[Project] Project Bass-Ackwards 83 Camaro Build

[Jdseibe]

Ok, so I have been on this site forever now and haven't really created a build thread for my car.. that would involve actually doing stuff to my car HA! well I have owned the car for about 9 years now and when I first bought the car I was very enthusiastic about it, I was younger, had a lot more free time, etc, etc, etc... Well after multiple engines and transmissions (because I bought stuff used and just slapped it in) my car now sits with a 350 and 700r4 and hasn't really moved much in the last 5 years or so.. so now I am finally getting back at it.. the car is kind of a mess.. it being moved from garage to garage over the years.. parts have been misplaced, when building the engine, it just wasn't a good parts combination, and all sorts of other stuff.. So now that I have a stable job, a bit better income, a place to actually work on the car.. and some time.. I will finally start getting to do stuff to it. so let me finally explain the current status of the car.

Mechanical:
This is a list of stuff done to the engine:

• Stock LO5 short block out of an 88 Chevy Suburban (.040 over flat top hypereutectic pistons, .010 under crank journals, moly rings, bimetal bearings, high volume oil pump, and all ARP fasteners, stock rods/crank)
• Stock LO5 (193) swirl port TBI heads, rebuilt and milled slightly, with Crane Valve Springs.
• Comp Cams Thumpr Cam (279 and 297 duration, 0.479 and 0.465 lift (with 1.5 rockers), and 107 degree lobe separation, flat tappet hydraulic 279TH7 )
• Proform gear drive
• Crane Springs
• Comp Cams Lifters that came in the Thumpr Cam kit
• Summit One piece forged chromemoly pushrods.
• Crane Gold Race Full Roller Rocker Arms (1.5, non self aligning, narrow body).
• Summit Racing Street & Strip Stage 1 Intake Manifolds SUM-226016
• MSD Pro-Billet HEI Distributor 8365
• Holley 670cfm Street Avenger Carburetor vacuum secondaries
• Hedman Elite HTC headers
• Summit High Torque Mini Starter

this is a list of stuff I would like to do to it (if the wife doesn't kill me first)

• Better heads (Swirl ports suck!)
• Swap to long tube headers
• Stage 2 style intake
• Replace street avenger with a less sucky carb
• Upgrade Torque convert (currently stock at like 1200-1400 stall)
• Upgrade Rear end to 3.73 posi (currently at stock V6 rear end)
• Upgrade Rear drum brakes to disc
• Upgrade Front disc brakes to potentially 4 piston system.
• Replace all worn out suspensions parts, potentially lower it
• Upgrade exhaust system, not sure what I would do here yet.
• Retrofit new A/C unit (more for the wife than me haha)

Exterior:
I have literally not done a single thing to the exterior, but here are the things it needs done!

• Replace front Bumper with newer style sport coupe bumper
• Replace front driver fender (damaged and rusty)
• Fix dent in driver rear quarter
• Remove all door dent strips (ugly as sin)
• Align rear hatch
• Add Bolt on steel 2.5 inch cowl hood
• Torque Thrust II wheels
• Potentially lower the car
• Fix door sagging issues
• Upgrade headlights to something brighter, potentially HID's
• Upgrade tail lights to newer style, and install sequential turn signal kid (potentially create own LED lights)
• Retractable antenna
• Paint

Interior:
This is a list of thing I have done to the interior

• Stripped Interior
• POR-15 all the floors
• Put FatMat on all the floor surfaces
• New black Carpet (front and rear)
• Set of Dark Gray 4th gen Camaro leather seats
• B&M Megashifter

This is a wishlist of things I want to do

• Refinish all interior plastics (originally blue, going to be black)
• Reupholster headliner (currently blue, needs to be black)
• Reupholster door panels (falling apart)
• Remove and re install dash (POR-15 firewall, fatmat, and install new heater core)
• Replace all weather strips and window strips
• Upgrade sound system (better headunit, possibly small amp, nice speakers, and potentially small sub)

I am sure there is more that I have missed, but all in all this should give you a pretty good idea where I am in the project.

Currently the car kind of runs like crap, part of which is because the carb is disgusting I am sure, and the other part is because it was just never tuned properly and just never ran quite right, so the first step that I will be doing is to pull the carb off, clean/rebuild it, set it back to stock and start over, I need to adjust the distributor to have a spark curve more to my liking also.. I'll keep everyone updated on the status.

here's a couple pics for reference! obviously the engine doesn't quite look as nice now since its been sitting.. but you get the idea.. also heres a video if anyone is curious to what it sounds like

4633_95731825881_2726875_n.jpg30668_398298400881_7520029_n.jpg

[Jdseibe]

So I decided to take a quick pick of how the engine bay is currently sitting.. First steps will be to pull the carb and start cleaning and putting it back to stock! Charging the battery and seeing how it runs.

[TB2]

What did you do to the carb? Normally a bog/hesitation is caused from a rich condition or incorrectly sized carb. Does it do it under load?

[Jdseibe]

What did you do to the carb? Normally a bog/hesitation is caused from a rich condition or incorrectly sized carb. Does it do it under load?

Currently the only changes done to the carb are..

1) bigger accelerator pump squirter/nozzle
2) a different accelerator pump cam
3) and the next size up power valve.

from what I understand is that bogging is actually a common problem with the street avenger, but can be minimized. I want to put it back to stock to just have a solid place to start from again, I am planning on pulling the carb to clean/rebuild them (car has been sitting for years, I'm positive it is gunked up), make sure the transfer slots are setup properly (never did this), resetting bowl floats, adjusting a/f mixture screws, etc.. the carb should be about the right size for my setup.. its a 670cfm Holley.. it only hesitates off idle.. after that it seems fine.

[Jdseibe]

Just came across a deal on a set of 1991 L98 Corvette Aluminum heads for $200 for the set, I'm going to see if I can talk him down a little on them.

Now I am not an expert with this kind of stuff, but I do know my current heads suck.. can anyone give me any ideas on what to look out for, or if I have any concerns with these other heads.


Current Heads:
88 TBI L05/193 Heads (stock valve size)
1.94/1.50 valves 64 cc chambers

Potential New Heads:
91 TPI L98/128 or 113 (not sure yet, probably 113's though stock valve size)
1.94/1.50 valves 58 cc chambers (D port exhaust)

[Jdseibe]

So after doing a LOT of research on my current heads, and the potential of the aluminum 113 L98 heads.. I weighed the pros/cons (I'll list them for ya) on both heads and potentially buying aftermarket.. and I think I have decided to more than likely buy aftermarket.. and here is why.


Stock L05/193 Heads:
PROS:
-Already own them
-Already on car
-Have decent potential
CONS:
-Suck real bad in current form
-Take a LOT of work/money to meet potential
-Even max potential is still only about as good as stock vortec
-Cam is a bad combo with these heads, would need to replace


Stock L98/113 Heads
PROS:
-Aluminum
-Can buy them cheap ($100-$150)
-Out-perform L05 stock for stock
-Have decent potential
-Can reuse current springs, pushrods and rocker arms
CONS:
-Would need to be fully rebuilt
-Takes a LOT of work/money to meet potential
-Cost of rebuilt, porting, and cost of heads would put me close to $500-$600 let alone if I wanted bigger valves or higher lift.
-Would potentially need to replace or modify current intake manifold

Aftermarket Summit Assembled Vortec Heads
PROS:
-Outflows either of the two heads stock, let alone with any mild porting
-Out of the box lift of .520 vs .480
-Cheap in comparison to other aftermarket head options
-Matches current cam choice a lot better
-Bolt on ready to go
CONS:
-Still will end up costing $650ish for the set
-Will need to replace intake manifold



I may be missing something here, but for now the plan seems to be buying the assembled summit branded heads for $317 a piece and going from there, what are everyone's thoughts on this?

[DynoDave]

I like your process of elimination. I'm in a similar, but worse, boat with the L03. I have all the same issues, but a smaller bore to boot (mismatch between block bore and the very common used 350 heads).

It seems like whenever cost is a major factor, it often comes back to the VORTEC heads. They are just hard to beat, and a great value when buying complete heads from Summit. I can't argue with your logic.

The only fly in the ointment for me is that if I'm doing this much work, and spending this much money, I'd like to make the jump to aluminum, and save weight as well.

[Jdseibe]

See for me, this car will literally just be a weekend cruiser.. doubt I will race it much.. so weight savings isn't a huge concern to me.. but I do want it to have some power behind it at the same time.. so idk its a toss up for me about investing the extra money in aluminum heads vs the vortec.

[Gregs_gsxr]

just do it once and correctly if your wallet allows you to, plus you already have a cam, your better off using the most out of it.

[Lortay5408]

Vortecs. The flow you get will be better than your other options. And the intake required for them will be worth the cost. Hovering over Craigslist daily will turn up some sort of manifold. You can get a bunch cheap from junkyards and have them worked for your cam and still come in under the new aluminum ones. Heads come first, because they determine how much suck and how much push the engine can do. Vortecs do exactly that. And the intake required for them will be worth the cost.

[Jdseibe]

just do it once and correctly if your wallet allows you to, plus you already have a cam, your better off using the most out of it.

I don't think a vortec setup would be the in-"correct" way to do it? actually the summit vortecs are probably best suited for the cam that's in my setup now vs a more expensive/more performent head, the problem I am finding is that its pretty hard to beat a set of assembled iron vortec heads for about $640, vs $1k for the cheapest set of aluminum heads that would actually be worth while buying. Budget is kind of a big deal with this project because I have SO much going on right now that I can't really afford a ton more than that on heads.

[Jdseibe]

Found a couple old pics of the car when I first got it, figured I would post them up! it's funny.. because the wheels that are on it now.. I totally bought them from [MENTION=2135]bigjon88[/MENTION] forever ago! and I think we even made the deal on thirdgen.org haha!

23863760001_large.jpg23863760003_large.jpg23863760009_large.jpg

[DynoDave]

See for me, this car will literally just be a weekend cruiser.. doubt I will race it much.. so weight savings isn't a huge concern to me.. but I do want it to have some power behind it at the same time.. so idk its a toss up for me about investing the extra money in aluminum heads vs the vortec.

As I mentioned, when cost is a major factor, the VORTEC heads are hard to beat.

But you want more power (I assume) for better acceleration. Less weight also equals better acceleration....and better cornering, and better braking, maybe even a smidgen better MPG. Short of making the switch to an all aluminum LX engine, there are not too many other components (none?) that will remove as much weight, from up that high, and that far forward.

But if the bucks are tight, the VORTECs will help get you moving, and owe no one any apologies. They're a great head. The fact that they are the cost leader in this scenario is just another feather in their cap.

[Lortay5408]

https://grandrapids.craigslist.org/pts/4640019644.html

Dude has vortecs for $150. They are everywhere.

[Jdseibe]

https://grandrapids.craigslist.org/pts/4640019644.html

Dude has vortecs for $150. They are everywhere.

That IS true, but there are a couple different types/castings of vortecs, and not all are worth buying, and some are known for cracking, and on top of buying them for $150, after doing a full rebuild/valve job it would be putting me up in the $400-$500 range.. and they would still only be as good as they were stock (unless I port them which is even more money), the summit ones are actually a little more performant right out of the box, heck they even support up to .520 lift from the get go, the stockers only support upto .480... so then I am back to my comparisons.. buy a used set and invest money into them to get them worth using for potentially in the $400-$500 range.. OR spend $630ish shipped and have a brand new set.


it truly is funny how many peoples opinions vary about this subject.. when I first started looking people on thirdgen said for a budget head to get the aluminum l98 heads.. then vortecs.. now aftermarket aluminum.. haha.. nothing is really good enough for the internets