Dammmmmn son, it's about to get real.
The first drive of the v8 powered Camaro happened just a few days before leaving for freshman year of college. Overall the swap took about a year, so it was tough leaving and not being able to drive the car as soon as it had finally become drivable.
While away at school, I had learned that the T56 (6 speed manual) transmission from a 93-97 (LT1) Camaro/Firebird/Trans Ams were compatible with a small block chevy. The swap into a thirdgen was pretty straightforward too. You needed a conversion crossmember (about $150) plus the T56 (usually about $1,800 on craigslist at the time), fourthgen pedal assembly (about $200), and fourthgen driveshaft (about $150) was even the same length. An LT1 flywheel and starter would bolt up to a later model Gen 1 Small Block that had a 1 piece rear main seal, which I happened to have in the my car.
Based on my previous experience buying the thirdgen, taking the engine, and selling the rest of the parts for a profit, I the bright idea to start looking for a crashed LT1/T56 fourthgen. During winter break of freshman year, I was home in Jersey and found exactly what I was looking for. It was a front end damage Lt1/T56 Camaro ironically located a town over from where I went to school in Pennsylvania. I got a U-Haul trailer, borrowed my fathers Durango and hit the road. I had never driven with a trailer and of course it was snowing a bit, but I couldn't let this car go.
I paid just shy of $2,000 for the entire car. I stripped it for all parts of value and what you see above is what was left of it. I loaded the 2.8l in it and had a tow truck come pick it up to haul it to its final resting place. I took the T56, flywheel, clutch, shifter, driveshaft, and rear end for my car and sold what was left.
I don't remember exact figures but I do know I made money on the car selling what I didn't end up using. At this point I was starting to figure it out. I not only made money on both of my parts cars, but I also got the 350 core and rest of the drivetrain for free.
With the extra money made on those cars, I decided I wanted to change the exhaust while it was all apart. I originally used the exhaust from the thirdgen parts car that had mid length headers to a single 3' that would again be split into two through a flowmaster muffler. The 2.8l had an extremely similar exhaust and that engine just ruined the tone of flowmaster mufflers for me. To this day I get flashbacks of the 2.8l whenever I hear a car with a flowmaster.
We got the car running and driving that summer after school let out. I ended up going with a set of Hooker Long Tube headers, to a true dual 3' x-pipe and a set of dynomax race bullet mufflers. Due to the floor design of the thirdgens, the exhaust was low and scraped on bumps like crazy. I couldn't care less, it was the best sounding car I had ever heard. Because of the X-pipe, it was surprisingly quiet at idle and low RPM, but when you got on it that thing was screaming.
I ran into some overheating issues and ended up blowing a headgasket. Motor came back out, everything was drained, everything checked over, and reassembled. I got a fancy Be-Cool Radiator and a set of Dakota Digital Gauges to ensure I was getting accurate readings.
I started getting some nicer suspension as well. I originally wanted the car to handle well, so I got all tubular rear suspension, and a Ground Control weight jack spring set up along with their modified Koni Yellows.
For brakes, I got a kit to retro-fit C5 Corvette front brakes, and kept the LT1 disk brakes that came with the rear end I robbed off the parts car. I kept the Corvette theme going and got OEM C5 Z06 wheels that came with used tires.
Looking back, I see now this was the perfect "daily driver" street car version of the car. It was simple, reliable, clean, and had just enough of the ~gangsta~ factor going on. All of that, for VERY little money. The car was a Frankenstein of craigslists parts with the big-ticket items at no cost because of the parts cars. At this point, the only stuff on the car that came new from a catalog was the Be-Cool Radiator, the Hooker headers, The Dakota Digital Gauges, and the suspension parts from Ground Control.
To no ones surprise, I wasn't satisfied with just having the perfect street car. Brett had already taken his Mustang to the track a few timesand had gotten to the point where he needed a roll bar in the car. Pete is a good welder and offered to help him with the install. I was always extremely interested in learning to weld. I viewed it as a necessary skill to be able to get to the next level of car building. You can only bolt on so many things to a car, but with a welder, you can do anything. Plus, I needed to install subframe connectors and couldn't pay someone to do it. Pete was nice enough to let us borrow his MIG welder, and I just went to town practicing on scrap metal I had laying around. I sourced some less-than-ideal subframe connectors on Craigslist. After purchasing, I learned that they were "through floor" subframe connectors, and the floor of the car would have to be cut up quite a bit to install them. I was a bit hesitant to start cutting, but I had the new parts sitting there already paid for and said screw it and grabbed the grinder.
Brett and I always lifted together at the Retro Fitness by our houses and that's where we met Anthony. Anthony was a welder by trade, and also loved cars. We filled him in on all of the shenanigans we had going on and told him we were trying to teach ourselves to weld. He seemed impressed (or maybe a bit nervous) and actually offered to help us do all of the final welding on my car. I was feeling more comfortable with the welder, but I did not trust myself to actually do the structural welding.
I had already been considering doing a roll bar in my car while the interior was out for the subframe connectors, and now with Anthony's help it was a no brainer. I purchased a pre-bent kit and we had the roll cage and subframe connectors all trimmed up and tacked in place for when Anthony could stop by. I had never done metal work before and all I had was the old angle grinder available for trimming and coping the tube. All in all, the final fit-up of the cage was not bad given the circumstances, but it definitely could have been better.
I did make it to the track once or twice prior to installing the roll bar, but on the corvette wheels and tires traction was an issue. Once the car was back up and running I found some weld wheels with drag radials on Craigslist and it was time to party.
First time out at the track with the new wheels and I was able to run a 13.3 second 1/4 mile. However, on the third pass of the night Pete's warning had been proven to be valid, the 7.5" 10 bolts were in fact made of glass. On the last pass in that video, the rear end said farewell, and goodnight. I wasn't worried because I had a spare 10 bolt at home from my cousin. I swapped the rears and had the car back on the road shortly after that day but told myself it wasn't worth going back to the track until I had a better rear end, so I just drove and enjoyed the car.
I drove the car everywhere like this. It did occasionally give me issues, but it was always something silly that I was able to fix roadside. I was so confident in this setup I actually took it up to school in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. It was a solid 3+ hour drive away from home. I had just gotten to school for the semester and was telling Brett how I wish I had brought it. Brett offered to do me the favor of loading the car onto a trailer and drive it up to me one weekend, so thats what we did.
During that semester, I was a bit short on cash and had the idea of applying to work part time at the Advance Auto Parts they had just built. I needed some car washing supplies anyway, so I took a ride over there. The regional manager happened to be there at the time and started asking me about the car and by the end of the conversation, I had a new part time job. What a time, driving the Camaro to Advance Auto after class for work for the night shifts. The store was usually slow at those times so I typically just ended up standing at the counter studying my economics text books.
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