New from NLV
#1
12-24-2008, 04:57 PM
New from NLV
Hi all,
New here from North Las Vegas.
I picked up a 1979 Camaro Berlinetta as a project car to restore with my 15 year old son. The plan is to have it ready for his 16th birthday in about 6 months.
Me. I've been into pony cars since I could drive. I've either owned or wanted to own just about every type of pony out there, both old and new, including a '68 and '80 Camaro. I still love'em all and am not intobashing any of them. (Well, with the exception of the 74-78 Mustang Ghia). I still love to race (I have an '02 Mustang) and here in Las Vegas everyone who likes to race is encouraged to bring their car out to the strip and off the roads. My son has always enjoyed coming with me, so I wanted to give him the chance to get into it himself. I chose the second generation Camaro because it was one of my all time favorites and made a good candidate for restoring without breaking the bank. Whether he stays with it or not will be up to him.
The car. We came up with a 1979 Camaro Berlinetta.The body was originally red and is unusually clean with norust or dents, but is now a badly sun faded orange(?) and chipping on the front clip.I'm pretty sure being originally a California car, it never went too far from this area. Unfortunately, it was barely running with 110,000 miles. The 305 may or may not bethe original but appears to have been rebuilt at some point. Because the compression was good, we decided to stay with it and breath some new life in it. So far, we did a 4 angle cut on the heads,put in a new Comp cam (Stage 1), rods, hydrolic lifters and replaced the stock 2 bbl intake and carb with a Weiand dual plane and 600 cfm Edlebrock carb. We've replaced the stock exhaust manifolds with Flowtech headers and eventually would like to go with a catted "X" pipe into adual exhaust instead of the stock transverse system I was never a big fan of. From what I've seen so far, that's going to have to be fabricated, so I'll be looking for suggestions. The trans does not seem to be an original '79 Saginaw but a '78 Borg Warner 4 speed. We replaced the clutch kit and hope everything else is okay for now. Everythingis now cleaned and ready to berepainted before we drop it back into the car. The clip was removed and the front frame and wheel wells are cleaned ready to be repainted gloss black enamel. The camel interior was trashed but picked up some newer front seats along the way. We intend to replace the front/rear seat covers, headliner and carpet,cover the dash padand repaint the moldings all to the same camel color. We'll prime and repaint the car probably (for costs sake)to its original red and maybe add blackor white racing stripes and a rear spoiler. My son will of course make most of these decisions based on what he likes and what he can afford. The only things that I insist on are for safety such asreplacing the seat belts, all the front end bushings, shocksand brakes before the car moves and would like to eventually replace the rear drums with disks. For fun sake, I'd like to replace the rear end with something a bit beefier. Lastly, I'm upgrading the 14 rims and tires with 17's, but I'm taking care of that myself. Hopefully, we'll transform this tired stock 125 rwhp to around 240+ (putting him in the 14's?)that will be safe yet fun to race.
Sorry if I've talked your e-ear off, but I've seen some really impressive cars here and am looking forward to all kinds of opinions and suggestions.
Regards,
Don
New here from North Las Vegas.
I picked up a 1979 Camaro Berlinetta as a project car to restore with my 15 year old son. The plan is to have it ready for his 16th birthday in about 6 months.
Me. I've been into pony cars since I could drive. I've either owned or wanted to own just about every type of pony out there, both old and new, including a '68 and '80 Camaro. I still love'em all and am not intobashing any of them. (Well, with the exception of the 74-78 Mustang Ghia). I still love to race (I have an '02 Mustang) and here in Las Vegas everyone who likes to race is encouraged to bring their car out to the strip and off the roads. My son has always enjoyed coming with me, so I wanted to give him the chance to get into it himself. I chose the second generation Camaro because it was one of my all time favorites and made a good candidate for restoring without breaking the bank. Whether he stays with it or not will be up to him.
The car. We came up with a 1979 Camaro Berlinetta.The body was originally red and is unusually clean with norust or dents, but is now a badly sun faded orange(?) and chipping on the front clip.I'm pretty sure being originally a California car, it never went too far from this area. Unfortunately, it was barely running with 110,000 miles. The 305 may or may not bethe original but appears to have been rebuilt at some point. Because the compression was good, we decided to stay with it and breath some new life in it. So far, we did a 4 angle cut on the heads,put in a new Comp cam (Stage 1), rods, hydrolic lifters and replaced the stock 2 bbl intake and carb with a Weiand dual plane and 600 cfm Edlebrock carb. We've replaced the stock exhaust manifolds with Flowtech headers and eventually would like to go with a catted "X" pipe into adual exhaust instead of the stock transverse system I was never a big fan of. From what I've seen so far, that's going to have to be fabricated, so I'll be looking for suggestions. The trans does not seem to be an original '79 Saginaw but a '78 Borg Warner 4 speed. We replaced the clutch kit and hope everything else is okay for now. Everythingis now cleaned and ready to berepainted before we drop it back into the car. The clip was removed and the front frame and wheel wells are cleaned ready to be repainted gloss black enamel. The camel interior was trashed but picked up some newer front seats along the way. We intend to replace the front/rear seat covers, headliner and carpet,cover the dash padand repaint the moldings all to the same camel color. We'll prime and repaint the car probably (for costs sake)to its original red and maybe add blackor white racing stripes and a rear spoiler. My son will of course make most of these decisions based on what he likes and what he can afford. The only things that I insist on are for safety such asreplacing the seat belts, all the front end bushings, shocksand brakes before the car moves and would like to eventually replace the rear drums with disks. For fun sake, I'd like to replace the rear end with something a bit beefier. Lastly, I'm upgrading the 14 rims and tires with 17's, but I'm taking care of that myself. Hopefully, we'll transform this tired stock 125 rwhp to around 240+ (putting him in the 14's?)that will be safe yet fun to race.
Sorry if I've talked your e-ear off, but I've seen some really impressive cars here and am looking forward to all kinds of opinions and suggestions.
Regards,
Don
#4
12-24-2008, 06:09 PM
RE: New from NLV
welcome, if you want to hang out with some local f-body guys check out our club, www.lvcfo.org
we have the largest camaro and firebird club in nevada and if you want to hang out with some cool friendly people come check usout
we have the largest camaro and firebird club in nevada and if you want to hang out with some cool friendly people come check usout
#5
12-24-2008, 08:10 PM
RE: New from NLV
Cool site! Thank you for the offer. I just added it to Favorites and look forward tochecking out the group when the car is running.
#6
12-24-2008, 08:20 PM
RE: New from NLV
ORIGINAL: Y2Keglide
Sounds like a great project,that BW T-10 trans is a bonus,lot's beefier than a Saginaw.
Sounds like a great project,that BW T-10 trans is a bonus,lot's beefier than a Saginaw.
