The Camaro Club (UK)

Feels like I'm finally getting there tidying up the engine bay:



I don't have a 'before' picture unfortunately, but hopefully most of you know how cluttered a late 3rd gen engine bay is

Over the last few months I've done:

AC Removal with new panel, all pipes / pump / rads gone (job was half done before)
New Rocker covers with conversion from closed to open PCV
Under-drive pulleys (with different gears to maintain cooling and volts, it works!) and aux belt
Tidied up throttle bypass mod and removed heater valve, water permanently open to matrix
AIR system removal (pump, pipes, link to exhaust, all brackets & wiring, plugged manifolds)
Broken cruise control removed
Wiring / vacuum hoses tidied up (still some work to do around heater fan)

Also fixed / done:

8 x New injectors
K&N airfilters
MSD dizzy cap, rotor, coil, ht leads, fuel filter
Oil, filter, thermostat, sparkplugs and cooling flush / refill
New water pump, idle pulley and A/C removal pulley
Just had a new rad & cap, battery and fuel pump

Once I've finished tidying the wiring and cleaned the entire engine bay I have to finish the T-Top seals (only done one so far, takes ages to clean up and it never stops raining in Devon!) and hopefully change the headers, but this could be interesting as the rest of the exhaust is already done (twin pipes, front to back which is unusual) and I don't know how / with what.......

Thought I'd share the results!!!!

Well done....

Looks jolly nice.. noticed any difference in running or power with the AIR system removed, underdrive pullleys and all the new service bits ?

_________________
“You only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough.”

She definitely revs a bit crisper and feels a more responsive on the road. But I'm only going by the dyno in the seat of my pants.....

The main thing I've noticed is when I used to blip the throttle it sounded good, but the car sat still (she does have much firmer suspension on though). Now, when I do the same thing, the car 'rocks' like a V8 should

Seems somewhat easier to spin up the rear now as well

Can't see the changes I've made releasing that much power to be honest, but it should stop some of what comes out being sapped by ancillaries (or that's what I hope anyway!) and I found / sorted a few bodges as I went to help a bit as well. Also, the stuff I've taken off weighed SO much, and there is now more room to work on the motor.

Would like to get rid of the evap cannister and pipes next if poss, think it's easy but need vented fuel cap from what I read.

All worth it, in my opinion. What the emissions will be like for the MOT though I'm not sure yet......

I tried the underdrive pulley but had to get a smaller alternator pulley... then I had the cooling problems..... so I went back to the stock pulley.

For what it's worth I went for this setup:

http://www.summitracing.com/int/parts/m ... /overview/

It claims that it maintains charging and cooling, but I had my doubts. I could see the pulleys were all different sizes to stock, so hoped they knew what they were talking about. Decided to fit and try it...

Once installed I checked the volts at idle and the alternator was putting out 14v nice and even. I then left the car running for about 25 minutes stationary and it didn't overheat, electric fan came on and off as expected and it maintained temp nicely. That said, when I have money to burn, I intend to get a high volume water pump (alloy and shiny!) and a higher output (again, shiny!) alternator.

The other pulley set I looked at called itself an underdrive set and I think stated you had to turn up the idle to maintain charge etc. so I avoided that one!

Was thinking it might rev a bit easier without the emissions stuff on there... power increase is hard to tell without before and after dyno, but seat of pants is the best way...

_________________
“You only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough.”

I found the "SuperChips" chip from the USA helped my IROC-Z quite a bit in making it livelier.
Really easy to change the PCM chip as well.
Still did 28mpg on a sensible day, so didn't hurt mpg too much.

Been tempted with that myself, not sure if it's been chipped already or not though.....

Any idea how I would tell, other than looking / hoping there is a marking on the chip?

Cheers