The CAM-Z: autocrossing a Z28

This has me wanting to get working on mine in the worst way... but its still buried under snow that doesn't seem to want to go away this year at all... 

In reply to DjGreggieP :

looking forward to the build thread.

I'm going to skip today's event. It's a non-points event in the rain, so It's not really necessary that I'm there.

AClockworkGarage said:

She's running really well. Really rich, mind you, but really well.

Cars and people are a lot alike.  They work best when they're a little rich and a little....  ahem!....   errrr...  "not advanced"?

 

Welp, should have know that wouldn't last. she still runs the same, but doesn't fire up as quickly. for the last week its been two pumps and a single key blip.

Now it's crank-crank-crank... crank.  quick blast from a can of starter fluid and she fires right up. fuel bowls are low, just at the bottom of the sight glass. they fill proper once it's running.

Also the fuel pressure which was 6.5 is now 3.

I pulled the fuel filter and cleaned it, but it made no difference.

Is my pump going out?

egad, sounds like it...

Took her out to the cars n coffee last weekend.

It rained but it was a good time anyway. Noticed the low fuel pressure when I got home and suspected the pump. Gathered everything I needed and tackled the replacement between rainshowers this morning.

If I was going to replace anything I am going to replace everything, that's pretty much how I've been doing this build, so I got my hands on a new pump, new lines, clamps and some heat sleeving. Might be overkill but due to GMs economy of scale it only set me back about $45 for everything. Here it is pre assembled for installation. I figured it'd be easier to get all the fittings nice and tight this way.

With hat I pulled the old pump.

Something isn't right here.

Yup. P.O. was a numbskull. This is why I replace everything.

I managed to get the heat sleeving over the hard lines as well. Kind've and arse-pain but they're actually close to the headers so i figured they probably needed it more.

but everything went back together smoothly (almost, that pushrod was a pita) and pressure is back where it should be.

How's she run now that the pressure is back to normal?

Carb woes?  wrote a song about it.  Wanna hear it?  Goes somethin like this

Hungary Bill said:

Carb woes?  wrote a song about it.  Wanna hear it? 

I do not.

Did some tuning on the carb yesterday and got it better. Probably about as good as I'm ever going to get it without help. Hooking the vacuum gauge up is a bit of an arse-pain and I imagine I'm going to be hooking it up quite a bit.

The port is down there, under the bowl...

I decided to do something about it.

a short length of vacuum line, some caps, a T-junction and some zip-ties...

Bam... remote vacuum port.

That is way easier.

In reply to Hungary Bill :

I listened to your song and thought it was pretty good! High bpm and you rhymed lots more words with carburetor than I would have guessed.

Pattyo said:

In reply to Hungary Bill :

I listened to your song and thought it was pretty good! High bpm and you rhymed lots more words with carburetor than I would have guessed.

Don't encourage him.

I ordered an assortment of jets from Summit. Then I ordered $60 worth of additional crap to avoid the $6 shipping fee because I'm smrt. There was a box on my doorstep when I got home from my union meeting today. All the extras, the jets are on backorder.

Sigh.

Oh well, on to the goodies.

My painted chrome air cleaner and paper filter has been bugging me since I put it on. If you remember it was an unexpected rush job after the carb swap. well, I finally got around to replacing it with a proper one.

And I've now got an extra drop base if I need one.

also this:

I think I'll paint the metal parts gunmetal and replace the hardware with some stainless. Make it look a little less 'Oh look a 3rd gen Camaro with a Grant GT and a B&M Megashifter..."

I was originally going to paint it white to match the body with blue anodized hardware but the 'surprise it's chrome'  horn button has me rethinking that.

Just a quick update from an airport in San Francisco. Taking a week away from the job to visit my grandfather. There will likely be a better update coming soon.

Took her out to the season opener yesterday and she did great, then she refused to start. Culprit was a loose pos cable. Going to have to get a propper one made for it.

I finished top three in my class of three cars. But I had a blast. Got my first spin out of the way and managed a john force start. Got a good launch with a bit of wheelspin, worried about letting off in case the carb decided to bog so I stayed in it, and it just smoked em all the way to the first turn. Not the fastest time, but it was a good time.

People love a good smoke show from a 3rd Gen, that's for sure!

Much has happened in the past few weeks, but I've been traveling a lot so I haven't been updating.

When last we left our hero he had just installed a chrome horn button.

It looks ok, I guess. But we can do better. Lets hit it with some scotchbrite:

A quick bath of wax and grease remover:

Now masking. This is where most rattle can jobs fall apart. You must mask EVERYTHING you don't want paint on.

Everything...

I'm a big fan of Dupli-Color's paints.

As always the secret is several light coats.

A couple coats of clear to seal everything in.

But it's still missing something. Some expensive final touch.

Yeah, like 8 of those.

Installed.

Ok... next update on the journey to now. roughly 2 weekends ago we had the season opener in Bremerton. The weather was cool and threatening to rain. but I made it out and got ready to run.

I've not done too well in this car for two reasons. One being that all the CAM classes are mixed, leaving me hoplessly outclassed by the other cars, an 8 year in a row champion 400+ HP dodge challenger:And this really clean 405 hp Z06.

I don't really have anything for them to fear....

But the other thing holding me back has been my own fear and uncertainty. I've never really driven this car at 10/10ths, or even 9/10ths. on my first run I resolved to turn up the wick a bit and promptly pirouetted through the first set of gates. I jumped straight to 11/10ths. No cones but I lost a lot of time getting myself turned around.

Second run went a little better There was a little bit of heat in the tires, but the nut behind the wheel was a bit loose and I entered a slalom on the wrong side resulting in several missed gates. Fark.

Third run was my first clean run. The car was pretty flat on the new suspension but the track was still cool and there wasn't much grip to be had. Still I gained 6 seconds on my previous run.

My final run went pretty flawlessly for me anyway. No cones, no gates, car remained relatively straight. Unfortunately my best was still 6 seconds slower by pax standards, 8 seconds in the real world. It's a tad bit discouraging.

In the end I had a great day, then ran home parked the  Z and ran to the airport.

I would miss the second event and the first Pro-solo of the year while I was in FL.

 Don't be discouraged, its hard to beat cubic money backed by experience.  Most of my season wins were by consistency. Do every event on the series, if the competition misses one or 2 you can still win the points race at the end.

AClockworkGarage said:

Much has happened in the past few weeks, but I've been traveling a lot so I haven't been updating.

 

When last we left our hero he had just installed a chrome horn button.

It looks ok, I guess. But we can do better. Lets hit it with some scotchbrite:

A quick bath of wax and grease remover:

Now masking. This is where most rattle can jobs fall apart. You must mask EVERYTHING you don't want paint on.

Everything...

I'm a big fan of Dupli-Color's paints.

As always the secret is several light coats.

A couple coats of clear to seal everything in.

But it's still missing something. Some expensive final touch.

Yeah, like 8 of those.

Installed.

I have that same wheel. In a bit worse shape. I'm inspired to fix it now. Yours looks good. Going in the V8 Safari. 

Summit racing just shared my car on it's Facebonk page... so that's fun.

It's technically correct that I'm dominating my class. and technically correct is the best kind of correct.
 

vwcorvette said: I have that same wheel. In a bit worse shape. I'm inspired to fix it now. Yours looks good. Going in the V8 Safari. 

Go for it. Best part is, those wheels are so inexpensive that it's not a huge loss if you mess it up.

Take pictures, report back.

Gearheadotaku said:

 

 Do every event on the series, if the competition misses one or 2 you can still win the points race at the end.

Not in my region you can't. They run 8 events in the season. You must attend at least 6 of them to be eligible for the championship. At the end of the season they drop your two lowest scores so every total is based off 6 events.

My novice season in the GP I was the only driver to run every event. At season end I led the field by 140 points. After they adjusted the scores, I landed in 7th. BS if you ask me.

Here's the next update:

I spent a weekend in FL, visiting my Grandfather  who recently had an accident. He was working on his roof when the ground suddenly jumped up and hit him. He's ok but his leg is... very broken. He's going to be in a chair for a while. While I was there I helped build a ramp into his house and gave his truck an oil change.

I've always loved this truck. My grandfather has rebuilt this thing 3 times. One of my earliest memories is me riding in this thing. I kind of want one for myself. But I want to shove a turbo 944 drivetrain in it...

Unfortunately I missed the second event while I was away, but I was under the hood the afternoon I got back.  I decided to get rid of this.

I picked up a jeep shaft over the winter, so out with the rag joint and in with the u-joints.

While I had the shaft out I pulled out the old dried out plastic bushing. 

I replaced that with a roller bearing out of an astro-van.

With the new bearing in place I ground a channel into the splines and slipped the new shaft into place.

Looks good and feels better.

As the weekend arrived I grabbed my tools and headed out to work on her again.

This has gotta go.

we'll just put it right there on the ground...

mmmmm... halfway there

fitting the new box was tough but i got it.

'bout 4 hours start to finish.

Still missing something,  but it looks much better.

Will admit, I am glad mine is a Non A/C car. One less thing to swap out later. Car is looking better and better!!

Just a quick update, still about a week in the past.

When we pulled the ignition system it left a number of holes in the firewall. I looked at a few options of closing them up, from tape, to welding. Jb Weld... in the end i just put some rubber washers on a self-tapper and just zipped them in. why over-think it?