Living with a G-body
Well, I got a few things done on my ongoing project yesterday. I outlined above the direction I am heading but I guess it'd be best to let everybody know how I got here in the first place.
Several years ago I had a 69 Camaro for my daily driver. I was driving a truck at the time making decent money and decided it was time to pull the Camaro off the road for a resto. To do that, I had to purchase another daily driver. Enter the first Cutlass I ever owned. It was an 84 Cutlass Supreme Brougham with the muscular (
) 3.8 V6 auto. Bench seat and column shifter with a matching interior. By matching I mean it was the same color as the exterior paint. Fudge brown. I'm being polite calling it that as my daughter called it &%#% (poop) brown. One good aspect was the exhaust. What can be good about a single V6 exhaust system you ask? It was an f-body system welded in in place of the cat using the transverse muffler located vertically between the rearend and gas tank. It then had dual exhaust tip coming straight out the back Monte style with chrome tips. Gave a nice little V6 "burble ?"
I put several thousand miles on the car that way while gathering parts for the Camaro. I was looking around for a good bodyshop to tackle the major repairs needed for the 69 and thought I found a good one. I decided one way to check his work was to let him repaint my Cutlass. Yes, I used it as a guinea pig! It went in the shop and one week later and $800 later it was no longer poop brown but Gloss black with a still brown Landau top. Somewhere down the road I had found an 85 Cutlass parts car. It had a nice gray bench seat interior. I bought it and put the interior (minus the headliner and dash) in my car and my nephew put the V6 in his car. I now had a black Cutlass with gray interior and a STILL brown Landau top. :? Yeah, call Jeff Foxworthy, I took a pint of Rustoleum and now my vinyl top was gray too, just like my interior! It all matched again and didn't look half bad...if you didn't get any closer than 20' from the car.
I wanted to make sure the Cutlass was ready to do duty as my only driver before I completely removed the Camaro from service. It was time for a new engine. Getting several prices for rebuilt engines from numerous sources I realized I could rebuild a 350 Chevy cheaper than I could buy a Buick 3.8. Being a Chevy guy all my life, I had some parts gathering dust so I rebuilt a mild 350 and had a TH350 transmission rebuilt with a shift kit and stock converter to go behind it. Stock heads, a small 218*/224* hyd cam, shorty headers, and an Edelbrock Performer intake with a Carter AFB carb. With 2.41 rear gears it had some awesome power (yawn...). But, it has a new motor and is reliable transportation. I also upgraded the suspension with IROC Camaro steering box, front coil springs, and sway bar. Global West a-arm bushings were installed in the stock front arms. It handled like it was on rails even with the 225/60/14 on the front and 245/60/14 on the rear.
I pulled the Camaro off the road. Not much got accomplished to it as the cancer was much worse than originally thought. It usually is. I am now down to one daily driver and a project car in several pieces in the backyard. Life is good. For a while.
It was never completely resolved as to what caused the lobe on the cam to go bad. All I know is I had a flat cam and destroyed lifter. Hmmm...wonder where all those tiny metal filings went to, yup, probably into the oil pan situated conviently open and under the cam. Peeling the oil filter open confirmed my fears, I had metal "sandpaper" flowing through my bearings. Guess what I get to do, yup, pull an engine.
On the stand with the pan off didn't make me feel any better. Copper colored bearings and grooves in my crank journals. I decided to make the best of the situation. I needed new rings, bearings and a differant crank (my other crank was already ground .020'' under). A 3.75'' stroke cast steel crank wasn't much more than a stock 350 crank. Hmmm...are you thinking what I'm thinking? Uh huh, with only some new pistons I could do a 383. I'd be foolish not to! So with a rehone of the still fresh cylinders, a new crank and pistons, I had a new 383. If I'm going to do this, I'm doing it right! I ordered a new pair of AFR 190 heads and a 218*/224* hyd roller cam was also added to compliment the TPI that was going to replace the AFB carb.
Somewhere along the path I had diverted all my goals towards the Cutlass and the Camaro had taken a backseat. In a bit of temporary insanity, I gave my beloved Camaro and all the new sheetmetal to my nephew. I had been collecting parts now, not for the Camaro but for the Cutlass. I found a used TPI setup and Howell harness, and all the parts to do a T5 manual transmission swap. I had also aquired yet another Cutlass Salon parts car for the Claret bucket seat interior. Since my Cutlass engine was now out and apart, what better time than to blow the whole car apart including interior to give it a totally new attitude. The gray interior came out (and the brown dash) for the Claret interior. Pulling the dash only served to make installing the f-body manual pedals and fuel injection harness that much easier.
Now remember what I said about the Cutlass? It "was" my daily driver and the Camaro (in pieces) was living in my nephew's garage. It was an all summer job getting the engine rebuilt, swapping the Claret interior and getting the car ready for the TPI and T5 transmission. Due to my work as a truck driver, I could only work on it 2 days a week. It was a long summer.
I'll fast forward but after I got it running it was a blast to drive! I had a mechanic switch out the rear gears to a 3.42. Uncle Sam left me a present in my mailbox one day in the form of a tax refund so I promptly called and ordered me a new Aftermarket Tremec T56 transmission. After a few paychecks I had also saved the money for a used Accel SuperRam plenum and runners.
It was time for "down time" again. I had my shortened driveshaft ready, new 30# SVO injectors, a new prom chip, Lakewood bellhousing and Spec Stage 3 clutch & pressure plate, and the parts I needed to convert from the previous hydraulic clutch actuation to the mechanical linkage. The swap was on again!
Wow! What a differance a better intake setup and 6 speed makes! It still needed some fine tuning but was running great and the few times I checked my mileage it was in the low 20's. Life was good...again...for a while.
After about a year of daily use it started developing a miss-fire. A compression check turns my stomach. 200#'s cranking compression on 7 cylinders. That last cylinder was dead...nothing...no compression what-so-ever! SON-OF-A-...!!!
Cancer had riddled my 84 Cutlass by now with the body and frame both infected. Termianlly. I found an 86 Cutlass body in decent condition (considering the So. ILL rust belt). So, with a heavy heart I stripped everything out of my 84 and sent it to heaven. I pulled the engine apart and my AFR heads had some major dings on both heads and after I pulled the pistons I found out where those dings came from. Busted piston. Either detonation or a butted ring. Many mechanics have looked at it and I get a variety of answers. Regardless, it's rebuild time yet again.
That was a few years ago and due to a change in work, I don't have the money to work on it like I had in the past. The heads have been tig welded and milled so they are ready to go. The engine is nearing ready for the machine shop where it will get an added .010" bore/hone and 8 more new pistons upping the compression to 10-1. A bigger cam will be installed making the duration 230*236* 113* LSA Comp XFI hyd roller. Here's what the cam "should" sound like:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FhY4bgyuMig
I've got the interior out of the 86 so I can install the pedals, injection wiring harness and Claret dash. Within the last month I got the front clip off, engine and transmission removed, and this last weekend finally got the front suspension stripped and ready for some clean-up of the frame.
Sorry this was so long but I just wanted to let everyone know of the trials and tribulations of my G-body. I know there is still a ways to go and may see the light at the end of the tunnel someday.
Thanks for taking the time if you've read all this. It feels better sharing my story.
If anyone can figure out a good name for my "Project", please share your thoughts.
