1981 Camaro - C-Prepared Build

For fun I entered the Camaro in the Hot Wheels Legends Virtual Car Show.  After doing some searching on YouTube and see the level of other builds submitted, any small illusion of having a chance was well out the window, but it was still a fun thing to do.

We tossed on the live stream Saturday while we were working around the house, and I was surprised to see my car around the 52 minute mark, in the honorable mention section.

As a bonus, Brian Scotto (co-founder of Hoonigan)  said the car was his #6 pick, which blew my mind (even if he made up his own history for the car).  It was a fun little honor.

In actual work news, I made a new upper radiator support to replace the stock steel piece that wasn't working all that well.

I also did a little more work related to the EFI setup.  Video on that should be out soon.

Nice video on the GRM YouTube page. I laughed at all the wardrobe changes Autocross Camaro 16 years in the making

loosecannon said:

Nice video on the GRM YouTube page. I laughed at all the wardrobe changes Autocross Camaro 16 years in the making

Glad you caught that!  There can only be so many dry YouTube videos about cars out there, so I thought I'd have some fun with that one.  Thanks to JG and all of GRM for putting this together!

Carli was like "he thanked all these people and not you" and i was like "we go way too far back for that kind of gratitude, we just know it's always there"

We laid on the garage or driveway floor under that Camaro enough together when we were 20 for a lifetime.  

In reply to Patrick (Forum Supporter) :

And as I mentioned on Facebook, I forgot quite a few too many people.  The truth is, I've hopefully continually thanked everyone enough over all the years that they know I'm thinking about them every time I fire this thing up.  Goes double for you, Pat.

In reply to Gimp (Forum Supporter) :

Not much makes me smile bigger knowing you can go out and fire it up whenever you want now, after all this time.  I love this car, and I love you.  It's dusty in here.

that time we put my old IROC wheels on it that i got from Pokey 

that time we spent the weekend doing the v8 swap while your mom and my ex chilled on the deck 

that time i made frame connectors out of E36 M3 laying around the garage then we went and crushed white castle

that other time we crushed white castle

when i tried to reseat your bead with wd40 and a lighter in the snow because we didn't have starting fluid then we went and killed the chinese buffet

how insane I thought you were when you showed me the trashed fiberglass front end you picked up. We probably went somewhere and ate after that too

that time we had breakfast 2 tables over from Biz Markie(nothing to do with the car, but awesome)

and all the personal E36 M3.  Weddings, kids, dogs, more dogs, the hyundai, the srt4, the bmw, the wrx, and the 100 cars I've had in that time

You're the closest thing i have to a brother

we need to get back together whenever the post pandemic times happen

Patrick (Forum Supporter) said:

In reply to Gimp (Forum Supporter) :

Not much makes me smile bigger knowing you can go out and fire it up whenever you want now, after all this time.  I love this car, and I love you.  It's dusty in here.

 

that time we put my old IROC wheels on it that i got from Pokey 

that time we spent the weekend doing the v8 swap while your mom and my ex chilled on the deck 

that time i made frame connectors out of E36 M3 laying around the garage then we went and crushed white castle

that other time we crushed white castle

when i tried to reseat your bead with wd40 and a lighter in the snow because we didn't have starting fluid then we went and killed the chinese buffet

how insane I thought you were when you showed me the trashed fiberglass front end you picked up. We probably went somewhere and ate after that too

that time we had breakfast 2 tables over from Biz Markie(nothing to do with the car, but awesome)

and all the personal E36 M3.  Weddings, kids, dogs, more dogs, the hyundai, the srt4, the bmw, the wrx, and the 100 cars I've had in that time

You're the closest thing i have to a brother

we need to get back together whenever the post pandemic times happen

We absolutely do, but I should come your way so we can crush some more White Castle.  Love you too!

Its really been a touchstone for a lot of us. 

Really need to hang again soon Paul. 

In reply to Apexcarver :

I still regret not hooking up a cordless impact to the nut on the yoke on that diff and seeing how fast we could go.

Mustangboy feeling the love.  

Gimp (Forum Supporter) said:

In reply to Apexcarver :

I still regret not hooking up a cordless impact to the nut on the yoke on that diff and seeing how fast we could go.

( We had access to a gas powered 1 inch drive impact used for Semi lugs.  over 1,000 lb-ft. )

We REALLY should have done that.  I think we were even wedging casters in the leaf springs to make them like a wheelie bar for the suicide contraption. 

Also, sorry about all the stuff that got cut off before we really read the rulebook.  LOL, I hope?  (plasma cutters make it too easy, we joked about strapping a rulebook to it)

I love this video. Thank you for sharing the project with the rest of the class. 

In reply to David S. Wallens :

Thanks for giving me a great home to share it.

Mid video wardrobe changes are awesome. 

Fun fact.  Gimp is the reason I am on GRM.  You can all thank him for blessing you with my presence.  Or throw tomatoes at him.

Make them ripe tomatoes and not rotten, please.

Finally got the timing portion of the Sniper EFI buttoned up. Now just a few little things to take care of before I head to the dyno.
 

So, if you watched the last video, you saw I got the Sniper EFI up and running with timing control.  That went great, but it left a little mess.

Have I mentioned I hate wiring?

And here is the after, which while still a nest, is much much better.

So, with the current season on hold, I took a little bit of time to clean up the wiring, which then snowballed.  When I built the car, I set the driver's seat as far back as was allowed by the rules, which put the stock pedals way too far away from my stumpy legs.  The solution, of course, was to move them as well.  We moved them the same distance as the seat, assuming that would be okay - it wasn't.  The pedals were just a little too close.  Not undrive-able, but not super comfortable.  So, while I was in there with the wires, I moved the pedals 2 inches closer to the firewall, and tweaked the seat to sit a little more upright, buying me another inch there.  The position is damn near perfect now.

Last thing done this weekend was to rescale and balance the car.  I have added a few things to the car and moved a few things around, so it was due.  First scale showed the car about 30lbs overweight with no fuel, so I was able to pull some ballast out, and move some other ballast around.

This is no driver, no fuel, but otherwise race ready.  Class min is 3000lbs.

I'm even more excited that, with my big ass in the car, the passenger front, and both rear corners all weigh the same, with the driver's front corner only 57lbs heavier.  Cross weight is 49.25% with me in it, and rear weight (without fuel) is at 49.27%.

Pretty much just some fluid and nut and bolt checks, and I'll be dyno ready.

I haven't let all the fame go to my head.  I let some go to my feat.

Dyno should hopefully be happening next week, but, with that said, we have decided that we will not be attending the 2020 Solo Nats.  We'll miss our friends and the competition, but given the uncertainty around Covid, we don't think the risk is worth it.

But watch out 2021!

I appreciate your sense of social responsibility 

Walked out into the garage and there is a fire pit where the Camaro was parked.  I hope that's not a bad sign.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CCeIfHSHw9J/

Me, talking to my engine internals. #staysafe #stayinside

Strapped better than last time i saw it get dynoed

Tuning is going well, but we are still chasing down a problem.   At 6800rpm it goes super rich, and appears to be losing spark.  The data and the logs show everything else is good, so we'll be throwing a new distributor at it.  We ordered up a Holley Dual Sync distributor that may work a little better with the EFI setup.  No real power numbers to report yet, but it's on the right track.  Should be about a week or two before we have some answers.