Well, after owning my RS for 4 years now i decided to start putting some money into making it nice again

History on the car is as follows

Model: 1989 Camaro RS
Motor: L03
Trans: Automatic 700-R4
Trim: T-Top
Color: Black

Purchased 10/22/88 from Jim McKay Chevrolet in Fairfax, VA
Odometer reading of 17 Miles
Sticker Price $14,249

I purchased the car back in 2006 for $500
Odometer reading 64,234

had to do some minor work to get it running right, but when it did it ran strong and smooth.

it was a daily driver and completly stock until a year ago when my wife got her Cobalt and we decided to cover the camaro and begin to restore it, Odometer reading of 97,448

when i first got the car my buddies and I took it to the track and i believe it ran a best of 16.7 @ 88MPH, W/ 2 degrees of timing and 25lbs in the rear tires

so far during the Resto/Mod we have put on a Mac Catback with polished stainless 3.5" tips, and stipped the car of Ground FX to begin prep work on the body,

i've got a full tuning setup:

HP ZE1115 Laptop running TunerPRO RT,ALDLtoBIN, and PPII software
Pocket Programmer II
Moates ALDL cable
Moates G2
27sf512 chips


plans for the L03 are:

LT1 cam
Head work
single plane intake(undecided)
MSD setup(maybe, maybe not)
Hooker 2055's
cat delete
full smog delete
remove AC(after it dies, its still running strong for now)

plans for 700-R4:

Trans go shift kit
Vette Servo
higher stall(2300?)

Rear:

either will buy a posi aluminum drum rear from another 3rd gen
buy posi disc from thirdgen
buy eaton posi and Richmond 3.73 gears and drop in current carrier

im planning on pulling the L03 and keeping it in my garage to do a full rebuild(I like the option of numbers matching camaros), and dropping in either an LS1 or LT1 depending on funds, but that is another build for a later date

i will be posting pics of some Before pics and during pics in the coming days

feel free to vote for it on the next round of 3rd gen ROTM!!!

 

heres a scan of the window sticker, pretty neat to see

also some pics of the car i forgot i had on photobucket

this one is after a long week of polishing inside and out with the help of my wife(in the pass seat) and father(driver seat)

 

and some more after the first round of taking off GFX and doing the lower quater, the driver side was involved in an accident of unknown reason by the original owner, body work was done to the lower door which you can make out in the pictures, and is why the vapor barier is ripped off in the door

the driver quater is sprayed walmart black because it was quicker to do that than to strip off what an idiot kid spray painted on it, i was also about ready to begin the process of body work anyway

 

Best of luck, have fun with it. They take forever though..

 

especially in my case, we are doing the body work at my parents house who live about 45 minutes from me, so between my wife's working schedule,my working schedule,and a 14 month old daughter, its hard to find time to go down and work on it

luckily i only have a few minor dings and no real rust to deal with(the quater pic is virtually the only rust we have found so far) so it shouldnt take much more effort to get it ready for paint,

im having it painted by a friend who when to Wyotech for Hot rodding and fabrication, he also took Autobody while in high school, and we will be using Trinity Auto paint(very cheap and has up and down reviews)

im only shooting for a "better than it was" paintjob for the moment, and my main focus is getting the body straight

 

i forgot to say the Driver door was going to be the biggest problem, i was hoping to get a new one, but instead, in the interest of learning body work and getting good at it, i decided to tackle the job at hand with the help of my father

anyways, its not pretty as the P.O hit a pole somehow, and the body shop who fixed it decided they didnt need to try and pull the dent out any further than what would clear the window glass, so we worked the crap out of the door and im pretty happy on how it turned out so far, we have not finished pulling it out, and there is no filler on it yet, we just sealed it until i could get time to work on it more

Pic #1 - peeled off trim to reveal rust
Pic #2 - showing more of rust
Pic #3 - sprayed rust converter before sanding
pic #4 - Removed old body filler from Top of dent
Pic #5 - Removed old body filler from bottom of dent
pic #6 - Sealed it until next time, wish i could have gotten better shots of how big the dent was, but you get the idea of smacking a pole, the old bondo was atleast 1/4 inch thick if not thicker in the dent

 

last pic #6

 

Boy am I glad that my project is a Florida car it's entire life and never saw road salt.

keep us updated and feel free to follow my 3rd gen budget restoration thread. I'm just starting.

 

Camaros are the best projects!! Keep up the good work and whatever you do dont get rid of it!

 

Honestly im surprised how minor the rust is ive found seeing as this car has lived its whole life in VA/MD, but my wife has an Iroc at her uncles house in FL that is a Lifetime FL car, so i cant wait until we move down there and i can get my hands on it.

Believe me this thing is staying with me Until I die, or worse It gets totaled

lol