1992 RS Camaro. First car for Der Burger.

Awesome car at a great price! Thank you for removing those hideous hubcaps

SK 99 said:

Awesome car at a great price! Thank you for removing those hideous hubcaps

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Yea they definitely took $500 off the value by being on there.

TotalyHucked said:

Somebody Bo Duke'd that thing it looks like

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After some thinking on it, this stuff is just hangin low and the pipe damage is probably all from speed bumps.

She started it yesterday for her boyfriend as it was his first viewing of the car.
Boy did it smoke a ton.
Looks like we will try to bandaid the situation with some valve seals to hopefully pass the DEQ sniffer test.

So before we hit the sniffer test, we need valve seals and a fresh exhaust with performance converter under there.

It has been a busy week of looking stuff up and reading a bunch of ancient threads over on an F body forum.
That experience has made me thankful for this board and how it handles itself.

With that, ROC Auto got a handful of my money.
Locally the same Wix filters are $13 each, on Roc they were less than $5 a pop so 4 of those are coming from warehouse A.
Picked up a trans filter kit, fuel filter, new door pin kits, and some cheap relay rod guides as well.


From warehouse B we are getting a new set of valve springs as I figure they are old and tired.
At $1.80 each we could have a set to throw in there while we do the valve seals that come with the head gasket kit I picked up.
The heads might need a trip through the machine shop to clear up the smoking issue.
I don't want to have to do that to a measly 305, but we have to pass the DEQ testing here.
Hopefully the seals and springs do us right, otherwise we will soon be elbow deep in engine.
Who knows when the headlights had been changed out on it last, so for just for doing it we purchased a set of low beam's and some 1156 that were on closeout.
Before we do all the exhaust, I wanted to change the engine and transmission mounts to make sure things were up where they are supposed to be.
And last from warehouse B we are getting a TBI rebuild kit.


Since I purchased the low beams I was out at the car looking at the lights.
One of the high beam bulbs has a BB gun hole in it, so I picked up a set of matching brand bulbs.


I did find a 5% off code online and at least that takes a big chunk out of the shipping costs.
That will all be showing up later this week.

The search for a catalytic convertor has been long and many threads have been read.
Were they at all helpful, no.

I strayed and started looking at the offerings of the interwebs.
So I looked at 2-1/2 inch options out there as we are flying with a stock Y pipe currently and those have a 2-1/2 inch tail on them.
Again my price range is from $19.99 all the way to over $1000 for one.
I started looking at name brands and settled upon a Magnaflow for $126.
It should pass the visual inspection perfectly and I have faith that it will do its job well enough.

From the Ebay, I have ordered a set of indexed V-Band clamps.
These will be used on the above cat for installation between the Y pipe and tailpipe we are going to build for it.
One will also be used in the rear before the muffler for a simple removal operation.


For the new center section of exhaust, I have chosen a 3" single pipe kit.
It is just mild steel and once it is all fit and finish welded it will get a coat of BBQ black paint for some corrosion protection.
I thought about using one of the stainless kits offered, but I have already spent a bunch on this car and this stuff is easier to cut and assemble.


For the muffler, there are several options out there.
The car has a Magnaflow on it currently and it is just not the right sound.
My brother had a Camaro long ago that had the Flowmaster on it and it made that little V-6 sound good.
So I started looking at all the counterflow chambered muffler options out there.
I was originally just going to purchase the same Flowmaster 80 series for its $165 price tag.
But then I thought of SpinTech and if they had one.
Sure enough they do and it was about the same price as the Flowmaster, so I hit the add to cart button.
They wanted $38 in shipping, so that was aborted.

YouTube allowed me to hear that most of the chambered offerings out there sound fairly the same.
I looked over the Flowmaster, SpinTech, Hooker, Jones, and a few others that I could find.
I settled upon the Thrush variant as it was fully welded and with shipping it was $78 to the front door.
We will chop the inlet pipe off as it is cone shaped and fit it to the 3 inch inlet pipe set we are using.


The existing tail pipes will be reused as they are from Magnaflow and much nicer than a little short tip.

Max told me that I should buy him a carpet cleaner so he could clean interior stuff.
I asked why I should buy it and he said he would clean the interior of the Suburban with it, so I am going to hold him to that.
He watches a detail guy on YouTube University that uses a Bissell 3624 and it pulls the nastiest stuff out of cars.
I hopped on the interwebs and low and behold it was on sale for $40 off.
So for $125 it was shipped to the door.


So I put her to work with the new machine.
She pulled the seats out of the car with a touch of assistance and this is what we have found.
Years of ick.

Get out of my way with that camera...


Nasty nasties on the drives side...


And the passenger side...

Yikesssss at that pass floor pan

After some hard work to clean it all up this is about how good it will be for now.
She can get a job and replace the carpet some other time.

Burger is running the cleaner on the door panel, whilst Gwen is working to peel the plasti-dip off the hood with WD-40.


After an afternoon of vacuuming and cleaning with the Bissell it looks better.
She has since these were taken hit the whole thing again, especially the hump where it looks like drinks have been spilled.



Looking under the carpet reveals nice clean painted floor pans. No rust.

This car is missing some interior pieces and I started looking in the junkyards around the area.
There happened to only be one 3rd gen in a yard within 50 miles and it was put into the yard almost 2 weeks before I saw it.

Two Saturdays ago we went to the yard and pulled every little interior thing we could out of it that would be useful to us.
I didn't need the bumper cover, but they are expensive to purchase a new one, so I took it as well.
The spare tire was mounted on the car, so I know it fits the bolt pattern.
After I pulled it off the axle, I tossed it into the spare tire well and sure enough it was correct.


Pulled the complete gauge cluster.


Front plate holders and just a bunch of other parts and pieces...


One of the most important things I wanted was the headliner part as her car does not have it at all.
Now we do and it needs to be cleaned as well.
Since it is fragile, we will be gluing in some thing cardboard where it is flimsy or broken.
We were also missing the rear truck piece that is shown below.
I haven't tried to see if the speakers work or not, they were in the car and ended up in the pile.
It was also a good thing that I swipered the wipers as her passenger side one is bent and does not put pressure on the center of the window.



Just how do you loose all these pieces?

We use a garden cart for junkyard crawling that holds all the tools and what ever we want to take home.
At the end of the pull a thon we piled all this stuff onto the tools that were already on the cart.
Multiple bungee cords were used to hold it into place on the cart.
We pulled it from the very back of the yard up to the checkout.

They lady there was looking at it like where do I even start.
I explained that it was a pile of many small pieces of interior stuff, a spare tire, and a bumper cover.
She just kept staring at it.
I said how about you just charge me $100 for the random stuff and whatever the other stuff costs.
She agreed and I was out the door for $200.

Max had some time the other day and went out and fiddled with the stereo that came in the car.
Bad picture as I moved when it took it.
But it is a Pioneer that is around $100 new and they still sell it.
The two of them got it hooked up to some speakers and Burger connected her phone to it with the Bluetooth.
Win! As now I don't have to buy her one of those.


This is the amp that was screwed to the bottom of the heater box.
All the wires were disconnected when we bought it so it was a question mark.
Hook the wires back up and it seems to operate the stock dash speakers.
It is a Rockford Fosgate 50 watts X 4 channel amp and will serve her just fine to power the mids/highs in her car.



The PO had a subwoofer in the trunk that was not hidden or covered and the car was broken into with only that being stolen.
We will address subs in the future when other stuff is sorted.

That is all for the updates on this one until parts start arriving later this week.
She still loves her car.
Her current boyfriend said "I don't understand why people want an old car for a dream car."
I feel his days may be numbered...

I found the missing sail panel covers on marketplace the other day.
We went out to the middle of the boonies where a feller named Steve parts them and saves the savable ones in his retirement.
He has a wicked '90 with a super charged small block in it.

Here are the correct color and year even sail panel covers.


They will be cleaned with the Bissell first and if that does not work they can be recovered pretty simply.

Steve has loads of parts hanging around as well as cars that are in various stages of assembly.
I asked if he had any wheels he would be selling.
He showed me these Z28 wheels that are 15 x 7 and said for the set of four he usually gets $200.
I just so happened to have pack my "swap meet" envelope with me and it magically could cover that amount.
So Der Burger now has a set of far better wheels to roll around on.



I wonder if the Grand National center caps would fit on these....

If not, she can find a set and use her own money for them.

The car now just needs a set of tires and I am nearly done with the major expenditures unless something random pops up for this car.
Outlay to this point is $3900.
I still need to register the thing as well....

I am over spending on this one now.
Since the earlier post was made, I have been online tire shopping.
Max pointed me at Simpletire.com and I used them to buy a set of Mastercraft Avenger's for the car just now.
They are the 235/60/15 variety and should work very well for her in the years to come.


In a few days they will be dropping off a set of 4 to my door step and I will have one of Max's friends that works for beer mount them up for us at his work.


I found them on simple tire for $131 a piece and Walmart had them for $119 each.
I got them to price match and the to my door price each is $119.

Those Avenger GT's are good tires. I've had a few sets of them over the years.

bucket said:

Those Avenger GT's are good tires. I've had a few sets of them over the years.

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Excellent to hear.
I went by the ratings that I saw and they had plenty of good ratings, not just a couple of them.

Catbox said:

Excellent to hear.
I went by the ratings that I saw and they had plenty of good ratings, not just a couple of them.

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Yep, they ride great, wear well, have good steering response and have good traction in all weather conditions. They also don't dry rot super fast like a bunch of other tires these days.

I've currently got a set on my '73 Chevelle and my son's '93 C1500.