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Figured I would document the build up of my car to this point.
A little background, I had a 70 Nova I raced on the streets and track from high school into my mid twenties. Then I got into Rock crawling and built a show truck I did that for about 15 years. I got tired of going slow spending all day in the desert to go a half mile and deal with broken rigs along the way. Keeping a lifted Superduty perfect, clean, and show ready all the time became a P.I.T.A.
I ran into some old friends and decided it was time to sell the Superduty, Jeeps and get something that would get out of it's own way. I did some looking around and remembered stock 4th gen Ls1 F-bodies were 13 sec cars. That was all I would need 13 sec. car would be plenty fast enough. So after some looking around I found this 98 Camaro it was completely stock and had 127k miles on it. It ran good and the interior was in good shape, but paint was rough. Figured it would do exactly what I wanted.
I took it to local track the second night I owned the car. It ran 13.8-13.9 spinning with bad 60' times. I decided with some better tires it would go a little faster and then I would be done the car ran good enough. So I bought a set of M/T drag radials and Jeg's Drag Star rims. I took the car back out the following week, it hooked every pass and run 13.5's
That same night I entered the the little bracket race the track put on and I won it.
Soon 13's weren't good enough with a bit more work it could go 12's. I started looking around the internet and found some Camaro and LS1 websites then started reading. I put every bolt-on part I found a LS6 intake, headers, catback, SLP Cai, I did the emission delete stuff. I had Sean at Top Gear Motorsports build the transmission and put a 3600 stall converter in it. I also didn't like the way the flat stock hood looked so I got a VFN Sunoco bolt-on.
At this point I knew 12's were not going to cut it anymore either I installed a Nitrous Outlet 78mm plate kit and has NicD tune the car. With a stock internal engine the car run 12.7 on the motor and 11.40's on 150 shot.
All of that happened in the first 6 months of owning the car. I kept the car the same for almost 2 years. Then again it was time to go a little faster, I figured with a cam and heads it would run 10's.
I found some 243 casting heads to put on the engine and installed a TSP MS3 605"/610" cam. I figured that would give me enough power with nitrous to get into the 10's. I get the engine put all together and running. I took it to NicD to get tuned, but something was wrong the engine made some noise and didn't run well. I started to take the engine apart and found the timing gear had walked back into the retainer plate putting metal shavings into the engine. I later found in had worn out and spun the #1 rod bearing trashed the crank. So the plan to build it from a bare block began. I started with Wiseco forged pistons and Eagle H beam rods. I ran the MS3 cam and had the heads milled to 60cc to get back some of the compression lost from the valve reliefs in the forged piston.
Had it tuned again and drove it this way. I took the car to Firebird for it's last Friday night drag. I made 1 run on the motor with DA corrected it was a half second and 4 mph quicker than it's previous motor run.
This is where the plan started spiraling out of control.
I still wasn't happy with how the car ran I wanted more. Was a little scared of how much more the stock 10 bolt would take so I replaced it with a Quick Performance 9" narrowed 3" per side. I has 3.70 gears, 35 spline axles and a spool.
Bought Weld 15x10 Prostar and Hoosier 325/50/15 drag radials.
Got rid of the Borla catback replaced it with 3" true duals and Magnaflow 4x9 mufflers
The heavy Jegs front wheels had to go I replaced them with Racestar 15x3.75
High 10's were not going to cut it anymore the goal became a bit quicker.
I already had subframe connector and rear Lca from when I first bought the car. I started gathering suspension parts I bought Midwest Chassis tubular K-member, MWC front Lca, Strange shocks double adjust for rear and singles adjustable with 275lb springs for front.
Installed a MWC 6pt. rollbar, Kirkey seats and RJS 5pt. belts
I knew I wanted the car to get down to 3000lb so I started pulling weight from the car A/c came out, front bumper support was replaced with MWC support. I was going to use a single plane intake and 4150 T/b. So the cowl and and bolt on hood had to go. Replaced it with VFN extended hood and Racecraft Dzus rail.
Progress has been slow since work has taken most of my time. I decided to repaint the car while it was pretty well stripped down to nothing. The color is Electric blue pearl from a 07 Dodge Ram.
Stripped the engine bay of everything and cut the cowl to the windshield
repainted the engine bay and begin bolting on the new front suspension parts and the manual rack
Sealed up the firewall and cowl openings add a new manual master cylinder and line lock from Burthart Chassis
Got all the suspension bolted on and back on its wheels
While I had everything off and apart I cleaned up the wiring and deleted the wires I didn't need anymore and tucked the fuse boxes down where the air pump use to be.
Bought the block off plates from Birdman here on LS1tech
I painted the door jams, roll bar and rear hatch.
Front end all put back together
With some help from a friend, the engine was assembled for the most part,
The interior is back together The dash is out of a 98 T/A and bolted in the 2 5/8" Autometer Cobalt series gauges and moved the AFR gauge up to the A pillar.
The engine and transmission were set back in, all the plumbing is complete. A couple of the fitting on the nitrous system need to be changed. Still have some wiring to finish and some small parts are waiting to get delivered. All the brake lines are ran and the system is bled, I still have to mount the master brace. I need to figure out a upper radiator support, I think I'm going to use the BMR piece but I'm not too thrill with it being polished.
Changing the spark plugs in cyl. 6 and 8 went from being the hardest to now the easiest.
Out of the garage under its own power this year. I decided to get the BMR radiator support, not sure if I'm going to leave it polished or paint it to match the car. Out in the sun if you catch the support just right it's quite blinding. Lol
Thought it would be fast enough THERE'S NO SUCH THING AS FAST ENOUGH!!!! lol
looks good.
Thats how my cars turning out, your gonna not do anything to it then next thing you know its gotta cage in it lol
Beautiful car. Reminds me of mine a little in it's "mid stage" ...kind of died a little on the inside seeing you stray away from NBM though
Your car and several other that look the same with Pro stars, extended hood and NBM paint are the reason I changed mine to different color wanted to separate myself. Truthfully your car is the reason I chose the Race Stars over Pro Stars for the front rims.
Your car and several other that look the same with Pro stars, extended hood and NBM paint are the reason I changed mine to different color wanted to separate myself. Truthfully your car is the reason I chose the Race Stars over Pro Stars for the front rims.
I've only seen like 1-2 other NBM cars with the VFN extended hood lol...but I don't get out much in the LS world anymore. I eventually ditched my Racestar/Prostar combo for Weld RTS and 17" Alumastars and I'm fairly confident that I was the only NBM with that combo lol!
Latest update:
The car is in paint right now. Can't wait to get it back so I can start testing and get the bugs worked out, now that the weather is cooling down nicely.
Looks exciting. What are you expecting it to run when you are done? You look to have a very good setup.
It only has a 6 point bar in it so I will run 10.0 and 6.50 index classes this year. Next summer I will consider making it 8.50 legal, I fully expect it to run 9's high or low will depend on nitrous sprayed.
08-31-2014, 01:11 PM
98 Camaro build 
THERE'S NO SUCH THING AS FAST ENOUGH!!!! 
lol 
