Here is my 5.Slowmaro:
http://www.thecamaroforum.com/picture.php?pictureid=1&albumid=1&dl=1224557263&thumb=1 (http://www.thecamaroforum.com/album.php?albumid=1&pictureid=1)
http://www.thecamaroforum.com/picture.php?pictureid=2&albumid=1&dl=1224557263&thumb=1 (http://www.thecamaroforum.com/album.php?albumid=1&pictureid=2)
It is a 1986 Z28. It has a 305 TPI (LB9) with 700R4 trans and a 2.73 10 bolt rear. My past mods are an Edelbrock cat-back exhaust, throttle body air foil, K&N air filters, free intake mods, Hypertech ignition coil. The 305 has a knock so I will be swapping in a 350 over the winter. I plan to add performance parts to the 350 for a couple years until I can rebuild the motor and stroke it to 383. I plan to restore the interior and exterior and paint it copper metallic. It will also end up with a set of 17X9 wheels but will probably have 16X8 IROCs sometime this coming year until I can afford something more expensive later on. But for now I am only concerned with the engine swap which I will have the cash for once I sell my '95 Eagle Talon TSI. Once that happens the swap will begin. I already have a friend offering his shop for me to do the swap and he even has an engine hoist I can use. So I'll be ready to go as soon as that car is sold.

Talon has been sold...will be posting pics of new engine soon. :rockon:

Had to spend my money on some bills :( so the motor is on hold as of right now. But I will be getting that money back so all is good. I've started working on bringing the 305 back to life. I changed the oil on it today and noticed while I was under the car that there was fresh oil drops hanging from all the old oil leaks. So when I drained the oil only about 2 quarts came out so that would explain the knock I heard. Since the car only idled for a moment like this I am fairly confident the knock will clear up after the motor is cranked again. The motor turns over easily but won't quite fire up so I'm guessing these could be the reasons why...
1. Just needs an extra kick from starting fluid and some turbo 108 to crank
2. fuel injectors and/or fuel filter clogged
3. distributor could be getting weak
4. catalytic converter could be clogged
1 and 2 shouldn't be too big of a deal to take care of. I've never pulled a distributor before but I don't think it will be too hard. I probably won't even pull it but just take it apart in place and maybe replace the ignition module just to make sure it is good. 4 will be a pain because the bolts for the Y pipe are a pain to reach on the passenger side and I'm sure they are rusted to heck. And it will be a pain to get the car jacked up high enough because my parents driveway is black-top which is too soft to jack up without boards underneath the jack but the car is so low that its hard to fit the jack underneath while on top of the boards. Some of this stuff will be a major pita but it will be enjoyable to some extent too. Especially since I don't depend on the car for transportation. The hardest part is having time and gas to go to my parents house where the car is at to do all of this. But I'll keep y'all updated.

BTW in the first post I said I was going to paint the car copper metallic but I keep seeing other 3rd gens with the same paint so it will end up some other color. Not to mention a local guy whose car was in Camaro Performers last year. I have some ideas but I guess nothing is set in stone until I drop it off at the paint shop. But paint is the least of my concerns at this time. I'd rather have a fast car that looks like crap, then a car that looks awesome and gets spanked by any modern car with a V8.

Went to work on my car this past Saturday but forgot to bring the keys. D'oh! But I did change the fuel filter and as you can see in the pic it was definetly time. Since I couldn't try to start her, I went ahead and started pulling the fuel injectors to make sure they were good. I thought maybe I could do this while leaving the TPI intact, but it wasn't happening. So I tore the TPI apart again. I'm actually getting pretty good at it. If you have a Torx T40 socket and a 10mil socket you can make quick work of it. But I need some needle nose pliers that are very thin to remove the upper clips on the fuel injectors. I broke the first one and stopped at that point. I tried leaving the fuel rails bolted together via the fuel lines, but when I get back to it I'm gonna make it easy on myself and remove the fuel rails so that I can access everything easier. I pulled the one injector and appears to be pretty clean. I ohm'd injectors #1 #3 and #5 and they all give a tone and show 16 ohms of resistance which I believe is normal. I'm taking this weekend off, but the one after I'll finish the disassembly and if I'm lucky get it all put back.

I haven't been able to get back to the car yet, but my dad recently gave me his dremel so I'm going to port the TPI before I put it on. This is going to have my car down for a quite a while longer since I'm going to need to pull the runners and intake manifold off so I can port match it all. Now I just need to figure out what dremel bits I need to buy to do all of this. I'm sure I'll need a carbide tungsten bit to remove the bulk of the material, but I think I'll also need various sanding drums to smooth it all out. I'm planning on siamesing all the openings on the plenum. The first and last 3/4" on the runners and the first 3/4" on the manifold is all where there is enough material to allow those to be siamesed, but I'll also port them as far as I can reach. I guess I need to start locating the gaskets I'm going to need, which will also need to be port matched. I'll be sure to take before and after pics of my progress.

Life has been crazy this year. Been having a house built so I'll be starting the car once I drag it into the new garage. Came within an inch of selling it, but it looks like I don't have to consider that anymore. Can't wait to start. :alien:

I finally have the money to get the car over to my house. The left front went flat over this period of sitting but I took it off and put on the spare over the July 4th weekend. The sidewall is cracked where the rim was sitting on it while flat but I went ahead and took it to the tire shop where they grinded the grime built-up where the tire bead meets the rim which seems to be where the main air leak was at. It is still leaking just a little from the bad part of the sidewall but the leak is slow enough that I can air it up and re-install the wheel and have a flat-bed come and pick up the car and bring it to my house. The hardest part now is finding time to get the car ready for the tow and making myself be out in the heat to get it done. I'm excited because I can now do this...the 100deg. heat with 107 humidity index (believe you can feel that extra 7 deg. out here) and the time are the only things standing in my way. I'm gonna make myself get it done this week or next so I can finally get the ball rolling. Not sure what my initial plans are at this point other than getting the car on jack stands once it is here, already bought 4 jack stands. My next hurdle is the fact that the compressor I bought to run my new air tools doesn't push enough scfm for them to break anything loose. And I'm past the 30 day return policy on the compressor so I'm gonna have to ask for a manager and see if I can get them to do me a solid since I've barely even used the compressor. In any case it should be a productive winter with the car since I don't mind being in the garage when it's 40 deg. outside, 100+ is a different story. But this is finally the year. I'm ready to take pics and document this rebuild...it's go time.

Well the car is finally in its new home. Sweated my rearend off out there today getting the car ready for the tow. But its in the garage now. The car really has a bunch of junk in it that's kinda built up over the years so I guess I'll be spending my evening throwing all the crap out of the car and shop vac'ing it and getting the car on jack stands.

Finished vac'ing the interior and clearing all the crap out...almost looks decent. Snapped a few more pics and even took one that shows all 3 or our cars: The Camaro, part of my Ram, and part of my wife's Stratus.

The last pic from above you can see the 2 worst spots in the paint. In all honesty the rest of the paint is rough enough that I'm going to have to sand it all to bare metal before it can be painted. My son also is really diggin' the car, and the T-tops. One last pic from tonight...have one of my son chillin' in the drivers seat but can't find which folder my wife put it in. :idunno:

A word of caution for people bringing in a car that's been outside for a while...when I was putting the car on jack stands I lifted up my head in the passenger side front wheel well and there was 2 yellow jackets on a nest inside there. I jumped back pretty quick and sprayed them, but there buddy showed up later and was buzzing all around me. Got him sprayed too, but coulda been ugly. No more wasps but plenty of spiders have popped up. Turns out that carbeurator cleaners kills spiders better than spider spray. Ready to do something with the ol' girl but I somehow managed to lose one of the loose fuel injectors the day I had it towed. Unless that injector reveals itself I'm gonna have to buy another one before I can move forward. Still very excited to do something with the car. Again...its too hot to do much with it since I come home from work near heat exhaustion every day, but I'm looking forward to picking up a new injector and getting this baby cranked in the next month or two. But I better hurry, plan is to yank the motor in November running or not and cut my teeth on the ins and outs of tearing down and rebuilding a motor. There's a chance of getting my hands on a small block 400, so that could turn the 305 into a paper weight. Can't wait to see how the next few months unfold with the car.

Been a slight change in plans with my car. My grandmother needs to get rid of her '74 or '76 Impala which has a 400 in it, so I'm gonna be throwing the 305 on the trash heap most likely since she wants me to come and get it. I need to pay her something for it even though she wouldn't ask me to. I'm going to start working on getting the TPI off, harness and all so I can sell to raise a little bit of cash to get the Imp out here to Waxahachie from Witchita Falls. I'm kinda stuck in a holding pattern but there are big things brewing for my car.

The past week or so I've been spending a couple hours here and there working on getting the fuel injection off. It doesn't look like I've done much in the pics but considering every single bolt on the intake runners has some kind of obstacle that needs to be removed, which usually also has some other obstacle to deal with. But its getting there, the tach sender top is spinning on the base when I tried unscrewing it so I'm not able to get to the distributor hold-down clamp yet. When I find away to get that sender out of the way it will help alot having the distributor removed from the car. I also went to Harbor Freight Tools today and bought an engine stand, $50 for a 4 wheel 1000lb. stand. Almost half price of the 3 wheel 750lb. stands at Auto Zone and O'Reilly's.

A few more...the last pic is some emmisions part that is going to disappear since my car will be 25 years old this coming year (no more emmisions testing). The first pic is the A.I.R. from the passenger side exhaust manifold, that will be going in the trash too.

A little more progress...TPI is mostly gone. I'm leaving the intake manifold since it has 2 hooks on it for yanking the motor. And the remnants of the engine harness are hanging about. The bucket full of crap is emmisions that I'm tossing since my car hits 25 years old in '11 and will only have to pass a safety test. The shelf has the stuff I've taken off and saving to go on the next motor or to go back on the TPI as a complete system to sell later. Who coulda guessed under all the connectors, hoses and sensor there was a small block chevy under there. After cutting off the A.I.R. injection tubes on the exhaust manifolds I could actually reach all the spark plugs. In stock form it took about 8 hours to do a spark plug change. Now I could change the plugs on this motor in an hour and not have to remove the O2 sensor. Amazing how simple hot-rodding was back in the pre-emmisions days.

BTW I think I mentioned above where I lost one of the fuel injectors on the day I had the car towed to my house. Well I found the little sucker stuck between the strut tower and the brake booster! Now I don't have to drop $42 on a replacement (Sorry 1ATony) just to sell the TPI. One more hurdle knocked out of the way. Been talking to the guys on TGO and found out the stock bottom end on a 400 can support about 400HP as long as I don't rev it too high. This is rockin' good news for me since I gotta get the new motor ready to go off of a bottom basement price. I'm gonna have to hustle for $10 here and $20 there to try and save up atleast $400 for machine work on the block/crank/rods of the 400. Planning on putting stock heads intake and carb on the motor for the sake of having a working motor. If I try and build my dream motor from the start it will end up being a few years b4 I have it running. I just want to have a fresh bottom end with new pistons, and home-rebuilt top-end with a mild cam in the motor so I can get it running as soon as possible and upgrade the top-end later as money allows. According to my gma the 400 would light up the rear tires easy when it was new. :flban:

Even more progress...getting close to having the engine harness totally removed. Smog pump and radiator are out along with some of the AC lines that were in the way.

Here is the crusty old shell that contains the hammer of the gods :rockon:

My grandmother bought this car new in 1976 and drove it daily until about 6 months ago. To say the motor is tired is an understatement. From what I can tell its burning about a quart of oil out the tail pipe for every half hour of drive time. But I wasn't planning on yanking the motor and dropping it into my Camaro without tearing the 400 apart and giving alot of business to my local machine shop. Block is not cracked as far as I can tell, it holds oil while not running, radiator stays full. The motor is wore the f*** out but that can be remedied by the list of things I already planned to do anyway. 30 overbore, decked, filet radius crank, 30 over pistons, hopefully re-use rods, hopefully heads will be good with a grind and 3 angle valve job, defile the old girl with a mild bumpstick, temporarily re-use the old boat anchor intake manifold, hopefully rebuild the factory 4-barrel. With any luck I'll be clicking off high 13s, low 14s off of this setup. Its going to be fun as hell to find out. Now I just gotta find the opportunity to put in the wrench time.

1000 views :award: Alright! Thanks for following the build :thumbsup: Gonna be tearing into this build soon. My best buddy is gonna be coming over to my house this weekend or next to help me make progress. I've got a bolt head rounding off of the water pump on the 305 so I think I'm gonna try to leave it in place for the swap if possible. I've got two connectors left for the wiring harness, then exhaust, and motor mounts are all that's left holding the 305 in place. So I guess we'll be taking care of that first. Next we'll begin getting the 400 to the same point. I've got two neighbors willing to loan me engine hoists to pull out the motors so I'm going to be working to get myself to that point. After that comes getting the Imp running with the 305 in it so I can try to sell it to generate some scratch. Dropping in the 305 will also allow me to pull off the intake manifold from the TPI so I can package that system up and try to sell also which I'm hoping will be enough to finance the trip to the machine shop with the 400.

Last Saturday I invited over a couple of my buddies. We grilled burgers and hot links, cracked some coldies and then got to work on the Camaro. We got the engine harness out, computer, and got the trans and torque arm just a couple bolts away from coming out. At that point all three of us were a little hammered so we stopped there. But it looks like were going to schedule another shin-dig like this and see if we can't get the exhaust off without breaking any bolts. So here's a few pics.

With the heat wave past us I've gotten the bug again to get some work done on my project. Got the y-pipe loose from the manifolds, so I'm leaving that part of the Camaro as is until I get the Impala to the same point. Got a little bit of work done on the Imp, removed the A/C compressor, battery, and pulled of the Q-Jet. This week I'm planning on pulling off the sway bars from the camaro to give them a shiny red coat of paint. I'll be posting pics this week as I get this stuff going.

My best man at my wedding years ago and my best bud Ben turned me on to doing the smaller projects on my car in conjunction with the the bigger projects. This has been a great influence on me since I tend to focus on one thing and only work on that. Well he has opened me up to doing smaller things while waiting on the bigger parts that involve removing the motor. We were under the car a couple weekends ago and he pointed out to me that while doing the bigger things you can work on all the "might as well' type projects in the down time in between and pointed to the rusty suspension parts on my car that are worth keeping that I will want to look good later on. So today I removed the rear sway bar for paint. I forgot to take pics of the sway bar at the start but I took it off, scraped off the rust and crud with a wire brush, sanded with 400 grit sand paper, primed in grey, and then painted in some eye popping red. The beauty of this project is that it only cost less than $20 for a pack of sand paper, and a rattle can of primer, and a rattle can of red paint. Forgot to do the before pic of the sway bar but took a pic of the drivers side lower control arm to show the condition that the sway bar was in before I worked on it. I'm learning that these cheap cost, labor intensive projects are great for moving the project forward and really good for keeping a project moving and knocking out the stuff that you would want to do after doing bigger projects and getting a bit ahead of the game as you go. First pic will be the LCA to show the condition of the sway bar when I took it off. As I said before I scraped off the junk with a wire brush, then did a 400 grit sand, then 2 coats of rattle can primer, then 2 coats of Red since the car is red from the factory and most likely going to be the first color that the car gets re-painted in as my project moves ahead.

More progress...

Forgot pics

My buddy Ben is planning on buying a welder here pretty soon, so with the help of his welder I'm planning on buying some flat steel and boxing the factory stamped steel lower control arms and panhard bar. The parts I will be modding or replacing at some time in the future I'm going to paint black. All the keepers I will be painting red. The factory sway bars on this car are desireable parts for other chevy hot rods. The rear sway bar alone is as stout as the front sway bar on most older chevys, and the front is a huge uprgrade on those cars. The only upgrade for these sway bars is getting hollow ones that are lighter. I'm not going to be competition racing my car so I'm not worried about saving a pound here and half a pound there. So that makes the sway bars keepers. The end links on the sway bar were so rusted that I just ended up cutting the bolts off, turns out the bushings were wore out so an upgrade is in order. I haven't looked in a while but I believe you can buy new end links with poly bushings off the shelf for pretty cheap. Won't make much of a difference without a motor but will be nice to not have to worry about them later on after that beast of a 400 is in the car and running.

Forgot to mention that after sanding the sway bar I wiped it with mineral spirits to clean off all the loose junk and oil according to the directions on the primer spray can. Looks awesome, I'll flip the sway bar tomorow to hit the little bit blocked by hook I hung the bar from and then it will be ready to re-install after buying new end-links. I'm probably going to do the same with the front sway bar real soon so I can just buy 4 end links at once and take an underside pic to the difference.

I've been doing some more work on getting the rear suspension parts painted. Using black acrylic laquer and Rustoleum Sunrise Red. I'm really digging the constrast between the colors. My wife suggested painting my car 2 tone red and black above the shoulder line. I'm starting to think that's a really good idea considering the T-tops are black and the metal center piece down the middle is black from the factory. So I think she is really onto something with this paint scheme. Anyway here are some pics, track bar and rear sway bar are red. I have to buy new endlinks before I can put the sway bar back on. The rear springs are done in the black. I'm going to do alot more under the rear like mounting shackles and eventually the axle too.