. Had lots of hours into just the engine compartment. Getting rid of all the years of oil and dirt is tough enough by its self. I ended up finding several issues with the car and decided it was best I found another body...so all that work was for nothing lol

Also i forgot to mention, I feel your pain on the motor mounts. They are a bitch on these cars.

 

Not that this thread has developed a following, but I have basically decided I'm pulling the plug on this build. Lots of work I still have to do and I just bought a truck again. The more I think about it, the more I realize I'm not a car guy, at least not as much as I am a truck guy. I still love these cars and I may sell all the parts I have for this plus my 88 and use that money to buy a decent third gen and just use it for transportation and not put much money into it until I want to take on another car build. I know it's a lot of time and money wasted as I have probably 4-5 grand into this car between the cost of the car, getting it to my house, and aftermarkets parts and supplies. I now have absolutely no room for anything right now either. It sucks but somebody is going to get pretty good deals on parts soon. I'm going to wai until this semester is over in about 2.weeks, then I'm going to list everything. Thanks everybody for the kind words and advice. A lot of the stuff I have is aftermarket performance or new oem style or used original and everything in between. I would prefer to deal locally for stuff as shipping would be expensive on a lot of stuff. But if it's something small I might consider it. The title to the car is clean and notarized but I signed it with my info, so unfortunately I have to find some way to get the title in my name so I can get the title notarized to legally sell the body.

 

I'm sorry to hear this. I was looking forward to watching this car get saved. You were off to a good start. I hope it finds a good home. And good luck with your new toy.

 

Yeah this car looked worse than just about every car I see in a junkyard usually. It would have been awesome to finish it. I will probably look back on this and wish I found a way, but I realized I'm more of a truck guy than a car guy. And the amount of times this year I have needed a truck and either had to borrow one or rent one has been too much. I honestly would be willing to sell the body to somebody for cheap if I knew it wouldn't get crushed. I would sell everything I have as a package but I doubt anybody wants to pay as much as I can make for everything parted.

 

I may be interested in some of the parts. I'll check when you post the list-I'm 3 hours northwest of you.

 

This project as well as my 88 has definitely been a learning experience and I am not upset that I learned what I know now and the tool collection I have compares to before is also pretty cool. I just know that this thing is going to be like all the other dream builds are and end up sitting for a decade or 2 because the person doesn't have the heart to sell it but doesn't have the motivation to finish it. It would be fantastic if somebody wanted to finish this. People that want a high dollar build will stay Way from this iroc because there's nothing even close to perfect about it. I wasn't looking for a barret Jackson finish though, so this would be perfectly fine with me. But I know myself well and I know that I could have only lied to myself for so long before I realized a truck is where I belong. I love certain cars, but I'm always going to come back to a truck, and if I don't have one, it's going to bother me. Not having one for the last year has made it difficult for me at least once a month. Some people can get by without one, but I'm usually picking up engine hoists, or making a dump run, or traveling up north, or hauling stuff that requires a bed, and other things that I want/need a truck for. I had a 2001 2500 4x4 dodge with a Cummins before these 2 camaros and when you feel torque like that, it's pretty hard to be satisfied with anything less.haha.

I am not sure yet what my plan is. I can sell everything and then whenever I don't want to wait anymore, scrap the body. I signed the notarized title, which makes it kind of hard to sell it now. I can't get the title in my name unless I register it. And to do that I need to pass emissions which isn't happening. The other option is to tow it sonehwere and have it inspected to physically prove it isn't driveable so I can be issued a deinsure certificate, then I can get it titled in my name, and then not drive it or register it. If somebody knows a way around this then I'd be ok with it. The rear end is out of the car and since its a G92 rear end, I don't want to throw it back in and either scrap it or sell it together because it's worth more parted.

I was thinking I could sell the 88 and the iroc parts and whatever I have for it, and get another third gen in good shape and use it as a daily. Maybe even an iroc. Depends on what's available when I decided on another vehicle, and when my 88 sells.

Things I'd be selling are-

WCT5 transmission
G92 rear that I cleaned decently and painted with a 2k ceramic paint
305 vortec block that I have started to clean
Aftermarket tpi intake setup
Hooker 2055 ceramic coated headers w/o smog tubes and the y pipe that matches the kit
New oil pan that I painted
New gas tank that I painted
New Elgin camshaft
New harmonic balancer
New edelbrock timing set
Some felpro gaskets
I'm sure much more but those are the big things
Then of course whatever is salvageable from the iroc I haven't removed yet like the wiring harness ttops and interior stuff(which I removed all the interior panels)
Seats are somewhat trashed but 87 iroc seats are pretty rare

I figured I'd give third gen a crack at this stuff before I post it to craigslist in a week or 2 when I finish this semester at school off.

 

If you were closer I'd take some of it off your hands.