I have a 1996 Camaro Z28 and I am coming up on 170k all original miles. The car has been a little rough so I am saving up on doing some serious work to the car. I do understand that everything I talk about in this thread will not be all too cheap but I am not out to buy the greatest most expensive products for my project. So please if you want to recommend a particular brand to me keep in mind that I am trying to not go in debt. :P

I have already done the fist basic mod by getting a cold air intake and doing the resonator delete in the intake, so that part is done.

My next step is some exhaust work. I'm looking at doing a long tube pacesetter headers with a 3'' Y-pipe, eliminating all the cats and getting a flowmaster 80 series for the controlled aggressive sound I'm looking for out of my small block. I understand it will be loud but I'm young and love my car loud. Would flowmaster be a good choice for a muffler though? I know there are other brands out there so I'm looking for some personal opinions on different bands that you might believe sounds better.

My next step is to upgrade breaks and wheels. I was thinking drilled and slotted rotors, as the breaks is going to need replacing soon anyways. As for wheels I LOVE the look of the stock wheels on the new 2010 Camaros. I have heard those wont fit though. Yes my car is lowered on 1.5'' lowering springs but I plan on putting my stock springs back on anyways for driving quality purposes... Plus I need to if I want to fit any wheels larger than 16'' and correct my camber. I am also crazy about some corvette wheels like the 2006 c6. Are there any other brands that will give me that sleek sexy look but still be a little bigger and wider than the stock z28 wheels? As you might be able to tell by my avatar, I love black wheels on my white car so I would also be aiming for something that coming in black or that I could paint black. As far as painting the wheels myself, I have done it plenty of times and I know how to do it right so don't worry about me getting some expensive corvette rims and crapping them up with a bad paint job.

Once that is said and done I just want to do an engine rebuild. I'm undecided if I will do this myself or take it to a mechanic to do it but I plan on getting the kit that will replace all gaskets and the pistons. I'm also undecided if I going to have the engine built a little while its apart. I was thinking a stage 3 street performance cam after doing some research. I know it will mean upgraded fuel injectors and possibly upgraded fuel system but everything as far as a tune up goes would be getting replaced anyways.

Along with the engine rebuild I figure I would have the transmission done too. Now please don't attack me but yes it is an automatic. The good old 4L60E. From what I understand this part might be pricey but I definitely want to do a shift kit. I honestly don't even know where to start looking for that so maybe if someone might be able to help point me in the right direction that would be great.

That is all I have planned out so far apart from a side cluster. (I just think they look cool) If you have any other advice of what I can expect or might need to do please share. I am open for advice. Thank you!

 

All pretty good mods. Going to run you a small fortune for the engine upgrades. My only advice us stay away from drilled/slotted rotors unless your into road racing. Drilled rotors crack and slotted eats brake pads.

 

wow, where to begin

first: welcome

second: every single question you have asked, believe it or not has been asked countless times in the past. (search is your friend) You are not unique. You are young, you got yourself a Z28 and now want it to be the baddest car among your friends and it must be more powerful because what you have isn't enough.

Trust me, we've all been young and ............well, let's leave it at that.

Now, you are doing the right thing and that is asking questions and making a plan. That is the most important part of anything and it's having a plan so kudos to you. I've helped buddies with projects who just dove in and it always ends up costing more vs if they had a plan.

exhaust is a basic. You can't go wrong with long tube headers and a 3 inch y and cat back system. As for which muffler, I went magnaflow for the entire system but do you like your steak rare, medium rare, medium....well,you get the picture. It's personal taste although some will tell you that the flowmaster is more restrictive than others but I do believe it's less restrictive than stock (who keeps the stock system?)

Now you'll have good intake and good exhaust. If you still NEED MORE then why not try gears? You might have 2.73:1's in the back. You need to check it out (search is your friend here again as well)

THink of your bicycle. When you try to start in 10th gear or higher you can't get up and go as fast as with 1st or 2nd gear. Well, the same is with tall gears like 2.73:1 vs 3.55:1 or shorter. The higher the number the more head snap you will feel however you must balance drivability and performance with economy.

You then ask about opening the engine. Do you want to do it correctly or do you want Mickey Mouse to visit you from Disney and do it.

170k miles, if it's never been updated and opened could mean lots and lots of hours of city driving or less hours if it was all highway miles.

There is only one way to know for absolute certainty as to the condition of your engine and that is to drop it and then open it up.
Sure you could do a compression test and leak down as well as vacuum but even those have limits. Now you are talking money money money because you are using a machine shop. THe crank and connectiong rods are probably still fine but why not have them ground and trued. You'll want to clean all of the oil passages within the block so new bearings all around. Maybe the cylinders only require a honing or maybe they need to be bored. So,new pistons/rings are in order. You'll want a new cam so that means new pushrods, springs and why not rockers. Since the heads are off and have 170k miles then a valve job is needed and why not get the heads ported for better flow and performance?

I don't know your definition of inexpensive but you are looking at several thousand $ to do it right and we haven't even addressed new fuel injectors and an upgraded fuel pump (that many miles, you may as well do it)


or, go with the bolt ons, slap in some gears and keep it maintained. When the engine says it's time, you may find it more cost effective to replace with a lower mile engine vs rebuilding what you have. But, again, if you open up the replacement engine for a rebuild/proper upgrade you are back to where you were with big $$$ (also as these cars get older lower mile engines are near impossible to find)

You own a 16 year old and soon to be 17 year old car. You are at the life cycle of the vehicle where it will require a fat wallet to keep it going for a while. But, once the money is spent, it will be ready for years of service again.

I gave my 4th gen (95Z) to my son but it was the recipient of a rebuilt engine, rebuilt tranny, rebuilt rear end and all of the other usual suspects of brakes, window motors etc.

We just finished repainting it so it's ready for more years of service. I would not part with it for anything less than $8,000 but even then, I know the market does not support that price and we could not find as good of a car for $8,000 or even $10,000 because it's been rebuilt. He loves the car so restoring to almost new condition was the right thing for me to do.

so there you are

a long winded post to a newb so your eyes will be open and hopefully it will help you with your decisions

oh, and watch out for that Camaro69 guy................he's mean to me :-)

 

check the build thread in my sig. i really like the patc transmission and the tq converter from them. how old is the opti, may be all you need to get er runnin good. if your gona have a shop rebuild the motor then have it stroked to 383, will run you in the 3000+ range. use elliotts portworks for heads and intake, use solomon for tuning computer, use 12 bolt or 9 inch rearend, 370-373 gears.

 

I think TIG pretty much summed it all up, as usual.

Like he said, you seem to be on the right track. My opinion avoid Flowmasters. Yes they have nice sound usually and are a enhancement over stock....but for the price, there's others that flow better and sound just as good. But I can't say much on that cause I still have the stock Dynomax muffler but with LT and no cats.

Also agree with jkeaton, don't spend your money on D/S rotors for a DD. While others will argue with brands and where to get them from, I will simply say that I have Wearever rotors and silver series pads on mine and have been doing fine for nearly 5k miles.

I noticed no one mentioned anything along the lines of the rest of the car. How are the suspension pieces or interior?

 

Thanks for that excellent advice torque_is_good. I am well aware that I would be looking at spending a couple thousand once it is all said and done especially since when I do this I want to do it the right way that way I wont run into more problems down the road. I'm glad to hear that about your 95 though. That's the whole reason why I plan on doing all this work, so I can get the car back into great condition and keep her for years to come. Do you have input on the wheels dilemma?

 

just keep in mind that my advice is worth what I charged you

about wheels, I'd wait until you need tires and grab set of wheels/tires from OE Concepts (find them on ebay)

You can generally get a set of 4 with Nexen or Falken (junk) tires already mounted and balanced. A fair price is less than $1,000 incl shipping

or, follow craigslist

then you put your salad shooters on craigslist and offer $50-$100 for someone to come get the ugly things..........nah, try to sell them for $50 if you can. Some people buy them to mount drag radials

about drilled and slotted rotors .......don't bother

 

MKCoconuts, My interior is really good actually. Its completely ebony black and leather too. The owner before me had most of the interior redone before I bought it so Im not worried about the interior. I'm satisfied with cosmetics as of now. Maybe later down the road in a year or 2 I might look into new paint and doing a reupholstery for the seats but nothing to be concerned with now.

As for my suspention, I might also look into getting new shocks and struts because when I took it apart for my current lowering springs they were getting a little rusted and what not. Other than putting the stock springs back on Im not too concerned with my suspention. I had an idea for the c6 wheels and getting the new shocks and going with a 1'' lower in the front and perhaps a 1.5'' lower in the back to give it a nice low stance but still be able to have the wheels I like. Honestly it all depends on how much wheel gap there is with my new wheels on my stock springs and how much could be closed up.

Haha, sorry if you don't agree with my position on wheel gap. All my friends drive hondas, nissans and other little Japanese cars and after hanging out with them so much, I have grown to like closing wheel gap. I don't want to "slam" it and have camber and scrape everywhere I go or anything. I just don't like the look of it when it has a giant wheel gap.

 

A little rust means nothing on springs, you can clean them up and repaint -- only an issue if they sag. Now if you have the stock orange deCarbon/Delphi shocks -- they are TOAST and need replacing! Bilstein or Koni SAs should be on your list....

If you want lowering spring, look at Strano's.

 

Yes I believe that is what I have for the shocks. I would probably be better off anyways. I still dont know what I want to do for lowering springs yet because I dont know if I even will lower them.

BTW does anyone know by any chance if the stock pushrods in the 96 z28s were forged or not?