Scoundrel

The day started as it usually did, my recalcitrant yet beloved 87 Camaro creaking and groaning, rattling to life and seeming to spit more exhaust out of the hole in the catalytic converter than through the 3" cat-back system I put on her a decade ago. Sure, the MSD coil, cap, wires, and 6A box I installed helped mitigate some of the weaknesses that time had wrought, but the fact of the matter is she was old.

That said, thanks to Hawk's Third Gen Parts and their recent 25% discount sale on BMR parts, the day ended far, far better than it began.

I ordered lower control arms, a panhard bar, both front and rear sway bars, a torque arm, their three-point strut tower brace, and the torque arm relocation bracket/transmission crossmember. I chose to purchase the non-adjustable versions of these items, which I am comfortable with even after reading the thoughts and feelings of the veteran members of these boards. The fact of the matter is that this is a 2.8 v6, my daily driver, and my goals are fairly modest.

Besides, the price was right, they came in red, and look gorgeous installed.

I'll pause for a moment to give a shout out to Hawk's again, especially to Steven who was able to track down the reason my rear sway bar hadn't shipped, and followed up with me a few days later to let me know that there was nothing to fear, for it was on its way. Thanks again, Steven.

As I mentioned before, the parts look gorgeous underneath the car, and the majority of the install was easily accomplished with a pair of buddies who are also gearheads. One is a Mustang driver, the other drives a Thunderbird while he quietly turns his '78 Chevette into a sleeper, but I try not to hold that against them.

The only real speed bump we ran into was installing the torque arm. It turns out that the machining was so exact that we had to take an hour to grind off the powdercoating on the insides of the axle mount to give us the extra clearance to muscle it on. We considered breaking for the day, but the broken bushing on the end of the factory torque arm and the 3/4" of play it gave to the axle convinced us otherwise. Outside of that, everything went exactly as described in the instructions, which made the early spring day really enjoyable.

But not as enjoyable as the test drive.

I *know* that we didn't touch anything on the engine, but the old-fashioned butt dyno will swear to it's dying day that we added a dozen horses under the hood. The way she planted her rear tires amazed me, but even more amazing was the lack of nose-diving under braking. She really gripped, and taking a couple of slow u-turns to get the feel of the new parts was almost magical. She accelerated up to highway speeds a lot quicker, and everything just felt better overall.

To sum up, let me just offer a huge two thumbs up for Hawk's and for BMR. My Camaro feels like a Camaro again.

Project 3.4 Camaro

Should get some sub-frame connectors as well.

Scoundrel

I already have some Alston ones that were donated by a friend, but we don't have access to welding equipment to properly install them yet. Thank you for the advice though.