1974 Camaro Z28
Discussion
It's been a wet few weeks and unfortunately I don't just mean the weather.
With another shoot booked in for MAP, I was hoping to take the Camaro along as the duty workhorse. Unfortunately I opened the garage door to some fluid leaks that I didn't really like the look of but didn't have much time to investigate so took the Suzuki instead - it's not worth the risk when I'm on someone else's time. Luckily the shoot went without a hitch:
Myself and a few friends decided to head over to the chaps at Ravenworks for a few hours chilling and talking cars. It was a perfect excuse to get my friends RX8 back on the road and show off the other lads shiny new FD. The first thing the Camaro did was glug its insides all over their shiny floor.
I was kind of relieved to see it was fresh engine oil and that, as we guessed immediately, it was coming from the sump. The four-piece gasket with corner strips seemed ridiculous at the time and having suspected it would let go very quickly I'd already sourced a replacement one-piece from Felpro.
The job this time around was much, much quicker - maybe 2hrs as opposed to 6. The gasket was much better for the job and even came with locating pins. Unfortunately, while under the car we noticed another leak - the Edelbrock fuel pump which had been underperforming for a while had finally let go. Not to worry, knowing it was going to let go I'd got another from a friend who had uprated his. I spent around an hour with a dremel polishing it and then painting it red, ready to go on.
Swapped the fuel pump over and started to cranking only to find it wouldn't turn over. Luckily I left the gauge plumbed in to the AFPR so I could immediately see that the fuel pump was knackered - the pressure would buildup to less than 1PSI and then drop out to 0. With the car going no-where, I ordered a replacement from Delphi and tucked it away again.
The Delphi arrived very quickly from ebay and it was a doddle getting it back on. Straight away the pump made the ideal 5PSI without the AFPR and so the engine seems much happier. It will be interesting to see if it cures the hesitation under load I've had since buying the car when stamping on the throttle. While in the garage, I figured it would be best to swap the leads over at the same time for the shiny new red Summit ones.
Got the car back together, running sweet. Just closed the bonnet and noticed a new leak. The power steering pump has now let go.
The joy of old cars!
With another shoot booked in for MAP, I was hoping to take the Camaro along as the duty workhorse. Unfortunately I opened the garage door to some fluid leaks that I didn't really like the look of but didn't have much time to investigate so took the Suzuki instead - it's not worth the risk when I'm on someone else's time. Luckily the shoot went without a hitch:
Myself and a few friends decided to head over to the chaps at Ravenworks for a few hours chilling and talking cars. It was a perfect excuse to get my friends RX8 back on the road and show off the other lads shiny new FD. The first thing the Camaro did was glug its insides all over their shiny floor.
I was kind of relieved to see it was fresh engine oil and that, as we guessed immediately, it was coming from the sump. The four-piece gasket with corner strips seemed ridiculous at the time and having suspected it would let go very quickly I'd already sourced a replacement one-piece from Felpro.
The job this time around was much, much quicker - maybe 2hrs as opposed to 6. The gasket was much better for the job and even came with locating pins. Unfortunately, while under the car we noticed another leak - the Edelbrock fuel pump which had been underperforming for a while had finally let go. Not to worry, knowing it was going to let go I'd got another from a friend who had uprated his. I spent around an hour with a dremel polishing it and then painting it red, ready to go on.
Swapped the fuel pump over and started to cranking only to find it wouldn't turn over. Luckily I left the gauge plumbed in to the AFPR so I could immediately see that the fuel pump was knackered - the pressure would buildup to less than 1PSI and then drop out to 0. With the car going no-where, I ordered a replacement from Delphi and tucked it away again.
The Delphi arrived very quickly from ebay and it was a doddle getting it back on. Straight away the pump made the ideal 5PSI without the AFPR and so the engine seems much happier. It will be interesting to see if it cures the hesitation under load I've had since buying the car when stamping on the throttle. While in the garage, I figured it would be best to swap the leads over at the same time for the shiny new red Summit ones.
Got the car back together, running sweet. Just closed the bonnet and noticed a new leak. The power steering pump has now let go.
The joy of old cars!
Been a couple of months since I last updated this; the power steering pump rebuild went smoothly and so, for now at least, the car doesn't leak! I also finally got around to getting those door handles on.
Also decided to mock-up how the car might look with black bumpers:
I liked it so much I got the plastidip out that same weekend and set to work. So much cleaner now!
Also meant the car was all ready for Halloween
As a group of friends, we've also got some things in the pipeline that some might be interested in...
Also decided to mock-up how the car might look with black bumpers:
I liked it so much I got the plastidip out that same weekend and set to work. So much cleaner now!
Also meant the car was all ready for Halloween
As a group of friends, we've also got some things in the pipeline that some might be interested in...
The car has had a sag to one side ever since I got rid of the old rear air shocks, so I got a spare set of leaf-springs from my friends '68 last year. With the tape measure from the arch to the floor, the heights were all over the place - genuinely a 5in difference on the drivers side! So today we decided to try and rectify that and it turns out the old springs were absolutely knackered.
(Old spring is the one with the huge gaps that shouldn't be there!)
What we thought was a captive nut in the chassis turned out to be some sort of clip/nut hybrid which had broken. So we cut off some sheet metal and made a new one:
Bit of welding and it worked perfectly!
With a bit of fiddling the springs went on fine. We also adjusted the shocks while we were under the car to make the rear end stiffer. The downside is the car now sits completely level (not what I wanted as the car is lowered 2in at the front to give me some rake) but I'll work on that.
I've also been speaking to a fabricator friend of mine about making a front lip so had a go at making him a rough template of what I want with some card.
It's probably about 2in too big but its a promising start!
Compliments the rear wing perfectly.
(Old spring is the one with the huge gaps that shouldn't be there!)
What we thought was a captive nut in the chassis turned out to be some sort of clip/nut hybrid which had broken. So we cut off some sheet metal and made a new one:
Bit of welding and it worked perfectly!
With a bit of fiddling the springs went on fine. We also adjusted the shocks while we were under the car to make the rear end stiffer. The downside is the car now sits completely level (not what I wanted as the car is lowered 2in at the front to give me some rake) but I'll work on that.
I've also been speaking to a fabricator friend of mine about making a front lip so had a go at making him a rough template of what I want with some card.
It's probably about 2in too big but its a promising start!
Compliments the rear wing perfectly.
gregs656 said:
Superb pictures as ever.
Thank you - I'm trying to make a more conscious effort to take the DSLR with me when we're working on the cars now. In a small part it's because it's my only really tradeable commodity in a room full of very talented people but mainly because something ridiculous always ends up happening and I've only ever got my phone on me. Case in point:
The last time we went on a drive out together we had a mix of a dozen or so really different pre-2000s cars ranging from a Cummins-swapped F350, single turbo FD RX7, AE86 Corolla and a V10 M5 touring. Guess who didn't take their camera for that one...
Bobberoo said:
You have some very interesting friends!!!
Love Reading this thread, your car is just so right!!!
Now we've started to break ground on the new FD project I'll be down with the camera more often to document it. If there's a taste for it, I'll put some images of the guys cars in here too. The Cummins F350 in particular is a stunning home-build.Love Reading this thread, your car is just so right!!!
Glad you like it, I feel the front lip will go a long way into setting the path for how I want the car to look. Then maybe some louvres for the back window...
Cracked the diff open last night to drain the oil and find the cause of the slight knock I've been getting.
The internals are actually in really good condition to say this is probably the first time the case has been open since the car has been built. Surprisingly (to me at least) was the built-in magnet on the inside of the case to draw the metal filings out of the oil, I didn't realise something of this age would have something like that.
We managed to trace the knock/play to here, essentially where the shafts meet the pinion. The play is barely visible, maybe 2mm at most. According to a lot of second-gen forums we've been reading about Posi's, the Americans consider anything up to around 7mm as acceptable (...I know) so this seems healthy.
With the diff back together and refilled with oil, we took another look at fabricating the lip. The sheet steel arrived so we had a look at the card template I mocked up to see if we could make it work.
With Shane from STG and Oli from Godspeed doing lots of measuring, mocking up, more measuring we look like we're good to get started!
Even if he got the year wrong. We've got another spare sheet too in case it either goes wrong, or works so well he can make another to sell.
Oli's other talent lies in design, so he mocked me up some vinyl to put my company logo on the back window.
The vinyl wasn't the easiest to work with so he wasn't happy with the outcome, but to be honest maybe I just have lower standards because I love it!
So hopefully Monday is the day to get the splitter made up in metal, as well as having it and the bumpers powder-coated in black. I'm also going to raise the front bumper by maybe an inch to reduce the gap between it and the headlights a little. Ordinarily there is a trim-piece there but they're hard to get hold of and lifting the bumper should have the added benefit of showing the splitter a little more.
The internals are actually in really good condition to say this is probably the first time the case has been open since the car has been built. Surprisingly (to me at least) was the built-in magnet on the inside of the case to draw the metal filings out of the oil, I didn't realise something of this age would have something like that.
We managed to trace the knock/play to here, essentially where the shafts meet the pinion. The play is barely visible, maybe 2mm at most. According to a lot of second-gen forums we've been reading about Posi's, the Americans consider anything up to around 7mm as acceptable (...I know) so this seems healthy.
With the diff back together and refilled with oil, we took another look at fabricating the lip. The sheet steel arrived so we had a look at the card template I mocked up to see if we could make it work.
With Shane from STG and Oli from Godspeed doing lots of measuring, mocking up, more measuring we look like we're good to get started!
Even if he got the year wrong. We've got another spare sheet too in case it either goes wrong, or works so well he can make another to sell.
Oli's other talent lies in design, so he mocked me up some vinyl to put my company logo on the back window.
The vinyl wasn't the easiest to work with so he wasn't happy with the outcome, but to be honest maybe I just have lower standards because I love it!
So hopefully Monday is the day to get the splitter made up in metal, as well as having it and the bumpers powder-coated in black. I'm also going to raise the front bumper by maybe an inch to reduce the gap between it and the headlights a little. Ordinarily there is a trim-piece there but they're hard to get hold of and lifting the bumper should have the added benefit of showing the splitter a little more.
Glad you like it! It's been a fairly busy week and there's still a way to go, so sorry for the photo dump...
It started with getting the bumpers off and preparing them for the powder-coating process.
With the bumpers off, I decided to bin the mountain of leaf-springs that are designed to take low-speed impacts. While they might be useful up to 10mph (who even crashes at that speed?) there is about 60kg to be saved from simply getting rid.
So with the paint work booked in, we started measuring the brackets and how far we could lift and tuck the front bumper.
Oli decided the best way to tackle this was to fabricate some brackets with captive nuts to lift the bumper using the original brackets. So with a bit of welding and grinding, the brackets were made.
While this was happening, Dan had acid dipped and blasted the bumpers/brackets and Rick was laying on the first coat of zinc primer.
With the first coat on, it was in to the oven.
Out of the oven and on to the first coat of black.
With the oven drying those off, it's back to Oli who was starting to cut the 18mm sheet metal to start making the splitter.
With the lower bumper re-fitted, we could test-fit the rough shape of the splitter itself.
Of course, as is typical with lots of the shady paint on this car, whoever did the respray didn't remove the very easily removable body trim to do it. So now I have exposed white corners.
Plus side though, the splitter is getting close.
With a bit more fettling, Oli went back to do some more reshaping and a bit more welding to make the brackets.
It started with getting the bumpers off and preparing them for the powder-coating process.
With the bumpers off, I decided to bin the mountain of leaf-springs that are designed to take low-speed impacts. While they might be useful up to 10mph (who even crashes at that speed?) there is about 60kg to be saved from simply getting rid.
So with the paint work booked in, we started measuring the brackets and how far we could lift and tuck the front bumper.
Oli decided the best way to tackle this was to fabricate some brackets with captive nuts to lift the bumper using the original brackets. So with a bit of welding and grinding, the brackets were made.
While this was happening, Dan had acid dipped and blasted the bumpers/brackets and Rick was laying on the first coat of zinc primer.
With the first coat on, it was in to the oven.
Out of the oven and on to the first coat of black.
With the oven drying those off, it's back to Oli who was starting to cut the 18mm sheet metal to start making the splitter.
With the lower bumper re-fitted, we could test-fit the rough shape of the splitter itself.
Of course, as is typical with lots of the shady paint on this car, whoever did the respray didn't remove the very easily removable body trim to do it. So now I have exposed white corners.
Plus side though, the splitter is getting close.
With a bit more fettling, Oli went back to do some more reshaping and a bit more welding to make the brackets.
Having gone back the next day, the bumpers and brackets were out of the oven and ready to go back on.
Most importantly though, Oli had been busy and brought the splitter out for us to fit. With all new mounting hardware, the lower bumper is now much stronger and ready to take the splitter.
The splitter itself is absolutely rock solid too!
There's still a bit of fine tuning on the overall shape before it gets powder coated in black like the rest but it's almost there.
So, the important bit - what it looks like. Here is the original card template:
Drum roll...
To say I'm happy is an understatement. Oli has done an absolutely incredible job and it's difficult to put into words just how much sturdier the front end as a whole now is.
The bumper tuck and lift itself was also such a worthwhile thing to do, showing off more of the lower bumper and splitter while eliminating those massive panel gaps.
Most importantly though, Oli had been busy and brought the splitter out for us to fit. With all new mounting hardware, the lower bumper is now much stronger and ready to take the splitter.
The splitter itself is absolutely rock solid too!
There's still a bit of fine tuning on the overall shape before it gets powder coated in black like the rest but it's almost there.
So, the important bit - what it looks like. Here is the original card template:
Drum roll...
To say I'm happy is an understatement. Oli has done an absolutely incredible job and it's difficult to put into words just how much sturdier the front end as a whole now is.
The bumper tuck and lift itself was also such a worthwhile thing to do, showing off more of the lower bumper and splitter while eliminating those massive panel gaps.
Ben Lowden said:
Love those. New car adverts need to be more like old car adverts.
Exceptional workmanship on the new splitter. Has anyone made snowplough jokes yet heading into winter?
Although the wording of them is terrible Exceptional workmanship on the new splitter. Has anyone made snowplough jokes yet heading into winter?
I was hoping to get out in the snow with it to take some pics and make some jokes of my own, but we didn't really get any!
DanG355 said:
Looking good. I know it's not the same model at all, but reminds me of the original Mad Max V8 Interceptor with the new front splitter.
That's good to hear to be honest, it's probably my biggest inspiration for wanting an old V8.Mr lestat said:
Looks great. Am I right in saying it’s basically the same as a Firebird as they are both GM cars. Apologies if that isn’t correct and I’ve insulted you 
Not insulted at all - they're both 2nd generation F-bodies and are largely the same. The Pontiacs had different engine options (although they were also strangled from 74) and slightly beefier suspension, but aside from the aesthetic differences there isn't a lot between them.LeighW said:
Spoiler looks fantastic - I'd avoid going forwards into parking bays though if I were you.
I might have to put my hand in my pocket next year and get you to do some shots of my Firebird, I just love the lighting and processing. Would look good with your Camaro as well.
I think it's a bit of an illusion; it's higher than it looks (it's higher than my Suzuki) but I think the way it dips in the middle makes it look low.I might have to put my hand in my pocket next year and get you to do some shots of my Firebird, I just love the lighting and processing. Would look good with your Camaro as well.
Glad you like the images - if I'm being brutally honest, these are quick/dirty shots that are handheld/natural light which is not normally the sort of thing I do. So most of these I guess are in the colour grading. I keep meaning to make the time to do a 'proper' shoot of it with the lights but other things keep getting in the way. Would be great to get the cars together!
Cheers guys! Was great to meet some of you at the weekend. Ben invited me to down to Caffeine and Machine last week and (I think) was surprised that I was up for the 135 mile drive down. I figured it would be a good test for the car and it'd be nice to see if the place itself lived up to the hype.
The drive went fine, until around 9 miles away the car absolutely dropped its guts. A huge misfire developed over the space of a few minutes and the diff was making some horrendous sounds. We finally called it a breakdown and pulled over for a look. With nothing obvious amiss, I limped the car to C&M and let it cool down.
I didn't really grab any pics but I gave Josh the camera and some quick pointers. The boy did good!
Getting to meet Ben in person for the first time and had the pleasure of showing him round the car.
We were nervous about the drive home, but it seemed a good cool-down had done a world of good. So for an hour there were no issues whatsoever - the diff was silent and the misfire had gone. Then, with the car at motorway speeds for a decent length of time the misfire slowly came back and the diff noises got worse. Starting to feel like a WW2 pilot limping home a damaged bomber, we sat in silence listening to the increasingly worrying sounds coming from underneath us, always checking in with each other about how concerned we were on a scale of 1-10. We both agreed if either of us got to 6 we'd call breakdown.
The car soldiered home absolutely fine and although a diff rebuild is a fairly obvious answer for one of our issues, the misfire is still a little perplexing. Our running theory at the minute is a combination of the timing, PCV valve and a carb that is in desperate need of properly setting up. As for the diff, I'm looking into something a little more motorway friendly than the 3.73 that's in there currently.
The drive went fine, until around 9 miles away the car absolutely dropped its guts. A huge misfire developed over the space of a few minutes and the diff was making some horrendous sounds. We finally called it a breakdown and pulled over for a look. With nothing obvious amiss, I limped the car to C&M and let it cool down.
I didn't really grab any pics but I gave Josh the camera and some quick pointers. The boy did good!
Getting to meet Ben in person for the first time and had the pleasure of showing him round the car.
We were nervous about the drive home, but it seemed a good cool-down had done a world of good. So for an hour there were no issues whatsoever - the diff was silent and the misfire had gone. Then, with the car at motorway speeds for a decent length of time the misfire slowly came back and the diff noises got worse. Starting to feel like a WW2 pilot limping home a damaged bomber, we sat in silence listening to the increasingly worrying sounds coming from underneath us, always checking in with each other about how concerned we were on a scale of 1-10. We both agreed if either of us got to 6 we'd call breakdown.
The car soldiered home absolutely fine and although a diff rebuild is a fairly obvious answer for one of our issues, the misfire is still a little perplexing. Our running theory at the minute is a combination of the timing, PCV valve and a carb that is in desperate need of properly setting up. As for the diff, I'm looking into something a little more motorway friendly than the 3.73 that's in there currently.
Happy new year!
Had a bit of time with the car this week to try and diagnose that misfire. The PCV hose is bloated and covered in oil, so I've had the PCV out to see if there's anything obviously wrong with it. On the face of it, it seems to be working but I still think that it could be the issue (fouling the plugs) so a friend of mine has one I can try. In the interest of being thorough though, I've had the timing gun out.
The coil is working as it should and the timing is now properly set.
My friend Rick came through for me again and lent me his 600CFM carb to see if fuelling might be the issue.
My 750CFM:
The 600CFM on:
Back together and ready for a short test drive.
The engine runs noticeably smoother, but the misfire is still there. I need to whip the plugs out and check them (actually a proper sod of a job thanks to the headers...) but it's opened my eyes as to how badly setup the 750 is. I'm going to try a calibration kit first and change the internals to see if I can make it happier, but if not a 600CFM might be on the cards. I'm lucky to have EDA around the corner so in the new year I'll be taking it through.
For now though, some pics.
Composite for a bit of fun
Camaro said:
As for the Diff, what sort of noise are you hearing? Are you sure you're not hearing potential backfires in the exhaust system from unburnt fuel igniting once it's collected there?
The diff is knocking really, really loudly - but only when it's very hot. I'm guessing it's probably down to the oil, so I'm going to put something a bit better in along with the GM additive I should have used the first time.Had a bit of time with the car this week to try and diagnose that misfire. The PCV hose is bloated and covered in oil, so I've had the PCV out to see if there's anything obviously wrong with it. On the face of it, it seems to be working but I still think that it could be the issue (fouling the plugs) so a friend of mine has one I can try. In the interest of being thorough though, I've had the timing gun out.
The coil is working as it should and the timing is now properly set.
My friend Rick came through for me again and lent me his 600CFM carb to see if fuelling might be the issue.
My 750CFM:
The 600CFM on:
Back together and ready for a short test drive.
The engine runs noticeably smoother, but the misfire is still there. I need to whip the plugs out and check them (actually a proper sod of a job thanks to the headers...) but it's opened my eyes as to how badly setup the 750 is. I'm going to try a calibration kit first and change the internals to see if I can make it happier, but if not a 600CFM might be on the cards. I'm lucky to have EDA around the corner so in the new year I'll be taking it through.
For now though, some pics.
Composite for a bit of fun
I'm definitely not ruling it out, but I'd be surprised if it was; the whole ignition system itself is almost new. I've got a spare coil from my last distributor I can try out, I'd already taken it out ready after reading your last post, but the timing gun shows the leads sparking so the coil seems to be doing its job. The misfire is now there at all times, even at idle from cold.
As ever though, appreciate the advice! I don't have a particular loyalty carb wise, so I'll look into Holley too.
As ever though, appreciate the advice! I don't have a particular loyalty carb wise, so I'll look into Holley too.
Again, I'd be surprised but I'm not ruling anything out.
I've got a calibration kit for the carb on its way at least so that's one of the bigger jobs off the to-do list. I've also been messing about in PS to visualise the sort of direction I want to go with the car. Oli (the guy who made the lip up for me) seems confident he can make the louvres so once the car is running properly then that will likely be the next thing we have a go at.
I've got a calibration kit for the carb on its way at least so that's one of the bigger jobs off the to-do list. I've also been messing about in PS to visualise the sort of direction I want to go with the car. Oli (the guy who made the lip up for me) seems confident he can make the louvres so once the car is running properly then that will likely be the next thing we have a go at.
Mr lestat said:
That looks great but personally I prefer the standard back lights with the louvres on the back window
I imagine that's going to be the majority opinion but to be honest I'm building the car for me. I always remember the back of the Vector when I was growing up and how mean it looked, I'd love to do something as a kind of homage to that. 
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