Been lurking for a while - mostly in the classifieds and thought I would introduce myself (and my car);

I came across a 1994 Camaro 1LE listed on Craigslist back at the end of 2018 - it was literally 10 minutes from me and after a bit of back and forth with the seller, I bought it home. It spent most of it's early life on tracks like Watkins Glen and was purchased new by an SCCA HPDE instructor. It never did any wheel to wheel racing, but it was pretty much a dedicated track car and was 'day 2' modified to suit.

It has the original (and mechanically stock) LT1 engine and T56 with a Hurst competition shifter, Koni Yellow DA's. Random Technologies torque arm. Hotchkis rear control arms, strut tower brace and panhard bar. Tubular a-arms, Eibach lowering springs. Torsen T2 4:10 differential. 4 point Competition Engineering roll bar. Cold air intake and TOTL exhaust with manual cut-out. The car came with a ton of documentation including the original race decals, track records, window sticker etc. Not long after purchasing it, I managed to track down some pictures of the car from back in the day;



There was a lot of documentation with the car and I reached out to a prior owner - he was very helpful in providing me with more details and information about it. It was sold to the person I bought from pretty much as pictured above. However that person wanted it as more of a street car, so he removed all of the original decals and sold the ZR1/SS wheels and race tires. This is how I purchased it;



The chrome ZR1 replicas and all-seasons had to go. I had hoped to pick up a set of OEM ZR1 or Camaro SS wheels, but they were hard to find. I eventually stumbled across a set of Corvette replica's wrapped with Falken 615K's on Craigslist and bought them home;



Then it was time to catch up on some long overdue maintenance. I did a complete fluid change along with front timing cover seals, waterpump, optispark, radiator hoses, PS pump, belts, plugs and leads. I did a lot of research on the distributor before taking a chance on one of the rebuilt units from eBay. It came with a new Mitsubishi optical sensor along with a MSD vented cap and rotor - so far it's doing the job. The front (drilled) rotors were cracked, so they were replaced. Finally I fitted ARP studs all round and added a set of UMI subframe connectors. A little bit of general cleaning and tidy up was needed on the exterior and I fitted a new headliner to replace the badly sagging original. It was finally time to use the car as intended!

So my wife and I joined the SCCA car club and headed out to our first Autocross. We had a ball, and my wife surprised the hell out of me by being very quick - she was just as hooked as I was and we attended as many Autocross events in our area as we could. This is how the car looks now (cooling off between runs);



Interior is mostly stock sans the pedals and roll bar;



And under the hood;



We initially started running in the same heats together - one of us would pull in, swap drivers, swap numbers (magnetic) and head back out again. But in the summer heat, that took it's toll and we eventually fried the PS pump. Problem solved with a replacement pump from Turn One and a PS cooler. Here's a quick video of my wife driving (and taking out a cone in the process);


Next on our list is more Autocross and some HPDE events. We are signed up for a weekend at PittRace in may where we are both looking forward to spending some time on track.

 

That's one clean ride. Looks to be in awesome shape. I think they made what 135 of them that year? Cool find no doubt.

 

That is a clean looking ride

 

Good Job saving a piece of history... Good job with the OPTISPARK I have found most issues people have with them are self induced..

 

Thanks - but photos make it look cleaner than it is. 135 is a commonly accepted number, but I've seen 138 on some sites too.

 

Welcome to the site. Glad to have others from PA in here.

 

First Autocross event of the year this past weekend. 150+ cars over two days - it was a busy one! Couple of pictures;