🔧 BUILD LAME Turbo V6 Camaro

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Hello! Welcome to the shit show! I am updating this post in 2021 to explain what new readers are about to witness. If I knew that this thread and build were going to explode into what it is today, I would have started it out a lot different.

This car was (and still is) a basket case. The whole inspiration for starting this project was to start learning how to modify engines in a car that I didn't like. That way, if and when I screwed up, I wouldn't be ruining a nice car. It spiraled out of control from the first moment that I felt boost. I loved what I had created, but it took a ton of work to get to where I was. As soon as I got the car running nicely I was always saying "I'm going to fix______, and THEN I'll just enjoy driving it." You know the drill. Drive, break, fix, repeat! Before I knew it, I enjoyed driving and working on this turd more than the nice car I was trying to preserve!

The point is that the focus of this thread shifts A LOT. To complicate matters, I never have just one ongoing project open at a time. I listed some thread contents with links below. I will update this as new milestones or big updates happen. Just know that even if you click on the shortcut, you may have to scroll past other project posts to reveal the outcome. There are also some mini-projects and very helpful advice from other members in between, so read the whole dang thing if you want!

2018-2019
1. A late introduction
2. Discovering how a PCV works (and plugging it)
3. Custom grill for intercooler
4. Fuel pump trap door
5. Learning that I'll never learn anything from my goofy wide band gauge
6. Deleting AC completely, but retaining heat
2020
7. Low profile heater hose fittings
8. Deleting an air bag without setting a light on the dash
9. Starting a second round of floor repairs
10. ABS delete and line lock installation
- A separate thread for the electrons
11. Installing catch cans with nice brackets (Way overkill)
12. Figuring out the "blow by" problem once and for all (F-body intake plug)
13. Second clutch job, first rear cover job, and preliminary transmission swap research
14. Floors are "done", and Interior is installed.
15. I don't know how to tune, but this wide band might help.
16. Poly trans mount. Yeah, it actually deserves a link.
17. I waved the tuning white flag. Dyno Brian sets me straight!
18. T5 Pro5.0 shifter
19. New shifter was too much fun. OG T5 explodes, and my transmission conversion ideas start to get serious.
-TKX conversion
-TKX swap official write-up
20. Reconfiguring my exhaust for a quieter and less leaky future
21. I'm not done enjoying this car for the year, so I install a $100 T5 instead of a bulletproof conversion. SPOILER ALERT: It only lasts two months.
22. Minor repairs/updates that make the car livable (lighting, stereo, speedometer re-zero, and a clutch master cylinder that actually does it's job!)
23. Wheels and addressing rust again since I got time!
2021
24. Custom center caps
25. 1.9 roller rockers and LS6 springs
26. CAI V2.0
27. TKX is delayed so it's time to address the little annoyances.
-OE pan is junk. Dorman pan gets hot rodded
28. TKX is still delayed, so I install just one poly engine mount and beef up my flimsy turbo drain plumbing
29. TKX does NOT ship the following Monday. Flywheel bolts upgraded to ARP M10 x 1.0
30. When you're on a Chinese garbage budget, you better be ready to work harder. (Oil drain fitting hot rodding)
31. Finally repairing the oil sender pig tail, replacing the other engine mount, and test fitting the TKX.
32. Finally addressing rear brake lines while I wait for more transmission parts.
33. Modifying an ICM for a WOT box
34. Dash gets re-instrumented so that diagnostics become possible.
35. N2MB WOT box
36. Porked crank key. PSA: Be careful installing your balancer!
37. Car runs great after plug change, but the rear main seal needs to be changed again.
38. BURNOUT! Also, I kinda bought a cam.
39. Turbo drain finale (better be) and full exhaust commenced
2022
40. Downpipe V3 and BMR strut tower brace
41. Panhard bar and relocation for bro truck exhaust
42. Muffler, driveshaft, torque arm, and giving up smoking.
43. First trip to the GS Nationals (feat. time slip)
44. The very custom AC project is born
45. New dyno results (up 50 hp!)
46. Exhaust hanger repair before Michigan/S.S. Badger/Wisconsin trip
47. Sizing a better turbo
48. Painting but still not installing the IS3 heads and Monster clutch unboxing
49. Firewall brace
50. New ECM
2023
51. Out of storage and SC engine buy failure #3
52. Modified double roller and spitballing crankcase evac ideas
53. Completing the rear suspension. UMI rear control arms.
54. Cracked headers and L32 swap begins
55. My newest L32 was trash. I'm upgrading the L36 instead
56. Side project: The ultimate-ish intake manifold takes shape


Now back to 2018!
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Now that this car is running and driving, I figured I would start a thread dedicated to all the questions I’m about to pummel this group with. This is the first time I've really built anything to move quicker than stock, so I'm hoping to learn a lot from you guys before I make unnecessary mistakes. I also have a thread in the Turbobuick.com 3800 section, but I'm not getting as much input there due to a lack of audience. Here goes nothing...

The car I have is a 2002 Camaro with only ONE factory option (rear window defogger). The story supposedly goes that my buddy's dad was looking forever for a new Camaro because he never buys anything for a penny more than the best deal. He almost ran out of time as this was the final model year for the F-body, and '03s were already on the market. The dealer from which he found this car bought it for the sole purpose of being able to advertise "Brand new Camaros for under $10k", so this was the one he took home.

Fast forward to 2018. The car was structurally a wreck from living in the rust belt, but has a great interior, okay black paint, a third pedal, a 3800 (which is a plus in my book), and a lot of sentimental value since I remember riding in it when it was brand new. My buddy’s dad handed me the keys in hopes that I would enjoy it and make it a race car. To be honest, I don’t care for F-bodies, but I couldn't resist this one for the reasons above despite knowing that the floors were in desperate need of existing again.

I already had my dream car which is a 1986 Buick Regal Grand National. As much as I love that car, I like it the way it is in fairly stock form and modifying Buicks has gotten terribly expensive anyway. I figured a black 3800 Camaro could easily fulfill my childhood dreams of racing a badass turbo Buick V6 car while being on a budget, so here I am.

The car is now equipped with:
-6765 ebay turbo
-Precision PW40 wastegate
-Custom turbo exhaust utilizing a stock Camaro and FWD manifolds
-Air to air ebay intercooler
-AEM 50-1200 fuel pump
-Siemens Deka 80# fuel injectors
-Open 3” downpipe
-Custom 3” charge pipes
-Intense mail order tune
-Very ugly but functional upright radiator conversion (the core support was all just rust anyway) :dunno:
-Custom space saving AC delete without bypass pulley
-Midwest Chassis bumper support modified to mount my intercooler
-Spec Stage 1 clutch kit

The car is far from refined and has a lot of little issues to sort out, but I will leave the first post as sort of an introduction to that. I hope you enjoy hearing about it. It’s been fun to build!

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v6buicks

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After letting the charger do it's thing, I finally rolled the key over again to see what was fixed. Unfortunately, getting the BCM hooked up properly only fixed the courtesy lights. Oh well. It's better than nothing.

I then started going through some more diagrams, and finally figured out what those two connectors from post 249 are for. They go to the DRL module which I forgot existed. ?‍♂️ I plugged those in, and now I have a working left turn signal but still no right turn signal. I guess progress is still progress. lol I'm sure I'll figure out the blower motor and turn signal stuff out easy enough, but I've had a long day of cussing at closet organizers. I'm calling it quits for today!
 

v6buicks

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Sorry my updates are getting lame... I'm still plugging away at this car, but I have had a lot of house chores to take care of lately. I have all of tonight to myself after finishing some mini projects yesterday, so I should be able to give some more interesting content tomorrow.

Anyway, I think the dash is pretty well sorted. I don't know why my left turn signal still isn't working, but I'm tired of messing with the wiring. All the other lights work, my SRS light is not on, and my blower motor works! What sucks, was that I broke my blend door knob when I was pulling the module out. I no longer have detents... Luckily the only two modes I should ever need are "OFF" which is all the way to one side, and defrosters which is all the way to the other side. I might want floor vents which is one setting before defrost, but the knob actually holds itself in place without detents. I might just need to roll it back after hitting a bump or something. :LOL: I'll probably replace the unit down the road, but not now.

I'm also oddly satisfied to be almost done with my third iteration of battery cables. This was slightly embarrassing.
Battery hold down.jpg

To defend myself, the adapters to adapters made sense before I had this particular battery tray. I used to have a battery box where the adapters acted as sort of a bulkhead. Anyway, I'm getting rid of that now. However, I found this to be a great opportunity to reroute the whole positive cable in a way that I could be proud of. Before, I had it routed in a way that would have put noticeable bumps in the carpet. Plus, since it's black it's not really easy to ID as hot. I know, and I won't forget which is all that really matters. However, it bugs me. A little red heat shrink on each end will be nice.

I also decided to move my block ground wire over to the driver side so that I can avoid melting it on all the hot stuff. I never noticed how ugly it was until I moved it. Landing it on an unused threaded frame hole and the ex-EGR mount stud made for a much cleaner look than going from the original ground stud and the shock tower.
New block ground 1.jpg


New block ground 2.jpg

It's crazy how a firewall plate installation turns into this massive project involving new custom battery cables. Oh well. I'm still having fun, but It will kinda suck if this car doesn't end up back on the road this year. With all the other parts of my life happening I'm pretty sure that's going to be the case. However, I'd rather take things slow and get them done right than do what I did last year. I'm paying for a lot of those shortcuts.
 

v6buicks

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Remember that thing I said yesterday about better updates coming after work? Not happening! I installed this nice new 2AWG wire last night, jumped the battery and fired the engine up for the first time in months.
Positive cable 1.jpg


...because daily problems. This is the worst part about dickin' with cars in the Midwest and only having a two car garage. I call it musical cars. I finally got the dailies up to snuff before the bad weather came. Then I brought the Camaro in for "long-term" storage and major updates assuming that I wouldn't need the space.

BAM! All of sudden the 240 out of the blue decides to start growling and making some ugly popping noises in the suspension. It's not a good feeling when you have a project car blown apart in the garage and in no shape to be driven. Anyway, I did what I had to do to limp the Camaro out of the garage and get Moose inside for emergency inspections and late night fixins!
Wheel bearing 1-20 1.jpg

Wheel bearing was rusted onto the spindle because the seal was letting water in. Sadly the new seal only comes with rotors, so I reused the one that was there. I guess I'll be going back into this goopy mess soon!
Wheel bearing 1-20 2.jpg


Found the clunk. Not nearly as dangerous of a situation as thought. Volvo parts aren't really stocked in the part stores around here, so I'll have to order end links and rotors I guess. However, I think the car will be good to go until I can start driving the Camaro again. I love these old Volvos for their simplicity and reliability, but I'm convinced that any 30 year old daily driver is going to be a continuous cycle of pains.
Wheel bearing 1-20 3.jpg
 

v6buicks

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Alright here's a decent but not ultra exciting update. I got the wire harness tucked up into the cowl. What I didn't realize until half-way through that I was able to use the stock harness clamp for this. I like when things like that happen.

I decided to go the more difficult route, and I'm glad I did. It wasn't too bad pulling the trim off since I only had to remove the passenger side. Removing the driver side trim requires you to remove the wiper arms which is a huge pain if they've never been off before.

Yeah, it's dirty under there. I'll clean it a little before the trim goes back on.
Cowl Trim Removed.jpg


Drilled a hole
Hole.jpg


Cleaned with the bolt in place
Bolt.jpg


Tacked in
Welded.jpg


Undercoating
Undercoating.jpg


Clamped 1.jpg


Looks good to me!
Clamped 2.jpg


I'm so excited to run a down pipe through here!
Space.jpg


I'm not out of the woods yet though. Tomorrow I'll be cutting and clamping custom heater hoses. I hoped to do as much of it as I could with aluminum pipe, but the cheap bending tools I have aren't going to give me the tight radius that I want. To get this project moving, I'm going to settle with all rubber for now.
 
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v6buicks

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Check it out! This turned out so much better than I imagined.
Hoses done 1.jpg


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Hoses done 3.jpg


I have to get a few more hose clamps to finish off the hose aspect, but I have another little obstacle yet as well. There is nothing sealing my heater core for from the outdoors where it passes through the firewall. I should have taken care of this before getting the hoses in place, but I wanted to be sure that I wasn't going to end up modifying the core before gooping the space full of roof seal or something. lol

Speaking of which, do you have any recommendations for sealing this area? I know that back in the day there was some sort of nasty goo that was used for a lot of cars. If I end up buying something it'll probably be Eastwood's strip calk https://www.eastwood.com/ew-flexible-strip-caulk-bk-2-lbs.html I'd hate to buy that stuff when I have a roll of Butyl tape already. However, I have no idea if that's the same or if it will withstand the heat. What do you guys think?
 

v6buicks

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Loctite black polyurethane roofing adhesive is what I use for everything basically. Used to be called PL-S30, now it's just PL roof and flashing. It's a lot like the stuff they use on winshields, so expect it to be hard to remove.
That was going to be my first pick until I saw a bunch of people recommending strip caulk. I bought some of that because I think it'll be really difficult to maneuver the gun that space and it's meant specifically for this sort of thing. I might have over-paid, but it should be easier to give it a clean look.
 

v6buicks

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I'm having a bad time, yo.

When you cut open a frame channel and this kind of stuff falls out, it's time to consider the crusher as an option.
Bad frame rust 1.jpg


Bad frame rust 2.jpg


Bad frame rust 3.jpg


FREE WEIGHT REDUCTION! :s00ls:

If I saw what I saw tonight before I did all that work behind the dash I would probably not be making these fixes. Instead I'd be hitting up Marketplace for a clean shell. Oh well. Another marker on my shitbox bingo card!

Here goes nothing. I'm making the corners out of angle for super rigid support. Then I'll make walls out of sheet metal. THEN I'll finally put those connectors in. It maybe a rusty mess now, but this area will be a tank when I'm done with it.
Fixing it 2 1-20.jpg


I wouldn't expect a pretty outcome... but I will come out of this in some way or another. lol
 

v6buicks

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Rust repair is life in the salt belt. I've done my fair share of it, still finishing up the stuff on my minivan project. Hope you've got a metal brake at least.
I was reading your thread about that on the Bonneville Club page. Good luck! You have some patience. I wish I had a metal break. Instead I use my vice, a BFH, and little extra cutting and welding. There's a lot of tools I wish I had, but I don't have enough space to keep them.
 
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v6buicks

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It's time to officially throw in the towel. This car is completely roached.
Bad frame rust 4.jpg


Bad frame rust 5.jpg

I can no longer justify going forward with these repairs. I just REALLY wish I found this before doing all that work under the dash.

Later in the fall I entertained selling this car or parting it out, but there's no way in hell I can do it. I think the fact that I'm not completely turned off by this project right now says that I'm building something that excites me. I need to junk the shell and find a clean F-body roller! Maybe next time I'll finally have the T-top car I've always wanted. I'm not that simple though. I'll probably drop the entire sub-frame out of this thing and move it over to a car that will really get everyone all pissy. Anybody have a clean '98+ Z28 or SS roller for sale? :eek::eek::eek:
 

v6buicks

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I'm as surprised as you guys. I've never seen such a rusty fourth gen. To make it even crazier is that it's a final year fourth gen.

My emotions are very mixed right now. I keep thinking about the clean roller idea, but the fact of the matter is that I would not have built an F-body at all if it wasn't this particular car. Then I think about how much work it would be to find and relocate the perfect roller (would need to be a black 98+ Chevy). Then putting all my goodies into it just to have the same car I once had but a little nicer would probably take me a year or two. I dunno.... With all that effort, I'd probably be better off just parting this sad old out. The complete turbo kit must be worth a fair amount of money. It kills me to think about parting with some of this stuff though.
 

TurboTJ

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Ya not good at all. Its crazy to see the pics honestly i dont think ive seen anything like it.
But to just give you an idea im sure someone thats interested might pay fair money for the turbo stuff with it all there. My cartuning setup for the hotside was fairly reasonable for what it is but i also might turn around and resell it. Ive got the back and forth like you do atm.
 
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v6buicks

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The wacky part about it was how solid it appeared from the outside. Even when I sawed through it it didn't cut like it was rotted. It just disintegrated when I smashed it with a hammer.

I know I'm going to end up changing my mind many times per day until the car finally ends up getting torn apart. I think that the car as-is is worth about as much as I would want for the turbo parts alone. Then I still have things like gauges, ECM, brand new OE parts, ect. I'm still leaning toward just getting a solid roller, but it will be a long time before I find the right one. I also do not have the money. A new carcass will likely end up doubling the whole car budget. lol
 
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v6buicks

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I hope you can salvage it into some kind of project. Like a CamaroKart
This is not entirely out of the question. I could get down with stripping everything down, putting in a tube chassis, rhino lining everything and putting in some vinyl seat covers. lol However, I think it's going to take some serious creativity to make a Camaro cart half as cool as a Vette cart. We'll see. If nothing else, that plan kinda puts everything in purgatory before deciding the ultimate fate of the whole set-up.
 

v6buicks

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Every option I consider that involves replacing this car or "karting" it makes me sick to my stomach. I did not realize how much sentimental value this thing had to me until I discovered all this frame rot.... so I did a little more prodding and investigating.

Not bad
Bad frame rust 7.jpg


Okay, this stuff can be unbolted and removed...
Bad frame rust 8.jpg


...and the major rot seems to stop before the top of the slope.
Bad frame rust 6.jpg

I ain't a quitter. In fact I'm sorta excited again. It's going to be a lot of work, but all of this stuff becomes fairly accessible once the k-member is on the ground. This will open a huge can of worms again though. Should I get a nice tubular k-member to replace the old one? If I do that, should I go ahead and get the supercharged short block? Ooof... I'm all for taking things in baby steps in order to avoid biting off more than I can chew, but when things get convenient I tend to take more stuff apart.
 
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v6buicks

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I also feel the need to make a disclaimer. Regardless of what happens to the Camaro I have no plans of leaving the 3800 game. There are a lot of weird engine platforms that I'm in love with, but 3800s are still very cheap and plentiful with roots to the Buick platform. I'm gonna be here a while.

In fact, here's a small teaser update. I finally had a buddy of mine weld these bungs on to my NOS valve covers for me. He was not able to get down into the ribs even after we nearly milled the area flat. It's just too hard to control the arc in a small aluminum valley like that. I think a little JB weld or red rtv on the inside will seal them up just fine though. I think they also turned out a hell of a lot better than if I were to have started out with my oil soaked and corroded covers.
It might be overkill, but I think each of those -12s are going to feed their own catch can. If nothing else, it'll look better. I couldn't figure out a nice way to merge the two hoses into one so one can is probably going to attach to the PS reservoir bracket (where the ABS module is) and another can be tucked in behind the PCM on the firewall. You won't even be able to see the second one unless you're looking for it.
Valve Covers Welded.jpg
 

v6buicks

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Here's just a little more proof that I'm not a quitter. I cut a bunch more rust out. I've clearly learned a lot since my last repair because I even cut out some metal that's only a year old. Those parts weren't rusty, but I can do better.
Rust repair 1 2-18.jpg


Rust repair 2 2-18.jpg


Rust repair 3 2-18.jpg


There's still some rust to clean out, but I think this will be a much better repair than what I did previously. I'm feeling good about this car again.
 

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