Reecea141

Good day, I just purchased a 1984 Camaro Z28 H.O. original engine a few things have been changed, the air intake, carburetor. (for all i can tell) there is no paper work on what has been done to the engine to keep it tuned, all i have is peoples words to go by, It was previously owned new by a man that bought it for highschool and wanted it to be a project car, (I am also wanting to make it a project car) car body looks great, area around the door hing is a little cracked, also i just want to work on the engine and tune it up so it will run perfectly fine for a while. the engine only has 125000 miles on it( good for it being a 28 year old car) so please if any one can help, i would like to tune the engine and with in a year to year and a half, replace the engine. (After my deployment)

naf

iTrader: (7)

Post some pics so we can see what was or was not swapped onto this motor.

Reecea141

holy cow this morning wasn't to bad to get it started, still trying to figure out the hole manual choke thing. and its giving me slight problems but ill figure it out soon enough, anyways, i will be posting pictures soon.

Reecea141

Alright i have 3 pictures of my engine in my profile album of my Z28 H.O.

Reecea141

Thank yall so much if yall can help. If not thanks any ways for your consideration

Ozz1967

iTrader: (4)

Do what NAF Said, post some pictures!

Well, first thing I would do, is put a new cap, coil, rotor, plug wires and spark plugs in it. Then I would put an electric choke back on it. I've got an 84 L69 and it runs good now that it's tuned right (NAF actually helped me with that!). You say the previous owner swapped out the carb on it, that means he swapped out the Computer Controlled Distributor for a vaccum advance one. Do you know what carb is on it now? If the previous owner hasn't hacked your wiring all to hell which many have done when pulling the CC-distributor, I would personally put the CC distributor back in along with the factory CC Qjet, and hook it all up, which you'll need to pass emissions anyway if you have such a test where you live. Either way, if you don't have the inspection, I'd still put a non-cc Qjet on it with an an electric choke. Best all around carb (MPG + Power) that you can get. Oh, and I couldn't imagine running mine with a manual choke. I did that for 4 years on my 67 Camaro and it drove me nuts in the winter.

Once you have that all sorted, for semi-insta performance, I would go with Hooker 2055 headers with a 3" catback and hooker Aero Chamber muffler. This will free up about 15-30hp depending on your motor. Since you are planning on swapping the motor in a year, I wouldn't do anything else other than tune/rebuild the carb on it and do the tune up.

However, you can then save up for the motor or you can replace all your suspension bushings with poly-urethane bushings, install a wonderbar, new sway bars, A-arms, rear lower control arms, pan-hard rod, torque arm etc. Check out "Spohn's" web site, they're one of our sponsors, they sell it all. Surprisingly, suspension mods will make the car "Feel" faster since it's corners tighter and handles better overall.

With the new motor planned for after your deployment...I would definitely do A LOT of research on it to find exactly what you are looking for. Do you want a cruiser for a daily driver? You can do a 320hp 350 easy and it'll be fast. Or you can build a mustag killing 383 stroker pushing 500hp for a really bad a$$ ride, it all depends on what you are looking for. It's really dependent on how much $$ you have to spend. Since it's your first build of a motor, take however much you are estimating on it costing, and then double it. That will be somewhere in the neighborhood of ohw much you'll spend because all the little BS stuff you don't think about adds up (What do you mean this little hose costs $30!! haha).

Reecea141

My car Picture: https://www.thirdgen.org/forums/memb...nal-color.html

My engine: https://www.thirdgen.org/forums/memb...0&ref=gnr-next

https://www.thirdgen.org/forums/memb...0&ref=gnr-next

Also I was wondering if its possible for my Z28 1984 camaro to have skip shift installed into it, because for some unknown reason if im not accelerating fast enough or even revving at a high enough RPM's I can't seem to shift into 2nd from first, i can only go straight to third gear.

But also when i down shift i really can't down shift into second all to easily unless im revving my engine up to a certain point can any one help me on this matter?? Im getting my car inspected soon. But i probably need my transmission checked just to see whats wrong. so please help

Reecea141

well come to find out when i was looking at the car a few things have been replaced in tuning. My spark Plugs are fairly new, My Spark plug wires seem pretty new, I was going to replace my spark plugs but when i pulled out the original spark plugs that i got the car with, i noticed it didn't need any changing due to them being almost brand new.. Some of my wiring is new, I have a fan that i manually turn on also. everything else i will be getting inspected as soon as the shop opens up. (due to bad weather the mechanic shop was closed down today.)

five7kid

iTrader: (14)

Looks like two of the best things about an HO were changed out by a magazine mechanic - the carb, and the air cleaner. If the original owner still has those things, see if you can get them.

It's a little hard to tell with the pictures you posted, but it looks like the original distributor is still in there. To do it "right", when the carb was changed, the distributor should have been changed as well.

Of course, doing it right would have been to keep the original carb, air cleaner, and distributor.

Seeing hack jobs like this is very disturbing. Otherwise, it looks like a nice clean car.

Reecea141

Thanks yea this guy owned it new back in 84 when he was a junior in highschool, and he wanted to make it a project car but never had the time. But finally when 2010 was coming around he decided to sell. Im planning on putting a 400HP 350 crate engine into it From year one, but leave it carborated not fuel injected. But that won't be for a while especially sense the engine costs around $3,000-$4,000 But besides my Transmission problem, it seems to run fine. it probably needs a new MPH monitor. For some reason it says my max is 85Mph but im going over that at about 3,000RPM's I still don't know its actually red line RPM area is yet. And i still don't know my Max RPM's yet either

Ozz1967

iTrader: (4)

It says 85mph because back when the car was built, 55mph was the national speed limit and 85 was really fast. THis won't need to be changed because the only way to change it, is to have the speedometer recalibrated which runs $300 or so. All of the ones that read 140mph and up are electronic, which yours is not.

Max RPM's...DO NOT GO OVER 5500 RPM, these motors weren't designed for it and you'll risk breaking a valve spring or worse, throwing a rod or the like. Our cars were designed for torque and fast acceleration, not high RPM revving, though you can build it to do that if you want when you change motors. besides, by the timeyou hit 5000RPm, you're already at the top end/out of the power band of the cam/carb/intake that came on the cars so it does you no good. I want to say 5200RPM was the HP cap before it started going down, but I'd have to look it up to verify.

I'd do what five7kid mentioned first, put the original style carb back on it. There are a few options, get one from a junk yard and rebuild it yourself, send it off to have it rebuilt or just buy a rebuilt one from some one. I'm using my stock CCQjet on my 355 however I had it rebuilt by Cliff Ruggles at Cliffs High Performance and he tweaked it to work better on the larger motor with bigger cam. Still the same basic carb though. FOr the transmission, your TV cable probably needs to be adjusted is all. Tranny shop can do that easy or you can do it in your drive way if you want.

Once you get all the "bugs" worked out, only then would I contemplate putting the bigger motor in it because once you disturb all that wiring, all sorts of gremlins can show up as I found out when I swapped my 305 for a 350. Nothing seriously hard, just time consuming to track down and fix.

Apeiron

True if it was a Firebird, but it's a Camaro so he can just swap the head.

Ozz1967

iTrader: (4)

I thought they were all mechanical until 85 when tey went Electronic. You're saying the Camaro's were still mechanical with a 120 or 140 speedo after 84?

Apeiron

Yup

Dens71TA

iTrader: (5)

Camaro's had mechanical speedometers through the 1989 model year.

Firebirds went to electronic for 1986 except for the warning light dash on base models which was used to 1987.

Ozz1967

iTrader: (4)

Man....why can't firebirds be that way? I'd kill to have a 120mph speedo. Closest I can get is having Autoinstruments from CA mod my speedo to a 160 for $250.

Reecea141

Yea come to find out when i changed my Rear differential oil today that my Rear diff. gear (not the big gear, the smaller gear inside of the cylindrical device) the pointed end of the gear all the way around is chipped, so i need to replace that. I will say with the new oil in my rear diff. it runs alot smoother, im planning on hitting up a junk yard tomorrow to see if i can find any good 350's or any other parts i can use on my Camaro.

Just so y'all know I'm in the military and we don't exactly make much, so I try to save as much cash as i possibly can.

Ozz1967

iTrader: (4)

<---- Military here as well. WHere are you stationed? I'm over here in Jolly Ol'England! Since the gear was chipped, you risk having lots of metal shavings in the rear diff. That said, I would replace both the ring and pinion gears (the one that's chipped is the ring gear, the one that's smaller is the pinon) as well as get a rebuild kit to replace all of the seals/bearings as well. Go with Motive, had a bad experience with Richmond gears. Generic rebuild kit from summit or Jegs should do you for that.. If you can find one from a junk yard, just make sure you have a shop inspect it really well before you put it in.

Reecea141

Stationed in Idaho. Also the pinion is the one busted, but im probably going to change my gear ratio once i change out my Rear Diff.

Ozz1967

iTrader: (4)

Ok, I misread your discription. Don't forget, if you change your gear ratio or tire size, you need to change the gear in the transmision to keep your speedometer accurate. I personally wouldn't go above a 3.73 gear (that's what I've got) to keep it streetable. Anything higher than that and you'll be in the stratosphere with your RPM's at cruising speeds. I was just stationed at Hill last year in Utah, loved the area.

Reecea141

So now my engine wont start i just changed out my carb hoses because i was sucking air, and now my engine wont turn over and when it did it sputtered then died when i tried to idle, also it was missing an explosion when not pressing on the throttle. im going to replace my fuel filter which is what i think it is, but hopefully its nothing worse. please advise me on this subject thanks