What's new with the Camaro (AKA - Where my money went lately)
12/29/00 - All Gone
I'm sorry to say that the 1998 Camaro is no longer with me. I've decided to concentrate my efforts on the 1992 Z28 and running it in NASA's Camaro Mustang Challenge road racing series. In its place I have a 2001 Silverado pickup that does double duty as a daily driver and tow vehicle.
I'll be leaving this page up indefinintely in case anyone is looking
for things.
5/29/00 - Oil Cooler:
The oil cooler's in, install notes can be found here.
I also picked up some GlobalWest spherical bearing lower control arms, and an MMS ported throttle body. I have not dynoed the TB yet, but SOTP I can feel some gains from 4K on up. We'll see what the dyno shows.
5/16/00 - Videos:
I finally got some time to make some captures of the incar footage
as well as some stills from the open-track event at Willow Springs
- they are here
Oil Cooler:
I have the fitting for the truck engine's oil cooler. After a
little bit of fiddling around, I think I've figured out how to get the
fitting to mate up to the block and clear the various things (engine mounts,
alternator, rack) in the way. This week I'm off to Orme Bros to get some
AN fittings put on the ends, and then its off to PAW to start spending
some money on braided line.
Vibrations and other misc stuff
At a local listmembers suggestion, I pulled the rear bushing off of
the traclink's beam, and ground about 3/8" off of the nose of it. This
essentially moves the cone on the beam forward, giving the arm move room
to move forward. The difference was night and day! The it takes a very
bumpy road, and some hard braking to make the traclink 'thump'. Its also
smoothed out quite bit of the general road vibration that I was feeling.
I'll get some pics of the cut down bushing shortly. I also found that the
pass side bolts holding the PHR in place were about 1 full turn loose,
which would allow the rear end to move around (this would explain the 4"
long fresh rub mark on the inside driver's side fender.
Rod Ended PHR:
I picked up a rod ended double adjustable PHR
bar from Unbalanced Engineering. This is a very sturdy, well built unit
that uses quality rod ends. Contact me
if you're intrested in one.
High Bias Torsen:
HOLY COW! This thing is amazing! With this diff in the car, I'm able
to down power in right hand turns as hard, and early as with left hand
turns. Overall, I'm *very* impressed with this unit!. Torsen is apparently
planning on making these units in a limited quantity. If you are intrested
in one, email me and I'll get you
the contact information of the person to talk to at Torsen.
4/6/00 - Roll bar - Brake Ducts
Wow - its been a while since I've done an update. Work has been keeping
me busy. A lot has happend to the car since the last update.
In preperation for the Open-Track event at the Big Track at Willow Springs
on 4/1 - 4/2 a few more modifications were done:
Autopower 4pt Rollbar with crossbrace -
Brake ducts - pics are here - install instructions are here
Koni double adjustable shocks - Finaly got the fronts in.
Oil temp guage - I'll put some instructions and pics up as soon as I get some time.
Also picked up the last of the prototype high bias diffs from Zexel Torsen. That should be installed in a week or so as soon as I can get the car over to Hoopers again.
Ran the car at the Open-Track event at the big track at Willow Springs over the 4/1 - 4/2 weekend. WOW! That is a FAST track! I had a complete BLAST! A couple of pics are up here. I have some tapes from the in-car videocam. I should have some mpegs' of those up shortly.
The list of pending mods got changed - Its a never ending list =)
The car definintely needs an oil cooler. I was seeing around 300 degree oil temps during the sessions at Willow. Ed Varon in his '97 SS was seeing around 240 degree temps with his oil cooler.
9/28/99 - Tracklink installation notes
Added some notes that were taken during the traclink installation along
with some picture. Here
9/27/99 - Autox Pics
Added some pictures from the Autox
school
9/23/99 - Oil Temp Guage
The parts for the oil temp guage are on the way in. I started working
on this a few months ago, but after ordering the wrong guage, returning
it, and then loosing the interest and time to do it. There are some issues
to be resolved with coverting the fitting from metric to SAE for the sender,
but I think I have those licked. I'll get some pictures and notes up as
soon as its installed and working.
9/13/99 - Koni Double Adjustable shocks
I got very lucky and was able to score a set of used Koni Double adj
shocks for a great price. They are currently sitting in the living room
awaiting a trip to TriPoint Engineering to be dynoed and rebuilt if need
be. The pictures and notes on the shocks can be found here
9/1/99 - Durastop Front Pads
It turns out that GM, under the AC Delco name, makes a line of brake
products known as the DuraStop line. For '98 + f-body cars, there are Duastop
pads, rotors and calipers available. The Durastop rotors are abou $4 each
more than the stockers, I don't know if there is any difference between
the two. I don't currenlty have pricing on the durastop calipers, but as
I understand it, they are the same as the stock calipers, except they come
with the Durastop pads. I swapped over to the Durastop pads as the Carobtech
SS/F pads were starting to get a bit thin and I was getting tired of the
constand squealing of the SS/F pads. I'm very happy with the durastops.
There is no squealing when driving off of the brakes, there's only a hint
of squeal when the brakes are applied moderatly. There is no squealing
when the brakes are applied fully. The best part is, these pads are almost
1/2 the price of the stock pads, and more than 1/2 the price of a set of
the Carbotech SS/F pads. Overall I'm impressed with the pad, they have
great resistance to fade, and are verry easy to modulate. These pads work
great on the street and autox, but I'll continue to use the Carbotech Panther
pads for hot lapping type events, as they have a higher operating range
than the Durastops. The only thing that I can't comment on is their rotor
wear. The Panther pads are horrible for a street pad, as they eat rotors,
the SS/F pads aren't that bad. I think these Durastops are going to be
easier than the SS/F pads. Contact me
if you want the P/N for these pads, they are available at any GM dealer,
just tell the parts guy to look in the Delco catalog.
8/99 - 5 pt harnes
I should have put one of these in a long time ago. Its amazing how
much more consistent and faster you are when you are securely fastened
to the car, and not just a moving projectile in the car hanging on to the
steering wheel. I highly recommend this as one of the first things done
to a car.
8/99 - Corvette 16 x 9.5" wheels
The extra 1 1/2" of width really helped. With the 265 tires the pressures
can be dropped a couple of PSI across the board, and the car is a lot better
behaved in mid turn. A lot of the perceived push that the car had on the
16 x 8" wheels is now gone. These wheels were available on 1986 - 1988
Corvettes, but only as an option. They are visually the same as the more
common 16 x 8.5 wheel, so be sure to measure from the inside of the lip
to the inside lip on any wheels you are considering buying. If you measure
from the outside edges, you will get 9.5", that's not the true width of
the wheel.
7/99 - SLP HD Torsen diffential -
After 27K, the stock auburn unit finally got bad enough for me to warrant
replacing it. Actually, I should have replaced it about 10K miles earlier,
but I got lazy and you know how that goes. I highly recommend this diff
over the stock Auburn. Zyxel is currently working on a 'race' unit for
the F-body car. This unit will have more torque bias than the standard
and HD units, and will have some torque bias, which will allow you to get
the power down earlier on right hand turns. Contact me
if you want some information on how to hopefully go about getting ahold
of one.
Solo2.com
SoPac SCCA Region
The F-Body Organization
Southern California F-Bodies
Email: Nick