[COTW 11/29/10]: My 2011 IOM 2SS/RS's journey

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MODIFICATIONS

EXTERIOR:
IOM Heritage Grill
Satin black tail light bezels
Satin black/IOM Bumblebee style bowties
CCW SP16a Wheels

ENGINE/DRIVETRAIN:
ADM Race Cold Air Intake
Kooks Complte exhaust - 1 7/8 headers with high flow cats and 3" pipes
NOWEEDS Diverters
Edelbrock E-FORCE Super Charger w 3.25 pullet (8-9 psi)
Custom COMP Cam
Comp valve springs
Trunion upgrade on rockers
KB Boost-A-Pump
65 lb FAST Injectors
custom Dyno tune
ACT Twin disc clutch

SUSPENSION:
H&R Drop Springs
BMR trailing Arms
BMR front and rear sway bars
BMR front and rear sway bar ends
Hawks Ceramic pads to keep the dust down.

INTERIOR:
Barton Shifter
Lloyds custom floor mats





I'd love to have a name for my car by now but names are earned and so far it hasen't hit me. Hopefully the SS doesnt get a name like my IROC has. Ive named it Mother F#$%er because she always fights me when I work on it.

The SS's journey began in April 2010 when I decided it was time to dive in and get a brand spankin new Camaro. Ive owned a 78 Z28, 86 IROC, a 98 and a 1970 but never had I had the pleasure of ordering and buying exactly what I want in a new car.

Knowing that they were adding the HUD in 2011, there was no thought of getting a 2010. I gathered all the hot info on 2011 ordering I could find on Camaro5 from the great dealers such as CamaroScotty. Once I learned when the 2011 orders could be placed, I started checking with my local dealers. Two of them didnt even know when orderes could be placed, the third could place it but wouldnt honor a GM Supplier discount on an ordered car . Already aggrivated I gave up my hunt. I dont have alot in the patience department.

I noticed CamaroScotty saying he had two allocations for the first build week of 2011 and was taking deposits to reserve them. I jumped in and ended up getting the second one. As the order date got close Scott informed me his allocation got cut and mine would move from the 6/7 build week to 6/14. Another week of waiting wont kill me right??? On 5/10 my order was accepted a 2011 IOM 2SS/RS with the IOM interior. Stayed with the stock RS wheels since I knew Id replace them.

Now it was decision time. I had to sell one of my vehicles, either the 86 IROC or my 70 Camaro. Ive had the IROC since 1998 and have done massive mods to it. Its become a family member even though as I mentioned its name above, we dont always get along. the decision was made to sell the 70. I figured it would take a few weeks to sell and I had time so Id drive her every chance I could up till then. I put is on Craigslist on a Sunday and Monday morning a guy drove 4 hours in a rollback and took her away. happy but sad :( day. I never expected it to sell so quick and I got a very fair price. Id had it 4 years and sold it for $2k over what I paid. The only work I had done was replacing the 4 spd shifter.

Here it is getting loaded up:



Fast forward to June. The wait has been killing me much more than expected. During this time Ive been doing gobs of research and started ordering parts to customize the SS to my liking. Sitting in my shop was new wheels, drop springs, complete exhaust, heritage grill, shifter and oh yeah one of those little boosty things... a super charger! my buddy thought I was nuts buying all this and still didnt have the car but I know the wait is 3-4 weeks on many Camaro parts still.

My TPW week arrives, June 14th! I had a feeling that after this agonizing wait that my car would be built at the end of the week just to add more stress. Starting 6/14 I checked in with Scott each day to see if it had been built. Finally on Friday I got word that it was born on Thursday 6/17! Its alive and becoming a reality .

Now Im buring up camarotracking.com every 5 minutes witing to get shipping information. After about a week it make it to a rail car. Those numebrs are now burned into my brain as I called every 15 minutes to see whenre the rail car was. 1800-235-2352, 1 , 32-81-81-92, 710245!!!! The car hit a railyard near chicago on 6/27 which was its last stop on the train. Now the wait continues for a truck to haul it up to Scott's dealership near Milwaukee. On Friday 7/2 i get the call from Scott telling me the car has arrived . Right away I ask for pictures. You never feel good till you see that its the right color!

Here are the pics Scott sent and I grabbed all my buddies at the office to show them my new baby!

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Now it was time to make travel plans. I needed to get from Charlotte up to Milwaukee to pick it up. My plans were to travel with
my father who is retired now to help with driving duties. Im a terrible distance driver, after about 3 hours I jsut want to lay down and sleep. Its 950 miles from Milwaukee to Charlotte! The cheapest tickets were on Sunday so I bought those and off we went. Got in around 11:30 sunday morning. We picked up a rental car and headed to visit one of my uncles for the day. My father is the 12th of 13 kids!!!! So I have alot of uncles and aunts. my father being in his mid 60's now was excited to get an opportunity to see his brother again because none of them are getting any younger and you never know when it may be the last visit. After spending the day there we headed up to jackson WI where our hotel was. After checking in it was time to go visit Scottyy's dealership. Once we rolled in I spotted the car right away in the service bay!

its gorgeous!


Id arranged to meet up with Scotty at 9:30 the next morning. Man this was going to be ONE LONG NIGHT! I have to mention we stopped at a place famous for butter burgers??? WTF? the put butter in the beef? Sounds good actually but Id been on a diet and grabbed a strawberry chicken salad while watching my dad devoure a juicy double butter cheeseburger and fries .

The next morning we pack up and head to the dealership. Sitting out front like a rock star is my new SS



I meet up with Scotty. He had everything in order and gave me an overview of all the features and I sat down with the finance guy and knocked out all the paper work. We had to get the rental car back in time or get charged another day so we didnt get to hang out long. Was nce meeting Scotty, I can tell he loves selling Camaro's. Probably because of the excitement from the customer. it was a pleasure doing business with him!

The next stop on my journey was heading from Milwaukee to Vaneburg Kentucky to stay with another one of my uncles. I also have a third uncle who lives right up the street! This 8 hour drive was pure pleasure in the SS. I was really shocked at how comfortable the car is. Its a Cadalac that handles like a Ferrari! BTW, the HUD is awesome. Even my dad who is way past his sports car days loved driving the car! Passing thru Chicago I snapped a quick pic. Im doing 19 here and I think that was the fastest speed we got to. Traffic was terrible and it was in the afternoon on a holiday!



We arrive at my uncles who lives in the middle of NOTHINGville Kentucky! The curvy narrow roads sure were fun though .

I check the front end and Ive commited mass genocide on every species of bugs from WI, IL, OH and KY!



My uncles lives on a 180 acre farm so I didnt dare ask him for a wash bucket. He'd probably hand me a greasy rag and a 5 gallon feed bucket for the cows! I decided to leave the bug guts till I got home!

The visit with my uncles was awesome. Its a complete 180 lifestyle form what Im used too. He is a retired truck driver who is now living out his dream with a farm. I got up pretty early in the morning and asked him if he had fed the cows yet because I wanted to learn about them. He looked at me funny and said they have a whole field of grass to eat! I guess the bailed hay and corn are used in the winters . im a city boy obviously! Later we hopped on the John Deer Gator and he drove me around the whole 180 acres. In a strange way I was thinking I could really see myself living like this. So peacefull and not dealing with corporate America!

We spent two days at my uncles then packed up and headed home to Charlotte. About a 7 hour journey and I arrive back home. Was funny, in WI where the news guys were mentioning their second day of 90 degree weather. When I left Charlotte we had just had 20+ days of it. When I arrive home I get this great welcome!!! 102! Man it felt like a nice spring day up north! I wouldnt trade this heat for their winters though .





I dropped off my dad and thanked him for helping me get the car home. It was an awesome trip. Spending alot of time with my father and seeing some family members... and of course picking up my new ride. This trip wont be forgotten!

I get home and snuggle the SS into the garage for a well deserved rest. The car now has over 950 miles and its 4 days old!



As tired as I was, I kept thinking about how dirty the car was. being 102 degrees out I waited till sunset and went out and washed her up!



The next morning it was transformation time! I want to make sure the car is solid before tearing into anything that would void my warranty but that wouldnt stop me from swapping in drop springs, heritage grill and new wheels! I moved her over to my shop and let the wrenches fly(very carefully BTW!)



By the end of the day she had a fresh new look:

Before:



After:






So far I absolutely love the car. I only have a few small complaints:

1. Brake dust!!!! I swear my wheels are dirty just from backing out of the driveway and stopping.
2. Need some LED's on the overhead onsole. WTF GM? this is a vew pennies to help light up the buttons!
3. Im kind of a shy guy, all the attention this car is getting is overwhelming. I feel like a Rock Star.

The story is to be continued!

7/15/2010

Got some baseline dyno runs dont today on my SS. Pretty pleased with the stock performance. Massive mods to come!

Baseline run on car.
371.50 rwhp
360.98 rwtq


video:





7/20/2010 - Installed Kooks 6511-Complete exhaust and ADM race CAI. Both installed pretty easy. The exhaust produces exactly the sound I was after. Nice deep tone at idle but nothing obnoxious. When you get on it, it roars like a raped ape.


Here is a before and after video:




8/1/2010

Finished up my install of the Edelbrock E-Force Supercharger. Took a solid 12 hours of work over 3 days. Most of it on Saturday. I had my brother over to help lift the SC onto the engine but other than that, its a straight forward one man job that can be done in your garage with basic hand tools. The only trickey part was drilling the crank for the pin to keep the pulley from slipping. I ended up cutting the drilll bit and using my cordless drill to get this done. My air grinder didnt have the balls but the cordless drill ripped thru it. I modified the ADM CAI by cutting the tube and the fit is real nice. Another note is the SCM programmer had to be reflashed with the new Camaro code. Since mine is a 2011 the SCM didnt recognize my ECM. I ordered the SC back in April before the 2011's were out.




Ill setup a tuning session with Heintz Performance next week to get it dialed in since I have a CAI and headers/exhaust on it.


8/24/2010

Installed a Barton shifter



08/27/2010

Made it in to get a tune for all my new mods. Car has Edelbrock E-force with stock puley, Kooks headers/cat-back, ADM Cold Air Instake and a KB boost-a-pump. All installs were done by myself. The car ran well with the stock Edelbrock tune but was throwing O2 codes on occasion. i did drive it fairly easy because i knew it would be a little lean with the additional mods.

Nick Williams and Heintz Racing did the tune. He mentioned how nice the E-force was under normal driving. He really liked the responsiveness over a Maggie he had worked on. While tuning on the dyno he added quite a bit of fuel. It was quite lean.

Here are the results and I whipped up a video too! Quite pleased with this setup. Its a blast to drive. Even with Nitto 505R's I cant keep traction so my next trip to the dragstrip will be interesting.

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8/31/2010

Joined up with my car club and went to the Food Lion Autofair at Charlotte Motor Speedway. At the end of the day I was able to drive on the track and parked at the top of turn 2. Luckily I held my door tight as I got out. Hard to imagine how banked those turns are till you are on it! I forgot to bring my UV filter and lense shade so alot of the pics arent good due to the bright sun :(.











10/25/2010

I have gotten so tired of cleaning my car then it being filthy just from backing out of the driveway. The dust from the stock brake pads is INSANE! I swapped in some Hawks ceramic pads this weekend. Took her out for a drive and they brake perfect and the dust problem is so much better now. While doing the brakes I popped on some BMR trailing arms as well. Should offer a little help for the next time I hit the drag strip.






11/22/2010

Well if 530 RWHP wasn't enough, I installed a customer blower cam from JRE, springs and 65lb Injectors. Install went smooth. Limped it up to the shop for a re-tune. She didnt idle very well.

616 RWHP, 578 RWTQ

video:




12/17/2011

Installed NOWEEDS diverters. These arent a simple bolt in application for the Kooks exhaust. I ended up going to a muffler shop to get customer pipes made from the cats to the x-pipe. I already had all the wiring installed so it was a simple plug in and go after that.

Quite pleased with them. I have cutouts on my IROC and the full diverter is definetly noticable as its dumping all the exhaust. Cruised home thru the city and some interstate with her rumbling. Definetly is LOUD if that is what you want. I like the full control and will setup the adjustable button to just crack them open a little.



This photo is before the seliniods were tucked up to the floor.




1/30/2011

Had a beautiful 60+ degree weekend. Took the chance to do some wrenching! Put in BMR front and rear sway bars that I ordered in a Christmas special. Also got the end links. Install was a breeze. Didn't have to lift the motor like the instructions mentioned. That is easy on these cars anyways but saved me a few minutes of work!

Front:




Rear: no pics of it installed! I forgot!

[CamaroScotty]

I can't say how much I LOVE reading stories like this!!!!

Car looks AWESOME!

[macwest]

Nice car. What style and make are the rims?

[Camaro8810]

Awesome car! and thanks for sharing your story. I really enjoyed reading about your experience.

[guiLT]

Awesome story! I loved reading it!

[lock]

Originally Posted by macwest

Nice car. What style and make are the rims?

They are CCW (Complete Custom Wheel) SP16a.

[macwest]

Originally Posted by lock

They are CCW (Complete Custom Wheel) SP16a.

NIce. What sizes did you go with 10,10.5,11 ?

[lock]

20x10 in front and 20x11.5 in back. Put the stock 275 tires on front and new 315's on back. They fit perfect.

[macwest]

Originally Posted by lock

20x10 in front and 20x11.5 in back. Put the stock 275 tires on front and new 315's on back. They fit perfect.

Sweet. They look great

[lock]

Originally Posted by macwest

Sweet. They look great

Thanks. I really stressed over the wheel choice. I think they came out awesome.

[2010SLVRBULIT]

the blue 70 is(was) sweet. Now to get rid of those trash cans on the bottom(aesthetic eyesore)...

[2010 SSRS]

your Camaro looks real nice.