It's in the garage and I took a few photos (in the garage). They aren't great, but you can get an idea of what kind of work I still have cut out for me.

Don't give me any crap about the picture sizes. I switched this machine to Windows Vista and my resizer won't work and I had to find another one. So, I'm stuck with what I've got right now.

It's a bit ugly, and plenty dusty, but it's "mine".

You even have a seat for it now!

You have been slacking lately with no car to work on. I'd say you better get cracking.

Yes I do. Thank you very much for the donation!

You just want to autocross it, that's why you gave me a seat.....

What intake manifold is that?

looks like a good start, congrats. Can't wait to see what you do with it.


Also... what Jon said.

Holley Stealth Ram. It's basically an EFI tunnel ram setup. I guess Holley is selling it as a Weiand piece too, but it's this one:

http://www.jegs.com/webapp/wcs/stores/serv..._10002_88790_-1

Whatever it takes man, whatever it takes!

Well, this one has "track whore" written all over it. I've got a brake kit in a box, 4 IROC wheels in a stack, a seat on the floor, Koni's in a box, rear GC springs and jacks in the corner, tires on the way, and a 22mm hollow sway bar in the garage. I need front springs, front Koni's and 17" wheels (and to get all of it installed).

Let me know when you're bored.....

It's already got a large front sway bar, SFC's, and a reasonable amount of torque (and possibly some horsepower).

17" wheels are overrated. Run the 16"'ers and build it for CMC... this is coming from a guy trying to run AI.

It's got a splayed main cap 353 with a billet front cap, ARP studs, a crane roller cam, aluminum heads, undercut valves, comp pro magnum roller rockers, a stealth ram and a 6 speed/3.73 combo, I've got C4hd rotors and "1LE" calipers in a box to install and plenty of other stuff (spohn crossmember/torque arm combo, etc). It's way too far gone to back up now.

I've got a set of 1992 wheels that are mostly round (I think they'd be ok for track wheels, but the bead area is slightly not round, but it doesn't seem to have actually bent the wheel) and I've got 4 IROC wheels that I'm going to use for a while then they'll be up for sale.

Very cool project, sort of like my '91 Formula! I will give you some crap about the kitty litter - one might say keeping cats and hi-po/race cars are very compatible in a way, eh Mitch? Meow!!!!

Congrats Kevin..

92 Camaros seem to be getting around these days <looks around><shifty eyes>!



Costas
cars and such...

That could take a while. Got a few things of my own to take care of. Still, let me know when you need a hand.

Nah, it's not too far gone until you start doing stuff like cutting the roof support out for weight...

C4HD rotors work, you'd just have to cut them down to 12".

Anyway, run it as a track car with the bullet, then WHEN you decide to race, give CMC a long think

I'll probably go AV8SS if I run any series. I won't make all of the events, but I might hit the close ones. That might leave me to run AI/AIX from time to time as well. And, I suspect that we'll autocross the crap out of it too.

Right on Kevin, looks like a fun project buddy.

congrat's

NICE !!! Can't wait to see it track ready !

Please post pic up of the firewall mods / plate when you delete the A/C and heater ... my A/C is gone but the box and heater stuff is still there.. I think it might be time to get rid of it.....

~DaVe

I've done it before, it's easy. Rip it all out, cut plates, seal with sealer (silicone?) and rivet in place. It's not a difficult job.

Nice to have another 3rd Gen-er on the board! Esp nice since it is the Admin

I like the color of the hood

Sweet. Though I am disappointed you're not pointing to CMC.

But I bet if you brought the car to MidOhio in September, the Texas compound could have it fixed up in a day or so!

Third gens are cool. My first car was a third gen Camaro. Now that they are almost emissions exempt in my state, it'd be great to get one and have the freedom to do whatever with the motor legally.

If you go to the B 100, you should talk to my nav Ellis about his custom work on those intakes. He's fabbed up two of them now & they seem to make some serious power. They even look purdy (after I polish them).

Nice...looks like it's going to be a fun project.

Like, when are we going to get our thirdgens together and thrash them?
NFME is dead for '07 so I'm done for, and in need for some driving.
Preferrably June 27th through 29th.

Can't make it to Nashville? I remember seeing your car at the NFME in 2005, it's a beautiful car and I'd love to get together for some track time. We spent this afternoon trying to fine tune mine, it's getting closer.

Well, last night was productive. I was inspired by our stripping of the 24 Hours of Lemons project car on Sunday night and I removed a large portion of the interior of the Camaro last night. The only things in the car right now are the front seats, the carpet and the door panels (which I've just not pulled off yet). Everything is out of the rear, I just have to unbolt the bottoms of the seatbelts and remove them and pull the speakers and speaker wiring to complete the rear section.

I guess I should take a few pics and post them as progress is made.

Progress:

The rear portion of the interior is now gone, the rest will be coming soon.

The Blaine Fabrication rear spoiler is on the car and we now have rear deck pins to hold the hatch shut.

Picture 58 is where I laid out some (almost straight) lines on the hatch to line up the spoiler.

Picture 60 shows that I laid out the mounting location, then called Alan and then moved it. That explains all off the bolt holes that I have marked out. Oops.

Picture 61 shows that you should use a straight edge to make sure you don't have the spoiler bent, tweeked or otherwise twisted before you mark and drill the holes.

Remove the hatch latch plate and the electric hatch mechanisim, center punch your holes and start drilling (once you've checked and re-checked and are sure that everything is lined up).

Picture 108 shows that the 3rd gen hatch should use 4 long bolts on the hatch (two on each end), but, if you drill through the bottom skin with a #3 Unibit, you can stick a deep well socket in there and use the short bolts. So, that's what I did.

Picture 109 shows the mounting plate and hardware after it's bolted into place.

Picture 110 shows the spoiler once it's been bolted down.

Picture 111 shows where I mounted the rear hatch pins.

Picture 112 is the bottom of the hatch where the pins are mounted.

Picture 114 shows where the pins are in relation to the spoiler.

Picture 119 shows the hatch pins installed and complete.

All of which explains why there is still interior stuff in this car right now. I've been busy doing other things.

Looks good. I knew you said something about replacing the hood. If you need a replacement, let me know. There's one standing in my barn.

nice. looks like you're having a good time

If it involves cars and power tools, I'm having fun (though it's often said that no good can come from combining me, cars and power tools, and they might be right).

i even contributed on the weight-savings on the car, as well as breaking a bolt

I gave him a Snap On ratchet that's marked "on" and "off" and he still managed to twist off a bolt.....

On the other hand, that might be the easiest that any of them came off of there. Maybe it was the right way to do it.

Thanks for the help Eugenio.

x2 Im in Cumberland and have an iroc hood (no louvers) I need to dispose of so if youre ever through and want it let me know. Im looking for an 82-83 z28 fiberglass hood...

I'll be through there tonight... But I don't need it.

yeah... should've done the same for the other 3 bolts... lol
too bad i miss most of the fun... we should've done more on the car while we were both there... it's fun.
Thanks for your help on my car too

Anything you do need?

Sweet, almost time for spot weld cutters and an angle grinder with a knotted wheel

You planning on keeping a spare tire in there?

Nope. I was thinking that I should cut the bracket out (unless there is a good reason not to) as well as many other brackets along the way. I don't have a spot weld cutter, but I probably should look into one. I intend to take out all of the brackets that I can since I won't be needing them.

What do you guys think I can get a stripped 3rd gen to weigh once it's missing all of the extras? Is it possible to get to 2,600 lbs before the cage?

If you're taking side windows and inside guts of the door out, you can get there.

My car is down to 3020 with me (215lbs), 15 gals of fuel (6.5lbs/gal = ~98lbs), and approx 100ft of cage (1.6lb/ft = 160lbs). That puts the car at approx 2550 before me and fuel (with iron heads).

There's a ton of work to get down to that weight though. I stripped my car for over two months before I sent it to the fabricator. Every bracket is gone, all seam filler is gone (over 10lbs), and I even cut 15lbs out of the roof structure.

TJ,

Is that with a glass hood or the steel one?

I've already got aluminum heads, but I've got a Stealth Ram intake so there's some extra weight back. I am intending to gut the doors and replace the hood with a lighter glass hood (it has glass, but it's a heavy one). I was going to say 2,500 lbs, but I decided that was too light. I'm starting to think it's not too light.....

There's 35-40# of unused interior brackets - a sawzall will leave 10-20% of that plus ragged sharp edges. The spot weld cutter will get all of the metal out, and leave only minor burrs that are easy to smooth off with a flap disc.

At a local hardware store, I found a carbide drill bit that had a point on it and then cutters on the outer edge.

Not sure if it is technically is a spot weld cutter, but it certainly does a number on them.

Have to be careful not to go all the way through, though. cut a little, pry a little ...

Fiberglass hood, a real flimsy one.

I forgot to mention, the front bumper is made from 1.5" x .083" tubing (I think, can't remember what I ordered). Pretty much a copy of Randy's idea. Rear bumper will be getting replaced when life settles down a little.

A lot of the build pics are in the link to my sig, make sure you look at '06 pics too.

How much fabricating do you want to/can you do? I have ideas on how to remove another 50+ lbs from the front end but not the time or money right now.

PS- lexan in the rear hatch removes 60+ lbs according to a buddy. One of the better $/lb ratios if you're going to spend money, too bad it's off the rear of the car. Not as much of a problem for a road race car vs. an autocrosser though.

TJ, do you have a full exhaust or just something short?

Short. It's a 3" Dynomax bullet right on the end of the y-pipe with a turndown pointing out the side of the car. My exhaust hanger is a ~4" piece of 1" x 1/8" AL flat stock bolted to the pinch rail and muffler with 1/4-20 hardware, known as the ghetto hanger.

It's surprisingly quiet (but good) with the stock L98, it's one of the quieter cars on the AI grid. I can't wait to see how it sounds with a real motor.

Pretty much everything has been done for weight.

If it ain't light, it ain't right!

I think you may be describing a bit designed for glass.

Well, I'm still waiting on suspension stuff, so I decided to toss some of the extra weight that I wasn't going to need any longer.

As you can see, it got pretty serious for a little while. I had the dash out and I'd already removed the stuff under the hood (I need to get something to patch the holes with tomorrow).

Quite an impressive pile for a little bit of work.

And, I did bolt the dash back in tonight. I have to tie up or remove some of the stuff that's back there (like the cruise control module, etc) and wrap things up for now. I'm sure that more of it will come out later, but for now, I'm calling it good. At least I can reach things to work on them.

I got a spot weld cutter from eastwood tonight. It seemed to cut well at first, but it didn't take long for me to find a way to dull it (I think), or I just got tired and it seemed dull afterwards? Either way, I'll give it another shot, but I think I might be in search of a better way.