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My Camaro sat unused in Florida for years while I lived in California. With the help of my step-father-in-law, I towed it 3000+ miles out here after I finally bought a house with a garage. For more than a year now, I've been working on it to try to get it back in running and racing condition. It's proving to be no easy task between my full time job, freelance, and keeping up the house. What started out as a bad lifter that needed replacing when I brought it here, became a whole new cam, then morphed into a major driveline rebuild with a new short block and new transmission. The list of parts that I want/need to replace is getting painfully long, especially considering the modest original plans just to get it running and on the road again. Some parts are just too old to trust anymore after being in storage and hardly ever driven for so long. A little background info: I first got the Camaro back when I was in high school, where it served as yer basic to-and-from-school daily driver, then eventually evolved into my bracket racer. After hot rodding it for a few years while I used it to commute, I finally took it to the track to race, I was hooked for good. For the next few years, I bracket raced it at Moroso Motorsports Park in West Palm Beach, Florida while I continued to use it to commute to work and back. I led the points for a while one race season, but blew it the last few races and finished 4th that year, my best finish so far with the Camaro. After a while, life and other priorities got in the way of racing, and it went into storage when I moved to the West Coast. As much as I wanted to get a little more serious with it and put it on a trailer, I was never able to justify having so much time and money wrapped up in something that can only be used as a toy, so it's still a street car that I hope to someday be able to drive to the racetrack again, along with some local cruising.
The photo above is a version of how it's going to look once I get it all back together and I install the Rally Sport front end. Photoshop rules! (A larger version of this picture is available for download on my backgrounds page.) My former best E.T. with the old 355ci and a Turbo 400 3-speed trans was 12.02 at 112 mph, more than a two-second improvement over the first time I ran it at the track with that same setup, before I started tweaking and tuning it. Sixty-foot times were usually in the mid to low 1.70's, with a best of 1.68. My plan with the fresh engine and transmission is to shift it early and run low 12-second times at something over 115 mph. According to the engine's dyno chart, the 3300 pounds of me and the car, and my Quarter Jr. E.T. prediction program, I should be close. This build started picking up speed when I got the short block finished back in September of 2006. but things always seem to take more than twice as long as predicted. (At least I hope I'm not the only one...) I'll try to update this page with new photos when I can, but for now I'll just post some "in progress" photos of the current build-up taking place in my crowded little garage...
March 2007:
...It never ends. But the closer I get now, the more excited I am about driving it again. The plan is to race it sometime before the ET Finals this year in Las Vegas in October, but the closer it gets, the more I doubt I'm going to have it done by then... August 2007: No current photos at the moment, but the front end is on except for the hood, headlights, and grill. I've finished going through the brake system too. The drivetrain, for the first time in over a year, is actually connected from front to rear. All the fluids are topped off in the engine, and pretty soon I'll have the rear suspension freshened and the car will soon be back on the ground, on it's own four tires! (Now days, any significant progress is cause for celebration for me...) Actually, I'm waiting until the absolute last minute to update the old tires and get current seat belts. Plus I still have some major reassembly to go on the interior that I took apart to go through the wiring... One more race this season, so my hopes for running it this year are just about over. Getting all the work done is hard enough, but even more painful trying to do it all on a tight budget. But there's now a light at the end of the tunnel. August 30, 2007: Started it up today. Finally! It's nowhere near done, but at least I know it runs! After a few tries, I realized that despite my orderly list of things to remember, I had forgotten to hook up the distributor wiring. I realized it when I checked for spark after turning it over a few times with no results. Once that was connected, it fired right up! So, a water pump fitting is leaking, the fuel line at the pressure gauge fitting leaks, and there are a couple other small issues that involve some time and disassembly to fix, but for the most part, I'm ecstatic! The light at the end of the tunnel might actually be the end of the tunnel and not an oncoming train!
The new brake system is on, the rear suspension has been set up, the interior (what there is of it) is back in, the wiring is almost perfect (but for some reason the generator idiot light doesn't work yet), and the engine is completely buttoned up. I'm hoping to have it ready to race in the next month or so. It ran under it's own power (back into the garage) for the first time in over four years....
January 10, 2008: Car is still not drivable. Spent a ton of money when the rearend axle tube decided it was a good time to crack for no reason. Then my "stock replacement" parts didn't fit, so I had to buy more new parts to fit the replacement parts, and modify everything to make it all fit together. At the moment, I'm still screwing around with what seems like an endless parade of inferior parts made by manufacturers who's employees must care more about going home with their paychecks than they do about making anything with any quality. After working on this car the last two years and spending a boatload of cash on new parts, it's become clear that not much is made worth a damn anymore, whether it's American made or not. If I had known just two years ago what I know now, I would've sold this car for scrap metal and been way ahead now. The expense and aggravation is not worth it anymore to build a car, unless you have more cash than you know what to do with, and you pay someone else to do all the work. It's not fun spending money and having nothing work or fit anywhere close to what it's supposed to. I've had to modify just about every single part I've put on this car. That in and of itself isn't totally unexpected, I've been doing it for years, but rolling a turd in powdered sugar doesn't make it a jelly donut. I've bought some of the very same parts, from the very same manufacturers, that I bought parts from twenty years ago, but the differences in quality and fit between then and now are staggering. Some parts made specifically for my application, just absolutely will not even bolt on without major modifications. Once anything is sold nowadays and they have your money, it's not their problem anymore anyway. My latest fiasco involved the transmission, which worked long enough to get me out of my driveway and -halfway- around the block. Then me and a few neighbors had the joy of pushing the car back to my house when it decided it didn't like working in any gear anymore. Because of all this, I'm going to miss yet another deadline to have the car finished, and I'm about to miss yet another race because of faulty "new" parts.
Even if or when I ever get it done and get to drive it around the block again, there are a bunch of other things that need to be fixed before I can really do anything with this hugely expensive pile of junk. The way the last two years have gone, I can't wait to see what else won't work, and what new problems I'll have and new reasons there will be for not being able to drive this thing. I'll post a new update then...
February 13, 2008: The trans is back together, and seems to work, for the moment. Had to take the entire valve body off the trans and futz with it for a while, then hope it all worked when I put it back together. Haven't done a real road test yet, but in the driveway up on blocks it seemed to shift properly. I can't take it for a real road test until I get the front end on, and that's fighting me every step of the way because, of course, nothing fits right. Was thinking I had an outside chance to make the upcoming race, but it seems no one makes the tires I need anymore. Apparently one manufacturer ran out of rubber, and everyone else is out of stock now. Hmmm, maybe someone is trying to tell me something... March 10, 2008: Updates are hard to get to these days. Most of my time lately is spent just trying to work enough to pay the bills. Not much time left to work on the car, let alone keep up with a personal web site... Anywho, I finally took it out for a real test drive! Actually got it on the road, and took KaTrina with me on a little 10-mile cruise. Just long enough to see the puffs of oil smoke coming from the engine compartment. No big deal though, just some leaky valve covers. I love my Chevy "Power" steel valve covers, but they just don't hold up to the hot oil and crankcase pressure anymore, and I can't get them straight enough on the flange to seal on the heads. So now it's down again waiting for some new aluminum valve covers, and a proper crankcase ventilation system I need to engineer and install.
Took the opportunity to swap on my good Comp Cams roller rockers from the old engine, then tried to mount the stud girdle. Found yet another part that doesn't fit... Not that it's Crane's fault (this time). For those of you who are thinking of using the new AFR "Eliminator" cylinder heads for small block Chevy, they use a non-standard valve spacing, so the regular Chevy stud girdles don't fit. (Doesn't sound like I'm talking about car parts any more...) No one mentioned that the spacing is different on those heads, not even on the AFR web site. Just another in a long list of reasons the car isn't racing yet. I ordered some new ones specially designed for these heads from the experts at Jomar Performance, and I'm currently awaiting delivery to get it all back together and test the crankcase vent system. Missed yet another race date deadline, so the next one I hope to be ready for is May 26th. May 16, -2008: I've been driving it a little each day now. There are a bunch of leaks and assorted bugs I'm still working out, but hopefully driving it everyday I'll find most of them before the first race. That's in less than a couple weeks now, so as always, I won't have everything done that I want to. But my goal is to get enough done that I can finally take it to the track! The lighting in my garage leaves a lot to be desired, so I'll eventually update this image. But for now, this is where my little engine sits, waiting for it's next road trip.
The small block Chevy's 383 cubic inches are fed by a Demon carb and Edelbrock intake. The mixture of air and fuel are passed to the aluminum AFR heads, while the valves are controlled by a Comp Cams hydraulic roller cam. Torque is transferred through the drivetrain by a 10" converter, Powergilde trans, and a 4.11 geared rearend. I did my best to make the 3" exhaust quiet, using an X-pipe, the biggest mufflers I could fit under the car, and a set of tailpipe cone inserts. It doesn't help keep the volume down much at all... May 26, 2008 - Finally at the track! After more than ten years, I finally got to race my Camaro at the track again! Not a big deal to most people, but I've been into racing all my adult life, and this has been a long time coming!
June 8, 2008 - The Second Race: I love driving this thing. It's so friggin' fast now. It pulls so hard off the line it makes me dizzy. I amazed that people so often go so much faster. But for me,for now, this is great. I have to concentrate to be ready to shift; the shift light comes on so quickly, I'm still recovering from the launch. Every run is faster than the Camaro has ever been, and of course, faster than I've gone in over a decade.
Got the car closer to dialed in too. It's run great at both races so far, I can't complain at all. (Can't say as much for the retarded organic control unit behind the wheel). The first pass, I had the shift point set even lower again. All three runs were consistent at 115 mph. I tweaked it just a little for first round to get the E.T at 12.00. My opponent tried her best to make it easy for me (I love being the fastest car now); she had a terrible reaction time, and couldn't run her dial-in. Lucky for her though, I was off in La La Land when my tree came on. The instant I should've been reacting to the light and going, I was only just looking back at it, noticing out of the corner of my eye that it had come on when I was apparently looking somewhere more interesting. I had the worst reaction time of my life, and I knew it leaving the line. I had fun though. It was another fast car (but not as fast as me) so I kept her close in my sights the whole way down the track, as I entertained the possibility of God bestowing a miracle upon me and somehow giving me the win. I even ran reasonably close to my dial without breaking out, a 12.02. But as I expected, her win light came on, and I learned that I'm still lost in amazement that I have my car back at all, and I need to focus better on the task at hand... Another rookie mistake, but I'll give myself the slack since in this car, I feel like a rookie again. Shouldn't take too long though, but this is why I wanted to have it running *last* year, so I could be going through getting it sorted out when I wasn't in a points battle. At least so far, the car is doing everything it should.
In addition to the photos shown on this page, I've included another page with a few more older photos of the car at the races. For those of you interested, click here.
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June 14, 2008
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