After dreaming about going on the Hot Rod Power Tour for over 30 years, I finally signed up to do the long haul. I always wanted to take my 87 IROC on my first one. But I'm not getting any younger and the restoration of that one is moving very slowly. So I am going to take my 92 B4C on it this year. I have had the B4C for about 5 years now. It is an ex Indiana state police car and has about 200,000 miles on it now. It had the engine, trans and rear end rebuild at some point in its life. But they have many miles on them since that was done. I have been doing some small upgrades and repairs along the way since I got it. But it has needed a lot of bigger maintenance and repairs since Ive owned it. So now is the time to tear into it and prepare it for 3000 miles of driving. I also have some cosmetic work I will be doing in between the major mechanical stuff.

It needed a lot of maintenance to start. The transmission is leaking heavily and the converter is way too tight. The rear end is leaking and has a bad whine from a poorly installed 3.73 gear. The fuel pump is weak and whining pretty bad. The front sway bar end links are shot. The upper strut mounts are bad. Shocks and struts are blown out. Tires are mismatched and the wrong size on the front. The car has Edelbrock headers that are leaking where the tubes weld into the header flanges. I welded them back up to stop the leaks but I could only weld so many of the tubes in the car. The exhaust was terrible as well. It had muffler shop exhaust with a Magnaflow muffler with some really ugly 3" straight cut tail pipes.

Here are a few pictures of it before tear down.

 

Sounds perfect for power tour! You will enjoy yourself. I've been going for roughly 10 or more years now. Hopefully you have your rooms booked. Each stop becomes a mini car show in its own right.

 

Glad you are getting this bucket list item checked off.

 

I have a lot of friends who have gone and they love it. Im really looking forward to it. I'll be going with 2 of my best friends. One will taking his 95 Corvette and the other will be taking his 92 B4C or possibly his 86 Monte Carlo SS. It just depends if he can get the B4C straightened in time. It all of a sudden started running rough and dieing. All fuel delivery and ignition components have been address (even an NOS GM distributor and module) and still no luck. We are looking into ground issues now. I booked all my hotels the day registration was announced thankfully.

Thanks! I cant wait.

 

The first project was a simple one. I did the head lights about a month ago. I rarely drive this car at night. But my stepdaughter and I took it on a little road trip one night that took longer than expected and we ended up driving at night and I realized very quickly how bad the headlights were. 2 of the stock headlights were cracked and corroded inside. Unfortunately the worst part about this car so far is all the mismatched and Chinese hardware. So I replaced the headlight trim screws with factory pieces and installed a set of Octane glass housing H4 conversion headlights. The difference was substantial over the terrible, damaged stock lights.

The turn signal housings were absolutely terrible too. Being an Ex State Police car they had cut holes in the factory housings for the police lights. When they decommissioned the car they just left those holes open to the elements. It did a number on them. I installed a set of GM licensed reproduction housings I have had stashed away for about 20 years. They were surprisingly nice. I compared them to an NOS set I have for my 87 IROC and they were very similar. The reproductions did have some debris trapped inside the light tho. You can see it in the picture of the new driverside light.

 

The first thing I needed to do was get the terrible muffler shop Magnaflow muffler and tips hacked off and get the rear end pulled so it can be rebuilt. I am real fortunate to have a local guy who has been building rear ends for over 50 years. I am having him install a new set of Motive 3.23 gears to replace the 3.73s. I feel like the 3.73 is just too much at interstate speeds. It just feels like its struggling to maintain 75-80mph. Im also installing a new Eaton LSD and Moser axles. With 200,000 miles I didnt want to take any chances with the axle bearing surfaces on the stock axles being worn. So we are just going to cover all the bases and replace everything.

While the rear end was out I went ahead and pulled the tank down and replaced the fuel pump. Unfortunately I didnt get any pictures of that because I was covered in fuel and fighting the tank in and out was less than fun. The car already had an old Walbro 255 in it. But whoever installed it didn't put the insulator sleeve around the pump so it was rattling against the bracket on the sending unit. I installed a new Ti brand (they bought Walbro years ago) 255lph pump and installed the insulation and pump isolator to keep it quiet. Along with a new filter sock. Fortunately the inside of the tank was clean and all the baffles were still in place and in good shape. I am going to install a hot wire kit to boost the voltage to the pump. You could hear the old pump whining intermittently when the turn signal was flashing. Unfortunately I hate aftermarket wiring hanging around. So I am going to have to get creative with the routing on the hot wire kit.

 

My biggest struggle with this whole project has been the urge to clean and detail everything. Posting pictures of the car dirty and leaving it that way is embarrassing to me. But I am really bad about taking things apart and turning it into a perpetual project trying to make it perfect. I have to really keep reminding myself that this car will never be perfect and honestly I dont want it to be. The history and all the bumps and bruises are what make this car special to me. And the fact that is it already dirty means driving it wont ruin it. I just want to make it mechanically sound, run a little bit better than stock and continue to drive the wheels off of it.

 

Nice ride!! Our B4C is painted in about that color (along with decades of exposure on cheap paint). I keep flipping between 'restore it and detail it' and 'it's a survivor, so enjoy it for the awesome-to-drive car that it is'. So far a little of both have won out. We cleaned up the interior and have some better-condition spares to install, but I'm getting too old to do a complete restoration. It's probably worth more to my estate as-is, anyway. Ours IS a GAA car, though, so I do plan to get the paint restored to the original black-and-white scheme it rolled off the assembly line with at some point in time.

 

Good Luck! We are on our 5th HRPT and 4th with the 88 GTA.

 

This one is an original quasar blue car. Mostly original paint (which is why its rough as hell) except for the deck lid and spoiler. My buddy that is going on the power tour with me has a purple 92 B4C as well that was also Indiana state police used and his is in the same boat. Clean enough to drive around but rough around the edges. We are both in agreeance that they need to be preserved in used condition. They arent valuable enough to restore and restoring them would ruin their appeal.

I am not familiar with what a GAA car is. Can you fill me in on that?

 

I finally got around to doing Power Tour in 2024. I loved it. Did it again in 2025. Going in 2026 too. Most likely taking this '86 this time:


You are way more ambitious than me. That's a lot of work to get done in a month or so, lol.

 

I have been making more headway on the B4C. Just been slow to post updates. I started pulling the garbage Edelbrock headers and y-pipe off. Thankfully that went fairly smoothly other than the collector flanges were clocked in a way making it nearly impossible to get to the bolts. But after some cussing and gentle nudging with a hammer and punch I was able to get them turned enough to access the bolts. The header replacement was a 100% necessity. Because the welds connecting the primary tubes to the flange were cracking causing a leak through the flange around the tube. The intake replacement and accessory removal really wasn't. But the car has SLP siamesed runners but the plenum wasnt port matched at all. So I am going to port match it to the runners and the Lingenfelter 58mm billet throttle body I have for it as well. I decided to install an Edelbrock intake base while it was all apart for a little bump in power.

The y-pipe was a little tricky to get out without cutting it into pieces lol. I had to snake it out around the lift arm.

I hadn't planned to pull the front of the engine apart but I had to replace the alternator last year. The police department added the bracket to install the larger alternator onto the car for the experimental radar equipment they were using at the time. But at some point in time the support brace was removed from the back of the alternator and the bracket failed. I couldnt find a replacement bracket at a reasonable price. So I just put an original style alternator back on the car. Since the alternator was new it made the rest of the accessories looked really bad. At some time the air pump was deleted and they had the belt routed incorrectly. This was running the water pump in the incorrect direction. I got an air pump delete pulley for it and since I dont know if they switched to a clockwise rotation water pump I have decided to get a new aluminum water pump for it as well.

The last photo was a very pleasant surprise. The car still has its numbers matching engine in it after over 100,000 miles of police duty and then another 75,000+ miles in the civilian world.

 

I’ve been going since 2022. This will be my first in my camaro. My two sons will be with.

 

You know, if you go down rt 4 in Hellinois, at a certain spot, you aren't far from my place

 

Sounds like an invitation for us all to stop by your place and see all your cool stuff...

Lol

 

If I'm home, definitely welcome to swing by the junkyard

 

​​​​​​​I definitely plan on swinging by with a certain part we've been trying to get together on!

 

Been a little behind on making posts. Its busy season at work and I have been thrashing on the car trying to get it back together in time. All while dealing with trading in and buying a new truck, helping another friend get his C4 ready for Power Tour and building a 32 Ford for a customer in my personal shop.

My shop is a wreck right now with all the thrashing around. Haven't been taking much time for cleaning and organization unfortunately. After Power Tour some major cleaning will be happening.

I got the new sway bar end links installed. It has needed them for a long time. The old ones had broken down so badly that the bushings were gone and the washers were just loose and jingling on the bolts. SUPER annoying. Got the new KYB rear shocks installed as well.

 

I got the transmission pulled out for refresh/reseal. It was leaking really badly from the front pump area and a little slow to go into reverse when dead cold. So I figured it was time. And the fact that I work for a high performance transmission shop it only made sense to go in a warm it up a little as well. I decided to add a piece of jewelry from Circle D converters. I decided to do a 2600 stall converter while it was apart. The trans had been rebuilt at one point in its life. I'm assuming the 9-10 is the date. So roughly 16 years ago. The converter they used was VERY tight. I assume its a truck or full size car converter. The stall speed felt like it was around 1600rpm. The 2600 stall should wake it up quite a bit. I was super surprised by the fact that the car still has its original numbers matching transmission with its original 1992 casting pump as well.

 

The transmission tunnel was EXTREMELY dirty along with the whole under side of the car. I wiped out the majority of the dirt and grease above the transmission while it was out. I do professional dry ice cleaning/detailing as a side business and plan to dry ice clean the entire underbody this winter. So I just hit the spots I cant get easily with the transmission installed. We got the transmission rebuilt and tested on our transmission dyno. Then I installed it back into the car.

 

The rear floor area is just as nasty as the rest but figured I would try to clean up the harder to reach area while the rear end was out. It cleaned up pretty well. Didnt do a super good job since this isnt a full restoration and I am on a time crunch. I got the rear end back in. The rear end is ready to go back in the car and I decided to check the codes on it and sure enough it is still rocking its "born with" rear end after all this time, abuse and mileage.

 

I really should take the day off and drive the tour a bit, or at least hang out and offer a 3rdgen junkyard tour.. or just help with mechanical issues if needed.

edit.
I just looked at my schedule and power tour dates. looks like I'll be off on Tuesday and Wednesday when it rolls south by my place.
if anyone needs anything or just wants to hang out for a bit, as of now, I'll be around.

 

Some things I just couldnt leave alone. I had to clean and media blast the accessory brackets and runners. The Edelbrock intake is brand new but has been sitting on my shelf forever. So it just needed ran through the hot tank.

 

It was nice to finally get a really nice set of headers on this car. I have had every set of 3rd gen headers imaginable over my 30 years of 3rd gen ownership (except for a set of Don's I still want a set of those), and these units built by my friends over at American Racing Headers are by far the nicest I have owned. I have had many sets of their LS headers over the years and they were always second to non on fit, build quality and performance. These are no exception. Nick was kind enough to add a 2-1 merge pipe for me that isn't normally included in the kit. Everything fit extremely well. The only problem I had is the passenger side header is close to the frame rail. I was able to tweek it with a long pry bar and get clearance.

 

So unfortunately with time running short I had to make some exceptions on exactly what I wanted for the car. I was on the hunt for a new GM or older new AC Delco LT1 starter to replace the gigantic factory starter. But I was unable to find one. So I had a new AC Delco smaller body starter that I put on it for the time being.

With the time crunch I didn't have time to fabricate a new stainless 3" intermediate pipe for the exhaust. So I had to end up running my 4th gen SLP 2 on the left exhaust. I tried to get the intermediate pipe out of the 4th gen muffler/tips so I could switch it over to my 3rd gen muffler/tips. But the clamp had crushed the pipe too much and I would have had to destroy the muffler to get the pipe out of it. And I had the same issue with the tips. So for now it has a 4th gen muffler and tips on it. I ended up adding a slip joint in the middle so this winter I can remove it all and keep it for another 4th gen. Then I will fabricate a completely new intermediate pipe and put my 3rd gen muffler/tips on the car.

 

After the intake parts were cleaned and sand blasted I decided to gasket match the plenum and intake base to the SLP runners and Accel 58mm throttle body. Being a stock L98 I know this isnt necessarily a requirement. But it just felt wrong not to do it while it was all apart. The intake runners had been ported on in the past so the openings weren't perfectly round. But for the sake of time I just matched the gaskets to them and transferred that onto the plenum. After having the engine down to the bare long block I have determined that the engine has never been rebuilt. So with nearly 200,000 miles on it I will be back in here sometime in the next few years to freshen it up. So I will really clean the intake up and port it properly then.

 

Looking good! Hopefully you're still making the trip?

 

Thanks. Its coming along decently. Im not happy with everything so far. But being on a time restriction and it being a 200k mile car, I have to draw the line on this one somewhere. As long as nothing unexpected happens I should still make it.

 

I think your line is about a mile further down the road than mine! You're definitely digging deeper than most and it'll pay off. Everything looks great so far!

 

Very nice! Especially the merge pipe. If I ever do anything other than just keeping it running, I'd like to do that to our B4C. I also have a ported TPI intake I'd like to drop in, too, but probably won't because it's just a nice driver and I have way too many other projects.

 

LOVE the TOTL. Best F-bod exhaust ever, IMO.

 

Thanks guys. The 2 on the left is absolutely the best exhaust ever!

 

Well, if anyone is on the tour today and want to stop in, I'll be around

 

So I will continue to update the thread. But unfortunately I didn't make it to power tour. The C4 I was helping with took way longer than expected to get finished up which delayed my progress. And the way these things typically work out for me, once the C4 left my shop the promises to help me finish my car for the Power Tour left with it. So I thrashed on by myself and I got the car running late Friday night and had a fighting chance to make it on the Power Tour. But once I started going over the exhaust and tightening the connections I had an exhaust leak I just couldn't pinpoint. After a few minutes of searching I found the leak. The header gasket was blown out right at the very front next to the alternator. This meant at least the driver header had would have to come back off. I pulled the driver side off and found almost the worst case scenario. As nice at the American Racing Headers are, they have a couple drawbacks on stock engines. The biggest being the large square exhaust ports in the header flanges are too large to seal against the gasket surface on the stock L98 cylinder heads. The gasket is just floating in mid air and exhaust is blowing right past it. I am in the process of fixing this and I will post my solution in this thread.

 

Appreciate the offer, unfortunately I didn't make Power Tour either. The car was ready, but my boss canceled my vacation with a little over a week to go.