The Camaro Club (UK)

Got it off ebay US - fits good. Was the cheapest one on there.

New converter is in... bloody hell what a difference.

Even with the new tyres I have a serious traction problem...

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My '80 progress thread - hugger orange! Now with LQ9 power - forged pistons, LS2 rods, 236/242, .621/.612, flowed and milled 317 heads. MS3X

4L80e, 12 bolt, 4.11, Moroso brute strength posi, steel shafts.

Subframe connectors, g-braces, solid body bushes, carbon hood and front bumper, custom door cards, Autometer gauges.

Replaced my 2.5" mild steel exhaust today. It always been too low and it was really quiet with the Thrush mufflers.

Fitted a Pypes SGF13R - race pro mufflers and 3" stainless tubes. A but tight around the gas tank and it took me the best part of a day to complete the swap.







Vid of the old exhaust


And heres the new one

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My '80 progress thread - hugger orange! Now with LQ9 power - forged pistons, LS2 rods, 236/242, .621/.612, flowed and milled 317 heads. MS3X

4L80e, 12 bolt, 4.11, Moroso brute strength posi, steel shafts.

Subframe connectors, g-braces, solid body bushes, carbon hood and front bumper, custom door cards, Autometer gauges.

I haven't done anything on this for a while, been using it, mostly racing!

But the rear axle was getting noisier and noisier and making some pretty horrible grinding noises at times too, so I decided it was time for a major rebuild.

So I bought a new gear set, bearings, seals, and a few other bits to get it sorted.

Today I finally got around to fixing it, although I haven't tested it yet. Might be worse than it was before

The good news is that after I had it all stripped down everything looked to be OK. No damage to the axle shafts where the bearings run, and the carrier all looked to be in good condition too. I think the source of the noise was the fact that the pinion pre-load was very light and there was no carrier preload either, I just pulled it out by hand.

Gears looked a bit worn and the backlash was on the high side of acceptable.







New gears were fitted with the original pinion shims which seem to have worked out just right for the depth setting. Then I had to have a bit of a play around to get the backlash dialled in. Settled on a consistent 0.007". The gears were marked 0.006" but I thought that was probably going to be close enough...

Cue messy yellow gear marking compound to see what's going on. I was happy enough with this pattern to go with it.





Then I pulled it all apart again and fitted the pinion crush sleeve, new pinion seal and nut and torqued it down. Jeez it took some effort to crush that sleeve! Pinion nut was Loctited as well... Pinion pre-load is a smidge over 20inlb, with the new bearings it should be fine.

Last job tonight was pop new axle bearings and seals in, refit the axles with new c-clips.

Next thing to do is a final check on everything inside, refit the cover and stick some mineral based GL5 LSD oil in it for break in. I'll change it after 500 miles for some posh synthetic stuff assuming it doesn't still make horrid noises!

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My '80 progress thread - hugger orange! Now with LQ9 power - forged pistons, LS2 rods, 236/242, .621/.612, flowed and milled 317 heads. MS3X

4L80e, 12 bolt, 4.11, Moroso brute strength posi, steel shafts.

Subframe connectors, g-braces, solid body bushes, carbon hood and front bumper, custom door cards, Autometer gauges.

Swapped out my intake today. Removed the sheet metal one in favour of an Edelbrock Victor Jr with a 1200cfm throttle body on top of it. Doesn't quite make the same visual statement, but it's actually a much cleaner install without all the duct work.

I went for a quick drive and had to add quite a lot of fuel (about 8%) in the upper rpm range so I would guess it's making a bit more power than it was before.

The air intake temps are way down as well, only a few degrees above ambient when moving now, before they were a good 15-20deg up. The air filter sits right up the the hood scoop, so there's ample supply of fresh, cold air.

Next major job will be swapping the cam out for the replacement from Cammotion, but first I want to run it down the track and see what difference just swapping the intake will have made.

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My '80 progress thread - hugger orange! Now with LQ9 power - forged pistons, LS2 rods, 236/242, .621/.612, flowed and milled 317 heads. MS3X

4L80e, 12 bolt, 4.11, Moroso brute strength posi, steel shafts.

Subframe connectors, g-braces, solid body bushes, carbon hood and front bumper, custom door cards, Autometer gauges.

Some good upgrades, those 3 inch pipes have a nice sound .
The new intake looks good and if the numbers are to be believed will be a worthwhile change , always interesting to get some real world results in the form of timing slips to check the progress

Fired it up today for the first time in a month or so.

Hoping to get a bit of use out of it over Christmas if we get a couple of dry days

https://youtu.be/7Iosq8YJ198

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My '80 progress thread - hugger orange! Now with LQ9 power - forged pistons, LS2 rods, 236/242, .621/.612, flowed and milled 317 heads. MS3X

4L80e, 12 bolt, 4.11, Moroso brute strength posi, steel shafts.

Subframe connectors, g-braces, solid body bushes, carbon hood and front bumper, custom door cards, Autometer gauges.

Sounds great

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