Hey guys, finally decided to jump in here and get some input on the neglected daily driver. My 91' Camaro RS has been a decent daily driver since ive had it, it has caused quite a few headaches though. Recently its been somewhat neglected for my 72' Cutlass resto but now im looking to get a few things sorted out on it. First of all, i keep hearing/feeling this pop when i take off from a standing start. It feels and sounds like its coming from the rear end, im not exactly sure but thats where it seems to be coming from. If im moving at all it wont happen, unless i really jam it that is. Any ideas? I love driving this car and would be more than happy to keep it as my daily for many years but fix after fix after fix starts to wear on your patience. Hence the Cutlass haha, one day i said "with all the work i put into this i could just restore an A-body" and so that started kinda by accident haha.

The rear end pop is my main problem right now, i dont want to end up breaking something on accident. Also i think my clutch is going out as sometimes it gets stuck between gears and sometimes it shudders when shifting at cruising speeds. Then there's another huge headache that has been come-and-go with it which is that sometimes the car will start sputtering and wanting to die (it will die if i dont keep gassing it), i thought this was the fuel pump at first however when it sputters all of the electric goes with it (the motor surges again and again, with each surge the lights, radio, etc. all flicker on and off with the motor) so i was thinking maybe that was the ECM?

Other than that ive considered a 350 or 383 swap. Just something to make this LO3 car move. My sister beat me in a race in her 99' Grand Am..yeahhh..plus this whole TBI noise is annoying to me, i preffer the simplicity of a carb or the efficiency of all out true fuel injection. Maybe i should open another thread for the swap ideas but this is my first post so im just kinda getting everything out there in the open. Any help would be appreciated, thanks!

 

Check torque arm bushings, and that its not broke, check springs aren't broken, and check that the isolators are both still there.
Your sputtering issue is almost certainly not the ecm, the engine computer has nothing to do with the other electrical systems, it controls the engine and thats pretty much it.(for cars this old anyways...nowadays on new cars it is actually all tied together) It is most likely a bad connection at the battery, check the terminals look decent, could also be frayed or broken wiring, if you are lucky it is the former.
As for your search for power you will just have to do some research and decide for yourself, without specific goals we can't really give you a direction to steer in for more power.
Welcome to tgo btw, hopefully my post gives you some direction for your issues.

 

Thanks. Yes that info helps quite a bit actually, i knew i had a semi-loose connection, one of my bolts is really jank, but i thought the alternator would take care of any shortcomings the battery might be having when the car was running?
As far as the rear end stuff goes i'll be sure to check all of that, it almost sounds like something is hitting where its not supposed too

The power gains stuff i'll probly just start a new thread for in a more appropriate section. Although for convenience's sake my hopes were to keep the original motor and spend as little as possible while giving it enough umph to at least feel like a muscle car (rather than just sounding like one haha)

 

Forgot to mention it, but could also be a bad transmission mount bushing, or the nut may be missing or loose. I have a sticky in the v6 section for increasing power, its biased towards sixes, but I still included a LOT of knowledge that can be applied to any car/engine, so that may help you.
From the sound of it, you could probably get enough power from the stock motor to make you happy with it. Idk if its a direct swap, but you may look into getting a TPI setup if it bolts right up, the tpi motors had a good deal more power, but idk if lower end is the same or not.

Oh, and as for the battery, no the alternator won't compensate for a bad connection, it may compensate for a weak battery though, if it was me, and I hadn't replaced the battery myself, and it looked old, I would test it and or have it replaced, and throw on new terminals for the wire leads if they looked rough, or at least try cleaning up the terminals a bit. Could also just be that the terminal is loose, without seeing it, I can only speculate.