Hey everyone, I've been in the garage the past few days tearing apart the Z and refreshing some stuff so I figured I would share!

This is what we started with. It was running pretty badly (backfiring through the carb, trans syncros were going out)


So I thought it was a problem with the heads, so I did a compression check and leakdown and found nothing wrong. So I pulled them to inspect further.








Only to discover my distributor drive was pretty chewed up, which was probably causing the ignition issue.


I figured the cam probably wasn't in the greatest shape, so I decided to pull the motor to check everything out.


On the ground and disassembled:


Ill be cleaning the engine bay up too.


After doing a tear down I found the issue: My cam had a lot of end play and a lot of wiped lobes, along with a messed up distributor drive.

 

So after discovering all that, I figured I should freshen everything up and make it nice for the car show season.

My to-do list:
Install my spare big cam and timing set (done)
Rebuild the transmission
New billet distributor
new gaskets
New fluids
Rebuilt steering box?

I picked up a parts cleaner from harbor freight for $90, a good investment.
I cleaned up some parts tonight, it got loads of road grime and oil off and made everything look nice.


Your's truly with the oil pan all cleaned up

 

when was the last time you were inside that engine?

 

Was it really running bad? Or you got bored? Be truthful!! that parts washer did a solid job

 

That distributor and cam gear is nasty. It was getting ready to leave you stranded real soon.

 

The motor was redone in 2005, so that would have been 8 years ago.

Well it was shooting fire out of the carb, and would back fire 10 seconds after shutting off But hey I did get bored and am always down for a project And it did, cant beat $90 for it. I'll definitely be cleaning the transmission parts with it before putting it back together.

Yeah I've never seen them wear like that. I couldnt even get it out of the garage cause it would backfire under any load.

 

do you know about how many miles? Im just curious how long it takes to get to that point.

 

Maybe 10000? I dont know exactly. But I can tell you that they were hard miles, definitely revving over 7000 occasionally .

 

that answered my next question! thanks man. Beautiful Camaro btw.

 

Even still, you shouldn't be eating up a distributor gear in that short time, miles wise.
What kind of a cam did you have? Make sure you have the right type of gear (metal compound) on the distributor to go with it.
Does your distributor have too much up and down slop?
Does your distributor have an adjustable collar, or is it cast into the body like a standard dizzy? You want to make sure the dist. gear isn't too deep or too shallow into the cam gear.