On October 21, 2020, Ricky Camaro left our home to commence restoration. B&R Auto wouldn’t be ready to begin the project until January 2021, but we were in the process of moving a couple hundred miles north, so they agreed on this pickup date, and to store him until commencement.

Here he is, departing from our yard:

While he doesn’t look that bad in this picture, the reality was both rear quarters rotted, the entire front clip WELDED together:


front fenders with up to ½” of bondo, a sub-frame that was no longer rectangular, and a pan you could push a screwdriver through virtually anywhere. Passenger side rear wheel-well rotted out, rear deck same, so in essence a very tired machine. It doesn’t show it, but the paint had been attacked from doors forward by my four wolf-hybrids as they sought acquaintance with the digger squirrel that took up residence in the engine compartment while I was working for a year in Alaska. Result, totally trashed paint and a squirrel who probably resembled the gopher in Caddy Shack. Plus, through the years, field mice took up residence in the headliner, and the entire interior smelled... well, there's no words. NOT a happy Camaro.

Now, Ricky IS a happy Camaro, and looks like this, after having all those body panels replaced, reclaiming a 396 and Muncie like he was on his Day 1, and just generally restored. Ricky has come home, even though it’s a different home. Here is what a happier Camaro looks like:
And the Big Block is very snarly! Now commences the process of buffing out micro-scratches and applying the graphene-ceramic finish to this beautiful paint job, so I can start driving it in the wet winter weather of the Pacific Northwest. My wife asked me today if I was happy. I just looked at her.

 

Looks great, can't believe you're going to drive it in the rain!
If I had that car it would only see sunny days.

 

Even though I chose to keep it in original configuration (i.e. not a modern car, modern suspension, modern everything except classic skin), it comes with windshield wipers. They are there for a reason. Ricky Camaro is not now, and never was, a Hanger Queen. I love this car, have loved this car for over 40 years, but I do not worship this car. Right now, I'm working to install the battery disconnect, to go with the hood locks. They are working perfectly. Next, I'll start on the high-density particle board cutout for the trunk-side back seat. I have my jointer and top plane ready for my maple boards, just need to pick through the stack for the best pieces. Also need to build the subwoofer enclosure, and surround boxes for the underside of the 6X9's. Add a trunk car-battery, power distribution, and connect to the power wires via a battery isolator. So there is ample garage time between runs... finally will come the day when I run down to the car stereo store and pay the man to fire it all up and set the amp equalization with in-car microphones. The best is yet to come...

The next door neighbor young man came by right after Ricky met his new storage space in the garage, and asked if he could hear it run. I obliged him and since Ricky was already warmed up, first let him idle (he doesn't like to idle), then did a while at 2K RPMs, then let him roar a couple of times, and the boy and I both almost heart-attacked out. I had forgotten how angry a balanced and blue-printed big block Chevy can sound.

The "375HP" was their sense of humor at work.

There is no way this car is confined to this garage until summer.

Ricky came with 500 miles already on the odometer, so is reasonably broken in, so we're just waiting for the graphene wax to arrive and get applied, and then we're going to put some serious miles on this beauty. Bryson did suggest that I get out past one or two thousand miles before I seriously stress the engine, and I might follow that advice. TBD. I also will make an appointment to run Ricky through the NSRA evaluation to obtain their highly-desirable certification; good quite often for insurance discounts on antique or classic cars. We are dangerously close to violating one of more of the scrub lines (stupid headers), so we'll see.

 

Yeah 375HP wink wink.l At what,1500 rpm?
Well just be careful on the wet pavement, that torque monster can get squirrely on dry pavement without really putting the hammer down.
I remember driving my '69 with the 427 4 speed in the wet stuff back in the day, it was the only car I had at the time and with the L88 solid lifter cam it could be tricky just taking off at stop lights.

 

Before handing me this wonderful car, B&R Auto drove it for 500 miles and then changed ALL fluids in the car. We had discussed this, and while 500 miles is probably more than is typical, I was good with that, so any kinks could be ironed out. I live 200 miles north of their shop, with Olympia/Tacoma/Seattle/Everett 'freeway hell' in the middle, so if anything goes wrong, it isn’t simple to drive over and have them fix it under warranty.

Our goal, in short, was to expose and fix any issues before they bit me in the butt. So of course, within my first 50 miles, ouch. An issue occurred within my Muncie M-20 that causes me, on a highly intermittent basis, to be unable to shift into any gear. The Hurst stick just flops around, then suddenly re-engages. B&R Auto’s cure, that is in the works: they are purchasing a fully re-manufactured and warrantied Muncie M-20, driving the 200 miles north to pick up my car (once they have the ‘new’ Muncie in hand) replacing the existing tranny, driving it enough to become confident, and then loading it once again into their covered car trailer and driving the 200 miles back to my home to once again hand me this wonderful car.

Wow!

The Wow-factor however goes much farther than the HONOR these guys display. This 396ci big block is STRONG! Strong enough for this old man, anyway. A huge Wow in its own right… The issue that has them changing out the tranny has only happened twice, both times in town at a red light, while there have been hundreds of shifts where everything worked perfectly, and again, I say “Wow!”

Ricky truly looks and feels brand new, and the experience of shifting him through the gears and experiencing his power is awesome! So far, I am still being mindful of their advice to continue a break-in dynamic with this motor for 2000 miles or so, so I have not yet gone to full throttle and max revs, and even so, we seem to get up to speed REALLY FAST. As I have said, a lot of thought went into my selection of 3.42 gears and the spreadsheet I developed seems to be spot on for predicted rpms. I’m still thinking about adding a Gear Vendor OD unit, TBD. Both the shop and I have compared speedometer readings between my ‘original’ speedo and a GPS-based speedometer app on my iPad, and it is spot on, amazingly.

Someday, when the sound system is complete, I’ll start a thread that details the fun and games of creating a high-end audio system into a car that will need to be parked, engine off, to fully appreciate it. Hah! For now, the sound-system stage of implementation is in a very intermediate stage, where the front end ‘radio’ is installed but unpowered, the 6” and separate tweeters are in the doors, the 6X9” tri-axials are in the rear deck, and the #4AWG positive and negative leads (visible on the passenger skirt in the engine compartment pic) are run to the trunk in preparation for the future car battery that will be positioned there to power the two amps. Also, signal wires from trunk to radio are run, and all speaker wires are run to each speaker and coiled in the trunk. I have the battery isolator in hand that will prevent the trunk battery from sending power to the engine compartment while still accepting charging current from the alternator. I do note that accessing the front wall of the trunk is not simple for this overly-large and overly-old dude. It looks like I’ll need to remove the 6X9’s until the partition is complete, to make things simpler.

Simpler, hah! My favorite 3 of the many Murphy’s Laws of Warfare are

• Important things are always simple
• Simple things are always hard
• The Easy Way is always mined

 

Well that's one thing about a RAT is you can feel the power right off idle so no need to wring it out.
I always got a kick out of guys revving up their mouse motors then dumping the clutch to burn rubber when the 427 in my old '69 only required me mashing the go pedal.

"Olympia/Tacoma/Seattle/Everett 'freeway hell'
Gawd I so don't miss driving truck up there!

 

Ahh yes, power. We’re not talking about “power corrupts…” here, ‘ cos that’s about politics, and Power-Mad Monsters that rule our days, these days. (daze). We’re instead talking about “There is no substitute for cubic inches” power!!! Yeah, I realize my Hyundai Sonata generates around 2.7HP per cubic inch, which would have qualified as an EXTREME racing engine in my youth, and would have predicted a lifetime of hopefully, ‘until the end of the race’. Now, I’m sitting on 140,000 miles on that engine, and it leaves me saying “WTF”. And once upon a time, in my earlier years, I had this insane Honda V65 scooter with a little V4 that had way more power than traction in almost every gear, and a redline of 10K RPMs, and a 160MPH speedo, BUT…

A big block Chevy is an “OH MY…” phenomenon that just has to be lived with to be understood. OH MY!!! Caged anger.



The problem with I-5 and the Seattle metro area is that it’s a choke between tall mountains and the ocean/Puget Sound. There is no efficient way through if you’re more interested in destination than the drive. The drive on I-5 sucks, complete with worn-out pavement and rush hour traffic that has to be experienced to be believed. Unless it’s 2:00 AM, which is often my solution. BUT, driving the back roads on the ‘mountain’ side of I-5, in a classic muscle car, also has to be experienced to be believed. Have you ever driven the “Mountain-loop Hwy”? This is a really cool loop that starts in Arlington, heads south to Lake Stevens, then becomes very rural through Granite Falls, a great side-trip to Monte Cristo Mine, by which time its INTENSELY RURAL (words can’t describe how rural), and hits Darrington to rejoin a state highway and ‘relative’ civilization and presents you with a decision: west back to Arlington (hence the “Loop” in Mountain Loop Hwy) and I-5, or east to Rockport on the North Cascades Highway, very near the closest thing Washington has to the Swiss Alps. If you do choose ‘east’ when you hit Hwy 2, you are on the path of bypassing the Seattle metro denseness. Note: choose the right time of year, as Hwy 2 is closed much of the year; for instance, right now. So, head east up and over to the Dry Side and Winthrop, Twisp, and Grand Coulee Dam, south to Chelan on Lake Chelan where you can take the “Lady of the Lake” (https://ladyofthelake.com/) up to Stehekin for a MOST AMAZING cruise, then continue to US Hwy 2, back up and over those incredible Cascades, through the ‘unique’ German town of Leavenworth, south at Monroe past North Bend, catch WA169, down through Enumclaw to WA410 to Puyallup, then a further maze of state highways south to Yelm, then Tenino, and finally rejoin I-5 well south of the ‘Olympia/Tacoma/Seattle Everett’ horror story. OR, great alternative when you leave Chelan, just continue south on US 97 through Ellensburgh to Yakima, (admittedly a few miles of rural freeway) to WA 12 for an alternative path over the Cascades (White Pass), to rejoin I-5 quite a bit further south, dodging that maze of State Highways, and well on the way back to your home. These alternative ways around Seattle will make you smile, guaranteed. Welcome to Camaro Heaven, where you and I are so very lucky to live.