Please give me your book recommendations
 

I love this forum! I'm learning new stuff everyday. I'll be honest I'm a complete novice when it comes to working on cars. A lot of what I read here on the forum goes right over my head. I'd really like to learn as much as possible about my Camaro but a good portion of my day is spent without internet access and I'd like to be able to do some reading in my downtime at work. Any must have manuals or reading material you guys could recommend?

I haven't found a haynes manual for the 5th gen but there is the GM manufacturing guide available. Only other thing i can think of is printing out some sticky threads here on the forum. Thats how i get some of my knowledge.

From your original post sounds like your looking for general working knowledge so I'll offer a few thoughts. Take a look at the "how stuff works" website under automotive and get an idea of what you know and at what level. The purpose is for you to deteine what you want to learn. Start with the basics: engines, transmissions and suspension.

For engines, if you understand the basic principles of how a four cycle lawn mower works the. You may want to focus on the subsystems of cams / valvetrain. The crane cams website has some great docs you can download and print out. For what you would pay for a book you can buy a lot of paper and ink. Next you could look at heads, crankshafts / rods and pistons, then oilong system.

If you go the book route to build a reference library, look for an older book Chevrolet Power. This book was the bible years ago but there is a section in book on suspension which is outstanding. For newer books, most places like Barnes and noble will give excerpts from the books so you can check the authors writing style, content, etc. if the author assumes you have a certain level of knowledge you may be trying to read several books at the ame time.

Hope this helps.

I've also looked at purchasing the service manual but man is it expensive. $200 I believe. Right now i've got Auto Repair For Dummies. That's about where I'm at right now lol. I'm really just trying to lay the groundwork. Thank you both for your feedback. I will be checking out those websites as well.