🔧 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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sktchy

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Haha I could only imagine the kind of shenanigans that would happen here in Indiana if a friend or I had a dyno. It would probably never go unused.
It shouldn't, but everybody's scared of it because of the load it puts on things. Poppin pistons on my car doesn't help that much but maybe when race season slows down for the year and harvest is over I'll get to play with it some more. If nothing else it's a safe place for me to play and learn rather than try and lose my license on the highway.

Thank God for cool neighbors and bein in the country cuz doin 100 in the garage is kinda fun lol
 

Mr_Roboto

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I'm still eating my ass over the expensive tool in the corner of my shop that hardly ever gets used but it's still pretty awesome to have when a guy gets to use it.

That takes time, keep it up when you can and keep the videos up. I think it'll grow just not in a month. Social media presence for such things is a big deal.

It's a game changer for sure. After seeing for how poorly the pre-bent stainless stuff tends to fit, I won't be messing with that crap anymore. The pre-flared stuff at the parts stores are nice in a pinch, but I hate that it still rusts. I bought a long roll of the Ni-Cu on Amazon or Summit for pretty cheap. No regrets. Having this ultra expensive straightener tool is a big help too though. I'm not bragging. It was a dumb thing to buy for how little it gets used. lol
View attachment 98554

Those are a handy tool, I 3D printed one for doing wire with. I bet I could 3D print one of those too now that I've said it.

My big issue is the line kinks up when I do the bends some times, especially with the bigger diameter tubing. A decent bender helped a lot but I still got some flattening that I wasn't thrilled about.
 

sktchy

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That takes time, keep it up when you can and keep the videos up. I think it'll grow just not in a month. Social media presence for such things is a big deal.
Your right but I've had that before at least locally. I prefer word of mouth and doing solid business with loyal customers. Less headaches and exposure that way.
 

v6buicks

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I decided to give my goofy looking ICM a shot based off this discussion. While it was decided that this was probably the cheaper version for later cars, It was probably a bit easier to modify since they use dinky wires to make the connections. Here's the power wire that used to go from the coils to the ICM.
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Soldered and heat shrunk.
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Making an exit point. I taped it up so that the goo wouldn't get full of plastic dust.
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And ready for some new sealant. I wish I could get a new cover because they're just about impossible to get back into shape once you pry them off. Oh well. It doesn't really matter. A thicker bead of silicone will do the trick.
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Thanks again bs009 bs009 for sharing your discovery! I've been wanting a WOT box since I started this build.
 

bs009

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Hope you were able to get the right pin on there, that one has a lot going on in it compared to the one's I've seen so far

Get ready for the loud backfire of the no-lift shift! It scared the crap out of me the first few times until I realized what was happening :LOL:
It works really good though - even better than the two step does right now for me
 
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v6buicks

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Hope you were able to get the right pin on there, that one has a lot going on in it compared to the one's I've seen so far

Get ready for the loud backfire of the no-lift shift! It scared the crap out of me the first few times until I realized what was happening :LOL:
It works really good though - even better than the two step does right now for me
It was pretty obvious once I started probing around. There was only one connection that went from the power pin to the board and coils.
 
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v6buicks

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Soooo....fireballs?
Oh yes. Coming soon!
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Ultra grey applied
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Spare coils will hold the plate on until the stuff dries.
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Also installed the reverse light pigtail. It's nice that after everything else in the swap was being a huge bitch, the wiring was even easier than anticipated.
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v6buicks

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Waiting for parts sucks because it always reminds me that there are other issues I can address in the mean time.

The brake lines are finally done so that's a nice load off my shoulders, but I keep forgetting about that ugly noise under the hood which started after the roller rocker install. The easy solution would be to throw the stock rockers and push rods back on, but I really want to find the problem.

I was watching a video last night about rocker roller to valve tip contact which I believe is what I've been failing to check this whole time. I have a pushrod length checker. I just never really knew how to use it. I'll probably order some dummy springs on Amazon and try this eventually. However, I think in order to save the engine and my heart from breakage, I'm going to scavenge some stock rockers and pedestals to put back in the car. My clutch hose hasn't shipped yet, so I should have plenty of time to dick around under the hood while I wait.
 
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sktchy

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Waiting for parts sucks because it always reminds me that there are other issues I can address in the mean time.

The brake lines are finally done so that's a nice load off my shoulders, but I keep forgetting about that ugly noise under the hood which started after the roller rocker install. The easy solution would be to throw the stock rockers and push rods back on, but I really want to find the problem.

I was watching a video last night about rocker roller to valve tip contact which I believe is what I've been failing to check this whole time. I have a pushrod length checker. I just never really knew how to use it. I'll probably order some dummy springs on Amazon and try this eventually. However, I think in order to save the engine and my heart from breakage, I'm going to scavenge some stock rockers and pedestals to put back in the car. My clutch hose hasn't shipped yet, so I should have plenty of time to dick around under the hood while I wait.
I've got a set I'll send you, I'm gonna run my 1.9 modded stocks when I go back together. I'm just gonna have to do a little lookin for a pedestal
 

v6buicks

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Good news: I'm one step closer to driving this thing. The bushing came.
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Bad news: I also took another step back. :mad::mad::mad:
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Considering that this is the same place that the old lines leaked, I'm going to go ahead and guess that this new hose is junk. I'll be off to Napa tomorrow to get something that's actually decent. :rolleyes:
 
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v6buicks

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Fuck McLeod Racing and all their lies. I'm not playing this game again, especially not now! That order was just cancelled and the a new one with a cheap AN hose (in stock in OH) was placed. Since I wanted that free shipping, I decided to... you know, just toss one of those WOT boxes in the cart. :cool:
 
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v6buicks

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I've been slaving since I started my break from social media. However, I really need some help now.

The car runs like complete shit, and I don't get why. I figured it had been sitting with it's open tank vent long enough that the E85 went bad, so I pumped it out from 3/4 to 1/4 of a tank, filled it to full with fresh stuff, and went for a cruise. No change. It pops like crazy, and the exhaust is loud as fuck.

Of course I can't show you a log because the pro link still doesn't work. What I need to know is whether I need a tune with the rocker upgrade, or if I should be chasing something else.
 
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Turbocharged400sbc

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Please tell me you did not crank the Rockers down on the ones where the lifters were up on the lobe. More than a few times I've seen fully pumped up lifters bend a valve when the Rockers were Tightened unless all pistons were below tdc.

The two end rocker should be first as they align the rocker stand assembly and on base circle.

After that I go for the ones that are also on Bass Circle and then I rotate the crank until the ones that were on the nose of the lobes are now on base Circle and then finish the sequence I also slowly tighten them to keep the lifter compressing instead of staying pumped up and forcing the valve open.

You may want to do a leak down test or a compression test
 

v6buicks

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Please tell me you did not crank the Rockers down on the ones where the lifters were up on the lobe. More than a few times I've seen fully pumped up lifters bend a valve when the Rockers were Tightened unless all pistons were below tdc.

The two end rocker should be first as they align the rocker stand assembly and on base circle.

After that I go for the ones that are also on Bass Circle and then I rotate the crank until the ones that were on the nose of the lobes are now on base Circle and then finish the sequence I also slowly tighten them to keep the lifter compressing instead of staying pumped up and forcing the valve open.

You may want to do a leak down test or a compression test
Shit
 
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v6buicks

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I remember redoing the rockers after experiencing a bunch of noise. I soaked the rockers in oil overnight and reinstalled them ends first to align the stands. Then I worked my way in. I do not recall paying any attention to where the cam was in relation to each rocker though. I'm pretty sure that I just torqued them all down wherever they were.

Compression test in the morning. I'll be sure to crank the engine a bit first to get the lifters pumped. Hopefully my drives didn't cause a burnt or bent valve.
 
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