chvy

Here's my new camaro, 1984 2.8 LC1 "high output" lol, 102hp/145ft.lbs. This is the first pic I found, this was in my neighbors driveway after he painted it, almost a year ago now. I'll get some more pics up in the next week or so. This is the condition and paint it sits in now, but dirty, needs a good coat of wax.

My plans for it in the next couple months are to get skinnier tires, get the engine in good running condition and do all maintenance, replace what needs to be replaced, then get a lowering kit. The front looks okay but there is a terrible gap that I cant stand in the back

aaron0991

I like that a lot, makes me want to do a two tone theme to the 88 firebird i just bought.

K-slice

iTrader: (2)

I like that 2 tone job too, it fits the car's time period well.
Don't hear too many people wnating to get skinnier tires. Whats on there now, they look pretty skinny to me.

chvy

Thanks guys, the paint idea was from a magazine I've been trying to find a picture of it. The paint scheme was on a race/drag 4th gen camaro. He liked it so much that he copied it, but the paint on the 4th gen was red/white/blue instead of orange/red/black. He changed the colors because he was a big harley guy and had a few bikes similar to those colors and just liked those better.

I'm not sure what size tires are on there now, its still sitting in the neighbors back yard until I get the insurance card for it... this pic is from a year ago of one that I found. I wanted to go as skinny as 155-175 with the same height (trying to get real good gas mileage out of this car), but found that they won't fit on the wheels. So I looked at the skinniest size that'd fit on the wheels with largest diameter for the lowest rpms on the hwy, I did this a few days ago so don't remember exactly but it needed something like 195-215 aspect ratio, which is stock tire size anyway

Project 3.4 Camaro

Those rims are aftermarket, and stock tire size varies with the rims the car came with factory..IROC-Zs for example came with 245/50 R16s stock.

chvy

they used to be chrome cragars, but the center spokes were all rusted so they were painted black. I just looked, they're 14" wheels, thought they were 15". The rear tires are 215/70/14 and the fronts are 205/70/14 (stock size). The front right tire tread is completely rotted off the tire and the others are rotted pretty bad too

It looks to me like there's a little more room on the rear wheels than the front, so they could be different widths, but I'll find out when I take the tires off. The stance looks pretty good like it is, but I might change the front tires to 185/75/14 instead of 205/70/14, just to let the front end sit a little lower and with a skinnier tire give it a nicer look and fitment with the lowering kit.


It'll be running at 2100 rpms with that tire setup at 70mph, so I am going to switch the rear gears out from 3.23 to 2.73. That way it'll be running 1750rpms instead of 2100. I'm thinking about a gear vendors unit, to drop the overdrive from .7 to .546 when I'm cruisin on the highway. It'd be spinning 1350 rpms at 70mph, should be able to get a good amount over 30mpg out of it then if everything is in good driving condition

Project 3.4 Camaro

Um...that would make the front sit higher than it does...and 205 really isn't that wide, my lumina sedan had that tire size, my buick century has 185s and it handles like absolute crap because of it, also doesn't get great mileage. Honestly if you want mileage you're going about it the wrong ways...2.73 gears, and .546 OD will absolutely murder your getup and go, even if you had a 245 hp 350 TPI it probably would, I'm guessing you have a v6 though, with those gears, good luck merging onto the highway! :P
Seriously though, do a full engine tuneup, advance the timing, do a better intake, maybe even an air foil, put a new catback exhaust and high flow cat on it, maybe some headers and as long as you don't step on it you can probably hit 30 mpg, and you won't need a tow truck to get you up to highway speed for merging either....

In the end you should do what makes you happy, but I honestly don't think what you have planned is wise, or the right way to go about things, and you are really trying to turn something into something it was never meant to be, Camaro's are built for performance, not mileage....You wouldn't use a circular saw to cut down a tree would you? same concept... just my advice/.
Edit: Knew I was forgetting a mod, the right camshaft would also help improve mileage.

chvy

I'm not turning the camaro into something it's not, the 4cyl camaro got mid 30's hwy mpg around the same years.

No the front wouldnt sit higher than it does right now:
185/75/14 tire height diameter = 24.92
205/70/14 tire height diameter = 25.29

Being smaller the front tires will wear faster through more revs per mile, cornering should only be slightly diminished, but it will sit a tad lower and have less rolling resistance, also being skinnier it will have more turning radius before hitting the fender lips on full lock ->->when I get the lowering kit in.

I understand your concern about making all camaros into performance vehicles. But this one has 110hp if I'm lucky (being so old) and also 145 or so torque. Let's put it this way, this particular camaro is slower than my stock 1990 1.4 civic 4 door not bashing camaros at all it's just the truth, what in gods name is the point of trying to make this car faster on the stock engine/tranny/rear?????

Overdrive gear is only used for cruising. Lower rpms=better gas mileage, especially on a carbed engine. When you want to pass someone on the highway, the tranny will downshift and move around them, I just hit a button to turn off the gear vendors unit and goes back to .7 overdrive just like always, then step on it and trans downshifts, get to where I want to be and turn the gear vendors overdrive back on again. 2.73's vs. 3.23's is not as radical as some gear changes... oh damn I'll have a 12sec 0-60 instead of 10 sec.

If I want a cool looking car that gets 34 hwy mpg then whats the big deal? At least I'm not ricing it out and shoving 200hp worth of nitrous in something thats just going to blow to bits and still loose to 85% of purpose built performance cars. You also posted this on my other thread and I made it clear exactly what the car is going to be built for, why the **** would I build something that I already have two of in my driveway, fast/terrible gas mileage cars. My honda is gone in 6 months and the camaro will take its place, and they will get the same gas mileage thank you very much. It's going to be a cool, fuel efficient, daily driver

Edit: None of these 3rd gen camaros are factory built for straight ahead speed, which is the only performance I like. If I wanted to make this car fast I'd gut the interior, have a poor mans 4 link welded in, brace the unibody, and throw a cheap old 800$ big block and find a nice powerglide for it. But then I'd have another fast car with 8-12mpg

Project 3.4 Camaro

Just not logical to me, but like I said, doesn't have to be, do what I say not what I do,lol-ie. if you want to build it like that do so(I would build for power, and don't care about mileage as long as its more than 10 mpg :P), and for the record, assuming I'm right about it being a 6 cyl, the things have more potential than most people realize, and stock drivetrain can typically handle 300 hp as well. Curious have you considered swapping in a newer 4 cyl engine, like an ecotec or something, might be a great way to get even more mileage, but Idk if you just want good/great mileage or the best...but if you want the best the things I suggested doing would help even more if you did them along with the stuff you already are, anything that makes the engine flow easier and have to work less, improves both mileage and power.

chvy

I did look into swapping a 4 banger, but it would be too much money. Which also isn't the object of this car, I'd like to keep the whole thing under 6000$, preferably under 3,000$. I'd want to keep it stock and any 4cyl - ecotec/quad4 etc would need a custom intake setup with sidedraft weber carbs, which that by itself is very expensive. (don't want to mess with fuel injection harness) My ideal setup would be a DOHC quad 4 HO that could run on low test gas. The bellhousing adapters alone are 500$, carbs/intake/exhaust manifolds/welding and bracing for the engine mounts another 2000$, not including price of the engine and any other parts I need. But then the cars that came with the quad 4 or ecotec and are about 3000lbs like the camaro are only seeing mid 30's mpg.

It stands to reason that if people are seeing 30mpg on stock 2.8's in good tune with their foot out of it, that I could get another 4-5mpg by drastically reducing the gearing on the hwy. If the stock 2.8 runs at 2100rpms at 70mph, and when I'm finished it runs 1350rpms at the same speed, the that should be good for at least 3-5mpg's. When it's at 60mph it'll basically be idling while cruising the hwy. This idle/driving isn't as bad on carbureted engines as fuel injected ones, which I think gas engines are supposed to cruise around 1700-2200rpms I think about 70% or more of my driving for the daily driver is hwy miles. The plus is I don't have any major modification to the drivetrain, just swapping out some parts that all bolt on here and there

Project 3.4 Camaro

Hmmm, the 4 banger in those other cars though is stock I assume, so you might get as much as 40, and I really don't think it would cost nearly that much to do that, anyone that wants that much is trying to rip you off, and fuel injection harness wouldn't be a big deal at all, just swap over the whole ECM and harness, have an exhaust shop hook up the manifolds on it to the exhaust, I THINK you might be able to use a FWD transmission without really modifying anything, I'll find out who it is that's doing that, but honestly it shouldn't cost more than 1k for the install if you know someone that does cheap work and will get into custom stuff like that.

chvy

Ya the 4cyl would be the most efficient, but it's just too much money and effort on my part too. Don't really want another big project, maybe later down the road I can swap an engine. My favorite would be a fully built quad 4 - they're easy to mount longitudinally and can use rwd drivetrain, plus they can be built to over 200hp/tq without much of any effort. But if I had that kinda money to spend on an old beater I'd just do a 3.8 turbo and full drag bracing/suspension.

The reason the 2.8 is great for this car is it has a lot of lower end tq compared to any 4cyl, so it's possible to be using more throttle/gas with a smaller more efficient engine and then it's diminishing returns for all the time and money spent

jensen73110

iTrader: (4)

Since you'll be cruising a lot at highway speeds, check into aero mods. Flat hub caps, closed up front, headlight covers and such.
I'll be interested to see the results.

chvy

Thanks guys, I'm going to do a few aerodynamic modifications to see if I can squeeze over 30mpg combined mileage out of it, along with everything else planned.

I just got a carfax, this car was bought in 1984 with 30miles and then in 1992 it had 71,000 miles on it. It was exempt from odometer readings after it hit 100k miles around 1995 (the car only reads to 99,999 miles then the odometer resets at 100,000).

I'm assuming the car has 130,000 miles, but it could have 230,000. I really doubt the engine and car could actually drive if it had 230,000 miles... and 330k miles is out of the question the car would've fallen to pieces.

The last owner to drive the car bought it in 1996, and it failed emissions in 1998 and has sit in a garage since then. The title was transferred in 2002 to the owner of the house/garage it was sitting in, since the previous owner never came back to pick up the car.

Now I'm waiting on the title paperwork to get finished which will be 2-3 weeks, longer than I thought, because it needs to go through an estate lawyer who calculates taxes and net worth on everything that my neighbor had in possession, so I'll be waiting longer than I thought to buy the car.