Alright everyone, time to tackle some more of those cooling issues the Camaro comes with. I went a little above and beyond here, and most probably wouldn't require as much. At this point I ordered a brand new radiator, dual high performance cooling fans, 6' of hose, and a 180 degree thermostat.

    The first thing I did was rip out the A/C system. My Camaro is a T-top, so I hardly every use the A/C. Plus, removing that makes everything a lot easier to work on. So I removed the condenser, the evaporator, the drier, even the entire compressor. Instead of an A/C delete kit where you use the stock belt and it wraps around a pulley attached to nothing, I went to an auto parts store and sized up belts for an hour. I eventually found one that fit perfectly, and I don't have the part number on me right now, but if anyone is curious, just comment and ask. I will be happy to find the part number of the shorter belt for you. Here is a quick picture of everything out with the shorter belt installed. The A/C bracket you see in the pictures eventually came out too. It was just being a real pain in the neck to get out.

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    Now that all the A/C components are out of the way, it was time to tackle the cooling issues a little more. There are 2 hoses coming from your firewall back behind the alternator. These are the feed and return lines for the heater core. At this point there are 2 things you can do.
    1. I took my 6' of hose and cut it to replace the stock routing. This is because the stock bit goes from a hose to a metal line and back to a hose again. This metal line rusts up inside and eventually cracks outside. So if you take that whole section out, you can use the stock clamps and cut the new hose you have to size as a direct replacement. It works great and is very simple to do.
    2. The second option you have after you have done the first part, is mainly a step you do in the summer. During the winter you will want the coolant to flow through the heater core so you have heat, but during the summer, you obviously aren't using it. So I took one of the hoses off, and wrapped the one hose right from the inlet to the outlet on the water pump.
    Another thing you can do, speaking of looping, is look at the throttle body. There is a coolant hose that attaches to 2 ports coming from the throttle body. You can take one of these hoses, and take the other one off, and loop this section of hose as well. Unfortunately I didn't take pictures of these set ups much, but here is a picture of the metal lines.

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    Now to change the thermostat is pretty straight forward. You remove the intake piping from the throttle body and you have direct access to remove the thermostat housing. So I changed out the 195 for the 180 degree thermostat. The important part here is the new radiator and fan set up. The old radiator was getting clogged up with rust from those metal lines I ripped out so it needed to be replaced. The old fan that comes in these 3.4l Camaros are a single unit. One fan, and the rest is a giant shroud. So I attached 2 new high performance radiator fans to the new radiator. The radiator fans again were run by a fuse so they would remain on while the car was on. At this point you can rest easier knowing that everything has been done to keep this car cool as far as the cooling system is concerned. Also, if you try to do everything mentioned in this post in one day like I did, make sure you have a lovely assistant to help you out. Luckily I had one, and if you don't have one, well you might throw a couple tools and not have such a complete set anymore. Here are a couple pictures of the now completed system, and the last picture has a little surprise fun addition I picked up.

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    Time for a quick post since everyone probably wondered where I disappeared to. Sorry everyone, it has been busy the last couple days. I'll be including a special update about helping the car stay cool at the bottom. It is probably the most important piece of the puzzle too.

    Anyhow, one day I got really bored, and the money in my wallet was starting to catch fire to my leg. It had to go somewhere, so I bought a new cold air intake system and some MSD 8.5mm spark plug wires.

    When they arrived, I got right to work starting with the spark plug wires. It was a very easy replacement, The only thing I found out later was don't plan to remove the spark plug wires again for some time. The MSD wires are great but when I went to remove them to check the spark plugs a little later on down the road, they were so attached to the spark plugs, that I ripped one of the wires right through the boot. The bright red from the wires looked great in the engine bay though.

    Next was installing the cold air intake to give the engine bay a little more flare. The old one came off really easy, but it was a trip to get the new one in. The filter wouldn't go through the hole where the stock air box system used to sit. To get the filter where I needed it to go, I actually needed to jack up the car and remove the plastic panel on the bottom. Once I got the filter on, I reattached the panel, and now the new piece is in looking great. It is also a little better since it is now pulling air completely away from the engine bay. It is sucking up nothing but clean and cold air. Here is a shot of the engine bay after these two things were installed.

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        One day I got very bored and I was looking through some classified ads. I came across someone selling 3 more pieces of the RS lip kit I have been after. I messaged the person and asked him if he would consider a trade for my smartphone. I wasn't using it anymore since I switched providers anyhow so it was extremely worth it. Luckily, he accepted my offer and I went down to make the trade. Almost as soon as I got back, I painted all the parts flat black to match the lip kit. I installed the side skirts as soon as they were dry to the touch, I figured the paint could cure while it was on the car. The side skirts mount right up to the screw at the bottom in the fender wells, so that wasn't a problem. There are mounting tabs underneath as well, but I didn't have a drill. The side skirts did stay up just fine with just the 2 screws and only sagged about half an inch from where they should sit. I then moved on to the rear lip which was a lot more difficult. I was at this for about an hour and it ended in arms that were jello from holding them up for so long. This lip needed holes made in the bumper to be mounted. I had to hold the lip up to the bumper right where I wanted it, and while not moving it at all, I had to bend over to see where the holes were and mark them with a marker. When I was done, I took one of the self tapping screws from the interior pieces, the appropriate socket for it, and started forcing the screw through the bumper to make the holes. This was a lot more difficult than it might seem considering the bumper would flex. So finally after that painful hour of forcing holes into my bumper, I was able to bolt the lip on. Finally, I had only 1 piece left to go for the RS lip kit.

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    Now onto the main event, allowing this baby to not be suffocated by her own heat. Now like I said before, the main problem with the design of this car is the grill, or lack thereof. This front bumper cover does not allow any air to move through it. The only option that I saw that made sense was to make a hole in it to allow air to travel like a normal grill on just about every other model car. Of course I didn't want to drive around with a chopped up front bumper either. I came across the billet grill insert and figured that would work perfectly. So I ordered that, then went outside and got to work. I figured the perfect way to cut the front bumper was to simply take out the black portion that was made to look like a grill anyhow. However, the fog light housing goes around completely, so I just cut down to the fog light housing on each side. This actually turned out to be a perfect decision later and not because of the fog lights. Next, while the bumper was off, I removed the plastic pieces that you will see stuffed in there. I also removed the windshield wiper fluid container since I use rainx and never use the fluid anyhow. I also removed the actual front bumper and reinforcement. Now most people will frown upon this but the reinforcement is huge and in the way of air flow. Now with everything out of the way, I re-installed the front bumper cover that is now cut.

    A couple days later, I ended up getting my billet grill insert. I noticed it had mounts attached to it that usually go on the stock plastic grill on the bumper cover. So apparently these are used completely for show typically. Now I was left with a way to find out how to mount this piece. Luckily, I made the decision not to cut the bumper completely down, but stop at the fog light housing. I easily took a few zip ties, wrapped it around the grill and the fog light housing, and there it sat perfectly to never fall to this day. Speaking of zip ties, I visited my Camaro at the shop the other day where she is sitting currently, and I managed to get a picture of the zip tie rig holding the exhaust pipe for now 2 years like I had explained in a previous post. So here is that picture along with the pictures of the grill.

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    Alright, so now comes more of the custom work you have been wondering about. In this post I will be going over the wheel swap, the dash and interior panel swap, and the custom made vinyl headliner and sun visors. These were some interesting days to say the least. So to kick it off, there isn't much of a story to swapping wheels but here is a picture of the Z28 wheels that finally went on and kicked the steel wheels and hubcaps to the curb.

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    Along with the wheels that I picked up, I managed to collect a full set of interior pieces I needed to make it feel a little newer inside. I had the front dash pieces, the firewall dash piece, the air ducts, center console, dash pad, trim and side panels, and I could not wait to get them on.

    It started with doing the dash. I ripped everything out from in front of the seats and tossed it out the door. I should have taken a picture when it was completely stripped, it looked so weird but I was too excited to care for pictures at that point. Turns out this swap was going to be easier than I had planned. Everything matched right up to the mounting points, the only problem is I was the only person working with these big bulky pieces. I managed to get the new firewall dash in as well as the duct work. The air vents took some persuading as they don't give you much room to run the little side hoses. Next I had to put in the new gauge cluster that I got out of a Firebird. Since the dash is a different shape, the old cluster wasn't going to fit. Of course even though the new cluster came from a Firebird that had the same engine, the plug was changed. So now I have to spend 20 minutes splicing wires together. Luckily there was only one confusing part of about 3 blue wires that I managed to figure out pretty quickly. For a couple moments, I didn't have lights on the gauge. Everything works fine after I figured out those wires though. After I got that in, it was time for the main front dash piece. This part with the airbag and all was actually pretty heavy. Since I was the only one trying to mount up this heavier piece that is obviously as long as the width of the car, getting it to line up to the mounting points was rather difficult. At one point, I'm trying to line up a metal shim that bolts to the floor and holds most of the weight of the dash. Well I am basically upside down and twisted around trying to get under there to get the bolts in. Wouldn't you know it I lose grip and the dash pops and lines itself up with the mounting point. Only there is a problem with this scenario. My finger is stuck in between the mounting point and the shim and I can't get it off because my other arm is basically pinned by my twisted body. So while it feels like my finger is being ripped off, I am yelling out of the car for someone that I know is currently outside to come help. Here is the thing though, when you work on a car, any mechanic and all will tell you, you will yell and scream and curse quite often. So it is actually pretty normal to hear. The person outside must just think I am going nuts because I dropped a bolt for the 50th time. So I am just about doing a head stand in my car bending my legs over my body and across the way to hit the horn with my knee. Finally, after laying on the horn, someone comes over and lifts the dash off my bloody finger. So at this point, I take the rest of the evening off and revisit the project the next day. Also, because of this, I would highly recommend having a second person help you if you do the same swap. It will go over a lot easier and a lot less painful.

    So the next day I come back out and I manage to finish bolting in the front dash, and clipped in the remaining smaller front pieces. The new dash pad that actually was not cracked went in smoothly. The center console was a breeze to swap out. About 7 bolts and it came right out, and the new one went right in its place without a hitch. So the last part of the swap was the really easy part. I just needed to swap out some trim pieces that I wanted to be tan instead. It went along great with the grey and made the interior feel a lot more open. So here are a few pictures from the completed dash swap, then we will get into the custom vinyl headliner.

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    Now onto one of the biggest changes. Time to replace that dirty, saggy, ugly, old cloth headliner with a new fresh look that will last a lot longer and be a lot cleaner. I had some excellent help with this and I wouldn't recommend doing it yourself if you haven't before. It probably won't turn out nice, smooth, and tight fitting like you need it. First thing's first, I had to rip that old stuff out of there. When I did, I unfortunately didn't think to use gloves, but I ripped off the cloth from the mold. I would wear a mask too if doing this again, but I didn't know just how much insulation was going to float into the air. Next I used a thick wire brush to scratch off all the glue, headliner remnants, and smooth out the surface as best as possible. Once that was all cleaned up, we brought out the vinyl and laid the sheet over the old cloth headliner I ripped off earlier so we could get an accurately cut shape. We left a little extra on from the original in case of any mishaps. Now this was the very difficult part that I am glad I did not have to do myself. First, there were incisions made around each corner so it wouldn't kink when applied to the surface. Then, section by section, we used 3M spray adhesive on the molds surface and pressed the vinyl smoothly onto it. Once we made sure there were not any air pockets or creases, we flipped the mold over so the inside is facing us now along with the edges of the vinyl. We sprayed the inside of the headliner now to bring in the edges of the vinyl nice and tight. This way the vinyl doesn't just fall on my head later on. This part of the project was completed surprisingly on the first try and all that was left to do were the sun visors. I am pretty sure they were way more difficult, but my magical helper had them done by the time I was done installing the new headliner. So I do not have much information on how that went, but they turned out perfect. Luckily I picked up some new clear glass T tops to set off this project just right. As always, here are the pictures for this project.

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    So now that you have gotten the introduction and back story of the Camaro, let's move on to the actual work that has been getting done. Oh, by the way, I decided to name my Camaro. I came to love the name Sydney, so arises her name. Ok, back on topic now. I started hitting some of the maintenance work right off the bat. If you remember, the oil was sludge, the air intake was hurting the car, and the spark plugs were never changed.

    I don't have any pictures of the oil change unfortunately because it was rather messy and I couldn't take pictures at the time. I'm not sure how my engine kept running. Keep in mind, all the work that I am doing is on the stone driveway you see in most of the pictures. Jack stands don't work well either. There was a time my car nearly took my head off but I'll get to that story soon. 

    Anyhow, I pulled the plug and the oil that is supposed to steadily drain out kind of glopped out. Little bit of draining, glop! Little bit more of draining, glop, glop! It also stopped coming out particularly fast which I was uneasy about. So I took a flat head screwdriver and stuck it in there. There was a lot left in that oil pan. So here I am under my car reaming a screwdriver in and out of the oil pan to get all this sludge out. About 15 minutes and a very sore arm later, it seems that there is nothing left in there. So I now unscrew the oil filter and get that off. It looks like this hasn't been changed in a while either. Now considering the way the oil drains to the pan in this engine and the angle of the oil filter, I leave the filter off for a few moments. I screw the drain plug back in, and I pour 2 quarts of fresh oil in it. By the time I manage to craw back under my car and wiggle up to the oil pan, I am pretty sure that the oil has settled to the bottom. So I pull the plug and let the oil drain again. Apparently it was a good thing I got a couple extra quarts because a couple more blobs of sludge were still in there and came out with the new oil. At this point I am pretty sure 95% of the sludge is out of the engine. I say 95% because I cant exactly work all of the oil and sludge out of the internals of the engine, just what is in the pan. So I put the drain plug back in, swirl fresh oil around the gasket of the new oil filter and put that on, then climb out from under the car. I fill her up with oil and that part is finally done. Yea, a typical 15 minute oil change took me about an hour and half. Never thought you would hear such a long story about an oil change did ya?

    My next project to tackle at this point was the spark plugs. Now everyone should know that you are actually supposed to replace these more often than you would think. Its about every 15,000 miles or for the average person, once a year. Not if you are me, I can put that many miles on in a couple months. Luckily the spark plug change was fairly easy, so this part of the story just comes with a picture. Enjoy the story.

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The next bunch of fun was that lovely air intake. Ah yes, lets place the filter to pull in air right next to the front of the engine and back of the radiator to pull in the sun's worth of heat. Now I decided I wanted to keep the cone filter because with a proper set up, it can be a little better. You don't have to change these at every oil change and its typically easier to access. Now I found the plastic piece that goes from the intake elbow to the stock air box. The only problem was the filter didn't mount onto the plastic piece this way because it was too close to the radiator still. Luckily I horde car parts and had a few intake pieces laying around. I found an old cavalier 2.2l intake hose that seemed to have the proper fitting on 1 side for the oval shape of my throttle body, plus it was a long hose. So I put a hole in it for the crankcase vent pipe, and mounted it up to the throttle body and the plastic piece at the other end. The filter then went on perfectly and the air temp sensor plug still reached. The air temp sensor was the same plug too, so I didn't have to fight with removal and re-installation. So here is a picture of how that came out.

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    Oh, let me explain that little white wire you see wrapping around a few things. I was very short of wire and fixed it a few days later, but that goes to the radiator fan. The Camaro was set up to overheat basically and I've done a lot of work to correct this. The radiator fan isn't set to come on until 215 degrees, which if you are saying, "Ok, what does that mean?", I'll explain. On a typical gauge for coolant temperature that you see on your gauge cluster, there are 3 marks. Above the 3rd mark to the end of the gauge, a little section is red symbolizing your car is overheating when the needle reaches that point. The average point for the needle to sit is right in the middle at that second mark or 195 degrees. At 215, my needle hits the 3rd mark and it should never need to go past the second. The Camaro doesn't have a functional grill and can only be air cooled by a little 4 inch scoop under the car that redirects air up in front of the radiator. So when you are in traffic, the Camaro is anything but happy. So I cut the wires right at the plug, grounded out the 1 side and hooked the other side to a fuse for the windshield wipers. This fuse only has power going through it when the car is turned to accessory or in the on position but cuts the power when the car is off. So every time I turn the car on, the fan kicks right on and I don't have to worry about sitting in traffic now. This also doesn't interfere with the wipers operation. As for the other methods of keeping the Camaro cool, I will explain when I get to that point in the project.

    Now I decided that Sydney deserved a little cleaning up and the chance to accessorize a little bit. Not only did I thoroughly clean the outside and inside of the car, but I spent an hour on the engine bay as well. I won't get into too many details, the pictures can tell the story for me.

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    Now for the glam came a nice little accessory and a make over. I added a Chevrolet steering wheel cover for the accessory which was just the touch it needed. I also found 3 out of the 7 pieces of the RS lip kit in the junkyard magically. It is a very hard to find the accent lip kit that has 4 pieces going around the bottom of the car, and 3 pieces on top of the cars current spoiler. It is mainly so hard to find because the real pieces were only made in 1 year for this particular body and it was only 1 of 3 options of Camaros. If you want to get really technical, the RS kit was an option of the base coupe Camaro. So you had to ask for it, they didn't even originally sell them that way. So I managed to find the spoiler pieces. They were a different color than the car so for right now I just sprayed them down flat black and put them on. At this point, I figured I might as well start the RS look process by creating the stripes that are always found on a true RS Camaro. So I taped up the hood, the rear deck, as well as the headlight area and door handles for touch up purposes. Now at first I was going to paint the stripes on the rear deck straight into the lip kit but looking at it didn't seem right. If the lip kit was the same color as my car, that's typically how it would go. Only the lip kit is black and the RS stripes are black. So I decided to bring the stripes into the lip kit gradually with a curve and it turned out great. I also managed to stop the stripes under the spoiler at the right spot so you can't see the stripes when looking at the car from the back, which again is the true RS look. For the front, most people just paint the stripes to the end of the hood and call it a day. I am going for the best look possible on my $5 budget here, so I bring the stripes down onto the bumper and align it with the headlights and curve it off like it should. I also repaint the headlight area that was dingy and fading, along with the scratched up door handles. The only thing I found out after the painting is that the typical GM clear coat was wearing off and came off in spots with the tape as you will see. Otherwise, the added stripes came out pretty well. While painting I noticed the exhaust pipes were hanging uneven. I kid you not, I literally took a bunch of zip ties and tied up the one hanger in such a way that it was far enough from the exhaust that the plastic wouldn't melt, and was hidden so well that you would have to get under the car to see how it was being held up. To this day 2 years later, those zip ties are still holding up that pipe. So now picture time of that part of the project although I am sorry, there aren't pictures of the exhaust pipe right now but I will be redoing the exhaust soon. I will make sure to grab pictures before it comes off.

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 That concludes today's post, so keep checking in for the continuing project.

      So, time to start at the very beginning of this very long and extensive project of mine. I got the Camaro in a trade, and it was the generation I have always wanted. It is a 1994 Chevrolet Camaro Base Coupe 3.4l 4 Speed Auto with Overdrive and T tops. Everyone's first question is why didn't I get the V8. I know, but there is a simple explanation.
1. If I was going to get a V8, I would get the LS, the LT I don't entirely care for. BUT the LT body style I prefer.
2. The car I traded was in pretty rough shape and not worth a V8.

      Now this Camaro wasn't in the greatest of shape either. It needed a good bit of cosmetic work as well as maintenance that was highly neglected. It had a couple dents in the drivers rear quarter panel, the dash was cracked up, the drivers seat has a huge tear in it, there was a cone filter just stuffed onto the intake elbow which is actually worse for the car, the spark plugs were never changed, and the oil was sludge. Now the dash and drivers seat are both very common problems, so I expected that. The spark plugs, cone filter, and sludge oil, I was not however.

      Now this was also only 1 step above the very base model. Well it is still the base model regardless, but this came with almost none of the available options. The only difference this had between nothing and something for options is the power windows and locks. They did come full manual so I was happy I didn't get that at least. There was an option for alloy rims, clear tops, remote entry, manual transmission, and possibly a couple others that I can't remember. So as you can guess, I had steel wheels with hubcaps, dot matrix glass on the tops (you will see what that is in pictures to come), no remote entry, and my obvious automatic transmission,
      So now before I go on, here are a few pictures to enjoy of when I first got her.

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