Thread: 1971 Camaro RS

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Originally Posted by rspears

Rumor has it that there was a split bumper 'maro with a unique baked clear coat paint scheme parked at the fairgrounds in DesMoines when the GoodGuys bunch was in town..... AND that it got there under it's own power!!

I cannot verify for it getting there under its own power, but I do have physical evidence of it being there LOL

Originally Posted by 53 Chevy5

but I do have physical evidence of it being there LOL

Please Share... you know how we love pics..

Originally Posted by rspears

Rumor has it that there was a split bumper 'maro with a unique baked clear coat paint scheme parked at the fairgrounds in DesMoines when the GoodGuys bunch was in town..... AND that it got there under it's own power!!

Yes sir!!! I did drive it part way to Des Moines before she started getting hot so I had to trailer it the rest of the way. I'll tell that story here shortly.

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imagejpeg_1.jpg sorry Ryan, I let the cat out of the bag

I almost can't remember where I left off on this. I was bound and determined to have this thing at Goodguys this year. I had boxes and boxes of parts I was tired of tripping over. So I pushed a dodge outside and told the owner he was going to have to wait. It was toy time.

Sunday June 23rd I started installing the new AAW harness. My list was severly long. I didn't get the car down to the fair grounds until Saturday July 6th at 5pm. But hey, it made it.

I originally had a tuning session set up in KC for June 21st but had to cancel. I had another setup for July 1st and had to cancel as well. I fired the car for the first time at 2am on the 1st. (sorry neighbors) I found a couple of fuel leaks I had to repair, and it had a coolant leak. So that lead to me canceling it. The tuner told me not to drive it until it had been tuned so I was worried.

Anyway, I did have this same guy flash this ecm and I was not thrilled he didn't do half of the things I told him to do. The biggest issue was he didn't switch it to a manual trans platform. So fast forward to Saturday the 6th when I finally go to drive it outside under it's own power since who knows when. I let it set and warm up to see when the fans turn on. They never did. See the truck engines have mechanical fans so the ecm doesn't control them. But these ecms are used on many applications and the function is there. This is just another thing the guy didn't do. Now I was starting to see why he didn't want me to drive it. What a kick in the ding dong!

The thing ran great and seemed to rev up and down with no issues. I decided what the heck. Let's drive it. Well it was doing fine until I got stuck in some heavy traffic due to an accident. It was getting hot in my mind, but since this is an LS it was probably fine. I aired on the side of caution and pulled in to a Casey's and just had the trailer come get me. The other thing was some ding bat lowered the car pretty low and the mufflers were dragging. I wonder who that fool was?

So Saturday night we went home so I could grab tools and supplies. Sunday morning I woke up early and wired my fans up. This sucked because when I did my AAW harness, I removed the wire from the harness as I wouldn't need it. Whoops. Then I raised the mufflers on the hangers as high as I could. It did just fine. The thing was not really happy when I let the clutch out but we managed. I didn't get the AC done either. Sheesh. But the kids rode in it and had a blast!

Here are some pics. First is when I took it off the trailer at the campgrounds. Please ignore my brother knocking the sand out of his vag. He was hot and had a long day of being a lazy ass rolling around in my orange truck while I was getting stuff done to the Camaro.

Second was my blended in repair from a rust spot. I also fixed the huge bondo mess in the tail light panel but I don't know if I have a pic of that.

The others are pics from at Goodguys.

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Currently I need to get back on it. We went on vacation the 2nd week in July. I sent my spare ecm off to get tuned so now I need to find the time to swap it out and see how it does now. I opted not to go to KC and give that guy anymore money. But hey, I have a $280 "flashed" ecm for another LS swap I guess.

I also am going to raise the rear a half inch, and I need to get the vintage air installed. I need to readjust the camber and then maybe the toe. It's getting close to being able to go on the road for longer than 20 miles.

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I'm just ready to post it on here but I brought Rita to Excessive Autosports in Tea today because of a long list of the 5.3 not running right for the last two years. I couldn't be happier with what he did, it acts like a new motor. It was a $450 dollar bill but worth it.

Good for you Ryan! You did it, and you have it runnin' and drivin'.
Plus it's lookin' good to boot. Thanks for the update.

Here are some pics of some of the stuff I put on the car. SPC adjustable upper control arms, big sway bar from Custom Works Performance. I still have the rear adjustable one to install. I also put on C5 big brakes with 4th gen Camaro calipers.

I put my moser engineering diff cover on. I tried putting a Spartan locker in my carrier but that was a big fail. I will need to revisit that later. I ground the mud out of the bad dent on the tail light panel. I pulled the dent and applied some more filler. It is way less than before. Haha I also finished the paint/blend from the rust spot by the back window.
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What happened to the locker install?

Originally Posted by 34_40

What happened to the locker install?

I couldn't get all the pieces to fit in the carrier. It is like the piece for the RH side gear locking ring needs another quarter inch of material machined off of it for it to slide past the axle to get it in place. I fought it long enough so I put it back to a peg leg and threw the cover on so I could move on.

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Originally Posted by 40FordDeluxe

I couldn't get all the pieces to fit in the carrier. It is like the piece for the RH side gear locking ring needs another quarter inch of material machined off of it for it to slide past the axle to get it in place. I fought it long enough so I put it back to a peg leg and threw the cover on so I could move on.

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Sorry to hear that. So much for plug and play right?!?!?

I already got the condenser and drier installed for the vintage air. Now to do the interior stuff. I didn't like the silicone elbow on the air inlet so I made it all steel. I also did the rocker trunion upgrade so I wouldn't have to have that annoyance.

I happened to find some pics of my first 2nd gen I ever had. I still miss that car! 1972 RS 350 car. It had several different engine and trans combos in it over the years. The last was a 550hp 396/TH400. The one before that was a burly 482 that had aluminum rods and made 850hp. It had a not so good ending.

The first pic is where it sat when I first bought it in around 1999. The last 2 are right before I tore it apart to trade it for Corvette parts.....