My 1997 Camaro: Top Swap!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Sirius]

I think I found what was once a cat or two inside my blower motor.

More likely it was a squirrel - you know how they're attracted to those cages. Probably ran his little heart out...

[MattStrike]

Long time waiting update! Things I've done to the car since the last update anyway.

-Double din stereo conversion
-single 10" sub
-fixed the trans mount
-divorced the torque arm mount from the trans mount
-fixed the A/C

Some of those were an attempt to fix an exhaust leak at the Y-pipe caused by the torque arm lifting up on the trans tail mount (which ripped apart). There was a bolt broken off the trans mount as well. The problem I ran into was in the process of fixing the exhaust after all the mounts were fixed I ended up snapping all the studs out of the manifolds for the down pipe. I tried welding some all-thread to the end of the stubs that were left in the manifold, but that's really hard to do without a lift. So they didn't last, and I'm not doing this job again. Which leaves me two options. Pull off the manifolds and try to extract the studs, or put in headers.
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So that means it's time to get headers! I'll probably end up with the stainless steel OBX headers. For now, I'm going to keep the rest of the exhaust system stock, but the end game here is to replace the Y pipe with an X pipe and a true dual exhaust once the finances allow. Likely later this summer.

The other thing that I'll be doing in the next few weeks is tint, and probably changing to a second sub and ditching the spare tire. The sunload in that car is unreal, A/C vent temperature is 38F and it still can't keep the whole car cool, just the driver and passenger.

As some of you may already know, I've grown not very fond of the T5 in my car as the syncros for 1, 2, and reverse are either non-existent or just broken. So I've been working on a plan to find a rotted out or accident LS1 car and convert this to a V8 and T56. I will likely end up using the truck 4.8l engine and selling off the LS1 to pay for the project, which may also include boost of some form. Sounds like a good project once I have my truck done and that '97 LeSabre finished. However, I'll be on the lookout for a parts car, maybe by the time fall rolls around they'll start showing up. If the right deal comes around, I'll jump on it. Otherwise at least I'll have a half-way decent sounding 3800.

[smskeeter23]

Did all that with the exhaust just happen since Sunday? Or was that the root cause of the sweet rasp? LOL

[MattStrike]

Sunday was the day I attempted to re-weld the one piece of all-thread to the manifold (which now a different one broke on my way in to work today when I hit a bump). Most of this happened two weeks before the meet. As soon as I broke the bolts off I knew I was going to have to pull the manifolds, but that's not a weekend job and I figured they would hold out until my extended weekend for the 4th.

[Roadrunner]

Did GM ever put an L67 in an F body?
The FSM for my 01 has a section in it for a supercharged 6 but all the V6 cars I've seen have been NA.

[MattStrike]

Possibly they planned to take a Holden setup and put it in the F-body?

[smskeeter23]

TWIN CHARGE ALL THE THINGS!!!

Yeah I forgot I saw you guys working on that when we left :-/

[Roadrunner]

I was thinking maybe they had it as an option for export and it may exist in some other country.
The picture in the FSM looks like a regular L67 with SC inlet snout pointed back by the firewall. I haven’t come across any pictures of how they rout the intake though.

Before I got my '01 I was considering an L67 F-body project starting from an L36 T5 like yours.

[MattStrike]

Expect to see a major progress update over the weekend. I'm in the middle of a headers/cam/LIM/paint/more de-redneckification.

Some interesting things to note:
-OBX headers don't allow for an easy cylinder #4 spark plug installation, also two of the header bolts are not easy to access with the battery operated impact, you have to use a ratchet or regular box wrench.
-the OE ball joint and tie rod ends had stainless steel cotter pins, which were easy to remove even on the rusty '98 donor for the front knuckles. So now that I know this is a thing, I ordered an assortment of SS cotter pins.
-the original AC Delco iridium plugs were still holding the proper gap after ~140k miles.
-The tie rod ends on this car were completely smoked. I don't know how I never noticed it, or how it drove in a straight line ever.
-there is not an AC Delco metal framed LIM gasket for an F-body, you have to make do with an H-body kit.
-Yet another example of galled rocker arms and tops of the pushrods. oil volume kit is going in. Between the last build and this one I managed to come up with 6 good rockers. I had to get 9 new pushrods. The remaining 6 rockers will be cleaned up with a 5/16" ball nose end mill (like I did with the '86 L67 rockers, that are still in good shape now on the '97).

The previous owners of this car did not keep up on the oil changes. There was sludge in the oil pan, and everything inside was coated in crud. This explains why every oil change the oil was nasty. I've cleaned up most of what I can get to without tearing the block all the way down, the rest will be up to a proper OCI and good oil.

[Wes]

What'ss different between the F, and H body L36 LIM gaskets?

[MattStrike]

The LIM gasket appears to be the same, as expected. The difference is the other gaskets that are included in the kit. Most of the Felpro or other aftermarket are compatible with both.

[MattStrike]

OK, time for some photos and stuff!

So, going back, at the end of last year was when the last trans mount gave up the ghost. Again, this is because the torque arm bolts to the trans and that mount has to be able to hold the torque from launching. The OE mount is OK, but won't hold up to track abuse. The aftermarket one is a piece of junk and won't hold up to driving easy... This spring, I needed to switch cars, and so I did something a little redneck to make it work:


Yeah, sorry guys, that's a ratchet strap holding the trans down.

After that was working, I added a sub and aftermarket stereo because my OEM stereo wasn't playing nice with the amp.




Not long after, I hit a new milestone:


Then I found a way to fit a beam blade on the reverse J hook. the trick is, that the mount on the wiper blade detaches from the blade, which I pre-fit to the reverse J hook and snapped the blade back on after:


Then, after much distractions, I finally divorced the torque arm from the transmission, and hacked up some metal for a custom trans mount:


That left me with the stock Y-pipe leak (because the trans mount failure allowing too much flex and no flex pipe). I tried to fix it, but the exhaust manifolds both completely broke the downpipe studs. So I rigged it up to get by for a few weeks....
That's all I was able to do before the meet. But due to the 4th of July holiday ('Merica!) I get a week off at work ('Automotive Industry OEM!). So I figured it was about time to fix the rear main seal leak (common with the manual trans cars), the exhaust manifolds, and what I suspected was the beginnings of the LIM gasket failure.

So, Monday I did this:


And found this:


After much cleaning and paint fumes:


Some sunburn later:


A few beers later:


And I had to give up the hoist for the weekend, so made a mad dash to drop the body back on the engine:


Just a few hours later, I had a lot of stuff bolted back in:




And after everything, it still runs!
http://vid571.photobucket.com/albums/ss ... bzx9xr.mp4

Many many many things later, it now has LS1 brakes (used 2000 Grand Prix brake hoses with the stock '97 hardlines), all new engine gaskets, fixed a redneck heater hose clip, found a freeze plug IN the shifter housing that should be ON the housing, changed the trans fluid, fixed the smoked tie rod ends, Headers, Intense S1X NA cam, repaired galled rockers, new pushrods, new timing set, cleaned out the air filter (I think it had a cat in it or somthing), went over ever square inch of the A/C with the UV light (It's had TWO dye injections now) and still cannot find any leaking despite everything holding fine for a week and suddenly discharging overnight, upgraded the torque arm mount to polyurethane and installed a zerk fitting, put poly and zerk fittings on the sway bar bushings, poly end links, and probably some other things I'm forgetting.

Yes, this is how I fix an exhaust leak.... It takes about 6 8hr days! But I just now realized I forgot to torque down the engine subframe and the torque arm mount. ARgh!

[95naSTA]

Looks good.

The S1X was never a good cam though. It may be not as bad with a manual but the GT1 has more meat under the curve and more proven results.

[MattStrike]

I had a hard time finding reliable info on which cam to go with, in the end it came down to Intense shipping it out on Saturday and me getting it on Tuesday afternoon. ZZP shipped out my oil volume kit Tuesday and I got it Friday, I wouldn't have had time to finish by Sunday if I had to wait on the cam. I had been told the S1X sounds better, and some youtube videos made me think it did, and with this car I'm OK with it sounding better even if it's a little slower than the ZZP cam

[95naSTA]

Yeah, I know this from hawking the n/a L36 scene since like '03. Before top swaps were common, there were more than a few cammed n/a w-bodies. Most of the info on Club GP and 3800 Tech is long gone.

[MattStrike]

A few observations after 2 days of driving.

-It appears that there is still a small oil leak on the rear of the engine, not as bad as before but still..
-Found a weak coil, it was open on the high side. Seems to have taken care of an inconsistent misfire issue for now.
-The headers being about 1" longer than the stock Y-pipe, I really could use to shorten the pipe after the resonator, but it's all a tight fit.

This morning I did do a bit of a pull through first gear. I can feel around 3000rpm it starts to pull harder, but combination of road surface/tires I lost traction and had to lift slightly. Pulling through second gear it's nice to feel it pull strong all the way to my shift point. I did not upgrade springs (yet), so not going to be shifting past 5800 for now. But feels like there's still some headroom left. After I get my front end alignment done, I'll start shopping for a tune.

[MattStrike]

Mini-update!

Last year I took the car to the track. I did not do very well, between stalling it and roasting the clutch. However I did manage to eek out a 16.1 @ 88, 2.6 60'.

Fast forward to last night. First time out with the cam/headers (no tune).

My first run, tires at 26psi I had a 2.5 60'. So I let some air out of the tires, 20 psi. I got a 2.32, 2.28, 2.26.

It seems like I have to nearly pop the clutch so that it doesn't roast. So what I've been doing was to hold it at 2200, release the clutch, don't add throttle until the clutch grabs. This usually results in no wheel spin, and the rpms dip to about 1500 as the clutch grabs. That's where I was getting the 2.28. At 2300 I got the 2.26. At 2400 I got a bit of squealing and the 2.32.

Seems to me I should be able to get to a 2.1-2.2 no problem, I want to say that's the range I was at with FWD, so why can't I get there, or better, with RWD (especially now that my torque arm is poly mounted directly to the cross-member)? Are my tires, I think Mirada Sports, just that bad? They are on the list for replacements come spring.

However, I will still call the night a success. I ran a best of 15.35 @ 90.12, that's a 0.75 second improvement! If I can get my 60' times down that's on par with my l67 LeSabre swap.

[MattStrike]

Now that things are starting to come together with my latest mod, I figured it's time to share.

Coming soon to a Mattstrike Camaro: Cleared front turn signals, cleared rear side markers, 9011 high beams and new high beam housings (Depo 100-1140N), and of course a set of Morimoto D2S square retrofits!

These, to be specific:


Using what I could measure and find on the internet I came up with a design, call it version 1.0.


Some more measurements (keep in mind I was still DD the car, so taking everything apart to do this was out of the question), and I came up with a new idea that integrated a bowtie:


The more I worked on it, the more features I wanted to include. And as of this week the Camaro is parked for the season, so time to take some parts off and go to town!:


But that's all theoretical. So it was time to put the 3D printer to work on the prototypes. Version 1.0!


But alas, I missed a critical detail. Following the online pictures and diagrams, the bolt holes didn't line up with the projector:


So, back to work, you lazy 3D printer! Also, used up the rest of my green PLA so had to switch rolls:


And there you have it, after 4 prints and fixing various issues, including scrapping the cad file and restarting; it fits!


Obviously, a successful 1st component is far from the final product. There is one other mount that I expect to have to go through several iterations before having a final design. And I need to find a source for 3/16" glass for the lens (I can cut and grind it myself if needed). But compared to the SSEi retrofits, this is a cake walk! Also, I'll be the first to retrofit this gen Camaro (D2S FTW!). Expect to see more details as things are completed. The printer isn't very fast.

Some of the key features include a cutting and drilling template for the header panel, limiting cut out material such that you could revert back to original lamps, uses the OEM headlight adjuster for side-to-side and no cutting out the up/down adjuster. Eventually, if everything works out and there is enough interest, I might sell a kit. Or maybe just upload it to thingiverse. I'll be using PETg, ABS, and PLA for each of the 6 printed parts.

[nos4blood70]

They look pretty sweet. Can't wait to see them on the car!

[Jfridge92]

They look pretty sweet. Can't wait to see them on the car!

+1! I haven't seen too many retro's with the square lenses yet. I nearly went with those on my Infiniti, but then I started comparing output shots of the mini H1's and chose those over the D2S squares. Those will definitely be a hell of an improvement over stock F-body lighting though.