1994 1LE Camaro

I love the exhaust note.

I have nothing useful to add other than saying awesome car.

Also it was nice to meet both of you this past Saturday.   I hope to see you at more events.

Toebra said:

That looks pretty minty fresh for a track car. 

Thanks - but the photos hide a lot.  There are definitely nicks and scratches and the front bumper cover is heavily chipped from it's early days on track.  That's an interesting thought on the bolsters - I've been wondering if a harness might do a better job of holding me securely than the factory belts.  

BionicTigerShark said:

Also it was nice to meet both of you this past Saturday.   I hope to see you at more events.

I'm guessing Ryan?  Apologies if I've got the wrong person. 

It was nice to meet you as well!

In reply to pontiacstogo :

Yea  I'm Ryan. I probably should have said that earlier. 

pontiacstogo said:

Toebra said:

That looks pretty minty fresh for a track car. 

Thanks - but the photos hide a lot.  There are definitely nicks and scratches and the front bumper cover is heavily chipped from it's early days on track.  That's an interesting thought on the bolsters - I've been wondering if a harness might do a better job of holding me securely than the factory belts.  

I saw a huge difference from putting on the crappy harness in mine. The factory seats are really bad and you are probably holding yourself in place with the steering wheel wheyher you realize it or not.  GForce also makes an upper body/torso strap thing just for autocross (not safe on street or track) that is economical and works pretty well.

RedGT said:

I saw a huge difference from putting on the crappy harness in mine. The factory seats are really bad and you are probably holding yourself in place with the steering wheel wheyher you realize it or not.  GForce also makes an upper body/torso strap thing just for autocross (not safe on street or track) that is economical and works pretty well.

No it's a good call.  I can't seem to brace well with my left leg as I need it to shift gears AND when I do brace with it, I can really only do so by using my knee on the door panel versus my foot on the floor.  I am also becoming aware that I am 'hunching up' and using the steering wheel for a brace as well - exactly as you describe.

The car did have a 5 x point Pyrotect harness when it was tracked - but the PO removed it as part of the efforts to return the car to street mode (I still have it but it's 25 years old).  I need to do some research and see what I can come up with that would work and still keep the car safe for street use.  My roll bar also has no bar at shoulder height so I may have to do something there as well.  

25 year old harness, ha.  I have dated women younger than the seatbelts in my 914, so I guess I should not be laughing.

Probably has all the attachment points for the harness still there, so that will be easier.

CAM-C, can you swap out the seats, or does that put you in EP or something?

You can do seats in CAM, they just have to have fabric covered seating surfaces iirc.  "Finished interior".

RedGT said:

You can do seats in CAM, they just have to have fabric covered seating surfaces iirc.  "Finished interior".

I'd like to keep the stock seats if possible - it's just my personal preference but I'm wary of moving the needle to far too the 'dedicated track car' side of the gauge. 

I suspect a harness may help a lot with Autocross and that's likely something I will tackle over winter.  However in order to do that I will need some sort of shoulder level bar fitted to my existing 4 x point cage.  Not sure how that all works in terms of the stock belts too i.e. do you typically remove those altogether, or leave them there in addition to the harness(es).  My current cage is welded in - does a harness/shoulder bar need to be welded in or can it be bolted in?  The Pyrotect harness that came with the car is too far gone so I would need to buy a new one (or ones).  Does the harness need to be current on dates for Autocross or can they be expired new belts?  5 point or 4 point?  3 inch or 2 inch?

I need to do some GRM searching and general research .

Seats are a pretty easy thing to swap back and forth, a few bolts and maybe a sensor for the seatbelt buzzer.  Friend of mine had a bolt in rollbar for his 993 convertible that he tracked, did not run it on the street with the bar because he did not wear a helmet on the street to protect his melon from it.

Still making plans for harnesses/seats/crossbar (maybe).

In other news - I got the UMI subframe connectors in.  Great way to add weight with no perceivable improvement in handling 

Last event for the year yesterday in Phillipsburg PA.  It was a cold day and the early runs were very slippery - managed to take out a cone and drag it to the finish line - that was a first for me.

Shaky video of the cone incident 

It's great to see such a well cared for Camaro that still gets used as intended.  

I do still miss mine every once in a while, especially seeing a clean one like this running through the cones. 

Om nom nom...Camaro is hungry for cones :D

Nice to meet you Saturday!  Car is gorgeous, better kept than mine for sure.

As for the pace, you are a bit 'behind' in that video, which hurts pace a LOT in a big car on a tight course, and this was a very tight course.  However watching in person the line looked decent on many of your other runs, I think you just need lots of seat time to know how much more aggressive you can be on those same lines.

RedGT said:

Nice to meet you Saturday! 

Likewise. 

Yes, my wife and I are definitely not the quickest people out there.  That was my 5th event and my wife's 4th.  We have definitely improved over the year but we still have a lot to learn.  We have a blast in the Camaro though and plan to attend as many of our local events as we can next year - maybe an Autox school if we can find one?

We just signed up for our first HPDE weekend at Summit Point.  My wife will be running the car Saturday and I will be running it Sunday.   We have to miss the season opener for our local AutoX region, but we've been wanting to get the car on a road course ever since we bought it.  Can't wait!

Thanks for the posts

Interest read

Good Luck

Just bumping this so I can move it to the Build forum as requested.

Hello fellow fourth gen owner!

Neat car!  I don't think I've never seen a 1LE in person.  Is it true that 1LEs had a factory AC delete?  I've been curious about what that looks like if it's true.  I put a firewall plate in my car because I needed the space, but I refused to give up heat.  Man, that was a big undertaking, so I'm even more curious now how the factory did it.

V6Buicks said:

Hello fellow fourth gen owner!

Neat car!  I don't think I've never seen a 1LE in person.  Is it true that 1LEs had a factory AC delete?  I've been curious about what that looks like if it's true.  I put a firewall plate in my car because I needed the space, but I refused to give up heat.  Man, that was a big undertaking, so I'm even more curious now how the factory did it.

I'm no expert but it's my understanding that air conditioning was deleted on all the 1LE's up until 1996.  There's an engine shot a couple of pages back but I'd be happy to post some more detailed pictures of the RH side of the engine bay once the car is out of storage for the year.

In reply to pontiacstogo :

Gotcha!  So it IS real!  That's cool.  I saw the engine bay pic, but it was hard to see what the delete panel looked like.  Thanks for the info!  I look forward to seeing more updates.

Sorry this has taken so long.  We were scheduled for a track day at Summit Point (cancelled) then PittRace (cancelled).   Finally have our first event coming up this weekend - it's an Autocross event here in Central PA and it's sold out already.  156 cars split between Saturday and Sunday - should be interesting!  Anywho - I finally got the car out of the storage to get it ready for the weekend, so here's some shots of how GM did the A/C delete;