Hey I am new and I am going to look at this camaro today can you tell me what you think and what to look for https://cedarrapids.craigslist.org/cto/6033059862.html

 

Factory bored and stroked? What the heck does that mean? When you bore and stroke a motor that means you go larger bore and longer stroke then the factory did. By definition if the factory did it then it just a larger engine?

Trans brake and programmed for 87 octane, that is a rare combination.

Other then the owner seems a little clueless it looks like a really nice car and seems reasonably priced (said by a very cheap person) you sure could not build that for that kind of money.

 

The body looks ok. I dont know if your area is in the rust belt or not. The car has been repainted, so you'd have to make sure it's not a bondo-box. With convertibles, you have to check the floor and trunk pans carefully.

The ad says new top, but the picture showing the back of the top looks like it doesn't sit flat on the rear deck. Might be a small problem, might not be. Don't know why you'd install a new top without the inner liner, but you dont actually need one. Make sure the top goes all the way up and all the way down without issues.

Reading through the bs in the ad, the engine is a stock iron block, low compression Lq4. It probably came out of a pickup or suv. They're rated between 300-325 hp. The heads were shaved to increase the compression up to 10.5:1. It's got a big cam. That concerns me. Especially since the ad says its been programmed for 87 octane fuel. 10.5 compression and big cams like a lot of advanced timing and high octane fuel. For it to run right without detonation, the timing has to be drastically retarded. The result has to be a significant reduction in power. "Re-program for higher will get you more horses." Fast and Furious makes it look easy, but I suspect it's not that simple.

The 2800 stall speed, spooled rear, 411 gears, and a trans brake suggest this was someone's boy-racer. Race cars lead hard, short lives, and aren't usually good used cars or good daily drivers.

 

Re-turning are car is simple, You either do a mail tune and tell the tuner what you have and what you want or you take it to a dyno tune place and they tune it on the dyno. Mail in tune will run you $150-$300 and Dyno tune will be more like $300-$600, depending on what they find. Sometimes its worth fixing small mechanical issues while its on the dyno then it is to leave and come back. Its not worth it to do it yourself and the body of knowledge needed and the price of the software make it not worth it. You want someone with years of experience and hundreds of tunes under their belt. Dyno tune is almost always worth the money on a modified car. I have never heard "that was a waste of money" (unless thee was a major problem was found) most of the time people say "I wish I would have done this sooner".


You can tune the car for higher octane fuel and rely on the knock sensor to retard the timing as needed. That is how GM does it for their performance cars that "require" higher octane.