Day 4857 “Breaking the Silence”

Well, Its been something like two and half years since I’ve posted anything. I’ve been sorting out life stuff since. Today is Day 4857. Yes, this started in June of 2010. It seems like it wasn’t that long ago but I have a 12 year old that says different. I’ve had a counter widget on my phone for at least 7 or 8 years that tells what the day is starting from June 18th 2010. 🙂

First, I fixed the daily driver problem with another s10 pickup. I’m still going to find a roller to swap the engine from Red over to and have a beater truck as well…. hopefully.

The CBR has been a nice vacation from the Camaro. Between the s10 and the CBR I hardly drive the Camaro, which was the point I guess. But I really haven’t done anything to the Camaro just because its been low on the priority list. I also got a touring bike for me and the wife, which also took time and money away from the Camaro of course.

Now, all that is behind us and I feel like its finally time to start checking some Camaro projects off the list. I’ve made some changes in the direction of some of the projects. This is because its not a daily driver anymore. Some of the features I was integrating no longer make sense.

First, and maybe the biggest change, is that I’m no longer using the tablet in the dash. It was going to take a lot of blending and 3d printed parts to make it look right and lots of programing to remote control the HVAC controls. In the end, it is a nice to have with a lot of headaches. So I bought replacement panels to restore the dash to factory-ish. The function of the tablet was primarily to show computer data which I’m going to do another way that is a little easier to accomplish and less chopping away at the dash.

There was some maintenance required as well. It’s still not completely fixed but oil seems to be leaking from several places. I had to replace the balancer and front main seal. As you can see there was 300k miles worth of groove in the balancer. That fixed probably 50% of the leaking, but I haven’t driven it too much to check more.

It was leaking from Front Cover bolts as well. I had to tighten several bolts all over the car.

The next task was to tackle this wad of mess. This was the wiring I used to add the Immobilizer, Push button start, Power locks, etc. It wasn’t setup to be very space saving but I had a plan.

I built a base for the custom console that I want to build to house this stuff.

I then recreated the wire mess in a little more manageable method, with wires labeled and a new wiring schematic to go by.

This was only to realize it still needed to be smaller to fit in this tiny space between the seats. So, getting smaller micro relays and sockets seem to be small enough and the mid range amp might fit up front. Hopefully the fuses will fit as well. Next is to mount the arm rest at the correct height and hopefully everything still looks good and fits.

One issue I ran into is when I put the Camaro on the lift I have to loosen the rear wheels because these C5 rims stick in a little too much and the rub the bump stops on the frame when its in the air. It’s enough that I think it would pop a tire being on a sheet metal edge. I decided to put a .5″ spacer on the rear. But that required me to put in longer wheel studs since they wouldn’t even catch with a .5″ spacer on the factory studs. The wheel stud installer made quick work of it. I only had to grind a little gap on the rear end to allow longer studs to be inserted without pulling the axles.

The rotors look terrible but that’s for another day.

I still had to grind a little material off, but afterwards there is no clearance issue.

The rear sits out a little bit more but not really enough to notice. It would have been fine if it was more, but I just wanted to be able to raise the car and it not tear up tires. The studs are long enough to swap to 1″ spacer if I wanted to in the future.

Before

After

There is more to come. My goal is to get some projects finished before starting the supercharger. I’m sure that project itself will take some time and I don’t want there to be unfinished stuff in the way. I’ve got a pretty good handle on what I’m going to be working on before the supercharger.

Here is the summary of what I’ve planned for the Camaro:
1. Wiring and building the custom console
2. Put the interior back together (dash pad included)
3. Finish the hidden subwoofer box in the spare tire area.
4. Add an android head unit to replace the tablet (I don’t use SXM any more so this is now a possibility)
5. Fix the power windows (motors are weak or the whole system needs to be replaced)
6. Enjoy it being together for a brief moment. Then Supercharger
7. Redesign the headlights with 3d printing (currently sheet metal)
8. Setup a new Rear view mirror (digital)
9. New exhaust depending on how the supercharger sounds
10. Maybe some new wheels
11. T56 Swap (when the T5 eventually grenades)
12. By then someone might be making new seat cushions replacements (you’d think this would already be in reproduction after 20 years but no one does.
13. Then maybe a custom seat covers
14. After blowing up the motor, converting to EV (might be silly but its different, and that is all I wanted it to be)
15. If I go to car shows frequently enough I’ll do the “All LED” project where I fabricate LED panels to replace any blinkers or taillight to addressable LED and make them to car show patterns and stuff. (these last 2 are just thoughts but if I run out of things to do I want to still have something.)

I figure that I can get to the supercharger pretty quick. I hoping by spring. I don’t expect to get much done during the holidays but you never know.