Hi all. My name is Joe. I recently caught the 4th Gen Camaro bug and I am loving it. about 3-4 months ago I decided to get a 3rd car. I needed something to commute in. I needed decent gas mileage and I originally was going to settle for a small rice burner of some sort. But a good friend of mine started sending me links on craigslist of different cars. He had mentioned that he had once had a 4th gen camaro and he loved it. He had put a LOT of work into his and a mod list a mile long. I vaguely remember it, but what I do remember it was bad ***. I Just found his old car domain pics

Anyway, he had sent me a craigslist ad for a few of these cars. I was somewhat intrigued. For 1k-1.5k I can get a Honda of Toyota with 300k miles on it. Or I could get these 4th Gen camaros with less than 150k miles on them all day. I thought to myself. HEY! I don't want some little car to ride around in. I want to be comfortable and ride in style. Something about picturing myself in a tiny rice burner didn't sit well with me. So I decided to go look at a nice RS 4th gen in the town I live in. From the pics it looked really good. I was in luck. Turns out this guys wife hated it and wanted to get rid of it. 1. She couldnt drive a stick shift. 2. She complained it was not a good family car. The guy had put it on there for 1200 bucks. Had 100k miles on it. After test driving it I knew I could steal this thing. I asked her what the lowest she was willing to go on it? She thought for a few seconds and said 1000. I thought about taking her down even more, but 1k was well worth it and I would have felt bad had I tried that tactic. I whipped out the 1k cash and drove this baby home.

It has the 3.8L V6 in it. And surprisingly enough it has some z28 options on it. Like all wheel disc brakes. The motor runs strong. However upon a bigger inspection I knew that it needed some basic things that had been neglected for a while. The A/C compressor was frozen on it and someone had ran a smaller belt routed kinda strange to bypass it. Someone had also put a cold air intake system on it but failed miserably at the install. Oil pan was leaking and the valve cover gaskets were as well. The radiator had NEVER been flushed. It was disgusting. I could go on all day about the small things. Lets just say I immediately put it on stands and spent another 1k in parts. As of right now she is still on stands and I go out and wrench on it when I can. I want to do it right. No hurry.

Anyway..There is my short story. Don't want to bore any of you with any further details for now. But I am having fun with this project so far. I cannot wait to get er running top notch for the summer time. I am goign to MOD the HECK OUT OF IT!!

Until next time!

Thanks for having me

Joe

 

hay ded welcome tot he forum. wow nice deal. it may be a good idea to change the intake and head gaskets. if antifreeze was not changed then those gaskets are ready to blow. man why can't i find one like that. lol, good to have you with us, enjoy

 

Welcome to the forum Joe.....

 

Welcome aboard Joe.

 

Ohhhh man don't say that! I reeeaaallly don't want to tear down the motor that far. What are the chances I can get away with not doing the intake/head gaskets? I drove this car for 2 days and then put it on stands. Really itching to get back in it. I was going to flush the system out once I got it going again. Would that help? Meh. Anyway thanks for all your help and looking for ward to talking more.

 

that orange anti freeze will go bad turn brown and eat the gaskets if its not changed. what color is it, may be ok for a while. thing is if one of the gaskets goes and you run some of the antifreeze in the oil it ruins the bearings and pretty much toasts the motor. good part is that 3.8s with low miles are cheap and easy to find in most places.

 

The color of the Anti freeze was a Green/Tan color. I'd say an even mix of both.

I heard from my buddy that you can do a chemical test to see if any exhaust vapor is getting into your coolant. After I flush it real good and whatnot I was going to try it and see what I turn up with. The motor is still strong and runs very cool. I think I may have caught it in time. Replacing the Radiator as well. What do you think?

 

if you mix the green with the orange it turns to gunk. you may be ok, flush it good and see how it goes.

 

Excellent point. Never mix the Orange and Green. Obviously the idiots before me didn't know that.

 

Welcome to C.F., Joe