Hey guys,
so.. 7 years restoring my camaro. And its finally finished..
Now im planned to take it on a 3,000 mile rally run in May. That gives me 3 months to have this completely ready to go.

To give you a brief overview of the car, its an 86' Camaro. The entire car was striped of every piece down to just the chassis and completely sandblasted. From the new 3 stage paint, all parts put back on were new, or restored oem parts. Literally.

It has a built eaton posi 10 bolt rear end w/ moser axles and 3.73 gears. LS1 front/LT1 rear brakes. 350ci (4bolt main, 1st gen) engine with a mild cam, edelbrock heads, edelbrock intake manifold and msd ignition and wires, and 100 shot of nitrous (probably wont use on the trip). Headers (heat wrapped) and true dual exhaust (currently being made for the car right now. last thing to do) T-5 borg warner transmission..

I have the car running good, however i have only drove it a total of 30 miles since every mechanical and structural piece has been off the car and put on over the past 7 years. Im a little nervous about the 3,000 mile trip

Is there anything I should be doing to help me prepare for this.
I have a stock fan that came with the original v6, that seems to put out a lot of power.

Ill have an alignment done before the trip as well, and there are all new fluids

My daily driver honda could easily make the trip.. but I dont know about my Camaro, a lot of miles, lot of engine, lot of heat, lot of wear.. will it make it?

 

First off, I'm jealous. I want to do that to my Trans Am.

Dump the honda as a daily driver until you get back from your trip. Drive the Camaro as much as you can between now and then, 1k to 2k miles or more. How many miles does the engine actually have on it? Change the oil at the 1k mile mark,then start the every 3k miles change.

Make sure the fan and air dam are in good functional shape, the single fan should be more than enough to keep the engine cool under normal operating conditions. Make sure the brakes are in good working order and that the tranny shifts properly. Make sure the fuel pump has the correct pressure etc. Other than that, just drive it...drive it and drive it some more. It'll go along way toward making you trust it again and will allow you to find all the "little things" that may have been missed when putting it back together (rattles, squeaks, etc) as it sounds like the drive train is well put together.

 

thanks man.. and yea the engine only has 30 miles on it as well.. transmission was rebuilt after 60k org miles on it. And the rearend is new too, except for the housing, which has been sandblasted and powdercoated

The thing I worry about the most is the heat. If driving a good 500-700miles in a single day will produces too much engine heat and cause some trouble.

I guess realistically it comes down to basic explanation of making sure everything is working right, and in that case it is..

Just dont know how these cars act up after taking them on such long drives.

I just feel like the heat produced after a 500mile straight shot on the 1.5L honda is like the same heat produced after a start up on my camaro lol.

 

I know how you feel. I did an engine swap in my Firebird. Broke 3 different valve springs after having just replaced the previous one...different one each time coupled with all the gremlins that come with disturbing 26 year old wirin g, retuning the carb and my car spent the better part of 2 years in the garage. I just got back from a 1800 mile round trip in mine. Until this trip I had't gone more than 60 miles in any direction in the car. My anxiety was through the roof. I needn't have worried but I know where you are coming from. I even got 18 mpg to boot with my 300hp 355.


When you drive on the highway, if your
air dam is in good shape, you won't go over 200*. All else being done right. In city driving, it will heat up to 225* with factory fan switch. fan will activate and drop temp to 190*-ish. You'll see the gauge move when this happens.

Still, drive, drive, drive. Use the Camaro everyday till you go. That will be your best gauge of how the car is now after all the work has been done and hopefully you'll work all the final kinks out before the trip.

 

take a tool bag along at all times lol

 

Could take it to the drag strip and give it a good thrashing to see it and bugs pop up. Make sure all the fluids or topped off and take extra, I like to pack a tool kit. I feel if you are prepared then you will not have a problem. Its when you are not prepared that it gets crazy.