Camaro Present

Well I havent updated this page in almost a year, alots been going on with my camaro, mostly bad though =( In the summer of 2000 when I left my car parked in front of a store, a woman gave my car a little kiss with her car, and scraped alot of my paint off the front end. So I was pretty upset with that. Then about 3 months later in the fall around halloween somebody thought it would be cute to do a hit and run on my passenger side rear corner pannel. Ughhhhhhh and of course all of these expenses are less than my deductible on my insurance. I dont really have any pictures of these incidents cause I couldnt stand taking pictures of these eye sores. To make things worse, my motor I put in my car that you probably saw in the previous section isnt running fast at all, it runs good and reliable but doesnt run fast >=( So about april I found me a really nice set of prime rims for my car, I figured some chrome rims would make my car shine up a lil bit more, the problem is they were meant to fit a newer body style camaro, so since I got them for next to nothing I bought some wheel adapters, and slaped them bad boys on, heres some pictures. Click on the pic to enlarge it

Well about a month or so later at the end of may, the studs on the wheel adapters decided to break, and nearly totaled my camaro. I was going around a corner not even a block away from my house!, coming home from watching the fast and the furious, and my driver side wheel adapter studs break and sends my tire flying! My car still kept on going for a ride without the front tire for about 75 ft, my front ground effect destroyed, my driver side ground effect destroyed, driver side door bent in, fender destroyed, roater, struts etc etc, the camaro was near totaled and was going to be totaled until I proved that there was new motor and trans in the car. The damage was estimated at 3500, and my car was worth 3800, after the revalue of the car with the motor and trans it was bumped up to 8000. So since the front end was getting repainted and all of that, I decided to pay to get other things fixed and painted such as the dent in the rear passenger side corner pannel, my delaminated spoiler, rear ground effects that had black scuffs in them since I bought the car. I got the car back about a month and a half later. I highly highly recomend not buying wheel spacers no matter what you hear, its not worth it. If anyone out there has a 93 and up camaro the primes are for sale and are in great shape. Now I have to decide where to go from here. I could work on the motor which needs help to go fast, but Im deciding to wait till the winter and enjoy my car for the time being, because the car will be parked in the garage during the winter. Plus Im still debating on keeping the car, carbed or converting it to tuned port injection, I picked up a tpi setup from my girlfreinds brother for a very nice price. Thanks josh =) The motor probably isnt running fast because the fact I have bone stock exhaust that chokes the hell out of my motor and that I still have a stock 2.73 gear ratio. So since Im waiting to work on the performance of the car till the winter im going to finish up making the car look good. Since the paint job looks great now, I want some more chrome rims but not ones that require adapters! Ive searched around the internet and Ive found a used set of chrome iroc-z rims, wasnt a big fan of them at first, till I saw them in person, man they're so beautiful. Heres some pics of them, the last 3 pics are the actual rims I will be buying in the near future.

8/26/01

Well I finally picked up my chrome Iroc wheels, and they are incredibly beautiful. It took about 5 hours round trip to pick them up, but it was well worth it to me. Ive scaned some pics of them on the car, there kind of poor quality, but give you an idea on what they look like, let me know what ya think.

9/2/01

Ive moved on from the appearance of the car, for now. Im concentrating on at least making it somewhat a contendor for newer mustangs, and at least lt1 camaros. Now my car has always had a bad bog in the acceleration, and my freind had a good idea and suggested that the back barrels were opening too soon, and so he tightened the back barrels with a rubberband and sure enough that was the problem. So I bought some stiffer springs, and now the back barrels open about 3000 rpms where they should. So I fixed the acceleration, so the motor itself is finally jeted right and getting the right fuel when it needs it.

9/4/01

I've decided to take my car to the track to get a base time so I can track further improvement, even though my car was going to run very slow. So I got off three runs, keep in mind I still have the stock exhaust and a stock 2.73 gear in my rearend. Basically I ran 16.7s all day long, it was pretty pathetic, although it was funny cause i beat a 5.0 mustang, man there must have been something very wrong with that thing. My times were 16.768 @ 81.97 16.808@ 81.39 16.787 @80.96 Ive got lots of work to do!

9/15/01

Well today I woke up with ambition and wanted to do something to my car that will be a noticeable change, so I chose to get a new gear for my rearend. Many people online and on messageboards, were suggesting 3.42 and my friends were suggesting 3.73, I was leaning towards 3.73 beforehand, but today I chose not to f@#k around and got a 4.10. Took my car to my friends house, riped out the pathetic 2.73 and put that badboy 4.10 in, broke it in, and finally got on it, wow does this thing accelerate out of the hole, espeically with the 700r4s first gear ratio(First gear 3.06), but as I though it costed me alot of topend, it would really stop pulling especially after second gear around 4000 rpms, I suspect the exhaust is what is causing this, my 350 probably isnt breathing well enough with the stock exhaust.

9/16/01

Well its one day later, and I think im going to see if my theoreys right on my car not being able to breathe. So I decided to pick up an exhaust system for my ride. My old exhaust system consisted of flowtech headers with 1 1/2 primarys and 2 1/2 inch collectors, conected by a y pipe welded at a muffler shop. I went to the same performance shop where I got my gear, and got a set of hedman hearders, 1 5/8 primarys, and 3 inch collectors, with a hedman 3 inch y pipe. Went to my friends house again, took off the old exhaust system, my cat was clogged with crap, took off the old flowtechs and then got to the y pipe the muffler shop made for me a couple years ago, oh my, what a joke! This thing had both headers go into the same pipe right from the get go, and the pipe was no bigger than an 1 1/4! You've got to be kidding me! My theorey has to be right this car has to be alot better with this higher flowing exhuast. So basically as of right now I have the headers, the y pipe and a flowmaster at the end of the y pipe. Started it up, sounds great, sounds real tough and not real loud and anoying, unlike my old exhaust which sounded like a ghetto cutlas. So took the car out, and got on it ohhhhhhh yeah big difference all around, alot better pick up and the car pulls to 5500 easily all day, lol the car chirps the tires in third gear! I think im ready for the track, and hoping to see some serious improvements, like a 2 second imporvement.

9/18/01

Its do or die time, time to see if my work has made a big difference, and time to see if I droped 2 seconds like I wanted to. Me and my friends got to the track early to get as many runs off as possible, mainly cause the sky was dark and very cloudy and looked to rain. Got my first run off at 4:00 and I was very nervous, I tried launching my car with a break torque, when in reality my cars always been faster just punching it right when you let off the brake. I lined up with an 80s something trans am, and I pulled about 3 cars off him out of the hole, got my time slip and I ran a 14.8! yeah!! almost two seconds faster exactly. So I got a second run off about a half hour later, and right when after I launched, my car started poping like crazy, and this really pissed me off, cause I had a feeling this might be my last pass, it poped all the way down the track and only got a 15.1. Went back checked my plug wires and sure enough one wasnt working. So then it rained of course and didnt get to imporve my 14.8 which I know I could have, it was a fast but a bad run, but im pretty happy I just about droped 2 seconds off last time, and my car needs a tune up bad, needs new points, and still has the stock quadrajunk intake on in with the holley adapter on top of it lol. With a good tune up, right intake, and msd box, I bet I could hit low 14s easily or high 13s would be great.

11/09/01

Well Its been a while but moneys been tight so what can I say. I went out today, and bought me and edelbrock performer intake for my motor and installed friday night. Im hoping to gain top end with this, cause my car has great torque, but no top end really. The air flow with the old intake was bad because its stock rating was idle to 4 grand, which is too small alone, plus it had an adapter to convert from quadrajet to holley, so bad air flow. Well I put it on and noticed a difference right away, all around from the whole powerband. I have a hard time getting traction also it made a big difference though, hope the track shows improvement as well.

11/11/01

Well me and my friend took our camaros to US 41 dragway, out in the sticks, and my car was feeling alot more crisp, but from all the racing and burnouts this year, my tires were cashed and just plain done. I couldnt hook up to save my life, and I was running worse times of 15.1 So my freind suggested I tried using his slicks, and so I put those on even though they lowered my gear ratio. Well I hooked up great, real good, on my first run I broke my trans mount! I ran a best time of 14.609, which is 2 tenths faster than before so I guess I cant complain, and with the slicks I ran 14.6 all day, so my car is very consistant, when it hooks up, maybe a good bracket racing car? I also pulled off some nice reaction times of .564 .557 .503, not bad for being at the track only my third time!

11/24/01

Well its time I got serious about thinking of geting a winter beater so I dont have to drive my camaro in the chicago winters anymore. It was bad enough when the car was slow much less now. So I picked up an 88 mr2 from my freind. He rebuilt the motor and trans so he could use it as an everyday car to and from school, but instead he got a 98 escort from his grandfather, so he sold the mr2 to me. The car looks really funny and sounds like a rice rocket, but it gets good gas milege and runs great and has heat, and thats all that matters. Plus since its rear wheel drive it ll do some killer donuts lol. I'll have to post some pics of this funny thing on here sometime