Hey guys,
Im an aussie car enthusiast, im into everything that is beautiful (cars and women),
I live in melbourne australia and the big cars round here are fords and holdens, we're getting the whole fast and furious craze as well with skylines, supras, 180 and 300s/zx's but i recently saw a nice debadged car, which after some research turned out to be a 1989 camaro, im in love!!!!!!

however im wondering what sort of 1/4 mile times they did stock and what kind of cheap modifications there are to make these things go faster, they cost around $15k for a decent 5.0L thing over here, what kind of speed does that thing get.

Also do they have known reliablilty issues??

Thanks in advance - loved the pic thread made me salivate!!!!!

 

If you can, you'd do well to track down a 350 (5.7 liter) for the most part, the 305 (5.0) was pretty much a turd without severe modification. You might get 14 or 15 seconds out of a stock car. The best thing you can do to get more power out of it would be a new cam, intake, and exhaust, but it depends on what you can afford, and what you can do yourself. How much power are you looking to get, and what kind of mods are you able to do on your own?

 

mods i can do are very limited but exhaust, cams, intakes, maybe a flash tune are all not out of the question.
How much do they weigh? I wouldnt be doing massive work, just interested to see wot the camaro lovers over here are doing with their cars.
The suggestions u have made are pretty much what most aussies do to their fords over here (im more of a ford man). I guess it gives me something to think about.
What kind of fuel economy (or lack of) do they get?

 

They weigh about 3700 pounds, and as for fuel economy, my L03 (throttle body injected 305) got about 30 highway, and somewhere in the neighborhood of 16 to 17 city when I was nice to it. Beefing up any car is pretty much the same, it's just suttle things that are different, like what heads to use for what companies motors, and which cam will work best with what you want. The more air flow you have, the better, that's really all it comes down to, you've just gotta get fuel and compression amounts to match.

 

one thing im pretty sure happens to all camaros of the gen, is the heater core will go out.

as for mods, i have a nice set of headers, highflow cat, and a flowmaster muffler all with 3" pipeing. Seems to have made a pretty nice difference. Cost me about a grand for EVERYTHING. Not bad considering i didnt do the work on from the y-pipe back. Not to mention it sounds AWESOME!

Ive got a 89 RS with a 5-speed and a 350. Im in the process now of gettin heads and now i HAVE to get a new clutch as mine is going out... but other than that clutch, its a pretty nice car.

good luck with the camaro my friend. Keep us updated on your progress.