Either I can give up on this piece. Or eventully make it something beautiful. I bought this 91 Camaro RS. 305 went dead and the guy had some friend pop a 350 from a Caprice in it. Everything left stock but block and heads from Caprice. Original intake TBI, pumps tranny, distributor all stock. Long story short I bought cheap. I've done tons of minor fixes. Finally got it to pass emmissions. Barely!!! Must have finally got a good run out of it after replacing all exhaust from cat back. It has some sort of electrical short I don't know where??? It shocks me all the time when closing the door. Idle is not perfect it does though. It jumps though at stoplights like it wants to go probably tranny with 230,000 miles on it. It burns oil. I drove it 60 miles a day for 10 days and it burnt all the oil up. I thought oil pump was going. Finally figured out it needed oil after creating a light knock under acceleration. It still knocks lightly when I get on it. I'm moving closer to work and can ride my bike. I've got a basement. Ok.... Questions>>>>>

1. Is there any way to tell if the engine needs total rebuild??? Ie RINGS. If so could I get away with just doing intake, heads, Exhaust from cat foward. And pull out tranny and rebuild that. Does knocking mean I really need to just totally rebuild.

2. How do I tell if valves are leaking only or ring and valves.? It doesn't smoke all the time just when I rev the engine or get on it. Maybe main bearings bad I don't know. It doesn't leak a drop of oil on driveway. It just eats it.

3.If I do need to pull the engine how do I get that thing down two steps across a yard and down ten steps into the basement.? I figure me and another guy can get the tranny in there. But I have no clue how much that engine is going to weigh. I know it can't just be carried. Outside is not an option nor garage. Its a townhome and I share with neighbor.

4. If I'm able to get this thing rebuilt how do I make the engine less dependent on computer. Like ripping everthing computer controlled out. I'm just worried about the electrical. My heater/ac fuse is pulled right now cause if it's left in the fan runs and the engine runs bad????? I don't know why. I need to just rip the whole dash off. Nothing electrical works right. It killed my stereo. Not the car fuse or the radio's maybe it just died though. Seems like it needs hotter distributor. And maybe there's a short in the blower motor. I turned it on one time and it smoked and smelled like burning garbage. never did it again and still works. Also the fuse to the heater a/c was slighty melted. If I'm going to do this I just want to tear it down and make it as simple as possible. Just to give you a clue eventually I'd like to rip the interior out all together make everthing as waterproof as possible. Spray in some of that rough rubber stuff kinda like the interior on a boat. Maybe a mad max theme. hydrolics just to get it off the ground a little if I need to go FISHING. Flat grey primer. Camaro utility vehicle. Just indestructible.

I appreciate any help, suggestions, opinions, or criticism. Thanks all in advance.

 

Please any help would be appreciated. Do they make a cherry picker that has wheels? Also I'm thinking maybe the problem with the electrical could be the ignition. Not the coil where the key goes in it sometimes gets stuck after starting it and doesn't click back down so my gauges read. I wiggle it and it will click back down. But sometimes the car runs fine no surging or trying to die.

 

Virtually all cherry pickers have wheels. I dont know that you could get it down the basement. If it has a knock under accel, odds are you need a bottom end build. If it smokes all the time you will probably need this also, at least new pistons and a bore/hone. If you are going that far, you may as well do the short block. A lot of money in machine work here. I wouldnt put a penny in the heads you have, they are garbage, start with something better. Make a budget, decide what you can afford, and then post back.