Fourth-gen Camaro Owner Documents His Epic Engine Journey
Long-time LS1 Tech member finally gets his killer Camaro running again after years of heartache and struggles.
Many of us know the struggle. You drop countless dollars into making your ride fast, only for pricey parts to break under load. Longtime LS1 Tech member SRZ knows that struggle well, as his fourth-gen Camaro project has used a host of engines to propel it down the track over the years. But no matter how much bad luck he endures, the OP just can’t quit his beloved ride. And neither can the rest of the community. So we were happy to see SRZ recently got to work reviving his Camaro once again, after providing a recap of what’s happened so far.
“I lost the last engine built by Midwest Engine Tech in 2006 due to catastrophic failure with only 800 miles back in 2011. The failure came from swapping over to an EFI 24x cam plate. The three studs backed off the cam. The cam did the journal walk shuffle and the lifters decided to no longer lift. The other lifters just failed and cracked the block in the process Back in the U.S. in ’08 I did manage to get it tuned to a degree. It made 657 hp with a base tune on the first pull. Two pulls later it threw the 12 rib belt and trashed the ignition system as well. Hence the switch to a hybrid system I built using the EFI 24x and F.A.S.T XFI along with their XIM box to run a CoP setup.”
The second attempt at a tune ended in disaster, however.
“After tearing it down and doing a compression check, #7 was zero and the remaining seven were 15-20 psi. This thing started up every time with 20 psi in the cylinder. I can only attribute that to F1 and the last tuner, who woke it up big even though we knew it sounded off. But we couldn’t figure out why 13 miles into, it let go.”
After this adjunct disaster, life events put this Camaro project on hold for a while. But that break also allowed the OP to find himself a new builder. In 2014, he dropped off what was left of the engine for a complete redo. The original block wasn’t salvageable, so they sourced a new one. And to that base, they put together a combo that hopefully would last a bit longer this time.
After fiddling around with building a house, the OP finally got around to working on his new setup last year. And mere weeks ago, he got the new engine to fire. He’s quite confident that things will work out this time, with a 700+ hp goal on pump gas and 850+ on meth. And as one of the oldest fourth-gen Camaro projects here in the forums, we hope he not only gets there. But that this time everything holds together for a while!
Photos: LS1 Tech Forums
