Marknbacon’s Daily driven camaro

[Marknbacon]

Well, unfortunately I kinda started this a little late as I’ve already done a cam swap, headers, and rebuilt most of the valve train, as well as replaced the clutch and slave cylinder, wired gauges, and welded an O2 bung onto my headers. A lot of blood sweat and tears as well as learning opportunities went into this.

I’ll start with the basics. I first put on a k&n CAI kit. That made me feel better about how it was running vs. stock but honestly it didn’t make that much of a difference. A little bit later I decided I really wanted to put a cam in it and after doing some research I wanted long tube headers as well, and my clutch was doing something funny so I decided to do it as well.

I started with the headers and the clutch. Removal was pretty straight forward. Needed a few trips to HF to get impact extensions but nothing too awful. Once I got them out I started pulling the transmission, with the intent of putting the headers on after. Honestly it wasn’t that bad except for the few minor hiccups I encountered. First off, the driveshaft didn’t want to come off the rear end. It came off the trans pretty easy but the little metal sleeves that go into the coupling were STUCK. ok, after about an hour of gently chiseling around the edges of the couplings to ease the sleeves out, I finally liberated the driveshaft from the car. Now we’re in business. Started taking off wiring and unbolting the trans, using the cheapo HF scissor type transmission jack. I struggled with the shifter a bit and clearing it but after I got it down I was able to start pulling it out and down. I got it out about 1/2” before it just wouldn’t move anymore. About an hour later my mechanic buddy shows up. Awesome. Someone that knows what they’re doing.

He crawls under and finds that a wiring harness on the passenger side is pinched between the body and the transmission. Crap. I hope I didn’t damage anything, but we push it out of the way while pulling back on the trans and finally get it free and out from the car. We looked at the wiring harness and it simply pulled the heat shielding off the wires a bit but was still sticky so we put it back into place and no problem (still hasn’t appeared to cause any issues since.)

One look at the slave cylinder/throw out bearing and I was glad I ordered one. The throw out bearing was wobbling pretty bad around the center and it was making an unhappy noise. Slapped that in and started taking apart the shifter. My wife had gotten me an MGW shirt throw shifter for Christmas that year and I was stoked to put it in. Got that done (note: take pictures of everything as you take it out… had to guess on the orientation of the bar that connects between the shifter and the trans) and was ready to swap out the flywheeel and pressure plate.


Yes I used loc-tite on the bolts wherever needed.

Got all that back in pretty much without a hitch except I put the actual shift handle on backwards lol. Pretty easy fix from inside the car.

I’ll post more later!


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[Marknbacon]

Ok, so once the clutch and headers were installed, I was pretty happy with it.

On a side note, I couldn’t find a shop in the area that could/ weld stainless, so I did it myself. I learned to weld with stainless, on a Miller TIG welder, so I just had to do a sanitary weld. I had already cut the hole so all I had to do was weld it in. Was it perfect? No. Was it solid and as far as I could tell leak free? Yes.




Sanitary weld FTW.

Anyway, I ran it with just the headers for a while. I liked it. It sounded great and it definitely picked up some power. On another note, don’t dick around with the settings on the AEM x series wide and controller unless you know what you’re doing. I played with one of the settings with it plugged up through the OBD2 port and somehow managed to disable stability control, power steering, traction control, and the ABS system, at 5 am, in the rain. Got that fixed and went on with life.

Oh, and for the rear O2 sensors, I put them in spark plug defoulers to pull them out of the stream so it wouldn’t throw a code. It did at first but a bit of remote tuning from GPI took care of that. (Thanks Ryan!)

Anyway, thanks to this little bundle of joy
I got 6 weeks off work for paternity leave!

Before you ask, yes she was healthy but 6 weeks early. She spent 13 days in the NICU due to under-developed suck-swallow-breathe reflex, but she’s 9 months old now and the happiest baby on the planet. I couldn’t be happier. Yes, a car seat WILL FIT in the back seat of a 5th gen camaro. Just plan on the seat being all the way forward.

Anyway, during that time off work i finally got to do my cam swap. Important things to note here: make sure you have ALL the parts and tools to do the job ready before you start. Watch YouTube, read the forums, consult your buddies, whatever. Make a list of parts and a list of tools, and inventory everything before you start.

I had everything. Except for two tools: fuel line disconnect tool and balancer install tool. Oriley had the fuel line tool, but I had to overnight the install tool. Oh well.

Here’s what I went with:
GPI SS2 NA cam in 8620 (I think that’s the number) alloy
BTR dual valve springs with steel retainers
BTR trunnion upgrade kit V2
Morel 6504 lifters (side note: thank you GPI. I didn’t order these but they came with my cam. Not sure if that was a mistake or a gift but I put them in and they’re running great!)
Hardened pushrods
LS9 head gaskets
New 3 bolt sprocket
ARP head studs
ARP balancer bolt
ARP cam sprocket bolts
ARP timing cover bolts
New lifter buckets (OEM)
NGK iridium plugs
Moroso wires
New cam retainer plate
And (accidentally… I’ll get to this later) Melling exhaust valves
I might have forgotten something but if I remember I’ll add it later.

Drained coolant, pulled radiator, fans, hoses, removed pulleys, water pump, intake, coil brackets, intake, air cleaner, pulled heads, lifters, plugs, etc.

Yay. Pretty smooth sailing so far. Pulled the old cam and popped the new one in.


Ok so on the heads I learned several things.
First off, just pay for a decent spring compressor. I bought a cheapo one off Amazon, and it bent one of the included bolts. I overnighted a powerhouse tools compressor and that worked like a champ.
Second, when removing the keepers off the valves, tap gently around the retainer with the back of a ratchet handle to loosen the keepers with the springs compressed. If you do what I did and smack the face of the valve to pop it up out of position, the stem can crack around the tip of the valve!
This one broke all the way off.


The rest looked like this.


Intake valves were fine but I ended up having to replace all the exhaust valves. So now I got to learn how to lap valves! How exciting.

It wasn’t bad, but not something I wanted to have to do. Oh well. Some manual lapping tools, lapping compound, and Purssian blue to check, and I got them lapped. I also took the opportunity to really clean up the heads as best as I could. I didn’t have time to have them ported but at least they were clean.

At this point we had pretty much already put the bottom back together. I had to rebuy the BTR valve stem seals, as I screwed something else up that I forget now and had to pull them off.

As for the trunnions, that was cake. I bought the little arbor press from HF, and the powerhouse tools trunnion tool and that made it so, so easy to do. Well worth what they want for the tool. Seriously. If you’re reading this and thinking about upgrading your trunnions, just buy it. The whole process on the trunnions took maybe an hour and a half.

Reassembly went pretty well too. I recommend getting the mr gasket timing cover seal alignment tool. Oh and use a new gasket. Should go without saying.

Before installing the studs I used the ARP clean out tap on all holes to make sure everything would reassemble correctly and without issue. It did!

Yeah so I’m trying to remember what all else I did to it but I think that’s it for now.

I’ll post more tomorrow hopefully about the gauges I wired in and show how I put them in.


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[Marknbacon]

So I forgot the pictures of the gauges.

BUT, my Christmas present finally arrived.





I’ll be posting some notes from the install that differed from the whipple instructions sent with the kit. Hopefully someone else can make use of the knowledge I gained doing this.

Waiting on my rotofab intake that got delayed in Arizona… and I still have to install the fuel pump sent with the kit. Been dreading that, so I’m doing it last.


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[The SS Godfather]

WHAT A PROJECT !! DAM!! That blower , you legend !!!

[SSEssence]

Congrats on the little one and the blower! So awesome!

[Vicster]

Very cool!!! Keep the posts and pictures coming!!! Blower

[Marknbacon]

I had a very successful install! Car went to my tuner last Monday (the 21st) and I just got it back today. Driving the jeep for the last 3 weeks has been… a bit boring honestly. Plus it gets a whopping 14mpg, so I’m filling up every 3-4 days.

Posted below is the final dyno chart. 713.1 rwhp at 6540ish. Needless to say I’m absolutely thrilled. I was hoping for 650 but expecting just over 600.

It idles great, smooth, even with the moderate cam. I haven’t been able to really stretch her legs yet but the little I did experience on the way home from the shop was almost frightening. It’s like a brand new car.

On that note, head over to the tires sub forum and take a look at my thread on pilot sport all season 4’s. I think I’m going to need to replace the cheapos with lame grip soon. It’s basically between those and pilot sport 4s’s. The all seasons have a TW of 540 while the 4s’s are 300, but I’m not sold on the all season version due to traction expectations with this application. Thoughts?




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[Vicster]

WoW, What a beautiful flat torque curve! I bet it pulls like a freight train! Good job!!!

I run the Michelin Super Sport tires, 295/35ZR-20 front 315/35ZR-20 in the rear, both are on stock ZL1 rims. Love how they ride and stick to the ground. But they are definitely summer tires! I did not buy them for tread life...

[Marknbacon]

Originally Posted by Vicster

WoW, What a beautiful flat torque curve! I bet it pulls like a freight train! Good job!!!

I run the Michelin Super Sport tires, 295/35ZR-20 front 315/35ZR-20 in the rear, both are on stock ZL1 rims. Love how they ride and stick to the ground. But they are definitely summer tires! I did not buy them for tread life...

Yes, yes it does. Thank you lol. I can’t take credit for the tune though, Roddy at RM Motorwerks in Knoxville tn did the tune.

Those are an option for the size I need (275/35r21).

I’m not too concerned about snow. It doesn’t snow much here and when it does I either take the jeep or the Yukon or I don’t go out. But it does rain quite a bit here, and given that it’s daily driven (trust me, gas is killing us… $122 in the Yukon today, the jeep gets 14, and I’m 100 miles into this tank in my car at half tank, and the Yukon and camaro both take premium) I need a tire that’ll last a bit longer but won’t break loose at more than quarter throttle in 1st, 2nd, and 3rd. That being said I usually drive very carefully in rain, even before the supercharger. That’s why I’m weighing my options on tires with better tread wear rating.


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