Hey guys, its done i think now. I just need to get it tuned in better as well as get it aligned, my straight pipes in, and a new windshield. I made new spark plug wires with a kit from summit racing. turned out way better than the old yellow ones i had. I ran them underneath the headers and used wire spacers and they look great. Something must've been wrong with my old wires bc they measured like 14K ohms and my new ones are all around 500 ohms? Anyways, here's a pic


After running it a few times, I went through two autozone valuecraft starters.... one's solenoid stopped kicking out and the other one stopped spinning.. I went to a retail store and picked up a powermaster high torque starter and I'm never looking back! This thing whips my motor around so fast


Installed it and the way the starter is clocked positions the power terminals on the bottom... I didn't want to mess with the clocking so I just let the wires touch the header primaries and I put them in plastic conduit and wrapped them in heat shield


the ring gear goes out all the way (except in this pic, we didn't run the starter motor so it didn't retract all the way when we let go of the start button) and has great clearance with the flywheel


Also wrapped my tranny coolant lines which are kinda close to my headers... just to be safe


Here's a video of the motor running finally

 

They do sell wires with built in resistance. The resistance increases the heat of the spark. They can be helpful on a car running rich. I am told they also will reduce static which can cause issues with the stereo.

You have come a long way from the kid that did not know what a K member was. Nice job. Any idea how much you have spent?

 

Oh, I did not know that!

Haha yeah, funny right? Its crazy what I've learned by getting my hands in there, researching on the internet, and asking questions! I think I could do pretty much anything on this car!

Yeah, unfortunately my receipts total to right around eleven thousand so far

 

I wouldnt say unfortunately, for the money you have and probably will continue to put into it to get it exactly how you want it, there is no other car you could buy for that amount.

 

Unfortunately I had a guy come out and check the motor to tune everything and he realized it had a really bad miss which sounded like a hanging exhaust valve. We proceeded to take the valve cover off the drivers side to find a rocker arm just hanging there and the exhaust valve stuck. I called the guy who built the motor and he said he forgot to tell me the valve lash needed to be set... which didn't make sense because he broke it in on a engine stand for me... anyways this was the start of another "miniproject" in this never ending adventure lol.


Heres the bent pushrod


Tearing it apart


A little bit of piston damage but I just sanded it down to prevent a hot spot and detonation




my top end, not including my heads which went out for another valve job lol


After I put it back together, I switched to a solid Isky Cam, (201035), installed new sealed power solid lifters, 16 hardened steel pushrods. Its a lot quiter but the cam is much more aggressive and was told it should make around 40 more horsepower.




All done


Then I drove it home, didn't really have any problems besides the alternator going out.... now I gotta go get another one of those lol


Pulled it into my garage to do some cleanup and a little more tuning


Some stickers lol on the rear window


Drove it to tompsons auto in grand rapids, forgot to turn the fricken coolant fan on.... when i turned it on and drove it home the night before it didn't go over 190 and I have 190 thermostat. This time I drove it to the auto shop and looked at ther thermostat half way there and it was at 230... I knew i was gonna have to go through the top end again now and do my head gaskets so i just turned it on and kept going. it dropped to 210 but thats still way to hot for me. When i got there I looked at the block and it was dripping on the passenger side head -_- whoops lol. Oh well. I bet I can do it in like 3 hours now hahaha.


My girlfriends dad also got a 2000 corvette c5 and its pretty sweet I got to drive it saturday! he let me go fast and turn off traction control so I broke the tires loose good once goin around a turn. haha the things fast! I think my camaro is a lot faster though because I was in 2nd gear turning onto a street, gave it like 1/3rd throttle and my camaro threw my head back and launched like a rocket. pretty breath taking. can't wait to drag race my girlfriends dad though lol


And I bought a new truck lol. I hate ford. always owned chevys. but this thing is bad ***. f350 xlt, crew cab, long bed, diesel. 195k miles with rebuilt trans and new turbo

 

Here's a video of my camaro idling now!

I think i'm gonna put it in gear and someone hold the brakes down and I might set the initial timing and idle speed while its in gear so yes, itll probable idle pretty high in park and neutral, but I dont want it to sound like its gonna take a poop in drive if i not moving lol

 

I hope your engine builder did not charge you for the Valve job since he “Forgot” to tell you that an already broken in CAM needed to have the valve backlash. Oh, the irony of that run on sentence. Backlash may need adjusted after the Cam is broken in but that adjust is to take up play that forms from the break in process. If it needs to be adjusted it needs to be tightened not loosened. Valves hit pistons when they are too tight. Are we supposed to believe the cam and lifters grew bigger during the break in process? Sure sounds to me like the valve just plain stuck.

I hope your builder told you to stone down the high spot on the piston. Any edge like the one in the picture is going to become a hot spot. That hot spot will ignite the fuel prematurely and cause bad spark knock. If you tune the car like any normal tuner would it is just a matter of time before you burn a hole in the piston. To avoid burning a hole in the piston you are going to have to run less timing advance. Timing advance= power.

 

The person who built the motor lives about 5 hours away so I have a local guy that is really nice to me and had him do it. He only charged me $40 for parts to rebuild the carb so I wrote him a check for $150 to clean up the heads and put the new valve in. He knows what he's doing, his family races cars in oval track I think he said. Plus he has all the machines right in his shop.

I was a little upset at first but mistakes do happen and this wasn't really that extreme. Also gave me an excuse to swap a better valve train in as well. I got a really good deal on the motor anyways. The forged crank, hm beam rods, and forged pistons alone are worth what I paid.

Yes I used sand paper to sand the piston down, and I know about the pinging and such that would have otherwise occurred. I might go over it again when I put the new head gasket on too.

 

Replaced the head gasket on saturday as well as bought two walker quietflow ss mufflers and two 3" electric exhaust cutouts getting the exhaust work done tomorrow!

 

i am doing the exact same swap in my 1995 camaro. i just spent lie a hour reading this from start to finish. you just gave me so much more insporation to keep goin on. and hey i live in oakland county so when im done with this project, drag race??