🔧 BUILD LAME Turbo V6 Camaro

[v6buicks]

Whatever you do don't give up the 3800 though. I know the ls is tempting and there's pressure from everywhere to go that direction but your well above just slapping some expensive trendy aftermarket stuff on and it'll still feel slow in a week anyway.

What does it mean to give up on 3800? I don't understand.

 

[v6buicks]

I was going to say have you thought about trying to find a southern replacement to dump your stuff into? I realize these are getting few and far in between as clean cars though.

It's hard to let something like that go after putting all the investment in. It's not just time or money it's emotional as well.

I'll say this for what it's worth, I'd look at alternatives and make sure you find something viable before parting it out. You've got it running well enough currently (besides the header) I don't think I'd be in a hurry to go that route without an alternative. Finding a good clean shell that's RWD these days isn't always as easy as it seems. Especially when you consider that a G-body is at its youngest what now ~35 years old?

Hell, an F-body is at a minimum 20 now.

There's a mint survivor 4 door G-body Regal for $2200 on marketplace right now. Ugly as sin, but a solid choice for the bastard budget turbo Buick I've been trying to build all along haha

Stuff like the AC delete with heat, unfinished AC retrofit, and shitty floor replacement are time and money ill never get back, but it's not enough for me to say it's worth getting another F-body. I would need a very nice black SS roller to show up nearby for about 2k for me to go down that road again. Not gonna happen. I don't mind paying more money for a car I actually like. WH1 T-Type would be sweet too. Just spiralling here, but I pretty much require the next car to be another Buick.

Find a wrecked Encore on copart and sloppily shove a true Buick drivetrain in it? ?

 

[sktchy]

You've mentioned wanting a truck a couple of times. Maybe find an S10 or a luv on the cheap and have both?

 

[Mr_Roboto]

The first prototype Syclone was GN powertrained.........

If you're having doubts about a G-body due to the squeeze an S10 is probably as bad to worse though. Just warning you. Then again the 3800 has a shorter deck so it may be not terrible truthfully.....

 

[v6buicks]

The first prototype Syclone was GN powertrained.........

If you're having doubts about a G-body due to the squeeze an S10 is probably as bad to worse though. Just warning you. Then again the 3800 has a shorter deck so it may be not terrible truthfully.....

Before the Camaro became a possibility I was going to do a slopclone. The requirements were AWD manual and 3800 otherwise I didn't want to do it.

It's basically not possible unless I drop the AWD. The 3800 fits in an S10 really nicely until you try to run a front driveshaft through the starter motor. I've scrapped a that idea.

Besides. By truck I mean daily driver for hauling stuff and the family.

Update:

Passenger side custom header fits like a dream! However the driver side isn't even close. ? Both the power steering pump and the steering shaft are in the way. After that and a whole new cold side, I say pass. Too bad. These headers are niiiice.

 

[Mr_Roboto]

Why do you think Turbocharged400sbc trying to get me to do a 3800 in the Eagle isn't a thing? I didn't even think about the DS starter, but justa V-engine in that thing in general would be a bitch due to the front diff. It would surely make a turbo kit an easier go admittedly but still.

Honestly, that's why I did the 4 door Lemans. Wifey wasn't about my project cars so I don't think she ever really drove in it. The kid did, it's one of the reasons that despite its condition I'm reluctant to get rid of the Lemans.

A 4 door G-body would be a good ride for some early memories in.

 

[sktchy]

I mean really anything is fun. A mini truck would be useful and could be nice done right. How often would you really need all wheel drive and that 3800 and tkx is gonna pull anything anything else will.

But back to the anything is fun point. My kids like riding around in my 600 dollar Buick with all the lights on the dash better than my lifted Yukon or my Camaro. It gives me a lot of motivation to keep going on that one when the time comes and I can let it take a break from daily duty. It's all about what fits you and what you wanna drive. That 3800 can go in anything if you wanna stuff it in there bad enough.

 

[v6buicks]

I started trying to find that initial project car lust feeling. You know the one where you browse marketplace until a diamond in the rough or bright idea pops up outa nowhere? Then my wife brought up a pretty sad but valid point. If I part out the the Camaro and put the engine/trans aside until the time is "right" I'll never get anything. The bigger garage I need isn't coming any time soon. I still haven't saved much money for a truck, and kids will slow both of those things down a bunch. I didn't believe her at first, but once I started seeing the prices decent RWD cars, rollers, and even rust piles I freaked out a bit. She's right. The Camaro needs to stick around unless I'm willing to live with the possibility of not getting anything to replace it.

I could tube front the Camaro. It's going to look funny on this otherwise POS street car, but it won't be horrible with the right stance, double the HP, and some meatier tires. As for the turbo plumbing, I suppose the flex section isn't necessary. Whenever I get the engine on the stand I'll bolt everything on on fit a piece of pipe in place. I thought I would need flex there, but the GN doesn't from the factory and neither do the aftermarket headers.

Again, I'll reassess when the k-member is dropped out. I'm just reassuring that my findings aren't the end of the world yet. I do expect to find a fair amount of rust where the k-member mounts to the body though. This would be the final nail in the coffin.

 

[sktchy]

Kind of on the same lines as robotos lemans but if you wanted to stay fbody and make the drive I'd donate my firebird roller to the cause. The rockers and rear wheels wells aren't in great shape but structurally it's solid and I have rocker panels I'd send with it. You'd wanna take everything from your car and move it over though as I've got so much of it picked off it's getting to be a shell. It does have a clear title at least but otherwise it's just gonna sit there until I yank the trans and parts for it and rear end and honeycomb taillights out of it and haul it in.

Or maybe there'd be sections you could take from it and move over to your car to get it solid again? Lots of work but whatever it takes to keep you goin and keep the dream alive.

Or maybe go the tube route if it's worth that to you. You'd drop a lot of weight and have room to completely redo that hotside about any way you wanted to.

My car might be a pile that never wants to act right but I'd be pretty lost without having it in the garage to play with and get away from real life. I can imagine this one having the same kind of sentimental value. It's also really cool your wife's on board with you with all this even with a kid on the way. Having that kind of support is worth a lot.

 

[Mr_Roboto]

I started trying to find that initial project car lust feeling. You know the one where you browse marketplace until a diamond in the rough or bright idea pops up outa nowhere? Then my wife brought up a pretty sad but valid point. If I part out the the Camaro and put the engine/trans aside until the time is "right" I'll never get anything.

There's wisdom in what your wife says. To be fair if you've never had kids before you'll never realize where the first year went.

Fix it now, pay someone to fab you a weld el header if you have to and drive it. You'll thank me later.

 

[v6buicks]

I don't plan to cut corners, but for the reasons you mentioned I will probably skip some of the less necessary things like trying to make the fancy headers fit. If I clean up my ugly manifolds really well in the blast cabinet, weld them up good, and ceramic paint them I think I'll be a lot happier with the results. RSM tube front kit installed with some patience and nice bracketry will eliminate some of the ugliest portions of my car in terms of rust and aesthetics. Plus, with the engine out of the way I can finally do a quick spray of chassis black in the engine bay and cut/replace some of the nasty shit on the strut towers. That alone would make me very happy. Intense stage 3 heads, ST2 cam, and monster clutch on the L32 will just be the cherry on top.

Then I'm sure the 10-bolt will be ready to leave the building, but we don't have to talk about that right now.

 

[sktchy]

I just want that cam

 

[v6buicks]

I really don't have time to waste. I got cash last night, and I'm picking up the Grand Prix today. Once I got back from the bank I went to dinner with my wife and started thrashing on this pile.

I don't think Midwest Chassis would be happy to see their bumper support being used like this, but it was too easy!

Before 10:00 I was here. I'll be honest. This scene is pretty freaky to me. Coming out was easy... too easy. For one, I broke stuff. My absent mind let the jack down too quickly and discovered that my wheel sensor connectors were still clipped to the control arms. Those wires are toast, but the ABS was disabled anyway. See ya. The bigger bummer is that my clutch hose got yanked on pretty good too. It's probably fine but I don't have QCs on them so I'll replace the hose and put some fancy fittings on while I'm at it. The scarier part is how many loose and or missing bolts I've found. I lost another exhaust manifold bolt which is pretty typical. Those are always coming loose. The bellhousing inspection cover I made was missing two bolts and the remaining two were hanging on for dear life. The trans crossmember was only held on by 3/4 bolts. The last one is gone. I'm pretty good about getting stuff tight before send, so maybe I need to get a little more liberal with the loctite.

I need to get more stuff out of my way, but the rust situation is looking okayer than I thought. I look forward to separating this assembly, sorting parts, and getting ready to pull another one sideways!

 

[sktchy]

So that's the same reason I don't have abs anymore ? I wouldn't sweat the clutch cable alot unless it's leaking or cracked the slave. I've accidentally done that one a time or two as well and come out ok.

 

[sktchy]

While I'm thinking about it, and I may be overstepping here and if I am I totally understand, but would you be willing to send me a copy of your tune file? In private of course but more specifically I'd like to compare injector data for your 80s to see if Brian did anything with the offsets and such. I'd like to see the airflow stuff to go along with it too to get a clear picture if he changed much in there.

Totally cool if not, I'm not trying to hijack somebody else's tune by any means but if it holds a secret or two about a quirk or two that I'd like to get worked out of mine it could be pretty helpful and a dbw tune isn't going to slap in my car anyway. And I kinda like seeing how other tuners do things as well, always learning.

I also wish I knew what he needed dhp for (iirc it was with your o2s and may have somethin to do with why my closed loop has never worked correctly), do you know if he's still active on 3800pro? That's definitely a guy whose brain I would love to pick on some things.

P.s. sorry to derail your thread for a moment being a needy you know what

 

[v6buicks]

While I'm thinking about it, and I may be overstepping here and if I am I totally understand, but would you be willing to send me a copy of your tune file? In private of course but more specifically I'd like to compare injector data for your 80s to see if Brian did anything with the offsets and such. I'd like to see the airflow stuff to go along with it too to get a clear picture if he changed much in there.

Totally cool if not, I'm not trying to hijack somebody else's tune by any means but if it holds a secret or two about a quirk or two that I'd like to get worked out of mine it could be pretty helpful and a dbw tune isn't going to slap in my car anyway. And I kinda like seeing how other tuners do things as well, always learning.

I also wish I knew what he needed dhp for (iirc it was with your o2s and may have somethin to do with why my closed loop has never worked correctly), do you know if he's still active on 3800pro? That's definitely a guy whose brain I would love to pick on some things.

P.s. sorry to derail your thread for a moment being a needy you know what

I don't care at all. In fact, I'm pretty sure the tune is posted in this thread somewhere. I don't know where though. It may take a while for me to get to that. I'm not on my laptop much.

 

[sktchy]

I don't care at all. In fact, I'm pretty sure the tune is posted in this thread somewhere. I don't know where though. It may take a while for me to get to that. I'm not on my laptop much.

Much appreciated. I might have to try and dig through some pages later, I know we got pretty into that stuff at one point or another. I don't get on mine much either unless I've got it tied into my car or using the scanner anymore. If there's anything I can ever help you with I'm more than happy to share what I've learned along my adventures in p04 as well.

 

[v6buicks]

I was so proud of myself for how clean I kept the floor while dropping the engine out. Then all hell broke loose.

It's hard to tell in pictures, but it's very slippery in here.

Key takeaways include needing to drill a flex plate and find some short M10 x 1.0 bolts to mount a flex plate since I made the crank holes bigger. I'm sure the already crack-prone flex plate is going to love that. Also this engine is super clean thanks to E85. I look forward to getting this K-member broken down so I can put salvageable pieces on the shelf and scrap the rest.

 

[Mr_Roboto]

Pardon me for speaking like an idiot, but to get an idea of what's happening here you're going to do what amounts to a top swap on your current short block, shove that in to the Comp G, take the supercharged short block, bolt all the insanity parts you've got cached on it and then put the Camaro back together?

If so, you are a mad scientist.

 

[sktchy]

Pardon me for speaking like an idiot, but to get an idea of what's happening here you're going to do what amounts to a top swap on your current short block, shove that in to the Comp G, take the supercharged short block, bolt all the insanity parts you've got cached on it and then put the Camaro back together?

If so, you are a mad scientist.

Basically the same thing I did with my Camaro and have planned to do with the leftovers on my Buick. Version L32 rather than L67 and with better parts.

 

[v6buicks]

Pardon me for speaking like an idiot, but to get an idea of what's happening here you're going to do what amounts to a top swap on your current short block, shove that in to the Comp G, take the supercharged short block, bolt all the insanity parts you've got cached on it and then put the Camaro back together?

If so, you are a mad scientist.

Yes, and the Grand Prix either needs to be sold or good enough to be my daily before the baby comes in October. I'm stressed. ?

The Camaro on the other hand will sit as long as it needs to get right. I'm planning to go GN levels of restoration on the Camaro engine bay even if it's not worth it. I feel bad for what happened to the car over the winter. The engine and TKX looked great when I put the car away, and now they look like they've spent a few months in the ocean. The car didn't deserve that. I've accepted that the baby may push completion out a year or two, but at least I shouldn't have to buy a lot for it. It's mostly labor.

 

[v6buicks]

I already have the tubular K-member but this suspension rebuild is already looking a lot more expensive than I expected. I thought I was going to restore these control arms but there's no flippin way. The ball joints are shot, and they appear to be press fit. I'm not wasting any money on stock replacements either when I know that tubular is the way to go.

Also, holy shit! This thing is a bear to maneuver even with the engine off of it. I should weigh it.

Stressful scene. This floor is also very slippery.

I was hoping I would be able to start organizing stuff by now, but progress is progress. I guess I'll have to clear some more shelves.

 

[sktchy]

eBay ball joints are like 12 dollars and they've made it through my washboardy couple miles to pavement without issue. But I get that your already this far and why screw with it too.

 

[v6buicks]

More takeaways from the disassembly-

I made the decision to do away with a very annoying bracket while it's easy to do so.

I would have taken the unused bracket that goes from the block to the bell housing a long time ago if it wasn't also used as a spacer for the bolt right behind the knock sensor. I'm gonna scribe an outline of the mount adapter on the bracket, cut it and weld it to the bottom. I can't tell you how many times I've hit my head on it under the car too.

As mentioned, I was going to restore the lower front control arms until I could justify throwing down on tubular stuff, but luck may not have it that way. I got to the very last factory suspension fastener and finally found a bolt seized in the bushing. I don't think there would be anything left by the time everything was blasted anyway. Once I have all the associated bolts organized, I think it will be wise to drop the K-member and control arms off at the scrap yard. Tubular control arms aren't cheap, but I know it's the way.

I got a good look at my flywheel threads. Let's just say I hope I do a little better next time. ?

Removing the mount adapters revealed some intense rust on the block. I hope the L32 is is a little easier to paint than this turd would have been.

The oil pan situation was kind of a disaster. I'm going to replace that too so I can weld the correct sized bung on a little nicer.

The parts list is growing fast, but luckily it doesn't affect the GTP timeline at all... Yet. Let's hope it's disassembly goes a little smoother!

 

[sktchy]

I chopped that bracket to fit my crossover pipe a long time ago, I used to try and screw with the leftover piece as a spacer but ultimately ended up just using a couple washers in between there instead. I'm sure there's a point where it'd be a good thing to have that extra support but I haven't had any issues with it so far.