[cockerstar]

Well, if any of you remember I'm currently restoring/building a 1971 240Z. My dad has always wanted a '69 Camaro for as long as I can remember so when I saw a craigslist add for tins thing I dragged him out of the house to come look at it. For once, when a seller was advertising a camaro as "rust free", the car was actually rust free! All I could find was some slight surface rust in the passengers floor pan. Nothing that can't be touched up in 5 minutes with a sanding disk on the grinder. Mid question and answer session between me, my dad, and the seller, my dad blurted out that he had a $500 deposit right now and we would be back with the rest of his asking price in the morning with a trailer. WTF?
That moment added car #9 to the front of our house and started the second resto-mod going on right now at home.

We just got the car home today so I thought that I would start off the whole process by keeping you guys here on the nation filled in

Pics, then specs.

All loaded up:



Unloading:


My goofy *** backing everything into place:


That's all I have for now. I know it isn't anything amazing, but it gets the basic feel for the car across.

Here's what we know about the car so far:

Body:
Decently straight hardtop '69 camaro - originally dark green
Not sure on the trim, still have to look at the tag - definitely not a z28
small cowl hood
replacement fenders installed
d-80 spoiler
half interior - lacking carpet, matching front seats, and the dash face
peeling flat black paint

Breaks/suspension/wheels:
2" drop spindles up front
stock ride height in the back
big break kit up front - 17" rotors+Baer calipers
17" chrome wheels with low profile tires - still need to check specifics - as small as we can go to clear the rotors up front
Spare IROC rear end - future upgrade to disks in the back
PO installed the tie rods wrong (both the outers on one side, both the inners on the other )

Engine/tranny/driveline: (What we know so far, still more looking to do)

"Built small block that is barely streetable"
Edelbrock carb
HEI distributor
Comp cam - .501 lift, 244 duration
Gear drive for the cam
Longtube headers into purple hornies into turn-downs = loud as ****
Turbo 350
B&M ratchet shifter
10 bolt rear end




Lets see what you guys can come up with for this car. My dad and I are still undecided on where we want to go with this.
What would you do with the car if you had a budget of $8,000-10,000 (not including paint). Requirements are as follows:
1) Must be respectable looking when done. Something that you would be proud to cruise around town in and take to local meets and possible a few close shows.
2) Nothing to get into what would turn into a trailer queen!
3) Must remain street legal. We don't have any emissions tests to worry about where we live
Easy enough to follow?


On a side note (I would love it if someone with some experience could help me here), is having a gear drive instead of a timing chain bad for the engine? I have had two friends tell me that it produces negative harmonics and will eventually mess up the valvetrain. Legitimate concern, or just horror stories? Would you recommend going back to a timing chain?

Thanks for taking a look and I'll update my 240 thread tomorrow if anyone cares anymore.

[cockerstar]

reserved

[cockerstar]

2

[cockerstar]

3

[cockerstar]

4

[cockerstar]

5 and good enough

[over fiend]

nice

[kfresh]

Originally Posted by cockerstar

Lets see what you guys can come up with for this car. My dad and I are still undecided on where we want to go with this.
What would you do with the car if you had a budget of $4,000-5,000 (not including paint). Requirements are as follows:
1) Must be respectable looking when done. Something that you would be proud to cruise around town in and take to local meets and possible a few close shows.
2) Nothing to get into what would turn into a trailer queen!
3) Must remain street legal. We don't have any emissions tests to worry about where we live
Easy enough to follow?
.

save more money would be a first. its not going anywhere. just get it under cover and save some more money to restore the interior and such. check for bondo, i don't care how clean it looks if it has bondo that needs to be fixed. take the engine out take it apart make sure everything is together correctly. and for the love of god new wheels, i like the OEM's best..

[cockerstar]

Kfresh,
The 5k is just a preliminary guess on what we have to spend right now. In the process of selling a boat and a motorhome which should free up another ~12-15 grand. I'm not sure where all of the cash will be going, but I'm going to assume that a good chunk of it will be going towards the car. Maybe I really should edit that section and expand it to 10 grand.

Did a little bondo check (just tapping and listening) , and I'll be busting out the magnet tomorrow to do a more thorough check. Everything will come down to bare metal before paint so everything will show up. I could only find one little patch where it appears to have had a new rear quarter panel welded in. I didn't notice that it had been replaced until I heard the bondo spot and noticed a little seam weld.

I dislike the wheels as well, but my dad kind of likes them. I'd pick something OEM or something aftermarket that would fit the era of the car, but a 17" wheel is as small as we can go and still clear the calipers. I'll get a close up pic of what I'm talking about in the morning so you can see how small the clearance really is.

Thanks for the input

[originalspyderxtra]

for starters pull the motor cause your can make it streetable for sure. Swap the cam and ditch the gear drive. I haven't heard anything about the bad harmonics, but its a gear mesh, they don't last long and they are really noisy.
There are aftermaket rims that look like the stock one but will clear your giant brakes.
Interior is going to be expensive if your going all new. It be worth wile to search the web for forums where guys are selling decent condition interior pieces. That what I'm doing for my car. There is nothing less than 100 bucks for a single piece of my interior. I could get it for less than half in basically new condition from someone parting out a car.
A few other questions to help you out:
Hows the weather stripping? Is it all there? In good condition?
What kind of suspension parts are on there? Shocks any good? Do you want to modify the suspension?

[skins05.]

finish the interior, find a simple wheel (weld draglites would look like sex, but i dont think they make them that big... you could sell the brakes and put smaller ones on though, those brakes are overkill for a dd, especially if you dont have upgraded rears)

other than that, nice pick up, its a gorgeous car. mind saying how much you paid for her?

[Alan777]

I agree with skins. Unless your going to track it, BB kit wont help anyways. I'd sell it, and get smaller wheels.

Nice project though, I'm jealous.

[AntiHeightPunk (Banned)]

honestly id start with a haircut and working out

[Throwing-Ropes]

Originally Posted by AntiHeightPunk

honestly id start with a haircut and working out

Lmao! I'd then after that get rid of thoes ugly *** wheels.

[Zmechanic]

A "streetable" engine is a matter of opinion. The main criteria I use to classify something as streetable is if it can withstand normal driving while maintaining reasonable temperature. There are other issues, mostly concerning valvetrain wear. I doubt the valvetrain is that radical, since whoever built it used a gear drive (most likely for the noise it makes).

The guy most likely said it was barely street-able to make it sound better.

"This thing has a small block that is barely street-able"
"Is that so, Captain Duration?"

Something like that.

Otherwise, cool car. As long as no there's no covered up major rust spots, looks like it wouldn't take a whole lot to make it nice.

[East§ide]

awesome project..good luck with it

if it were mine, id lose the bigger brakes, do nice black leather on the inside,get a nice flat black paint and look like a straight badass..

[cockerstar]

originalspyderxtra, see below. I'd love to get some more/new advice for the engine now that I know a little more about what's under the hood. The interior looks trashed in that pic, but it really isn't The headliner is in fantastic shape and the original leather is good on 3.5 of the seats. New carpet, dash, center console, and door panels are going to be a must though. I'm happy with what I have to work with here.

skins, the interior will probably be one of the first things to be addressed after the suspension is taken care of. I do agree that draglites would look like sex, but I plan on upgrading the rears to compare to what's up front. At the least I'll be going with a basic disk set up. I can't really justify dropping another grand into the rear breaks at this point. My dad actually is alright with the wheels that are on it and would rather put the money into engine work or paint than into new wheels.
My old man paid 10k for the car. I think it was at least a decent deal considering that there isn't any rust that isn't sandable so far. Hopefully it stays that way!

Zmechanic, I wasn't expecting the engine to be barely streetable in reality. That's why I tossed it in quotes
I'm sure that it will be streetable power wise, and I'm hoping that reliability wise it will be too. The radical cam and gear drive have me scared though. If it doesn't have roller rockers, I don't know how safe I'll feel driving it. Opinions?


Well today was spent going over the numbers and referencing what we could find online to see what the car originally was. We can't find the build sheet, but it may still be under the rear seats (would have to remove the whole bench to look for it). Ran the numbers on the engine and came up with a real disappointment
This built and "barely streetable smallblock", no mater how freaking loud it is, is a 307

The starter also started squealing today. Really odd because the engine started right up like a champ last night. It might just need to be shimmed. We'll see on that one.

The power steering pump isn't hooked up, so I'm assuming it leaks. It's also missing the tensioner bracket, so it might be just fine and the PO just couldn't hook it up.

Current plans are as follows:
-Get under the car and have a look at the suspension. See if it really is the tie rod ends that are on wrong, or if there is something more serious. Suspension work isn't my cup of tea so it might go the the alignment shop for a proper diagnosis. If it gets taken into the shop I'll have them look at the drop spindles and see what they know about them. Supposedly they are a 2" drop, but the guy we got the car from seems to be a little 'snakey' if you will.
- Get the tensioner bracket and a belt to hook the PS up. Hopefully it is just missing the bracket, but if it leaks it isn't any huge loss at all. At the same time I'm going to replace the other belt to be safe. It has to come off anyways and it's cheap insurance.
-Pull the valve covers and see if this thing has roller rockers. If it doesn't I'm not going to be doing as little driving and revving as possible. I don't want to be ****ing anything up with this cam in. .501 lift is pretty radical for a small block
- Address the squeal with the starter. If it's going out replace it. If not, shim it correctly.
- Pick up a battery to be dedicated to this car. I'm tired of moving batteries around all of the time when I want to work on the car or drive anywhere. It always seems to be in the wrong vehicle whenever I want to do something.


Opinions on what to do with the 307?
Right now I'm thinking that I should just make sure that it isn't going to blow up on me. As soon as that's done I can move onto other things and eventually build something to replace it. I'm really disappointed that I didn't at least get a 327. I'd be happy to have found out that it was a 350 and would have been perfectly fine with a 327, but c'mon. A built 307?! WTF?!!


Thanks to those that have contributed!

Wheel close ups to show how close it is:






Here's what the suspension issues are doing to the tires! Not sure how well you'll be able to see the wear though.


edit: Found out which wheels I have. They are Millani *****ins in 17x8

[originalspyderxtra]

There is a really easy solution to your engine woes. Sell the 307 for whatever you think you can get for it. Pick up a 350 crate motor for less than 5k.
On the drop spindles, Id keep them if you like the stance. The drop spindles wont affect the suspension geometry as all it does it move the position of the spindle up.

[cockerstar]

Yeah, but because the engine is running my dad doesn't want "to fix what ain't broke" for the time being. We have a 327 block which we might build, but he has expressed interest in just getting a crate motor just because of the simplicity factor.

Looks like today we tear into the suspension. woooo.

[cockerstar]

Today didn't actually involve any suspension work at all. Go figure.
Don't you just hate those days where you spend more time running around town looking for specific parts rather than working on the car? Today was one of those days.

Turns out that I had power steering brackets from the early 70's and a PS pump from the late 70's. Great, just track down the right brackets and bolt it up. Easy enough, right? Not!

Found the right bracket for $5 at the scrapper, cleaned it up, painted it, and installed it. Then I needed new spacers to go between the head and the bracket. I swear that I spend a good hour and a half trying to find a god damn spacer at several auto parts stores. Got fed up with it and got some 1/2" pipe from home depot to make my own. Now the water pump and the new brackets don't feel like cooperating and I have some wrong sized belts to return. Still need to get everything bolted into place and hooked up. Also need to re-route the lines away from the drivers side header. I'm afraid that they're too close.

All this work to see if the damn PS pump leaks or not

Good news is that I found a complete and running 350 on craigslist for $100
Suffix code tells me that it's from a '73 or a '77 Nova. Casting # tells me that it might be a 2 bolt main though. I need to investigate.
Sounds like a possible candidate for a build to me!

[Sl1m]

My vote is for an LS1 swap, interior, new wheels, and new exhaust.

If you stick with a 350, make sure it's a 4 bolt main... With your budget you could build a nice stroker to put in it.