Pete's Camaro

russ979 · Post by **russ979** » Sun Sep 04, 2011 9:13 pm

That looked like an awful lot to take out?:eek:
Any ideas on the fuel problem? Did you run the car before removing all that wiring? Could it be the law of sod that the problem is not connected with cutting out of wires and was present before?

pjs65 · Post by **pjs65** » Sun Sep 04, 2011 9:32 pm

It was a lot to hack out but most of it wasnt used as there no radio and the heater and aircon were not in the car when i got it , i would say 50% at least of the interior wiring wasnt connected to anything anyway . Yes iam sure that sod will rear its head somewhere along the line but i just wanted to eliminate any shorts or bad connections . I had thought about the fuel pump before and was debating about putting on a spare pump that i have . Iam just not 100% sure of whats causing the misfire and dont want to go buying stuff i dont need , its bugging me that i cannot pin it down . I will try the spare fuel pump and i have put back the old standard points setup to see if that works . Pete:Chevy_anim:

pjs65 · Post by **pjs65** » Sat Sep 24, 2011 6:57 pm

Had enough of faffing about trying to find the misfire and bought a new distributor and some funky new yellow HT leads

Its an HEI dizzy with the coil in the cap which is under that black cover on top of the dizzy . Spent today fitting it and setting the advance curve which went from here to next week . I was looking for about 18/ 20 degrees of advance but this unit had 30 , so with a bit of welding and filing (dont try it on your ecu) i gave it a try and got it down 24 degrees . I did i bit more welding and filing on the advance mechanism and got it down to 20 which i was happy with and i set the timing at 32 degrees max which left 12degrees on initial . Put it all back together and took the car for a run , no misfire:D finally got it sorted,still needs a bit of fine tuning but very happy . With the auto box it likes plenty of initial timing or the motor feels sluggish but its perked up a bit now and sounds so much better . Pete:Chevy_anim:

pjs65 · Post by **pjs65** » Sun Sep 25, 2011 9:44 pm

This is the advance mechanism inside an old style distributor if you have not seen inside one before and wonder why iam welding on one

The silver eliptical shaped part in the center has a pin each end which have springs attached to them and these pins sit in slots , the length of these slots dictates how much advance there is . I have reduced them from 12mm to 9.5mm by by blobing a bit of weld in the slot then filing back , sounds agricultural but works a treat .Either side of the eliptical part is a curved weight with a hook shape on one end and as the engine gains revs these weights spin out and advance the timing with the springs holding back the weights so they dont move out to soon . Changing to stronger or weaker springs allows you to alter when the advance starts to work , too early and you,ll get detonation or too late and you,ll lose power . I have to say that this coil in cap dizzy is pretty good its got a matching module and only needs one live wire to make it work and is about as goof proof as it gets , also theres more unnecessary wiring i can junk . The engine also ticks over better and makes slightly more vacuum at tickover . Pete:Chevy_anim:

Post by **Stuart** » Mon Sep 26, 2011 6:49 pm

Glad you are making some progress Pete. Old school cool

russ979 · Post by **russ979** » Mon Sep 26, 2011 6:55 pm

Glad the misfires sorted pete!
And nice write up/explanation.

pjs65 · Post by **pjs65** » Wed Oct 19, 2011 8:26 pm

Just added 1/2 deg more camber to the front end so it now has 1.5 deg and added 1/2 deg to the front castor as the car understeers in tight turns , not that it can do tight turns much anyway i just want to try to see if it makes a difference .Done an oil and filter change ready for the track day at Snetterton and i thought i would try some of that 20/50 classic car treacle from Halfords , i normally put in 15/40 with an additive but as the engines a bit old and has a rattle or two i went with the thicker stuff . I have also changed the front roll bar bushes to poly as the old rubber ones were knackered , the poly ones are wider and the bracket their held in is alot thicker . This is the only picture i took that was in some sort of focus.Pete:Chevy_anim:

pjs65 · Post by **pjs65** » Sun Nov 20, 2011 8:49 pm

Other than check the fluids i havent done anything to the Camaro since the October trackday at Snetterton . I did notice that the engine oil was still clean it usually goes brown fairly quickly especially when its been given a thrash . Maybe the better spark from the new dizzy gives a cleaner burn , although the Halfords classic car stuff i put in does say on the can that it doesnt have detergents like the newer oils that i normally use . Even with the thicker old style oil the engine still rattles a bit , well it is 40 years old . Still saving for the new gearbox and have talked myself out of getting a 6 speed and will more likely get a 5 as its

pjs65 · Post by **pjs65** » Sun Jan 22, 2012 8:32 pm

I have been doing some diy over christmas and havent spent anytime in the garage so i decided to get back in there and do something . What needed doing most was to give the garage a clean up because i was sure i put some cars in it somewhere but it was full of bits of plywood ,plasterboard and wood offcuts . The Camaro was covered by old blankets and loft insulation and the Prefect had boxes , old wheels and plasterboard on it and cleaning up that lot took a day . Today i cleaned up the rest of the muck off the floor and managed to collect 2 tubs of nuts n bolts and found some tools i thought id lost , 2 bloody days just to clean the garage . The Camaro had i lot of dust on it so i used that as an excuse to take it for a blast to blow it off , didnt really clean it much but was good fun

.Now that i had a clean garage i rolled the Prefect on its side so that i could get to the underneath and finish that off , i did this using proper health and safety procedures with a trolley jack some old wheels and a bit of 4 by 2 .There some heavy duty box section in the chassis because i was going to use it for drag racing with a big V8 but iam now going for a smallerV8 . Next weekend iam going to finish of some little welding jobs then hopefully get some paint on it using my new mini compressor i got for christmas .Pete:Chevy_anim:

Tk · Post by Tk » Sun Jan 22, 2012 8:56 pm

wow tghere is a lot of work under there

garage looks nice and tidy now