This car has been around since I was a kid. Over time it has been moved around, only to sit, and loose more parts. It is a 1991 Z28 T-top car with 7x,xxx miles, that was Lt1/T56 swapped, but never finished for whatever reason. Someone had also managed to damage the pass side of the car while loading it onto a trailer at some point.
When I bought the car for $400 there wasnt much left, But the body itself was pretty rust free, especially for a northern MI car. I decided im going to be the one to finally finish the car while making a few changes of my own.


This is what the car looked like when I first got it.





Not much to start with, but I like seeing cars make big transformations, and being saved from the scrapyard.
I have since striped it down and have already started paint/body work.
I have most of the things I need to finish the car, its just a matter of time and energy. This is one of the last pics before body work started. more updates and pics soon.

 

Awesome! It is great to see you save it rather than let it be crushed.

 

Thanks, Its amazing to see how far it has come in a short amount of time. Ive already got the interior painted, and im working on the engine bay now.

 

One of the first things I did was buy a new door for the pass side, the door handle was already shaved so I got lucky there.

I also started working on the big dent in the rear quarter panel. I dont have much experience with body filler, so it was a bit of a learning curve. and the body line was pushed in pretty good. I had to push it out by hand from the backside.



It took me a while to get all the high spots worked out, but its just about finished. I went through alot of filler on this one.


Before I paint the outside, I wanted to get the inside painted first, and then paint the front clip/bay. so I striped everything and began on the prep work.





Alot of sanding/scuffing/wiping...

 

I wanted to polish the roll bar, but whoever installed it didnt do a very good, and the welds were rough. so I decided to prime/paint it.


after weeks of prep I primed everything inside using epoxy primer.

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The engine bay before i started pulling everything.

 

It took me a while to decide on if i was going to change colors or not. I ended up picking up some gloss white from eastwood. It layed down pretty good, except for a few runs on the roll bar. Im gonna do another coat after i finish wet sanding it.




this is my first time painting a whole car, so some things are probably gonna need to be redone. but so far i've had decent luck.

 

You might want to look at redoing the 4 point roll bar in that car, as that might not pass NHRA tech and could be dangerous on the street. The gaps between the roof and sail panels seem very large. Something more like the S&W 11-1013 would be a much better fit. It's better to be safe than sorry when it comes to a roll bar.

 

Basically, the roll bar is cosmetic. 4 point roll bar still won't allow you to run quicker than 13.0 in the 1/4 at any track. Needs the door bars to be 11.49 certified. That also depends on how good all the welds are.

 

The welds are terrible along the top, like they were welding blind. And it looks like they bought it as a kit, but only used half of it. I had thought about cutting it out, and starting over, or just going no roll cage.

 

I started vapor blasting some of the smaller pieces like brackets and the hood hinges.



The difference of before and after

I also started shaving holes in the bay. I dont get to weld very often, and its a nice break from painting/prep work.

 

Well done sir. Enjoy the voyage.

 

Nice project , keep going and don't let anything to stop you

 

Whats going on with your project? Did life get in the way? Hopefully we'll see more pics of the progress soon. Hope you're doing well.

 

It's been some time since I last posted. I still have the car, and have recently started working on it again. Im currently working on finishing cleaning up the engine bay, and getting it ready for paint.

Passenger side strut tower and rail all finished up.

Welded up all the holes on the driver side strut tower/rail.

Cleaning up the welds.

Removed the fuse block mount from the lt1 harness

 

bitchen project..
you look like youre into yorus like i am on my 91.

Why did you keep the roll bar?
Not sure what your end goal is, but, if it were me that would have got cut out.
just curious

 

I will cut out the roll cage eventually when I get around to finishing the interior. I dont plan on racing the car, so I won't really need anything like that.

 

I did a little bit more work to the car today. Hoping to have the whole front end primed next weekend. I work too much during the week to get anything done.


Added fiberglass filler to smooth out some of the imperfections.

Started sanding the filler and sanding out the scratches. I used 150 to cut it down and worked my way up to 320 to smooth it out.

I also did a small test spot of the high build primer I'll be using.