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Well after a few years of fooling around and being anti-social on this forum i decided it would be a good time to start documenting my Build Thread. I cant over state how important this site has been to help get me to the ~10% mark on my build. Hopefully someone out there can find my photos, misfortunes and dumb luck as helpful as i have found others here ! I am about 2 slow years into my build so a lot of what i am posting now is old news, but interesting none the less. I will try to post weekly to help keep myself motivated ! It is going to take me a while to post all the photos so far so please be patient
The Car
1999 Camaro SS, 5.7L LS1 , T56-6SPD
Navy Blue Metallic, Gray Interior, T-TOPS
Taken off the road : 9/15/2012
Mileage: ~190,600
Major Issues
Transmission Slipping/Grinding into 2nd Gear
High Mileage Engine, Loss of power, Worn, Small oil burn
Interior in rough shape
Years of garbage Built up under the front and rear seats.
After digging deeper into the car i decided that i would actually gut the whole interior. My beautiful fiance (Girlfriend at the time) was not so happy with my decision !!
I bought the car from my Aunt and Uncle. Its very clear they let my cousins eat in the car !
More garbage .... At this point it became apparent to me that a simple cleaning and transmission job might not be sufficient. Even if it was, i would be putting a band-aid on the wound(s).
Out came the interior.
The front clip and accessories came off.
Bye bye bumper....
I bought a car shelter from shelter logic. Unfortunately i did not anchor it properly at first and Hurricane Sandy threw it across my parents yard ! It survived but has a lot of patchwork. Lesson Learned.
Not everyone is lucky enough to have a garage, a lift, a friend to lend a hand, or even nice level ground. I had to improvise to get the engine out.
I knew my fancy and expensive degree in Civil Engineering would eventually pay off one day.
Tree + Chainfall = Success !
With the engine out and in the back of my truck my friends decided to show up. Thanks ! Actually my friend Joe in the far ground did provide help before hand. Thanks Joe.
Begin Engine Disassemble.
I love the smell of motor oil in the morning !
I decided to have a yard sale, nobody showed up
The aftermath
A bare block !
For the sake of not crashing my computer or the site i will do a break in the post now. If there happen to be some comment in between i apologize in advance for not getting to them.
So the majority of the photos uploaded above took place in the Summer of 2013. As a recap Summer of 2012 was when i purchased the car. I parked it in the tent for the winter. Opened it back up in Spring 2013.
To give you some perspective I live roughly 20 mins away from my parents where i keep the car. I work in Queens NY and commute an hour plus each way everyday. This being said, i don't really have it in me to make the extra 20 min drive to get in 30 mins of production after work. Unfortunately i am confined to the weekends to do my work. Since i have no garage and i am located in NY i also only get about 6 months of cooperative weather a year.
2013 saw a lot of tear down work. I followed that up this year (2014) by getting the front end into shape and starting to make some major purchases.
If i have to move the car, this is how i was acomplishing it, with an old tractor frame. I just found out my dad put the old tractor out to the curb so i have to find an alternative until the k-member is ready.
I originally thought i would be able to salvage the the upper control arms as well as the lowers.
K-Member with sway bar and lower control arms still attached.
I scored a great deal on these slightly used Eibach springs from one of the forum members.
This was a daunting task, removing the old bushing from the control arms. I did the best job i could do. Ultimetly i think i am going to end up going with a BMR front end. It Would be a shame to do all this work to recycle such worn parts....
Cleaned up and ready for some chasis black. Still not sure what my game plan is here. I am still leaning towards BMR front end.
The aftermath of bushing removal. I proactively bought a new red poly bushing set only to find out i need to reuse the old metal sleeves...... what a bummer !
Ahh finally some hard parts and harder times financially. I will post the engine specs below.
I am keeping the wraps on for now. My parents basement gets damp so i cant afford to let moisture in.
Beautiful Patriot 243 heads !
Again, a great deal on the springs !
All new brake lines from classic tube. Hopefully these were a good investment.
Last edited by Pbeyer2010; 09-14-2014 at 05:31 PM.
As promised, below are the specs for the engine. Originally i was looking to stroke my original LS1. After doing some shopping i realized that my power goals along with my zero experience with engine building would make this cost prohibitive.
I found a gentleman named Roy Corso who was located in a neighboring town. Roy is a retired engine building instructor who specializes in LS Engines. He put together a reasonably priced package using an LQ4 block that should put me well into the 400 RWHP range.
6.0 engine
block bored 4.030
forged flat top dss pistons
scat pro series rods
file fit plasma moly rings
trick flow cam 238 242 .595 lift 112ls
mls head gaskets gm
arp head bolts
gm hp oil pump
cloyes roller timng chain set
trick flow push rods
243 cnc ported heads with 2.05 and 1.60 stainless steal valves
double valve springs with titanium retainers
gm rocker arms
ls7 hyd roller lifters
The pieces i am currently missing are:
LS6/Fast Intake + Throttle Body
42# + Injectors (To feed new cam)
High Flow Fuel Pump (To Feed new cam)
Headers + Exhaust
Anyone with a similar set up care to venture a guess on some power numbers i can expect??!!
I went a little more aggressive with the engine than i had planned so i realize i need to upgrade some of the other components like fuel delivery as well as the rear end. Unfortunately, i don't have money for the rear end right now so that may just have to wait.
As far as the transmission goes, i am lucky enough to live right around the corner from Rockland Standard Gear. I got a quote and i am waiting to build up the funds on my end.
All this takes us to the end of Summer 2014. I got Engaged this August so as you all can imagine, my Camaro Funds are Lowwwwwww. Also, i did not got much time this summer to work on the car. I was really hoping to bring this car to the ADK Nationals last weekend but it is far from complete.
Can someone help me out with this? I want to save some money and use the old oil pan. I noticed that one of the two ports above the filter had a jagged baffle in it. Is this how it is supposed to be? It does not look machined and my guess was its broken. One or two forum members already told me thats how they come but i just find that so hard to believe.
Today's project was to clean the tent and start to get it ready for winter. As you can see it is not as clean as it was 2 years ago.
I want to paint the engine compartement with chasis black before the winter. Can anyone with expereince with this comment on the removal of the Heater box, brake booster and wire harness through the firewall. I want a clean paint job but it looks like i have to remove all this to do so. I have Eastwood's rust encapsulater and chassis black.
Also on today agenda painting the valve covers.
I cleaned with steel wool , tractor supply prc-1000 degreaser, sanded with 320 grit sand paper.
2 light coats + 2 heavy coats of VHT Gloss Black Engine Enamel. I will do a few coats of VHT Gloss Clear during the week. Hopefully i wont get kicked out of my apartment for painting on the porch! <br/><br/>I plan on doing the coils in red, thoughts ??
Your going to have to pull the entire dash out to get the A/C box out of the fire wall. Do you plan to retain the A/C or are you going to delete it ? Here's some pics of the fun...
Your going to have to pull the entire dash out to get the A/C box out of the fire wall. Do you plan to retain the A/C or are you going to delete it ? Here's some pics of the fun...
haha yeah i am so not dealing with that! i will get the brake booster off and deal with working around the heater box and wire harness.
Well I got home from work today and hit my covers with clear. The sun was going down so I couldn't see that well but it looks like the base started to crack/peel.....
Is there any salvaging this paint ? Maybe hit it with some fine sandpaper and apply another few coats of black then clear ?
Thats a nice tent setup! Where did you get it? How much? Nice build!
Thanks, the tent was around $525 with shipping from home depot. It is a shelter logic 12 ft. x 20 ft. x 8 ft. Round Style Shelter. The roof is patched together now and its pretty heavily infested with spiders but it keeps the elements off the car. I'd be lying if i said it was a great "workspace" in its current state.
I found a great thread online on a mustang forum of a guy who set one up in his driveway with a plywood floor. I am on dirt so i don't know how it would work. Right now i just have poly down on the floor. Here is the link to the cool one in Connecticut.
Managed to make a trade today with Charlie from sick speed performance. Thanks again charlie !
A little sandblasting in the near future and some fresh paint and these headers are ready to get installed.
that is a lot of rust - check for leaks before you do anything with them. years ago i had some midlength headers in that condition and they ended up having leaks in both manifolds.
that is a lot of rust - check for leaks before you do anything with them. years ago i had some midlength headers in that condition and they ended up having leaks in both manifolds.
09-14-2014, 04:49 PM
99 Camaro SS Build Thread (Picture Heavy) 
