well fellow thirdgeners the day has finally come. My son turns 16 next year so we wanted to get a project car this year that we could finish together. At first he wanted a 79-81 chevy malibu, but all the ones I could find in his price range were all hacked up or rusted out. After searching and searching but finding nothing worth buying we were getting very discouraged. Until I saw the post from Jay selling his Camaro. It was a little more than what we were originally wanting to spend but I new it was clean and rust free. When I told my son about it he remembered the car from thirdgen fest last year because we were parked next to it. So I never though the day would come when both my son and I would both have third gens, but it's here! check it out.

 

here's one more. two odd colored thirdgens, one house.

 

looks good. But makes your car look bad. lol atleast i know its in good hands. make sure your son know if he crashes it you will kick his as$ later man

 

man....that SOM one sure looks sweet, i think i might have worked on it from time to time

 

huge front fender gap huh???

 

beenm alot of that going around here, I think its called "noengititus"

 

Cool. What are you going to do with it engine-wise?

 

congrats paul and thats going to be a great platform for a father son build. I cant wait till i have a son to do that. Well maybe in 20 years lol

 

If only I could convince my dad to get a thirdgen that is like my ultimate dream my dad and I both cruising in thirdgens

 

well as far as the engine goes it's going to be a mild/dependable setup. Since it's going to be a first car I don't what it to be too radical. When I built up my car I used all new parts, including the block and all. So I still have the original L98 350 from my firebird. I'm probably going to give it a mild street cam and refresh the internals. Most likely going to make it carb because the car is already setup that way. Ultimately I think were going back to fuel injection, but right now carb will be easier. I still have my old TPI intake and injectors, just no harness or computer. I'm also thinking just for fun, to mount up my torque thrust rims on the camaro just to see how it would look. Right now they are off of the bird because I was polishing them up, so putting them on the camaro will only take a couple of minutes. I'll probably post up more pics as the project progresses, sorry I don't have any plans for a very aggressive setup. But who knows what the future will bring.

 

Very nice......hope too see both your cars at TGF....and then whatever project Jey drags out

 

Woah. I remember your car. I think I checked it out at Burger King on the cruise.

I remember that orange Camaro at the fest too. Looks sweet!

 

Nice

Good find there Paul.

hopefully we can meet up at the lansing cruise again this summer when i have a 3 week break.

later
Jeremy

 

Nice father son project. Since my bought my Formula off my dad, I am hoping when he drives my car around he will get the speed bug and buy another thirdgen. Any updates?

 

I am in love with the cars. I have this picture as my background and I think I am in love.

 

thanks for the appreciation. as far as progress with the camaro, just still doing some research/parts searching. probably going to buy a carb for it this week from a guy I work with. it's a EB 1406 I think. 600 cfm w/elec choke.

 

junk the edelbrock, go get a holley much easier to tune and work on. When's this thing gonna be driving paul?

 

do you have any holley carb part # suggestions? it needs to be a very trouble-free & streetable w/ elec choke.

 

i'd go with a 650 dp with an electric choke honestly that would be about as trouble free as they get. Set the fast idle speed, the choke adjustment setting and then dial in the mixture and jetting along with timing curves and you'd be all set. Would take someone like me around 3-4 hours to get it all dialed in. If you don't want to go with a double pumper then a 750 VS carb would work as well, but if he stays out of the secondaries then gas mileage would be the same with either carb, just parts are cheaper for the DP and it's much much easier to set it and forget it. Of course changing 2-6 jet sizes from 90 degree days and then for the winter would be a given but that would only be in the spring and fall and wouldn't take long at all. I believe that jay sold you that trans as well, which had a vette converter in it, so with a 2200-ish stall in there a double pumper would be fine with a stockish 350, just probably wouldn't need to be floored until 3k rpm or so due to a bog.

here's the carb I believe I'm thinking of off summit racing's website.

HLY-0-4777C

$355.95

You would then need to buy an electric choke kit, unless summit or jegs sells a 650 double pumper with electric choke from holley. The only ones I found like that were the marine carbs which are double the price. The electric choke kit is under $35 IIRC and is just 3 screws to set up.

This along with a nice vacuum advance HEI should be pretty much fool proof and trouble free. I don't typically like buying used carbs since one blocked passage will cause you to hunt down issues all summer long. In fact I bought a 850 double pumper HP holley last year and wasted 5 weeks throwing new parts at it trying to fix it when I could have just slapped on a new carb and been done right away.

 

Updates??? Pictures? How are things going? Just Curious. I saw your name and remembered this thread.

 

one thing you can depend on from the edelbrock is completely rebuilding it every 2 years.

i know some jeep guys that swear buy them. even they say there finicky and need to be rebuilt every 2 years not to mention there heat soak no start condition.

 

Well not as far along as I was hoping. We were originally planning on taking it to third - gen fest 2008, but that didn't happen. Didn't want to rush the project. Just been buying parts and cleaning up the engine. As I stated earlier the engine will be the one from my bird; a 1989 L98 with a edelbrock RPM dual plane intake, edelbrock carb, GM ZZ4 roller cam, LT4 springs, headman long tube headers, proform air cleaner w/bowtie & matching proform center bolt valve covers. For Christmas he got a kenwood deck & alpine 6X9's. Here are some pics from a couple of months ago.

 

Oooh, I like the Exhaust! How old is your son now?

By the way, Is that a GT Performer BMX bike I see in the back ground? I am a HUGE GT fan. I have had a GT Jeremy McGrath Sig Series, Gt Mach One, Gt Performer, and my current bike I built up a Gt Bump. Their older bikes are the best. You pick some good stuff. Gt Bike, and then a Thirdgen! I wouldn't be happier!

 

The boy is 15 right now, he'll be 16 later this year. And yes that's his GT, it's about 8yrs old. He has never had the bike in the rain, just like his plans for the car. He's kind of a freak about keeping his things nice & clean.

 

good luck on the rest of the build, cant wait to see it done, looks damn good as of right now, the bird and the camaro, but i like the camaro more, sorry pontiac....

 

I like your bird alot. They are both not very common colors and they go good together. Like Father like Son!

 

here is a couple of update pics.