vicg1

The car is a rat. Nothing perfect on it. Top is rough, body needs work. Everything under par. But I like the car!

So far:
New crate engine (kept the 305)
New injectors
New MAF
New ac evaporator and drier
New heater core
New alternator
Had radiator (which was a copper replacement already) rodded and tested.

Engine is in, hooking up all the little miscellaneous bits now... should be able to fire it up soon!

Atilla the Fun

Return the 305 and get a 350. Do it now.

vicg1

Nah, no need to monkey with the car. This one is for commuting. I can go fast in my Ferrari.

Atilla the Fun

Even if you have a Ferrari, the 350 isn't just a "speed" thing. It's the torque, the driving satisfaction, the return on investment, and it's so worth the loss of maybe 2 MPG on the interstate if you don't re-gear. I wouldn't unless it was my only car, and I truly couldn't afford my commute. If you do have a Ferrari, then you can afford to prevent this mistake.

vicg1

Nah. 305 in it when it left the factory, 305 going back in. I briefly thought about the 350 and doing away with the tpi, etc, but decided to keep it stock. Once back together it's off to the body shop for a head to toe makeover.

calamitascamaro

iTrader: (5)

Hey bro, if you want a 305 then thats your decision. Let the haters hate. As a side note, how'd you end up in a third gen owning a Ferrari?

vicg1

I have had everything. Grew up patching cars together for fun. Never owned a Camaro, so when a friend had this one that he said was mint (I never saw it) I bought it sight unseen. It was far from mint, but fun to drive, so I figured I would try to keep it on the road a while longer.

I've had a lot of cars and owned several convetibles: Allante, TR8, Vette, TR6... the TR8 was a ton of fun. No one expected a little POS made by Triumph to be as fast or handle as well as it did. A little work was done to the V8, however.

NathanLewis

Hmm. Interesting.

Atilla the Fun

So I'm a hater for speaking from experience, and not being afraid to be the first to post what many of us know? The only kids who love 305s are those who've never driven a healthy 350.

NathanLewis

This.

vicg1

I've owned/driven things much healthier...

And I would like to thank Southbay Fuel Injectors! My mechanic threw out the injector o-rings and replaced them with stock rings... guess what? Leaks. Like a fountain! Southbay was nice enough to quickly send out a replacement set that was the correct fit for the Bosch3 injectors I purchased from them!

Tinbender59

I like Your style dude, " I can go fast in my Ferrari" Now that is funny and I don't care who you are!!!

vicg1

vicg1

I got over that whole going fast thing a long time ago... I'm far from a kid, don't know where the years went.

When I was 20 I had a Pantera, that was fun. Pretty fast and handled excellently... went fast in that one on more than one occasion. I still miss that car.

Anyway, got the new 305 engine fired up, and had an awful squeal. It resonnated so bad we couldn't tell where it was coming from...

We pulled the accessory belt, sound still there.

We noticed that the sound went away a second AFTER the engine stopped rotating when shut off, so it wasn't a rotating part. Good news.

Next we tested the injectors by spraying a bit of carb cleaner to see if they were sucking air. Nope.

Next we injected smoke with this cool smoke machine from Snap On to see if we could detect where we may have had a vacuum leak, nothing unusual.

Then we pulled the oil dipstick and the sound went away... but man was it ever pulling air thru that tube! Turns out we had both sides of the valve cover pcvs pulling vaccuum... simple mix up with two air lines. Swapped them, sound went away!

It purrs now, going to drive it around a bit today!

johnw999

I just bought an '84 trans am. I'm going to replace the engine soon, but I'll probably get a 350 crate engine. The trans am is the anniversary addition, so I did think about keeping the original engine block. Anyway, how did you go about choosing your mechanic? With the engine pulled, did you have an opportunity to replace hard to reach components? I suspect the heater core was one of them.

vicg1

I have a friend that is a mechanic (a real one). I thought about swapping in a 350 with a carb, doing away with all of the electronics, but with his tools and knowledge I wasn't fearful of future issues with the engine controls...

While the engine was out he decided we should replace the ac evaporator... once it was out I was able to look thru the firewall and saw the heater core was actually leaking a bit. Book time was 8 hours on it... I started to rip the dash out and about half way thru I realized I was able to reach the heater box screws without much trouble and was able to slide the new heater core in... don't rip out the whole dash!!! And yes, it was easier to get to the core lines with the engine out.

I don't think there was anything else we did while the engine was out that made a difference...