Awesome times first time out or not. Must be nice to finally have some seat time after all the hard work. It's good to see someone following through on a project when some of us have had to put things on the backburner for now. Thanks for the awesome thread

 

Thanks Tony! Finally, right?!? I'm pretty pleased overall....could be happier with the 60' though....but overall happy. It felt to me like it coulda put a half an inch of air under the fronts, but hard to tell on feel alone. On my last pass I tried to get into the near lane but it was stacked full and the far lane emptied out. So the lane jockey moved me over. I was definately pissed, but oh well.

This all definately leaves me now wondering alot of things like, what will it run after the cam swap, what will it run with a carb spacer, what will it run with the exhaust off, and what will it run back down near sea level. A few questions I can hopefully answer soon.......but others will have to wait. I'd love like crazy to order up a plate kit for this car now, but I just can't feel good about it until I get a better rear under it. Thanks again man!

 

Thanks man! Can't complain with that kind of DA I guess. I've got the front suspension set up very loose and have a total of 5 inches of upward travel from ride height to full extension. It almost looks like the nose comes up too fast and it holds it up a little too long. I may have to eventually try adjusting the front shocks to 70/30 instead of 90/10, but for now it's hooking so I'll leave it alone. Running on 87 is definately a great benefit for now!

 

Thanks man. It was a great feeling finally getting her down the track after all this time.....and an even better feeling when all three passes were 11's. after the 11.94, I was afraid the rest would be 12's.....but I was pleasantly suprised. Stick with your project and it will eventually pay off for you, I'm sure.

 

looool, i forgot about the 5000 ft altitude and i agree there are little things that compare to the satisfaction (and bragging rights) of running 11's on 87 octane

 

Well, I can’t say there’s much progress to report on lately, but for good reason. Last weekend I started my new cam swap but quickly ran into some issues. Bottom line is the piston to valve clearance is way too close to call on this thing to trust it without pulling off a cylinder head and breaking out the solid lifters, adjustable pushrod and modeling clay. So, until I can get around to that, the car will be sitting.

But I did want to share some pics I took at this year’s SEMA Show. My wife and I left for Vegas last Wednesday and met up with my buddy Scott and his wife. Scott and I spent all day Thursday and Friday exploring the SEMA Show (thanks to the Opinion Leader Program) and we had a great time. I highly recommend trying to get there at least once! There’s sooooo much to see!!!

Anyway, here are a few select 2nd Gen pics (all LS swapped, of course) but my whole album containing all of the pics and a few vids can be seen here: http://s929.photobucket.com/albums/a...p/SEMA%202011/

But haters beware…..while many of the pics are GM and LS stuff, there is also lots of cool Ford and Mopar stuff as well. Also some auto industry “celeb” pics, as well as new products……so enjoy!

 

GC99TA, awesome SEMA pics, you are totally lucky to get access! What is this Opinion Leaders Program?

I have to say, those Trans Ams were probably my favorite. To bad they will never see the light of a production line!

Where you able to find out much about that Mallory firestorm ignition? I have been following a thread about it in the conversion forum (or was it the carb forum??) There is a lot of interest in it including myself. So if you have anything to share I am sure the guys there would appreciate it!

BTW, great build thread, and awesome car! I have been following your progress for the past few weeks. Good luck with your new cam! Hope to hear how you make it all work out.

 

Great pics from SEMA!!! I see your partial to the 70-73, Lol.. Cant blame ya!! I would love to attend one of those shows in the future. The matte black one looks evil like your Camaro does. Reminds me of the Road Warriors movie. That orange one looks like it would be a blast to drive though.

Whats the specs on the new cam? Your running an LY6, correct? I have the LQ4 with dished pistons I believe yours are flat tops. I had give thought to keeping my cam but adding 1.8 roller rockers in the future so let me know how the clearance issue works out. I know I had over the .100" recommended on the exhaust valve back when I checked mine with .590" lift 242@.050" on a 112LSA exhaust side. The lift on my cam wouldnt be as great of a concern if the duration wasn't so high. Best of luck and as normal keep the pics a coming.

 

Thanks man....it was a great time! The Opinion Leaders Program is a program SEMA has been running for a few years now that brings in "influential and active" automotive enthusiasts to view new products and help SEMA identify new trends. Basically, we were invited in on Thursday and shown a bunch of new products and asked to identify what we thought were the top five hot new products and why we thought so. When we were finished, we were given full and free access to the rest of the show for the remainder of Thursday and all day Friday. Anyone can apply to be part of the program by filling out an online survey that comes out each year several months before the show. Travel and accomidations are on you, but it's free to get into the show and a free shuttle service picks you up at all of the major hotels on the Vegas strip to and from the convension center. Oh, and we also got a free 2011 SEMA T-shirt as well. The best thing was spending face-to-face time with reps from the manufacturers, asking all kinds of questions about their product lines. Almost every booth I stopped at had extremely helpful folks. The guys at Comp, SPEC, Holley, Edelbrock, NX, and many, many others were very helpful! Like I said.......great experience! Here's a link to more info on the program for those who would like to apply next year: http://www.sema.org/enthusiast-faq

I agree. I didn't care for the 69 style one, but the other two looked great! I agree they'll never see production with GM, but from what I understood, those body kits are available for purchase to turn your 5th Gen Camaro into a "Trans Am". Very cool!

Unfortunately I wasn't able to find out anything more than what's on the plaquard in the pictures. But hopefully the picture of it is useful as I know many were wondering about it's actual size. It was very busy when I was at that booth and, at the time, I couldn't think of any "intelligent" questions to ask. I was also following that thread in the carb forum but I kinda checked out when it became a pissing contest over how people choose to express their opinions on the internet. I didn't seem like it was going anywhere useful anymore. Maybe I'll stop back over there and post my pics though.

Thanks for the compliment on the thread and car. Hopefully I'll get back at the cam later this weekend.

 

Thanks Tony! Guilty as charged on the 2nd gen partiality ! The SEMA show is all about the latest and greatest trends, so its nice to see a few early 2nd Gens fall into that catagory. The pics don't show it well, but that one that appears matte black is actually mostly all carbon fiber on the front end. The 1st gens were well represented too, but I've gotta say.....if I don't seen another 5th gen for a while, it'll be OK...LOL. Man, they were everywhere!!! But I still couldn't help but snap some pics of the LSA powered ZL1 concept and the COPO Stock Eliminator Concept car, as well as a few others that caught my eye.

The new cam is a 231/232-110+1 on HUC lobes. Correct on it being an LY6, but it has dish pistons with exhaust valve reliefs. The only reason it's slightly more compression (9.67:1) than an LQ4 is due to the slighly smaller (70cc) combustion chambers of the L92 heads over the 241's.

As you said, max lift numbers aren't going to be an issue for you; it's really the duration and, more specifically, the valve timing events (IVO/EVC points). Your clearance will be tightests from around 10 degrees before though 10 degrees after TDC when the intake valve is opening and the exhaust valve is closing. The 1:8 rockers would slightly increase your lift at these points, but I'm not sure it'd be enough to get you into trouble if you had plenty of clearance with the 1:7s. But, having said that, I'd talk to some of the guru's to see if they recommend 1:8s with your particular lobes. Some of these new lobes are pretty aggressive and they're already pushing the valvetrain limits with stock ratio rockers.

I'll definately keep you guys posted on how things turn out with my cam. Theoretically, it SHOULD have room, although probably less than the standard recomendations of .080 intake and .100 exhaust. But it's just too close to call with the "head on" checking method I started with. Basically, I find TDC with a piston stop so I can install a degree wheel. Then I install checker springs and roll #1 up to 10 BTDC. Next I push the valve down until it makes contact and measure the clearance between the rocker tip and valve tip, this giving my PTV clearance in an indirect manner. I repeat this process every couple of crank degrees on both valves until I reach 10 degrees ATDC. This method works great to confirm there is "plenty of room" but has to many variable when things are this close. So....so far all I've determined is that things are tight and warrant more precise checking the "hard way".

 

Subscribed...what a great thread. Lots to use here for my swap into my 80 camaro this winter.

Andy

 

Thanks Andy, I'm glad you found it useful. Don't hesitate to hit me up if you have any questions once you get started. Oh, and don't forget to start a build thread so we can all follow along!

 

You suck - you went to SEMA!!

I'd love to go to that event... I might try that program you submitted for next year.

 

thanks! who built that first 2nd gen you posted?

 

LOL...yeah...its definately a "must do". I know I'll be trying to go again. Maybe not next year....but soon!

 

Here ya go......



EDIT: There's some more information and pics here in the build thread. Not really a full build thread, but more pics nonetheless. http://www.nastyz28.com/forum/showth...highlight=Pink

 

Build threads on that car on Pro-touring.com and lateral-g.net as well.

 

After taking a break from working on the car for a while, I finally finished up the cam swap that I started the weekend before SEMA. I originally had concerns that this cam wasn’t going to clear based on my initial piston to valve clearance check. But after giving it some more thought, I realized that my method was flawed because I wasn’t taking lifter preload into account. But as it turns out, this thing has plenty of clearance. The tightest the intake gets is .090 between 5 and 10 degrees after TDC. The exhaust valve has ridiculous amounts of clearance at all points before and after TDC (around .180) thanks to the exhaust valve reliefs in the factory LY6 pistons. My only one concern is that this cam check out as being two degrees retarded from the 109 ICL it is supposed to be installed at, so it’s one degree retarded from straight up at a 111 ICL. But, I don’t think it will matter much. With my loose converter it can afford to be a little softer on the bottom and pull a little hard on the top. Plus, if my math is correct, the intake piston to valve clearance would be closer to .050 if I installed the cam on a 109 ICL as intended.
I still want to do a few checks like vacuum and cranking compression to compare to my old cam, but so far I’m happy with the swap. I took it out for a first drive today and, while it’s hard to tell by the seat of the pants, the car seems to pull a little harder up top. The plan right now is to head back to the track next Saturday morning. I’m hoping for better air than last time, but I’ll be noting the DA so I can correct the times for a fair comparison. For now, here is an idle clip with the new cam. The car had been warmed up and allowed to cool off, so there is quite a bit of condensation in the exhaust that caused a lot of steam……at least I hope that’s what it is. If not, this thing is smoking like a chimney.

http://youtu.be/IJ_XBeCxKTI

And just for comparison, here is an idle clip with the old 228/230-114 cam

http://youtu.be/7qEzp37xBVI

 

Real nice build so far, are you considering the factory metallic red again. Nice to see the old Camaro coming into the modern world.

 

Thanks man. I hadn't really considered the original color as it's was a darker red.....more of a maroon really and I'm not a fan of that color on these cars. My thoughts for the time being is something like a dark silver to a light charcoal color. I don't want something too light or too dark. Just something dark enough to set off the chrome bumpers and polished aluminum wheels. But since I'm buying a house next year it will be quite a while before this car sees any paint.