I found a low mile (45k) LT1 out of a 94 buick up in the pocono's for $550 I was thinking that motor just resealed with the Vet cam and a light port and polish on the original aluim heads/intake would make a nice depenable 325 ponnies. I still have a lot of LT1 research to do.
I plan on going over the whole car. I can miss stuff but I have done a few cars that have been dragged out of a fields and Barns.

 

I'd say get that other motor and your cam in it and then just get everything clean and dependable. After that, save up for an EFI Connections LS1 PCM/harness swap kit down the road to ditch the Opti. I have no idea how much EFI's kit is, but I'm sure it's more than what you want to spend to get your project roadworthy.

 

That is 1 nice lookin' car and for a nice price at that. Let every1 know if you decide to part some of those things you mentioned out.

 

I forgot to mention the opti has less then 500 miles on it. It was installed only a few weeks before the motor gave out. I did see the the thread over in the LT1 section about the convertion. It looks nice but right now I will put the money in the stuff I really don't want to change again.

 

I wouldn't do it right away, but it sure would be nice down the line to get rid of a worry spot. I have friends who are still on their first opti's and friends who are on their umpteenth. And all those are nice cars that have been well maintained.

That car was a heck of a buy for $1500! You can color me jealous.

 

No rush on anything this is a winter project.

I think I know what I want to do with the motor. Lets talk paint. I use to be a bodyman so I am not worried about the techincal process of painting. Its the having good taste I have a problem with. I am also not really up for a color changes, I do not want to get into door jams and all that stuff.

Option 1
Fix the black paint. This would mean repainting about 30% of the car. Since its black I am sure I can blend it pretty nice. Maybe find some SS rims kind of finsh off the whole clone thing

Option 2
Go with a mat black paint job. Keep the existing rims. Maybe powder coat the rims black also. You realy dont see to many satin black SS running around

Option 3
Go two tone. Follow along where the pin strips normally run and paint the top/front silver. I would still need to paint the drivers door black but most of the paint damage would be in the silver area. I would use the same current rims with this one also.

 

These would be my two options:

A: High gloss black with metallic silver stripes and do orange or blue pinstripes around the silver
B: Pearl black so that it has a blue tint to it at certain angles.

And with either option, I'd powder coat the spokes of the wheels black and keep the outer lip/edge of the wheels chrome.

 

I think the pearl may be out of my comfort zone on what I can paint. My guns are the lower end "finish line" by divilbiss and I will be shooting it in my garage. What shade blue on the pin strips?

 

I would do a medium navy blue. Or if you wanted to get wild, you could do an electric blue. That would be hot.

 

I would say if you are going to trim it with blue keep it dark and subtle, Also have you checked out the black and orange roadster camaro shown in the "what do you think" thread? There is an idea on how to break up the 2 tone, and that is not a hard scheme to follow. I am thinking about doing that to my Sarah with black on the top and Pewter as the lower color, burgandy stripes to devide the colors.

Massey