Pictures of the car when I bought it, the Red 1990 Firebird was my previous car.

I bought my 2002 Z28 Camaro Automatic back in January of 2015 from a guy in Kentucky, close to a 3-hour drive there and back. It was orignally from Flordia.

Ended up driving there twice, once to look at the car and the second time to buy the car after receiving a bank loan.

The car really isn't all that modified:
SLP Longtube Header
Borla Catback Exhaust
Jet Programmer
FiberGlass Hood

I purchased the car after getting a new job and loved driving it with my hour commute on the highway. The car originally came with 17-inch American Racing rims and Nitto NT555 tires on them, the car felt amazing but the roadfeel.... not so much, the 315/35's in the rear just didn't like the Tennessee roads.

I ended up selling the rims and tires for around 500$, sadly because I only had only person interested in the month or so I had the rims and tires for sale. Still hate that I sold them, but debt always trumps want you want/need.

It took me until march of 2016 to actually change it from 17's down to 16's, of which I almost feel now I should've found some 17's but I still think the ride is better with the current 16's.

It took almost 2-months to actually get tires after buying the rims. I had a local Firestone shop (of which I have a family that has a "partnership" with Firestone so I could get all 4 tires mounted, balanced and with full Road Hazard for around 350$, but after 3-4 weeks they still hadn't received them.
I then tried to purchase some Nitto NT 450 EXTREME tires off from Amazon, they ended up sending me 2 shipments (4 tires each) of the wrong size, so I had to yet again find tires.
I ended up settling on a set of Cooper Zeon RS3-A Radial Tires, which I'm happy with, but would've been happier with the Nittos...

I got a lot of compliments with the 17's, now I'm just a normal looking Z28.

What I've found fairly funny is that fact that I've not really had anyone try to race me, regardless if I had the more aggressive looking 17's.
I've really only had 2 times, one was a 4th gen mustang that had no chance (the condition of the exterior told me that from the start) and the second was a Scion FR-S, of which wanted to race by the girl-friend at the time was still afraid of my car. I don't count any riced out Honda as racing against them, as they mainly consisted of straight-piped cars that even at 50% throttle I'd pull away.

I've really only run into two "problems" with my car, the first being lifter tick that I do want to fix but would rather replace them all at once and a few not so needing of replacement parts that I have to take off while replacing them. The second is a power-steering leak, at least that's what I thought it was. After reading this forum I believe it to be that the power-steering fluid is getting too hot and that I should install a power-steering pump cooler. After reading about this, it prompted me to finally join this LS1 forum.

I recently got my car up to 185,000 miles but I'm going back to college, so I'm in the process of deciding if I want to keep the car or try to sell it. I love the car, I love the power and I don't entirely want to get rid of it. But with only a 15 minute drive to college I don't feel as if I'm respecting the car.


This is what the car currently looks like:















Why did I decide to buy the car?
I was looking for both a new car as well as a car I could enjoy, it was my present to myself for my job. I drove the firebird for I don't know how many years, starting during my Senior year of High-School. I took her just over 200k before selling.
In Tennessee everyone enjoys their Jacked up or stanced trucks, straight piped double clutching Toyota trucks or Mustangs.
Camaro/Firebirds really aren't that popular down here, which is also makes it harder to try and sell it.