Mother Nature Defies Me

Well, we had a nice week there, every day was sunny and mid 70s, with no rain, overnight lows in the 40s or low 50s. Unfortunately, that was the weekdays. The weekends on both sides of that week were not so nice. Now this week its been nothing but rain, most of the day, every day. Bleh. I'm not sure I've even really tried to drive my Camaro in rainy conditions, but I'm sure it wouldn't be all that enjoyable. I have enough trouble keeping the tires hooked up on a nice sunny day that I just don't want the hassle of driving in this weather. Plus, I have a '10 328i xDrive that is nice to drive on lousy days... Even last week when it was nice, sure I drove it to work, but sitting in traffic in this car just doesn't quite have the same appeal as getting it out and driving it on some open roads.

Nonetheless, I hope to have a sunny day soon to get the car out for a drive.

Back on the road

After being more or less snowed in for about 2 months, and being generally not interested in driving her in well below freezing temperatures for a number of reasons. I was finally able to get the camaro out and drive her today. Even though all I did was drive to work this morning (there will be a subsequent drive home as well), there is still, even after nearly 3 years, something intoxicating about the feel of all that power. The roar of the exhaust, the feel of the engine trying to twist in the frame, and the acceleration, you can't forget the acceleration. I can't wait for spring to get here.

No Go In the Snow

Unfortunately this January saw the east coast hit with weekly storms, ranging from dropping a few inches of snow on us, to over a foot. As you might imagine, this kind of weather doesn't agree with many 500hp rwd sports cars, traction control or not. As a result, it has unfortunatly been a while since I have been able to get the Camaro out for a drive.

The good news is that things are looking up. The temperatures this coming week have highs in the upper 40s to low 50s, and lows at around freezing, and there doesn't look to be much rain in the forcast either. Hopefully this means I will be able to get the car out and exercise it a bit. I am not a huge fan of letting a car just sit, thats how things mysteriously go bad.

Choosing upgrades for the drag race camaro

Now that I've decided that stages was the way I was going to have to get my camaro drag race ready it was time to decide what those stages would be. I thought things through and decided that this camaro was still going to be a street car for the forseeable future so I wanted some fun stuff.

At the time I was deciding on this, a few things went into my thought process. First, I wanted to spend about $5000. Second, I also have a 1991 Nissan 300zx twin turbo, and that car handles like a dream with the 4 wheel steering, lower center of gravity, and better suspension. All said and done, I decided to get some engine work done.

The package I settled on for stage one of my camaro drag racer upgrades was: Custom grind cam kit, ported oil pump, new timing set, under drive pulley, new plugs, airbox lid, mass air sensor, american racing long tube headers, off road y pipe, magnaflow catback, dyno time and a custom dyno tune. The total cost for parts and installation: $5500.

The results were pretty inpressive for a cam only car, especially considering that this is a 2000 and it has the older, somewhat crappier LS1 intake. 402 hp and 398 tq SAE corrected.

More important than what I did choose to do with this stage is probably what I didn't do. Come back in a few days and I'll talk about the short-comings of this setup for my camaro drag racer project.