Phalanx - 1983 Camaro Z28 (Third Gen)

[Silentexile]

I started this project when I obtained this 1983 Camaro Z28 as my first car. Over the last five years I've dedicated much time, sweat, and swearing to this car and it's come a long ways from where it began. I've still got quite a few things left to do before its "finished" but it's fun (mostly) building a project car that's also your daily driver, with most installations being done on the weekend before the next work day rears its ugly head. When I started this project I couldn't tell you what an alternator was, now its quite a different story.

Here's what I started with.

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[Silentexile]

I started by having a Magnaflow catback exhaust system installed. Up until January of 2015 I had struggled to keep my car roadworthy as the entire mechanical z-bar clutch setup in the 82-83 Camaros are an engineering disaster and pretty much every connection point of the system on the original parts failed at least once. I bought a custom replacement kit off ebay because the OEM clutch linkage parts I needed are as rare as leprechaun tears. While several parts in that kit were of acceptable quality, the upper push rod eventually began to fail from excessive stress just like the original one and I took the plunge and bought an aftermarket hydraulic throwout bearing style clutch setup. I also installed a Sparco R100 seat and a set of American Muscle gauges by Autometer. As a stop-gap against some minor surface rust, I decided to spray-paint the entire car until I could get around to doing real bodywork and paint. The clutch pedal had also nearly been worn through from the lack of a bushing, so I had the worn area welded to restore the missing material and built a custom bronze bushing out of parts from the hardware store.

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[Silentexile]

In September of 2013 I spent a full month in my friends garage every day after work and every weekend to swap my tired old 350 to an ATK High Performance HP89 350 motor. Me and a few friends had all the accessories off and the motor pulled out in about a day and a half (my new motor was a long block, so I had to reuse a lot of parts). I then spent five whole days cleaning 30 years worth of grime and sludge from the engine bay so I could at least put down some black paint to better match the engine that was going in. While the engine was out I took the liberty of removing unnecessary wiring and routing the remaining wires into clean bundles tucked away as best as I could. I then spent another day or so getting the new motor in with the help of half-a-dozen or so car friends who were all too eager to help out. After that it was just a matter of putting all the stuff I took off back on the motor, adding fluids, and troubleshooting the engine as we fired it up. Doing an engine swap is so satisfying when you finally get to hear it crank over and start after all the hard work that went into it.

The right-hand side of the engine bay is still brown because I got fed up with all the cleaning I had done to the rest of the engine bay and with all the hardlines snaking all over the place I couldn't be bothered to fix it at that moment in time. As it turns out, I didn't really have time to mess with that area anyways because I was training to be an HVLP painter at my work while I was doing the engine swap and was on day-shift for a month. The motor was finished and started up for the first time on the Sunday before I went back to 2nd shift.

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[Silentexile]

I've also installed over the last few years:
-Griffin aluminum radiator
-Hooker longtube headers (black ceramic coated by a local shop)
-Ridler 645 wheels
-Billet Specialties streamline air cleaner and valve covers
-Billet Specialties 14" split-spoke steering wheel
-Aluminum 1-piece rear window louvers
-Single retractor front seat belts
-D2S retrofit projector headlights from Skinny Boy Lighting
-Stripped the interior rear plastics and repainted them black
-Replaced the z-bar clutch linkage with an aftermarket hydraulic setup
-Started bodywork on the lower ground effects pieces
-A few other odds and ends, mostly cosmetic replacement parts for broken, worn out, or plain looking OEM parts.

I also finalized and did a test-spray of my hood stripe pattern. In the next few months I'll be getting the steering rebuilt and when the weather gets warm again, hopefully get back to bodywork for the paint job. To finally bring this thread up to where I'm at now, I have an approximation from Forza 4 of what my paint scheme will look like when finished (the in-game car is a 1990 model and does not have the wheels I'm using, so there are a few differences).

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[cbpldc]

I love it! Will you be swapping over to the 91-92 Ground effects?

Here's my 92 RS. It was probably the nicest 3rd gen I've ever seen. Bought it in 2000 with 140k on it.

https://static1.pt-content.com/images/pt/2015/12/ry3D400-1.jpg

[Silentexile]

That car is super clean, and I'll be staying with the 82-84 ground effects for a few reasons. First is that I already bought replacement front and rear bumper covers for 82-84 and secondly it'll be cool to have ground effects that aren't seen very often, everyone seems to switch to either the 85-90 or 91-92 styles. I will however be swapping to a flat hood because my air cleaner rubs slightly on the original Z28 hood and most of the first gen Z28s (67-69) had flat hoods so it'll be kind of a throw back to the origins of the Z28. The hood struts that I have to use for my original smc (fiberglass) hood also barely hold the hood up when new, and when they've been on the car for about 6 months won't fully work unless the temperature outside is at least in the upper 70s. I always have to use a hood prop and it's kind of annoying.

[83rdracer]

Silentexile, great to see another 3rd gen and an 83 to boot. Looks like a solid clean car and you are doing a nice job of making a performance DD. I have a build thread, 3rd gen Z28 track day, on here as well. It is an 83 as well but a bit more radical with a 3 link rear suspension and 4th gen front suspension and will be more track day and autox focus. I will keep a watch for updates on your progress.

Dave