Part III

1989 RS Camaro

The work continues on what is now the bare bones hulk of a running car that we had just a few short weeks ago. We are making really good progress at this point, having removed the engine and transmission assembly, the steering, brake system, and gutting out the doors. Lexan replacement side windows are on their way and we will begin the installation of the 8-point roll bar this week. We have some bodywork to do that presents some challenges and as with any project like this, you play a certain amount of the chinese puzzle routine. You might be ready to bolt in certain parts and pieces, but you really need to do about four other things or you just have to pull it all apart again.

Not showing in this shot are the motor mounts, which we ended up having to cut
all but one of the 6 bolts that held them in. With the lower control arms in the way, we simply couldn't get a wrench on the bottom nuts. Thank goodness for compressors and cut-off tools!

If you go back and look at some of the earlier photos, you will see that there has been some significant work done here. We have completely removed everything that was bolted down (and a lot that wasn't) along with gutting the doors. Fiberglas doors would probably weigh just a bit less, but even my son was impressed with how light these are now that the guts of them and the stock windows are gone. Remember the old hot rod addage, every 100 pounds of weight is equal to a tenth in elapsed time. And it's usually easier to cut a 100 pounds than it is to make the horsepower needed to gain that 10th.

We put the rollbar in to see how much we would have to trim it down, looks like about a 1/4" is going to do the trick. The plates that go under this main hoop are an 1/8" thick and we need about another 1/8" to gain the clearance to the roof. We should have the rollbar and frame connectors in place over the next two weeks. The rollbar is a Jegs part number while the frame connectors came from Moroso. Quite a bit of work to do, but on these unibody type cars you really don't have much choice if you really want to get the power to the ground.

Next section and more photos....