turbinesurgeon

I’ve been working on this since the summer, and I’m finally into the project enough to have something worth posting. I purchased a ’94 Camaro Coupe that had a V-6 and a 5 spd, and I intend to turn it into a LS powered, all wheel drive hot rod from the comfort of my own garage. The only work I plan to have others do for me is the machine work for the engine and drive train, and the final paint.

Plan on this being a long-term build thread, only spending $$$ as it becomes available. I want to finish it with-in the next 6 years for about $20,000.00. With $2,000.00 invested so far, I think I’m off to a good start. I’ve been purchasing core components (engine, transmission, etc.) to recondition, and doing the work myself to save $$$. I know it won’t be worth what I’m putting into it, but I’m building my next car exactly how I want it. Well worth the effort to me.

I’m building this to be a street car that’s unique, fun to drive, and reliable enough to take on road trips. I live in Tennessee, so as long as don’t run open exhaust I shouldn’t have any emission equipment issues.

Here are a few pictures of the Camaro while it was running under V-6 power…






I’m deleting the back seat completely, and mounting the engine in the back. I’ve found reverse rotation gear sets for the differentials I want to run, so the truly hard part in this is working out the suspension and CV axles. I plan on rebuilding the LS1 I have to at least match the power of a stock LS7. I plan on running a 4L-80E with a BW 4472 t-case. A GM 8.25 front diff from a newer Silverado will be out back with a Ford 8.8 IRS rear diff up front. Gearing will be 3.73 ratio. With all the room under the hood, after I add a decent sized fuel tank I will still have plenty of room for a trunk.

I plan on Hugger Orange and Black detailing similar to a stock late ‘90’s SS. 18x9.5 C5 Vette rims with black paint in all 4 corners. I’ll swap out the spoiler for an SS version, and plan on doing some custom touches to the front bumper and headlights. All of the fabrication needed to mount the drive train will be square tubing fabricated and welded to the unibody of the car, and covered up when the interior is built. There will be a fire wall and glass dividing the new engine bay and the interior.

I’ve already stripped down the Camaro to the frame. Already have a short block and the t-case. When I have cores for the transmission and both differentials, that’s when I’ll start cutting apart the car and fabbing up the framework.

Here are a few pictures of what I have to work with…

Guitar

iTrader: (9)

Now this is a tease thread...6 years!

JaYZeig

iTrader: (11)

interesting..

g.l with your build..

beatmeofficer

pretty cool stuff, good luck!

futureuser

iTrader: (1)

How is there room for an engine, 4l80, tranfer case, diff and drivesaft behind the front seats? This seems like a spoof.

futureuser

iTrader: (1)

Never mind. I get it. You will cut the car in half and stretch it like a limo to move the rear axel back far enough for it all to fit.

dkota1968

iTrader: (1)

I wonder if you'd be better off with a older r32-34 skyline gtr drivetrain. I think its a getrag six speed. May be easier for tight clearances. Obviously adapters would be needed.

BlumaroZ28

an awd camaro would sure kick ***! good luck and stick with it.

turbinesurgeon

You're right, all that won't fit behind the front seats. I just 38" of it back there. The front of the engine will be facing aft, with the transmission coming to the front. The reverse rotation gear sets I found for the diff make this work.

All I have to do is get the engine and the bell housing of the transmission on the other side of the fire wall behind the seats, then I can tuck the rest of the transmission and the t-case under neath the floor pan. I have enough rust going on that replacing the floor pan is a must anyway, just gonna fab one up to fit around the new drive train and square tubing.

projectX

iTrader: (51)

WoW This is gonna be sweet!

Blasko

iTrader: (3)

Definitely subscribing! Best of luck buddy!

chuckd71

iTrader: (23)

That engine looks familiar, curious to see how it fits in there.

turbinesurgeon

lol, I'm sure it does. Thanks again for the deal.

Haggar

Interesting. I'm very close to starting on my 1969 CJ6 build, which is going to be LS3/700R4/BW4472.

Have you got a hold of the adapter bits to mate the 27 spline 4472 to the 32 spline 4L80?

turbinesurgeon

I just pm'ed you the vendor I'll be purchasing mine from. There are adapter kits availible made for swapping a 4L-60E to a 4L-80E. It's a 27 spline output shaft with a tail housing made for bolting to the smaller t-cases. Herd about them in the sy/ty forum.

When I get this far in the build, I'll be posting the progress.

spacemanspif

iTrader: (5)

Good move, that color is TERRIBLE. I would have rattle can'd that bitch black as soon as I came home with it just so that I didn't have to look at that color any more. They spray painted the wheels but apparently the rest of the car deserved the top shelf paint job...

Good luck with the build will be awesome once its done...and painted lol.

xX-Z28-Xx

iTrader: (4)

Change it to hugger orange and you'll be good to go!

smurray

Care to explain your axle setup? Im curious why you are going to run the 8.8 up front with a presumably weaker 8.25 out back? I honestly know nothing about the GM diff but wont it be a lot of extra work to fabricate a front suspension around a non-GM rear differential (ie GM front diff could use factory front suspension hardware from something).

Given that you plan to turn this into a mid engined car wouldnt it make more sense to have the 8.8 out back seeing the highest load under launch? It sounds like you are almost going for a rear-engine type build with the block over the rear axle, like a 911.. That will be one funky handling camaro if it ends up with two thirds of the weight split over the rear end.

Very cool idea, I just wonder how long a truck diff is going to hold up to 500hp, turning in reverse. I wonder how the stock straight axle compares in size to an IRS setup. That would save you a lot of money if you could keep it solid out back, and it would be that much better at the track... So thats -$5,500 for your rear setup, i expect this build to be done in 4.5 years!

turbinesurgeon

The axle set up held me up for a bit, and I could still run into problems when I start putting it togather. I'm going for a rear engine set up purely to allow room for the AWD. I'm aware that the trailblazer SS has a very compact front diff set up that might fit with the engine. I say might because the stock frame rails sit fairly low on a 4th gen. Without cutting some of that out I'm not sure I have the room to build up the suspension with space for the drive axles. With the engine out back, I get tons of space to work with and no need to crowd steering components around the engine.

Plus I think an engine bay under the rear glass will look very nice.

So now I want to find a way to mount the engine as low as possible. A truck front diff works great since the carrier is off to the side, so modding an oil pan to let it sit low should be fairly strait forward. Seen some clean st/ty builds done this way, and my t-case will get a strait path for the prop shaft.

Building fully independent suspension will definetly be hard, but I feel I have the space to make it work. Expect a combo of factory and custom pieces here, not sure what will work until I know where my engine is gonna sit.

I could do a solid axle here, but it would have to be built with the carrier to the side. That alone could make it just as spendy, plus I should mount the engine higher to give it room to move. This could make the car more top-heavy than it needs to be. Not worth it to me, even if I save a grand going strait axle.

The weight in the back will throw the weight balance off, but I'm also cramming the extra weight of a 4L-80E with a BW 4472 mounted low and in the center. With both the fuel tank and radiator under the hood, I think the weight bias will be closer to 50/50 than 30/70.

The weaker axles won't be the issue, an AWD t-case splits the power between the two diffs. I've read up on alot of st/ty builds (since I am using their t-case) and alot of them are running the stock 7.25 and 10 bolt all the way up to 500 hp without issues. The GM 8.25 and Ford 8.8 are rated to handle more power, and I can find reverse rotation gear sets that match for both. Should be fine for a street car at 500-ish hp, even with both diffs turing backwards.

Having the stronger diff up front actually does make sense, a BW 4472 is rear torque bias. So with it mounted backwards with the engine and tranny more of my power will actually be going to the front wheels. Assuming I don't break traction, which will be hard to with AWD, I dought this will be noticable.

When it comes down to it, I'm building this to be unique. It doesn't have to be a race car, it's gonna cruise with some spirited driving every now and then. This is gonna take me quite some time to build, and I look forward to every bit of it.

turbinesurgeon

As you guys saw in a few of my photos, my floor pans have cancer. Eventually I'm going to cut it all away just to fix that. With the mods I'll be doing to the unibody to install AWD, the floor is getting ripped up and replaced anyway.

I'm going to basicly build a backbone for my car. Brace the center section with a square tubing cage, and tie it into the structure of the car. The fire wall and engine bay seams like a good place to start. Used some yarn and tape to lay out what I'd like to start with, think of it as a cheap autocad...





Orange yarn shows where I want to build beams, the green is just to hold it up for the mock-up. The spots where the back seats bolted down are just above the jack points, and the main stretch across the width is where I want the bottom of the plexiglass to be. Notice how I'm only going high enough to add some structure, but not so high it acts as a roll bar.

I can pick up 1" square tubing in 6' sections for $23 a pop, with some thick sheet metal and welder access it's really all about putting the time in to do it. I'm going to be welding sheet metal patches to the areas I want to tie in the tubing 1st, to make it stronger and easier to do.

The final backbone will span from the front firewall, over the drive train to support it, with ties to the unibody side sections, all the way to the back just behind where the fuel tank used to be. What I have mocked up is what needs to be built before I start cutting away my engine bay in the back.

Should take me about a month to build, then I start cutting