I burned the piston in the 5.3 in October of 2019. It took some time to really come up with a plan on what to do with the car. Obviously, the world was going crazy we had began the trailer rebuild project as well. I was on Mark's list of cars to get done and had to wait my turn, so the trailer was a great starting place in this new chapter of Mulletz Garage. I was and haven't stopped working full time, so I had become very focused on working to get everything set up to be as easy and organized as possible in the future.
The first thing I wanted to do was get the hood back on and do a full paint correction on the car. I had not seen this car with a hood on it in years and wanted that motivation. While removed, it was stored outside behind the garage and had become quite sun faded over time. By no means does the car have a show quality paint job, but it's a solid 10 footer and when its shined up its looks more than good enough for my standards.
When I had free time, I focused on learning to tig weld. The plan was to learn how to tig weld while the cage was getting done so I'd be prepared to build the rest of the car when I got it back. I was building the new turbo kit myself, so I was motivated to become good (enough). Any piece of scrap metal laying around got welded all over and I never turned down an opportunity to practice while working on other small projects.
The first tig welding project on the car would be a mounting tray for my battery relocation. As you can see, the battery is mounted where the spare tire had previously gone. I had gotten a lot of grief at tech inspection for my previous battery mounting in the same location, so I wanted to make this one was solid as possible. I even welded nuts to the backside of it because I knew it would be hard to get a wrench on them once its welded into the car. Check me out, trying to make life easier for the future me.
The next thing I wanted to do was build a STURDY mount for the shifter. It had previously moved around quite a bit due to poor mounting and it drove me crazy. I also wanted it to stand taller off the trans tunnel because I'd be installing the factory console again. I used the C Channel on the portion welded to the floor so I'd be able to just drill new holes to move the pedestal and shifter forward or backwards later on if I wanted to.
The last thing I did before taking the car to MTK was install the Bolt on Parachute Mount from Motion Raceworks. I followed their install video to a tee and the old toilet paper roll trick led to a flawlessly placed hole in the bumper.
Mark really did an amazing job with the cage and front end. As you can see, it meets the standards of an 8.50 cert and then some. I did not originally plan on doing a tubular front end because of the factory steering box mounting on thirdgens. To make as much room as possible under the hood of the car, I ended up deciding to order a Manual Rack Kit from PA Racing and have Mark do the front end as well
As you can see, the whole front end is tied into the cage and provides mounting locations for the radiator and big ol' intercooler tucked up tight to the bumper. A Turbo Drain Mount from Maven Performance was used to mount the T6 85/96 mm turbo from VS racing.
As Mark was making progress on the car at his shop, I was making progress at home preparing to get the car back. Since dropping the car off, I had commited a few (hundred) hours learning and practicing my welding. I was attending YouTube university to learn everything I needed to know about tig welding and had already come quite a long way from when I started. I had also set up a serious area in the newly renovated garage to be for strictly tig welding. Having a large, sturdy, clutter free bench is really a game changer when learning.
I got the car back home in the final days of February, 2021. As you can see, the garage looks completely different. Im not sure when it happened or how it happened, but I started to hold myself to higher standards in all of my work. At this point, my self-evaluation consisted of me looking at what I had just completed and asking myself if I'd be pissed if I had paid someone else to do the job.
While I was plotting and planning on how I wanted to do the turbo piping, I decided I'd start on some of the interior.
The First thing I did was install the new Steering Column and Steering Wheel from Motion Raceworks. It was a bolt in kit that was very straight forward and like all things Motion Raceworks, extremely high quality. Like with any other collapsible steering column, I was giving up my factory blinker switch, windshield wiper control, and that silly keyed ignition switch to turn on the car. That would be a problem solved another day.
The next step was to get the dash installed. As expected with 30+ year old plastic, every single plastic tab for mounting the dash pad on the dash was broken. I wasnt going to buy a different 30+ year old dash and an aftermarket fiberglass/sheet metal was not an option. My solution was to cut out and drill little pieces of aluminum that I would JB Weld in place on the broken tabs. Some things just had to stay original to maintain the feel and nostalgia of a Thirdgen Camaro. One great example of that nostalgia was the cheap, plastic, rattling, look at it the wrong way and it will shatter like a piece of glass, dash and center console.
The original upper mounts for the dash had been cut out when the cage was being install. I mentioned to Mark that I was putting the original dash back in so he did save them for me so I'd be able to modify them and weld them back into place as you can see in the last photo above. The bottom of the dash had to be notched to clear the forward door bars as well.
The next thing on the list would be to install the new carpet. Cutting a carpet to sit flat around a roll cage is wonderful example of things you'll encounter while building a car that prove to be way more difficult than they should be. If you've never done it before, please take a moment to look at those photos and think about how you'd go about laying that carpet down and figuring out where to cut the holes to clear the cage without leaving a massive gap around it. To be honest, I still don't know the correct answer and just eye balled it. As you can see, there is a bit of a gap on the passenger side in the middle of the car. Other than that, I'd say it came out pretty much perfect.
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