This is going to be a FUN project.

Curt's Sister has enlisted us to rebuild the Camaro, and build her a suitable engine.

It's been painted, and aside from some shady trunk pan body work that didn't get done, the car is ready to be reassembled.

Up until this afternoon everyone was under the impression that the engine was a 327 and we'd be budget building it to match the car without spending a lot of cash.

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I saw it had camel hump heads, and it was a Flint block, but the black block paint seemed odd. I checked the casting numbers when I got home and it's a '77 or '78 350...not a 327 at all.

I'll focus on the engine first. We'll build it slowly and as cheap as possible. When the engine is done, we'll bring the Camaro to Columbia and begin assembling it in Curt's garage. When the car is done, we'll bring it to MY house, and install the drive train. This project might take a year or so but the hard part is done and all we need to do is build the engine and assemble the car from all the new parts.

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Looks like a fun project. Did she purchase it disassembled?

DB, where do you get all of the time????

Ah,lust...favorite car of all time, first one was a 67 rs.

Looks great in white btw.

you probably already know this but that is a low compression motor so dont go crazy with cam timing.

Keep us posted, love the car!

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She's had the car for a very long time. She brought it to Missouri as a red car, complete, drivable, with poorly done flares and a cobbled together redneck race engine. LOL.

She recently stripped it and had the body work and paint done.

Parties previously involved with the project are no longer involved, and Curt and I were asked to take over.

Andrew, I make as much time as I can for work, family, and personal interests. Without hobbies that make us happy life gets old and dull too fast.

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I know that the stock engine in that car would have been a low CR engine, true, but what we pulled was not the stock engine.

The beast pictured above is actually a '77 or '78 350 installed sometime in the early '80's.

I want to build an engine that will keep the car streetable as a daily driver, so I'm targeting around 9.75:1 static CR. I'll post a game plan when I have more information on the engine. At this point I don't even know if it has been bored or if it was a virgin late '70's block with low enough miles that a bore is not needed.

do u know the dish in the pistons? I have dart iron eagles with 60cc chambers that would be better than those old camels

Always loved those old camaros. Looks like a very fun project. And no digital dash to worry about

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Come on, Foose's guys could do it in 7 days.

Aren't you glad the bodywork is already done?

67- The best year for Camaros (and Corvettes)

Pretty cool that she's going back to stock looking.

Very Nice. I had a 69 in White, I loved that car but couldn't afford to fix her up right back then. Mine was a real Z28, but missing the DZ motor. I wish I still had that car today.

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I don't know anything under the casting numbers yet. Today I'm going to pull the heads and pan. I want to see if it's a 2 or 4 bolt block. I want to look at the pistons, the bore, if it maybe has forged rods and crank, and bearing sizes.

I have a 'feeling' it's a virgin block with low miles and it won't even need a bore and new pistons. That will really cut down on machine shop labor and parts costs. Significantly.

As for heads, those Dart heads sound great. I was half-planning on finding some 64cc Vortec heads to rebuild. Depending on the pistons, I might PM you about those heads. Got any idea on price or trade options?

Vortecs would likely outflow mine but you would need a intake to match the different mount holes. Ill trade for some AFR195s haha. $600 with guideplates and all. for $50 more ill leave my 1.6 roller rockers on em

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Sorry, way out of budget range. I can get a pair of Vortec heads that already have the 2.020 / 1.600 valves for $200 and rebuild them myself.

Update: I pulled a head off this morning. First, the humpers have small valves. Not interested in re-using them anyway but maybe I can sell them for some change.

Pistons are Manley P5511 STD. This means two things. First, it's a standard bore and we can either bore if needed, or we can drop in standard slugs. Almost NO ridge at all so that's good news.

It also means this builder built a 350, using 327 pistons, and with the 64cc chamber humpers had a static CR of roughly 12.5:1. No wonder it ran like crap.

I don't see any evidence of detonation.

Next step later will be to check under the oil pan, check the timing method, and see what the cam is.

Whoever built this cobbled it together using 327 and 350 parts. Not very well thought out and if Curt's Sister had put 87 or even 91 in the car before it got ripped apart then she would have had some problems.

switch it to e85 haha

I'll start a whole new thread for the engine build and the proposed plan. I'll take suggestions but considering what I have and what I've learned I think it'll be a STD bore 350, flat top pistons, 64cc Vortec heads, Vortec intake, 9.50:1 SCR, and a mildly aggressive street cam.

I'm even toying with the idea of a roller retrofit using V6 roller lifters and a roller cam.

The crap part is I was kind of looking forward to building a 327.

Maybe if the budget gets bigger we'll do a 383.

Nice cars

My Brother used to have a '69

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That's what I love about you man. You never miss a chance to turn it into something about you.

Yep, it's me.

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Let's please keep this civil. Absolutely no reason to take shots at someone. As you can tell above, several people have made mention of previous cars, etc. This is aforum to enjoy each others posts.

Here are a few pics of my uncle's camaro below.

Matthew

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Matthew, what cube is that Merlin? Man, that would look great in a C2. Hmmmm, maybe one day....

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so, what are you going to do troll over here now?

Play nice, guys. I am not in the mood to mop up from a pissing contest.

14016379...350...77-79...2 or 4


hell with camaros.. i want this bad mother

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I think it's on the shroud...looks like 506?

The white with the black stripe looks very sharp! You guys will do a great job with it - looking forward to seeing it progress!

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Yup, it's a beast. It's a street/strip set up, has a hurst in line shifter (PIA!) I drove it and it goes great in a straight line, but not too fun turning with no power steering. Still, that car is sweet!

Matthew

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Cool. I wasn't sure if it was 506 or 606. Some of those Merlin blocks get in the 6xx cubes.

DB, let me know if you need someone to pass you some wrench's. I'm looking forward seeing the final product.

I'll be sure to keep everyone posted. The major work won't happen until the engine is done and the car is in Curt's garage. That's when we'll assemble the car, and prepare it to come over here for the engine. Not a summer project...more like a year project.

Update: The block has 4 bolt mains, a noisy timing gear set, and almost no cylinder wall wear. I'm going to check it inn depth when I get the piston rods out but it seems like it'll hone out at STD and won't need a bore at all.

Normally I would bore anything I got into but I think this block has around or less than 500 miles of actual run time based on gaskets.

Oh, and the harmonic balancer looked like it came from the Titanic. How in the WORLD would someone re-use something so awful looking.

I can't wait to get Chrissy's car up to Columbia and in my garage. She has everything for it but the front windshield. I want to get started putting it back together. The nice part about us doing this project is that we'll have driving privileges when we want!