Muscle Car Information - Learn About The American Muscle Car

How To Repair Rusted Sheet Metal

2009-11-05T17:56:00.002-07:00

There are a few ways to fix rust problems in your car, but first you must find them, you can start by looking for bubbles in the painted surface of the car, and do not take it lightly when you find it, don't look at it and think that just because it seems to be only on the surface that it is, rust will hide in cracks, underneath seem sealer, under that carpet, or any place else that it can, believe be the rust knows that you don't want it in your car, so look at it like a doctor would look a cancer.

To check how bad the rust is, take a body hammer with a pick on one end, and use that end to lightly tap the rusted spot that you have found, if the metal seems like it's soft and moves easily, then you needs to fix this area now, in some cases you'll knock a hole in the area that your tapping on wit the hammer, don't worry about this, it won't be there for long if you fix the rust hole the right way.

What you'll need to do the job, is a, air compressor, a die grinder with a cutting blade on it, do yourself a favor and make sure that you have more then one cussing blade for that grinder, you'll need sheet metal, the same gage as your car, if you don't know what gage it is, you'll also need a 5” air grinder loaded with a 40 grit disc to finish the welds with, then you'll need to buy a metal gage checking tool, and last but not least you'll need a MIG welder with plenty of gas and wire, there are other ways to fix a rust spot without a welder, but in my opinion they are not as reliable.

Now that you have your tools all together and your courage up to the right level where you can begin the job, you'll want to determine how big the rusted area is by tapping it with the pick end of that body hammer until you run in to areas on all sides of the rust that don't seem soft, or like they don't have any strength to them, once you have discovered how big the rusted area is you need to get a sharpie and draw a line around the rusted area, about 2” in to the good metal all the way around the rusted area, so you know that the rust will be gone when you cut it out, rust is not easy to weld to, so make 100% sure that it's all the way gone.

Now that you have your line to cut to all drawn out with the sharpie, you can plug the die grinder in to the air source, now a word of advise here, don't try to cut it all at one time, put a light cut along the line that you drew with the sharpie, just repeat the process of running the die grinder along that line until the rusted area falls out of the car, now that the rusted metal is out of your car, pick up the rusted piece of metal and lay it on top of your new sheet metal, take that sharpie that you used to draw the first line to cut to, and using the rusted piece of metal draw a line to it with the sharpie, using the same process that you did on the rusted spot in your car, cut the piece of good metal out with the die grinder.

The die grinder has left a rough edge on the back of the good piece of metal, you'll need to clean that up, the best way to do this is to take that 5” grinder that you have with the 40 grit disc on it, and lightly run it over the back of the metal until all the burs are gone, now you'll need to that 5” grinder with the 40 grit disc on it, and clean the area on your car where you cut the rust our, make sure that you have about 2” of bare clean metal around the area that you cut out.

Now take that good piece of metal that you cut from your sheet of repair metal, and fit it in the hole that you cut out of your car, I usually use visegrips to hold the new metal in place, now this is where things can get a little tricky, so pay close attention this section, make sure that you have a good place to put the grounding clamp for your welder, if you don't see a place for it right close to your work area, then take that 5” air grinder and make one, make sure that the clamp has a solid connection.

Plug you welder in, and make sure that the gas is turned on, I usually run the wire feed, and current set at about 3 or 4 on my MIG, but this could be different on your machine, so do yourself a favor and test it before putting it to your car, now that we're all ready to go, you have the visegrips holding the metal in place and you have your welder setup right, your going to want to run about a 1” bead on the top, bottom, and both sides, and then you can get the visegrips out of your way.

Now you have four weld beads holding the patch panel in place, now heres a bit more advise, mig welders get very hot, and it's possible to warp the metal in your car while welding the patch panel in place, so never weld more then 1” beads at a time, and move from the top to the bottom, do a 1” weld on the top of the patch, and then cool it off with a little air, and the do a 1” weld on the bottom and cool it off, and the do the same thing with the sides, until you have one solid bead all the way around the patch panel, you have now fixed your rust problem, all that's left is the finish work on the welds.

Grab your 5” air grinder with the 40 grit disc and grind the welds flat, in most cases you should not even be able to see the welds if you have done it right, the job is now complete, I'll move on to the body work part in a later article.

Muscle Cars: Community for the muscle car enthusiast - MCI.

2009-11-05T12:42:00.000-07:00

Muscle Cars: Community for the muscle car enthusiast - MCI.

Chevy Vin, Trim Tag Information and Specifications & Decoding

2009-10-22T09:49:00.000-07:00

I have written a lot of articles about this subject in the past, but it seems that there is never enough information out there on this subject, this will cover the thirteen digit codes from the 1960's era of Chevrolet, and GM cars, so let's dive in haed first.

As I said the vin codes from the 1960's are thirteen digits long, any longer it would be a newr car, and shorter, it's an older car, now that we have that out of the way, let's get right to the numbers, here we go, when l,ook at a Chevrolet vin tag, the first number you see tells you that it's a Chevrolet.

This is what a refer to as the division code, as you know GM has a lot of divisions, and if the car your looking at is a Chevrolet that very first number that you should see is a "1", if you see any other number as the first digit, it's time to suspect a rip off.

The second number in the vin sequence is the model indicator, this number will tell you what model the car is, in this case the vin will start like this "12", this would tell you that it's a Chevrolet camaro, the next number in the sequence will tell you the engine, and for a V8 would b a "4", the very next number in this case is "37", this tells you that it's a tow door sports coup, or a hard top.

To this point in time we have a vin code that looks like this "12437N", spelled out this car is a Chevrolet camaro with a V8 engine, and it's a two door sports coupe, or a hard top, the very next number in the sequence is the year of the car, and in this case it's a "9", indicating that the car was built in 1969.

Below I will give you a list of the number positions and what they mean, this should take you to the next level, and help you gain some confidence in the knowledge of decoding your vin tag before you purchase the car, the vin tag won't tell the whole story, but it will tell a big part of it.

Number Possitions

The number first is the manufacture id number, the number 1 denotes a Chevrolet
In position 2 is the number 24 this indicates that the car is a V8 Camaro
In position 3 is the number 37 this indicates the the car is a sports coupe
In position 4 is the year in this case a 9 indicating that it's a 1969 model year
In position 5 is the assembly plant, in this case "N" indicates Norwood Ohio
The last six digits indicate the production number, this was the 125687 TH car built in 1969

In this case you vin code would read "124379N125687", it's not a really complicated process to read these numbers, in the long run it will pay off to know how to do it, the fact here is that you can never know to much about the car you want to buy.

That is why I continue to write these articles, I like to help with the purchase all I can, and then make sure that you have all the information that you need to get the car restored, or customized to your satisfaction, I write for you, I want to help with all the information that I can.

How To Pint Your Classic Car

2009-10-22T08:13:00.001-07:00

How To Paint Your Classic Car Like A Pro

After the finish body work is done, and your primer has been sanded to 600 grit wet, you can mask your classic car, and get ready for paint, if your lucky you can rent a paint booth for a day to paint the car, if renting a paint booth is the plan, you should wait to mask your car, until you get there.

I always suggest that you rent a booth, unless you have a garage that you can clean, blow out, and hose down until it's absolutely dust free, if there is any dust around your car, it will be in the paint in the end, where if you rent a paint booth, they are usually kept clean, all you have to do is water the floors.

Now that you ready to paint your car, no matter where you have chosen to do the work, you need to be sure that you have all of the supplies that you need, because once you start to paint, you can't just stop and make a run to the paint supply store, below I'll add a list of the supplies you need.

Supply List

1) Paint
2) sealer
3) reducer
4) Catalyst
5) Tack Cloths, preferably designed for clear coat
6) Measuring Cups
7) Stir Sticks
8) Measuring Stick
9) Strainers
10) Respirator in working order
11) Paint Prep Cleaner

The list above is a list of the supplies that you'll need to paint your classic car, you cannot skimp on this list to save money, you will need every item on it, so be ready to spend some money on it, on average your supplies will cost between $600.00 and $2,000.00 depending on what you use to paint your car.

Now that we know that the car is masked, we'll prep clean it, this will clean any contaminants off of the surface of the primer, after you have done this you can tack cloth the car, this is done to remove small dust particles from the surface of the car.

Now I will give you a few things to think about, when painting with metallic paints then you must pay allot attention to the settings on your paint gun.

Metallic paints will tend to get lighter if the pressure goes up and darker if it goes down, your fluid flow and fan on your gun will also effect this.

Now I will give you a basic mixing chart, most paints will follow this chart.

Instructions

1) get your paint ready to pour.

2) make sure that your mixing cup is clean.

3) Get your strainer and sticks.

4) Put a strainer in the top of the measuring cup.

5) Now pay close attention to the level of paint in the cup.

Paint Mixing Table. Always be sure to read and follow the paint manufactures mixing guide lines. These mixing ratios are just a basic idea of what to do, things will change with different manufactures.

Recommended Air Pressure At Gun Head. Paint Mix Ratios. Paint Product.

25-40 PSI Mix 4:1:1 Base Coat

25-40 PSI Mix 4:1:1 Sealer

25-40 PSI Mix 4:1:1 Clear Coat

25-40 PSI Mix 2:1:1 Primer Coat

When using a spray gun, you try to achieve a certain spray pattern of spray coming out of the gun, this is done by adjusting the air pressure at the tip of the spray gun, also the fan of the paint, and fluid flow of the paint, all of these factors will make, or break your paint work.

What your looking for in a perfect spray pattern is very simple, it will consist of a fan 4-6 inches wide, that has no dry spot in the middle, or heavy spot on either end of the spray fan, once you achieve this type of spray coming from the gun, your ready to go.

Remember do not test you spray pattern on the paint booth wall, or on your car, take a piece of masking paper, and hang it on the wall of the booth, and use that to test your spray gun, if you rented my booth, and sprayed on the wall of it, I would charge you to remove the paint from the wall.

You should always follow the manufactures recommended paint mixes, and spray pressure, the manufacture know more about their product then anybody else does, if you follow what they sat to the letter, your paint should look great.

Body & Paint Prep

2009-10-17T11:10:00.000-07:00

Body & Paint Prep

I thought I'd write another article on body prep & paint work, since prep is in my opinion one of the most important steps in the process of creating the perfect paint work on your classic car, or muscle car, I know I have done an article on this before, but I can't stress enough how important it is.

After that body of the car has been stripped of all paint, and previous body work, and you have redone the body work that needs to be done, the prep stage of the body work will begin, and different people define this in different ways.

You should begin this stage of work by shooting primer to the car, I usually recommend three coats of high build urethane, or epoxy primer for this step, and in every case I recommend twenty four hours of dry time before you begin to sand the car.

After you have let the car dry for twenty four hours, sand the car and then seal all of the seams, let me remind you that this won't be the final prime on the car, you'll need to prime it one more time after you seal all of the seams on the car.

Seam sealing is an absolute must when you do a complete paint job on your car, seam sealing will stop water, and other contaminants for getting between the welded areas of the metal and causing it to rust, there are a lot of choices of seam sealer, but I use 3M fast and firm sealer when I do it.

This is a critical part of the prep process on your car, and it has to be don the right way to work right, I usually run a strip of masking tape down each side of the seam, leaving about 1/8 of an inch for the seam sealer to sit in, and this seems to work great for me, you can do it as yo like.

Give the seam sealer about two hours to dry, and then you can sand the car by hand with 220 grit paper on a long sanding block, once you have sanded the entire car with the 220 grit paper you can re-prime again, and you should be ready to wet sand the entire car first with 400 grit paper, and then if you want to 600 grit wet paper for the best results.

Some people stop at 400 grit wet sanding, but I usually finish with 600 grit, this has provided the best results for me in the past, if the windows are still in the car make sure that you have masked the car properly before you spray any primer, or paint.

Also make sure that you have taken the time to setup your spray gun properly before you spray any paint, or primer, the settings of the gun will make or break the outcome of your primer, or paint work on your car.

Planning A 1969 Camaro Restoration

2009-10-04T07:31:00.001-07:00

If you have a standard 1969 camaro you should not have a lot of problem finding the parts and supplies that you need to restore the car, but if you have a special 1969 camaro you'll probably run in to a few problems locating some of the parts.

Allow me to differentiate between a special 1969 camaro, and a standard 1969 camaro, a standard 1969 camaro would be a Z/28, SS, RS, RS/SS, RS-Z/28, a special camaro would be a Yenko Camaro, a Baldwin Motion Camaro, or a ZL1 Camaro.

These are camaros that a very limited number of them was built, making it hard to find some of the parts, so if your restoring one of these you'll need to add a lot of patience to the restoration plan of your car because if will take a while to locate some of the parts.

For this article we'll assume that you have already bought your car, and now it's time to start the restoration process on the car, first of all get the car in to the garage, and plan on it being there for a while, this is not an over night process.

Planning a restoration on your 1969 camaro is no different from planning one on any other car, the first thing you need to do is take an inventory of the car so you can list the tings that need to be done to restore the car.

I have a method for doing an inventory of a car for restoration purposes, first get out your notebook, and divide one of the pages in to three columns, name one of them replace parts, name one repair parts, and name one repair work.

What your going to do with this notebook is a walk around inventory of the car, you'll bee looking for parts that need to be replaced, parts that you can repair and reuse, and getting a general feel for the repair work that needs to be done on the car it's self.

The reason we do this is to get an idea of some of the things that we need to do to restore the car, I realize that you can't get a complete list of the things that you need until you tear in to the car, but this will give you a good idea of where to start.

You can take your list of replace parts and start to run down suppliers for them, and the cost of them, make sure that you inspect inspect the entire car when you do the walk around, I usually work from the front to the rear of the car when I do this.

Then after I get everything that I can see, I lift the car off of the ground and inspect all of the systems under the car, like suspension, brakes, steering, rear end, and sheet metal, once I have the inventory completed I can get on to the tear down.

This inventory can help you in a lot of ways, the first and most obvious is the fact that it will help you get a feel for the pricing of the parts that you'll need, if your good at estimating how long it will take you to repair and replace things, it will give you a good idea of how many hours it will take.

Take your time on this parts of the restoration, the more through this is the better it will be, you'll get a really good idea of the parts you need, and the cost of them, you'll get a good idea of the time it will take to do the restoration of the car.

If you know these things up front, you won't get a lot of surprises as you do the work and you'll enjoy every hour that you spend working on your car, keep this in mind as you do your inventory, in most cases if the car is in good condition, it takes professional shop about 600-800 hours to restore a car.

That of course changes when you add more work, but it will give you an idea of the time that these cars can take to restore, it takes a long time to complete one of these projects, the the reward is well worth the time that you'll spend restoring the car.

Resource: 1969 Camaro Restoration

Camaro Restoration – Part 10 Primer Surfacer

2009-10-02T17:55:00.010-07:00

Not that the metal work is done, we can get on to the primer surfacing of the car, now this to be done right needs to have attention paid to the smallest details, first go over the car looking for any small imperfections in the metal work, it does on occasion happen that you'll find one or two.

After your sure that you don't have any small dents, dings, or ripples that need attention you can begin to clan the car and get it ready for masking, make sure that you have a can of metal prep cleaner, cover the entire surface of the car with the metal prep cleaner, pay attention to detail, take your time.

After you have finished the cleaning phase, you can move on to the masking, unless you have removed all of the windows, chrome, and bright work, you'll need to mask the car, if it's just a shell, you don't need to worry about this stage.

For this article we'll say that you didn't remove all of the glass from the car, so you will be masking the car, this is really one of the most important parts of the process, you need to have your paper, tape, and razor blades ready to go, and again I can't stress enough, take your time on this.

You'll either be spraying epoxy primer, or urethane primer, and either one of these products is made to stay on the parts that you spray it on, so let;s discuss it a little bit, first of all you need to be sure that everything is masked, and nothing is masked that doesn't need to be, this is where you'll need the blades.

What your looking to do here is cut the paper to match the parts that your masking, and believe me when I say, the over spray will get every where that you fail to mask, I learned this the hard way, it can take days to clean those kind of mistakes up.

Spend time and cover everything that you think doesn't need to be painted, now we'll get in to the primer itself, first of all get you car in to the spray booth, or the area where you plan to paint it, once it's in the paint area make sure that you ground the car by hanging a chain from the car to the floor.

Grounding the car will help to insure that static electricity doesn't accumulate an pick up miscellaneous dust and other contaminants from the air, now that you have gotten in the booth, and grounded it, you can get ready to spray the primer.

What You Need:

1.A Spray Gun

2.Primer Surfacer

3.Mixing Cups

4.Stir Stick

5.Reducer

6.Catalyst

Now that you have these things you can begin the mixing process, you should always follow the manufactures recommendations when mixing the primer, they know what the best mixing process is, if you think you'll more help then what's on the side of the can, ask the paint company that your buying the product from

Once you have mixed the primer, rather it's urethane or, epoxy primer, you'll be spraying no less then three coats on the car, this usually works out to about one gallon of spray- able material, when you begin to spray the primer you'll need to know a couple of things.

The first thing is that you should always hold the spray gun parallel to the surface of the car at 90 degrees to the surface, or with the spray head facing directly at the car, the gun should spray an even fan with no voids of primer in the center, when the gun is set at 35 pounds of air pressure.

You should always keep the gun 6-8 inches from the surface of the car, any closer and you will more then likely get a run in your primer, any farther away and you'll get a dry spray, you'll also get dry spray if you move the gun to fast, or a run if you move to slow, you have to figure out the right speed.

Once you have these techniques down you only need to remember one thing, you must overlap each paint line 50% to get even coverage on the car, I'd suggest that you practice these techniques before you get serious about spraying your car, learn the speed, the fan settings, and how different air pressures affect the gun that you use.

How to Create Perfect Auto Body Work | eHow.com

2009-09-25T09:45:00.001-07:00

How to Create Perfect Auto Body Work | eHow.com

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How To Choose A Camshaft For Your Muscle Car

2009-09-19T09:27:00.002-07:00

Since I have never written on this subject before, I figure that it's about time to discuss how to choose a high performance camshaft for your muscle car, I'll discuss the main ideas, and the best ways to choose a camshaft for your muscle car.

The first thing that you need to have a good handle on is what are you going to do with the car, how will often will you drive it, and what are your requirements for your car as far as performance, is this car to be a daily driver, or just a weekend warrior.

Do you depend on it to get you to work every day, or is if mostly a fun car to have, and you drive it occasionally, you need to know these things because they make a huge difference in the camshaft that you choose.

What is the intended rpm range of your muscle car, does it have an automatic transmission, or is it a manual transmission, if it's an automatic transmission, you need to pay close attention to the rpm range of the camshaft, and match it to a stall converter for the cam.

Usually the high performance of the cam that you choose, the higher the the rpm on the stall converter needs to be, for the best results you should match the stall rpm, to the point where the power range begins on the cam shaft, let's say the the cam you chose has a rpm range from 2,500 – 7,500 rpm.

You'd need to purchase a stall converter that stalls at 2,500 rpm, or in other words in locks at 2,500 rpm, if you use a standard transmission, you won't need to worry about this, the clutch in your car will take care of it.

This is only the beginning of the things that you need a handle on, for the best results you heads, and your valve springs need to match your cam specs, if your valve springs won't handle the lift spec on your camshaft, this valve spring could bind, and shove the valve in to a piston.

The best thing that you can do here is to use the manufacture recommended valve spring, let's say that your camshaft has a spec of .550 lift and .260 duration, which is a pretty healthy camshaft for a street car, I would say that your valve springs should spec to at least .570 lift.

Usually camshaft specs are taken at 50 thousandths lift, or half lift, you also need to take the rocker arms in to consideration when selecting your camshaft, for a small block Chevy the factory rocker arms are usually set to a 1.5 ratio, and this works fine.

But if you want to squeeze all of the performance possible out of the camshaft, you might want to think about using a 1.6 ratio on the rocker arms, I won't go the nuts and bolts of what the ratios will do, but the 1.6 ratio will increase lift, which will make more power in the upper rpm ranges.

You should also think about how much time you want to spend under the hood of the car making adjustments to your valve train, if you like spending time under the hood, I would suggest that go with a solid roller cam, it will defiantly perform better.

If you prefer not to spend a lot of time under the hood, you should consider a hydraulic roller cam, I'm a big fan of the roller cam because it makes a lot less stress on the engine, and therefore generates more reliable high performance power for you muscle car.
You camshaft also needs to match the compression ration of your car, usually a bigger cam requires more compression, and therefore is not the best choice for street use, due to the fact that high octane gas is not easy to get these days.

But like everything else there are acceptations, if you plan run a turbocharger, or a supercharger you should not go above 9:1 compression, your power adder will make the extra compression that your engine needs to facilitate the camshaft.

You best bet to get everything just right, is to have a chat with the tech line of the company that you plan to buy your camshaft from, Jegs high performance has the best tech line that I know of for a first time camshaft buyer, but you need to be ready to answer his questions.

He's likely to ask questions like, what is the elevation that your at, what's the compression of the engine that your building, what transmission are you running, is it turbocharged, or supercharged, and what carb do you plan to use, so be ready for the question, Jegs has a bunch of great guys.

2009-08-05T22:52:00.001-07:00

David C. Atkin's Contributor Page - Associated Content

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The 1969 Chevrolet Camaro - A Buyers Guide

2009-07-26T09:20:00.003-07:00

First of all you need to know what you want to spend on the car; you need this planned out very well, or you'll never get the car you want; another this that you need to realize is that there is no such a thing as a $2,500 dollar first generation Camaro.

If you want a car that is in good condition plan on spending a least $10,000; if you find a car that's in good shape for that price, your a good car finder; usually you can find a good car to restore for this kind of money.

If you not planning on restoring the car you'd better start with no less then $30,000 to start your hunt; 1969 Camaro's start about here for the ones that don't need a restoration; I have seen them sell for $880,000 at auction.

So once again I'll say make sure that you have the money; and a good idea of what your looking for in a 1969 Camaro, the best place to start you hunt is on the internet; you'll have a lot to choose from here; the more you compare, the more you learn.

If your looking at the car as an investment you'd better spend some time learning about the codes on the car such as the vin code; the rpo code; transmission code; the rear end code; and the paint & interior codes.

You can buy books to learn about the codes; if your just buying the car for fun, then the sky is the limit; let's say that your buying it to restore, and drive; rather then for an investment; you can do what you want to the car.

Just make sure that if you modify the car, that you keep the old parts; never throw any of them away; this way if you decide to sell the car you still have the original parts for it; myself I tell people to make their car what they want it to be.

Let's go in to the finding of the car a bit deeper; for the sake of this article let's say that your looking for a 1969 Z/28 Camaro; and you want it to have an original engine, the 1969 Z/28 only came with one engine; and that is a DZ 302.

Let me explain where the "DZ" comes from first; this is the suffix of the rpo code on the engine, or the last letters in the code; the rpo code can be found on the machined pad in front of the passenger side head on a small block Chevrolet.

There will be some other numbers that come before the suffix of the rpo code; these numbers will tell you the year of the engine; the assembly plant that it was built at, and the month it was built; to know it it's a 302 all you need to find is the "DZ".

The only bad thing about a rpo code is that a scammer can

re-stamp it; I will tell you a way around this also; there is a number called a casting number, as far as I know this number cannot be counterfeited.

The casting number is located on the transmission pedestal; where the transmission mounts to the block, right behind the driver side head on the car; you may have to clean it off to see it, they are usually covered with grease.

Any reputable person selling a car won't mind you looking at these things; for the 302 the casting numbers would be one of these; 3932386, 3956618, 3970010; the 3970010 was found on a lot of 350's and 327's also.

If you have located a 1969 Z/28 that has these numbers in these configurations it's most likely a real 1969 Z/28 Camaro; but if it looks like something doesn't belong you might want to get a second opinion from an appraiser.

If an appraiser verifies the car; you can rest assured that it's an authentic 1969 Z/28 camaro; don't ask the person selling the car to recommend an appraiser; find your own and use the one that you find; it's not cheap to use an appraiser, but in the long run it's a good idea.

I will end this article by helping you locate some places on line that have a good reputation to start with; I have personally met these people that run these shops; and I think that you'll find them as reliable as i did.

Key Points In This Article:

Plan you budget

There are no $2,500 dollar camaro's to buy

Learn the numbers; RPO codes, Vin codes, Casting numbers

know what you plan to do with the car; is it a restoration, or a custom car

Don't think cheap, you get what you pay for

Use an appraiser if you need one

Never throw you parts away during a restoration

Don't buy the first car you find

Places to look on
the net:

http://oldride.com

http://ezinearticles.com/?Hint s-and-Tips-on-Finding-a-1969-C amaro-For-Sale&id=2126055

http://motors.ebay.com

Camaro For Sale

How To Read Your GM Protecto Plate

2009-05-30T05:42:00.000-07:00

In this article I will talk about your protecto plate, this is one of those important identifying tags on your GM car from the 1960's, if your buying classic cars and restoring them to factory condition you need to know this plate.

The protecto plate came with the owner protection plan, this was in a pouch that came with the camaro when you bought it, it explained the protection plan that GM offered with the camaro that you bought the protecto plate should have the vin code so you can match it with the car.

The protecto plate should also match up with the RPO code on the machined pad on the passenger side of the car in front of the motor head, it should also tell you interior color that the car came with, paint color codes, and brand of carburetor.

The protecto plate holds a world of information that can help you know if the car you want to buy is what the seller says it is, unfortunately a lot of these plates have been lost, or misplaced over the years, I'm going to go in to farther detail on the protecto plate now.

If you don't have a protecto plate you can still decode car, but it does make the job much harder to do, you'll find information on the rear axle such as what gears the car came with, and between the protecto plate, and the rear end tag you'll know if the gears in the rear axle are correct.

The protecto plate will tell you about the accessories that the car came with, like radios, clocks, and etc , it will tell you if the car had air, power steering, and what transmission the car cam with, it's important to know this tag inside and out.

The protecto plate will also tell you the year and month the the car was built if there's any confusion about that, it's one of those things that can help you make 100% sure that your buying that car that you want to buy.

The key here is that you can't ever know to much about the car that your buying, if the owner has records from the last owner make sure that you look at those also, the owner may have records for when the car was first purchased, and that car really help.

Know the numbers on the car, it's easy for somebody to tell you that the car your looking at is a Yenko camaro, a Motion camaro, or one of the other special camaro's, it's up to you to know what your looking at, it's up to you to know that car.

You know if you read my blog, or any of my other sites that my biggest pet peeve is people who clone muscle cars, and then try to sell them representing them as something that their not, I hear these things all the time, lean, know, and protect yourself.

If you do the things that I ask, you'll find the exact car that you want, and you'll know for certain that it is that car, this will make the entire car buying experience a good one for you, and the people selling the car, so go forth, buy a classic car, and have fun.

President Obama - Death to the Muscle Car

2009-05-28T09:42:00.000-07:00

f you love these cars that same way that I do, it's time to begin paying attention to what this idiot is doing

President Obama - Death to the Muscle Car
As if he hasn't already done enough to the automotive industry, Obama now want's to set new fuel economy standards, this could end up being the final nail in the coffin of the American muscle car, and institution that has lasted since the 1960's.
http://www.associatedcontent.comarticle/1775904/president_obama_death_to_the_muscle.html

Gus Pualos Takes Delivery Of The First 2010 SS Camaro In Utah

2009-05-13T07:00:00.000-07:00

Salt Lake City, Utah, 5-13-2009

Gus Paulos Chevrolet has taken delivery of the very first 2010 SS camaro in Utah, stop in to see the car an mention our buy American promotion to Clay Lyon to get e great deal on a brand new Chevrolet.

The 2010 camaro is a work of art, and must be seen to be appreciated, David C. Atkin of Atkin Internet Enterprises says that the 2010 camaro is an amazing combination of new technology, with the camaro of yesteryear, it sports a sleek look the takes you back to the 1969 Camaro.

Atkin Internet Enterprises is using it's web presence to help promote Gus Paulos Chevrolet, and the restoration of the American way of life, our alliance has allowed us a special relationship with Gus Paulos Chevrolet, a relationship that we hope will help build the confidence of the public.

Atkin Internet Enterprises is dedicated to helping bring back the Buy American attitude that our country used to have, we need to think of our country, and the business that it supports, it's time to think American in everything you do.

President David C. Atkin, president of Atkin Internet Enterprises says that Chevrolet, and the big three have done a lot for our country over the years, and now it's our turn to help them, and at the same time help save our country, you can read more about this promotion at http://autorevival.com/?p=874 .

David C. Atkin is an expert article author on http://ezinearticles.com for the fields of automotive restoration, and politics, David has been writing articles on these subjects for the past three years, and is always adding to his repertoire of articles about these subjects.

David has also done interviews about the use of E85 as an alternate fuel for classic American cars, in the January 2008 issue of Muscle Car Enthusiast magazine, David is always striving to make old cars more popular, as they are an important part of our countries automotive history.

Http://autorevival.com is also putting forth an effort to see that the big three get the help that they need, all sites owned by Atkin Internet Enterprises will support the big three in their efforts to rebuild their businesses, and to help them thrive.

For additional information about http://autorevival.com please contact David C. Atkin, or visit http://autorevival.com , if you'd like a copy of this press release you may visit our forum located at http://69isfine.com/forum and look in the press release area, or email webmaster@autorevival.com and put Gus Paulos Chevrolet in the subject.

Atkin Internet Enterprises provides web design and hosting services to the automotive industry.

Gus Paulos Chevrolet, And Atkin Internet Enterprises Announce The Buy Ameircan Promotion

2009-05-09T20:37:00.001-07:00

To get the deal above all you have to do is right click the image above, and click save as, and then print out a copy of the image above and present it to Clay Lyon ay Gus Paulos Chevrolet.

Through our site only you can get a great deal on a brand new Chevrolet, just think a new car rather then another used one, you'll always remember the first new car you bought, and this time you can help your country by buying and American car rather then an import.

American builds great cars, and it's time that we all take the to heart, our web site is the only place on the net that you can get this deal is our web site contact Dave and ask about the buy American promotion with Atkin Internet Enterprises and Gus Paulos Chevrolet today!!!

Or contact Clay Lyon at Gus Paulos Chevrolet, and tell him that you seen this promotion on Auto Shop Alliance, are you ready for your 2010 camaro, this is you opportunity to get just the camaro you want at a great price, it's time to think American and help your country survive the hard times.

The new GM total confidence plan offers you peace of mind that your new truck or car will never lose it's trade in value, and if you get laid off of work Chevrolet will make your payments for up to nine months at $500.00 per month, what more can you ask for.

General Motors will warrant powertrains on 2008 and newer: Chevrolet, Buick, Pontiac, GMC and Saturn passenger cars, light duty trucks or vans for fully backed, 5 years or 100,000 miles, whichever comes first**. This warranty will have no deductible, starting from the original in-service date of the vehicle, for warrantable repairs which are required as a result of defects due to material and/or workmanship to the Powertrain components.

The Payment Protection Program is provided by cynoSure Financial, Inc.
Purchase or lease any eligible new 2008, 2009 or 2010 Chevrolet, Buick, Pontiac, GMC or Saturn vehicle from a participating GM dealer in the United States from May 1, 2009 through June 1, 2009. Saab, Hummer and Cadillac vehicles, medium duty and heavy duty trucks are excluded.

You have to be employed for at least 30 hours per week for 90 days after you buy or lease the vehicle and for 12 consecutive weeks prior to your first day of unemployment.

Then, if you lose your job due to economic conditions during the next 21 months you are eligible for benefits. If you lose your job for other reasons, you may not be covered.

You are not eligible if you are an active GM employee, a seasonal worker, are self-employed, retired or receiving a severance.

If you want to read all of the detailed terms and conditions of this program, simply click on the link on this page, which leads to a sample set of terms and conditions for the program.*

The Vehicle Value Protection Program is provided by ServicePlan, Inc.
Purchase any eligible new 2008, 2009 or 2010 Chevrolet, Buick, Pontiac, GMC or Saturn vehicle from a participating GM dealer in the United States through June 1, 2009. Saab, Hummer and Cadillac vehicles, medium duty and heavy duty trucks are excluded.

Note: Effective May 1, 2009 Chevrolet, Buick, Pontiac, GMC or Saturn vehicles are eligible for GM Total Confidence.
Vehicle Value Protection does not apply to leases or balloon payment financing.

Then, make your loan payments for at least half of the original term. After that, if you want to buy another GM vehicle, just compare your principal loan balance (not including interest or any refunds on other products/services that were part of your vehicle loan) to the NADA clean retail price for your vehicle. If you owe more than the vehicle is worth, Vehicle Value Protection will help make up the difference.

If you trade your vehicle in to the dealer and pay off the loan, you can recover the difference up to $5,000. If you sell your vehicle in a private sale and pay off the loan, you can recover the difference up to $2,500.

If your original vehicle loan was for more than 110% of the vehicle MSRP, Vehicle Value Protection won't cover the excess.
Maximum Finance Term: Up to 72 months.

If you want to read all of the detailed terms and conditions of this program, simply click on the link on this page, which leads to a sample set of terms and conditions for the program.*

How To Decide What Car To Restore

2009-05-03T11:29:00.003-07:00

This is kind of a tricky question, but it's a question that I get all of the time, there is no definite answer to it, you need to ask yourself a few questions to begin with, the first question that you need to ask yourself, is what am I going to do with the car.

Make your yourself a list of the things that you plan to do with the car, put the list in order of priority, in other words put the things that are most important at the top of the list, and as you complete each one mark it off so you know where your at.

Next you need to look at the cars that you think that you'd like to restore, and do the same thing here, put make a list and put your favorite one at the top, and work in order of importance to you, which car do you like the best.

Then if this is your first restoration you should look at the difficulty level of the particular car that you choose, take your list of favorites and figure out which ones that you can get that are in decent shape, you should start with one that is not a rust pit.

After you have determined witch one is in the best condition, you'll need to look at the parts situation, how easy is it to get the parts, parts are one of those things that can take a long time to find, if you have a lot of patience then it OK to take a lot of time looking for parts.

If your restoring a muscle car I will give a few ideas on the easiest ones to get parts for here, first you'd want to look at how many were made, in which case you'd look at the Ford mustang, they built more mustangs than any other muscle car ever built.

Obviously the more they build, the easier it's going to be to get parts for them, if your a fan of the mustang it may be a good idea to build one of them, you'll enjoy the restoration process, and you'll be able to find most of the parts that you'll need.

Don't get me wrong here, it can still be hard to find some of the parts that you'll need to restore a mustang, this all depends on which mustang you choose to restore, there are a lot of different mustangs, and some parts can be hard to find, but usually they are available to you.

If the mustang is not quite your idea of a great muscle car to restore, maybe your looking at a Chevrolet, if your a Chevrolet person then you should be looking the the direction of the camaro, Chevrolet built a lot of camaros, and parts are usually easy to get.

But like the mustang there are certain one that are hard to get some of the parts for, if you decide to restore a 1969 ZL1 to original, the obvious problem is going to be to find the all aluminum 427 engine for the car, being as how they only built 69 of these cars.

Your next step in the world of Chevrolet would be a chevelle, this is another car that Chevrolet built a lot of, and you should be able to find a good car to start with, but like the two cars above there are some parts that can be very hard to find, and hard to find also means expensive.

The people that deal in hard to find parts know, if your calling then it's because you can't locate the parts you need for any other source, and they will charge accordingly, and no this is not a rip off, it's people that seen it coming and took advantage of it.
All I'm saying here is simply this, the restoration is supposed to be fun, it's supposed to be something that you can enjoy, rather you do it yourself, or have a shop do it for you, if you get all of your ducks in a row it will be fun, but you need to know, there is always frustration involved.

If you realize up front that no matter how well you plan it thing will happen, you can have the fun of restoring your car, along with being able to finish the job, if you get upset at something, take a break, there is nothing making you keep going.

I'll say it again, the main thing is that you have fun restoring your car, and the next thing in line is that you complete the restoration of your car, this will make all the work worth it, remember that about thirty percent of the car get sold before their done.

It doesn't have to be that way with your car, make yourself the exception to the rule, have fun restoring your car, realize that it won't be done over night, and rather then getting mad at the car, take as many breaks as you need, and above all have fun.

Invest In Classic Cars – Insure Your Financial Future

2009-04-08T08:39:00.000-07:00

Invest In Classic Cars – Insure Your Financial Future

I've been out doing some reading about the economy, and different ways that you can help your self through the bad economy in the long run, as usual it starts with cash and investments, the investments I'm talking about aren't gold or silver though.

I'm talking about old cars, has gold or silver gone up 10-15 times since the 1960's, the answer is no, have classic cars went up in value 10-15 times, and in some cases a lot more, the answer to that question is a big yes.

Of course I'm talking about restored to factory original specs cars, not hot rods, street rods, or any other form of custom, you do those kind of cars to fulfill a dream, if your buying them for an investment they need to be original as possible.

It's imperative that you do your studying about the cars that you purchase, you need to know them inside and out, or you could get a big surprise, and not the good kind of surprise, I've seen Hemi mopars go for $2,000,000 or more.

These cars would have went for between $1,800 - $3,000 back in the 19609's and 1970's so you do the math, a 1970 GSX Buick stage II 455 would have went for about $2,800 on the market back in 1970, the last one of these I seen sold for $650,000, and not at an auction.

The list goes on and on, it's littered with Chevrolet's, Ford's, Chrysler's, they all built special cars that people just loved, and that love translates in to dollars, it translates in to security for the people who own them, and it translates in to fun.

How many investments do you know of that have risen this sharply over the years, you may be able to name one or two, but the one thing that classic cars do that no other investment will ever do is this, they don't lose value, the economy has not driven them down in price.

What I'm saying here is, buy, restore, and have fun with these cars, they are a part of our countries automotive history, and there are still a lot of them to be found, yes they are getting harder to come by, but with a little American ingenuity you'll locate the right one for you.

Once you've caught the classic car bug, you won't be able to stop, and the more you get, the more you're estate will grow, and you net worth will rise with every one you buy, well except for the one that you mistake on, and it will happen.

Those are the ones that you can have fun with and customize, the ones that are good daily drivers, because you've got to know one thing, the less you drive your collector cars, the more their worth in the end, of course you should have fun with them though.

Take them to the shows and have fun with them, just try to stay away from driving them every day, get your kids interested in them, and make it a family affair, and then you'll have to hear about the time you spend with your cars, have fun and enjoy, I hope this helps.

How To Inspect A Corvette For Rust Before You Buy It

2009-04-06T10:02:00.000-07:00

This isn't going to be a huge article that drags on for hours and hours, I will cover the areas that you need to look for rust in 1963-82 corvettes, it will be a basic article designed to help you save money on the purchase of your corvette.

A corvette can be a very illusive thing, you think rust, how is that possible it made out of fiber glass, for this article we won't be talking about the body of the car we'll be talking about the frame, and a few other areas of America's sports car.

I know you love corvettes, and I do to they are without a doubt a very special car, and considered to be America's only sports car, but when your buying one what you don't know can hurt you, and it probably will, so it's time for me to lend a helping hand.

Obviously the entire car is not fiber glass, the car sits on a frame made of steel, and steel will rust it that can't be changed, but it can be fixed, so let's dive in to this article head first, if your thinking of buying a corvette this will help you for sure.

First of all let's start with the windshield of the car, it is fiber glass wrapped around steel, and obviously steel will rust, so lets begin by looking around the frame of the windshield, if it's rusted badly it may show as fiber glass separating from the post at the bottom of the windshield.

Just because you can't see the rust in this area doesn't mean that it's not there, you may need to discover this rust after you have bought the car and have begun to restore it, if these areas are rusted you'll need to rebuild them, they are a part of the structure of the car.

Corvettes also have heavy steel reinforced doors, to look at the doors of your corvette you'd never know that they have any steel in them at all, the doors in you corvette are actually wrapped around a steel frame, this means that you need to inspect the edges of the doors.

You'll be looking for bubbles in the fiber glass, or areas that appear to be raised, also look for cracks in the fiber glass that rust is creeping through, fiber glass has the inherent problem of stress cracking under pressure, and water can seep in through these cracks, and it will.

Look at the door latch, this can be a very telling area of a corvette because they aren't hidden, all you have to do is open the door and look at it, also look the hinges, and the hinge mounts for the doors these are also tell tale areas of a corvette.

Sometimes rust can hide in a corvette, so don't get in a hurry, the best thing you can do is to take your time wile inspecting the car, ask the owner if you can take it to you mechanic and have the once over done, use this time to inspect the car.

Now we'll look at the frame it's self, a floor hoist would be nice here, if you need to go to a shop and rent one for a couple of hours, one of the most common places for the frame of a corvette to rust is just in front of the rear wheel on each side of the car.

Pay very close attention here, make sure that you take notes so you don't forget what you have found, usually you'll find the rust that I speak of on the out side of the frame just in front of the rear wheels, in bad cases it will creep down to the bottom of the frame.

As in most cars the corvette will rust in the radiator support area, so pay close attention to this area of the car your looking at inspect this area very carefully, rust can go unseen in here for years, and you don't want that in your corvette.

Look for puffy, or flaking steel in the rear suspension trailing arms on your corvette, this is a very common area for the corvette to hide rust, and as you can imagine you don't want your rear suspension to give out on you, so pay very close attention here.

I hope this helps you with the purchase of your classic corvette, now you know that they do rust and you'll more then likely be fixing some rotted areas of your car, don't let this discourage you, let it be a reason to learn about your corvette.

The 1969 Baldwin Motion Camaro

2009-03-21T07:48:00.000-07:00

In 1969 two companies joined together to build an exceptional camaro, the two companies were Baldwin Chevrolet, and Motion Performance, and they built what would become one of the most remembered super camaro's built by ant company.

They of course used the most popular Chevy big block to build the Baldwin Motion Phase III Camaro, and that big block is the 427 CID rat motor, and it would power this car to greatness, this car was a monster in every sense of the word, you'd better have a strong heart before buying one of these.

Motion had put a guarantee on the car to run an 11.5 quarter mile all day long, and it did, now if I remember correctly the car was rated at 425 HP, this was untrue, the actual HP to push a 3650 pound car through the ¼ mile would have been about 483.3 rwh, and 604 HP at the flywheel..

They had a 12 bolt rear end, and usually came with a 4.10:1 gear set, although the 3.73:1 was available also, and a lot more street able of a gear set, but not as zippy in the ¼ mile, a true motion phase III camaro will command about a $400,000 price tag today, but in the 1960's about $4,800.00.

These cars were not just the normal camaro at all, you'd better be a real driver to handle one of these, or it could spell the end for you, and a really cool car, yes a special car it was, and no it was never built again after the 1960's.

You can say whatever you want to about the Motion camaro, but the honest truth is that it would chew up and spit out most cars that that had the nerve to race it, there were of course a few exceptions to the rule, but not enough the the car to worry about.

It was basically a race car that was put on the street, it did have to contend with the L88 Corvette, and the ZL1 camaro, but I figure that was about the only one it had to worry about, and these cars you'd see even less of then the motion camaro.

They didn't build hundreds of thousands of these cars, and as a result they are very rare and hard to find, but they are worth every penny of the asking price when you do, if you find one, be sure to buy it, it's a real true investment in automotive history.

The History Of The Super Yenko Camaro

2009-03-01T11:32:00.001-07:00

1969 was truly the year for the Yenko camaro, this was the year that the car would prove it's self one of the meanest cars ever built, Don Yenko being the savvy person that he was, ordered the car form the Chevrolet Central Office Production Order,”COPO” with two of the packages that were highly coveted by racers of that time era.

He ordered it with the 9737 sports car conversion, which provided a 140 MPH speedometer, sport suspension, and rally wheels, and then topped that off with the COPO 9561, which provided the L72 427 CID 425 HP engine, after Don got the cars at his dealership he would then add a graphics kit that included an arrow on the cowl hood, with two stripes moving back toward the passenger compartment of the car, he then added a big golf club stripe, that started at the front fender and went all the way to the back of the quarter panel on each side of the car, it ended with a little triangle on each end of the spoiler.

After that exterior graphics Don would add a gage package to the inside of the car, and a few small goodies, and this created the sYc, or Super Yenko Camaro, and super was the appropriate name for the car when Don put Dick Harrell behind the wheel of this car would would perform amazing feats at the race track, the Yenko Camaro was good for a 12.59 @ 108 MPH in the ¼ mile, on stock rubber, with the headers corked, I have been unable to locate the times that the car ran with the headers open, and a set of wrinkle walls on the car, but you can bet on around 12.30 @ 115 MPH, no sloutch a street car huh.

Most of these cars came with a Muncie M21 or M22 rock crusher transmission, and if you ever wondered how the rock crusher got it's name, supposedly they dropped diamonds in to the gear box, and before it chewed the gears, the rocks were crushed to powder.

How To Fix Rusted Automotive Sheet Metal

2009-02-05T13:30:00.000-07:00

I thought that I'd delve in to an article about fixing rust in the body of your classic car, this is a huge problem if your buying or own a classic cars that came from a place near the sea, or a place where they use salt on the roads to melt the snow, rust in most cases will start underneath the car and work it's way up destroying anything in it's path along the way, nothing will stop rust or slow it down in it's effort to destroy your classic car's body.

There are a few ways to fix rust problems in your car, but first you must find them, you can start by looking for bubbles in the painted surface of the car, and do not take it lightly when you find it, don't look at it and think that just because it seems to be only on the surface that it is, rust will hide in cracks, underneath seem sealer, under that carpet, or any place else that it can, believe be the rust knows that you don't want it in your car, so look at it like a doctor would look a cancer.

To check how bad the rust is, take a body hammer with a pick on one end, and use that end to lightly tap the rusted spot that you have found, if the metal seems like it's soft and moves easily, then you needs to fix this area now, in some cases you'll knock a hole in the area that your tapping on wit the hammer, don't worry about this, it won't be there for long if you fix the rust hole the right way.

What you'll need to do the job, is a, air compressor, a die grinder with a cutting blade on it, do yourself a favor and make sure that you have more then one cussing blade for that grinder, you'll need sheet metal, the same gage as your car, if you don't know what gage it is, you'll also need a 5” air grinder loaded with a 40 grit disc to finish the welds with, then you'll need to buy a metal gage checking tool, and last but not least you'll need a MIG welder with plenty of gas and wire, there are other ways to fix a rust spot without a welder, but in my opinion they are not as reliable.

Now that you have your tools all together and your courage up to the right level where you can begin the job, you'll want to determine how big the rusted area is by tapping it with the pick end of that body hammer until you run in to areas on all sides of the rust that don't seem soft, or like they don't have any strength to them, once you have discovered how big the rusted area is you need to get a sharpie and draw a line around the rusted area, about 2” in to the good metal all the way around the rusted area, so you know that the rust will be gone when you cut it out, rust is not easy to weld to, so make 100% sure that it's all the way gone.

Now that you have your line to cut to all drawn out with the sharpie, you can plug the die grinder in to the air source, now a word of advise here, don't try to cut it all at one time, put a light cut along the line that you drew with the sharpie, just repeat the process of running the die grinder along that line until the rusted area falls out of the car, now that the rusted metal is out of your car, pick up the rusted piece of metal and lay it on top of your new sheet metal, take that sharpie that you used to draw the first line to cut to, and using the rusted piece of metal draw a line to it with the sharpie, using the same process that you did on the rusted spot in your car, cut the piece of good metal out with the die grinder.

The die grinder has left a rough edge on the back of the good piece of metal, you'll need to clean that up, the best way to do this is to take that 5” grinder that you have with the 40 grit disc on it, and lightly run it over the back of the metal until all the burs are gone, now you'll need to that 5” grinder with the 40 grit disc on it, and clean the area on your car where you cut the rust our, make sure that you have about 2” of bare clean metal around the area that you cut out.

Now take that good piece of metal that you cut from your sheet of repair metal, and fit it in the hole that you cut out of your car, I usually use visegrips to hold the new metal in place, now this is where things can get a little tricky, so pay close attention this section, make sure that you have a good place to put the grounding clamp for your welder, if you don't see a place for it right close to your work area, then take that 5” air grinder and make one, make sure that the clamp has a solid connection.

Plug you welder in, and make sure that the gas is turned on, I usually run the wire feed, and current set at about 3 or 4 on my MIG, but this could be different on your machine, so do yourself a favor and test it before putting it to your car, now that we're all ready to go, you have the visegrips holding the metal in place and you have your welder setup right, your going to want to run about a 1” bead on the top, bottom, and both sides, and then you can get the visegrips out of your way.

Now you have four weld beads holding the patch panel in place, now heres a bit more advise, mig welders get very hot, and it's possible to warp the metal in your car while welding the patch panel in place, so never weld more then 1” beads at a time, and move from the top to the bottom, do a 1” weld on the top of the patch, and then cool it off with a little air, and the do a 1” weld on the bottom and cool it off, and the do the same thing with the sides, until you have one solid bead all the way around the patch panel, you have now fixed your rust problem, all that's left is the finish work on the welds.

Grab your 5” air grinder with the 40 grit disc and grind the welds flat, in most cases you should not even be able to see the welds if you have done it right, the job is now complete, I'll move on to the body work part in a later article.

2009 ZR1 Corvette – Oh Yeah, It's The Real Thing

2009-02-02T12:29:00.000-07:00

After all of the studying that I have done on the ZR1 Corvette, I have learned a few things, the car is hand built, it has a carbon fiber front clip, and the best cam last night, as I seen a test drive of the 2009 Zr1 Corvette on the autobahn last night.

All I can say is, my god what an awesome car, it can hang with the best of them, pulling 1.1 G on the skidpad when being tested, dynoed 571 RWH the Zr1 Corvette is one of the best performance cars on the road today, with a 217 mph top speed in can contend with the best of Europe.

If you don't like Corvette for whatever reason, maybe it's time you learned to, possibly your a Viper guy, and their is nothing wrong with that, but I'm here to tell you, they do not hammer the Zr1 Corvette in any way, Chevrolet has done a fantastic job building hand crafted car.

From the supercharged 6.2 Liter engine, and carbon ceramic brakes, 0-60 in 3.3 seconds, 60-0 97 feet, and an 11.2 second ¼ mile @ 130 MPH, if you don't like these numbers, or you don't believe them, they can be backed up by visiting motor trend's web site.

Possibly your an import car freak, who think American cars aren't capable of this kind of performance, in that case you'd be wrong, I've seen video of this car destroying the best of them, and not just one video, a lot of them, it kills the Nissan GTR, and not by just a little bit, it does it in every test.

Once again I say buy American, it's the right choice, the Zr1 Corvette out runs, out handles, and out stops all the top imports, it's the king of the road, and if you don't like it oh well, it will hammer you down one day, and you'll be proud to say I was beat by an American car.

The 1971 LS6 Corvette – The Last Of A Breed

2009-02-02T11:32:00.007-07:00

The 1971 LS6 corvette was the last of a breed, after 1971 the horsepower and torque numbers began to drop radically, due to the insurance companies, hippies, and other bureaucracy that existed in the country at the time, the 1971 LS6 was a 454 CID 425 HP big block Chevy.

This corvette could hold it's own with any muscle car of the time, and could destroy most of them, the LS6 corvette was truly a testament to the corvette name plate, the LS6 was an option, so you had to know what to order to get it, and what to expect after you got it.

The LS6 corvette was the 1970's version of the L88 corvette of the late 1960's, the LS6 was not sold as an LS6 corvette, it was a corvette with the LS6 option added from the dealer, when you ordered your new corvette, these usually weren't found sitting on a lot.

Engine:
RPO [LS6]
Size & Type: 454 Cubic Inch overhead valve, cast iron engine.
Bore & Stroke: 4.251 x 4.00
Compression Ratio: 8.5:1
Brake HP: 425@5600 RPM
Torque: 475@4000 RPM

The LS6 came form the factory with hydraulic lifters, and a high performance camshaft, the crankcase could hold five quarts of oil, and one quart in the filter, for you math wizards that equals six quarts, the cooling system had a twenty one quart capacity, you could add one for the heater core.

The engine was topped of with an 850 CFM Holley four barrel carburetor, and you had your choice of an turbo hydaomatic automatic transmission, or a four on the floor, with a factory installed Hurst shifter, so you didn't have to go out and buy a new shifter.

The automatic transmission was a turbo 400, and the four speed would have been a muncy M22 close ratio four speed transmission, either was a great choice for your corvette, the chassis featured a wheelbase of 98 inches, with an overall length of 182.5 inches, the overall height was 47.4 inches.

With a clearance from the ground of 4.5 inches, the LS6 was a ground hugger, the corvette came for the factory with F70-15 Goodyear eagle tires, the frame was full length welded steel ladder type with five cross members, steel box welded sections.

The front suspension consisted of UN-equal length A-arms, with coil springs, tube shocks, and stabilizer bars, overall the car was setup to handle very well, and it did just that, for the time it was built the 1971 corvette LS6 was quite a feat of engineering.

The steering consisted of a Saginaw recirculating ball; ratio 17.6:1 turns lock to lock; toe links; transverse mounted chormium-carbon-steel leaf spring rear suspension; rear suspension trailing arms; tube shocks; anti sway bar; the rear axle was a sprung differential, hypoid gear type.

All corvettes came with four wheel vented disc brakes form the factor; with optional power assist installed if you wanted it, OK guys I will go in to the option list for the 1971 LS6 corvette, and this get's rather long, so bear with me.

Option List:
Custom Interior [$158.00]
RPO [A31] Power Windows [$79.00]
RPO [A85] Custom Shoulder Belts [$42.00]
RPO [C07] Hard Top For Convertible [$274.00]
RPO [C50] Rear Window Defroster [$42.00]
RPO [C60] Air Conditioning [$459.00]
RPO [G81] Positraction Rear Axle, all ratios [$13.00]
RPO [J50} Power Brakes [$47.00]
RPO [LS6] 425 HP 454 CID Engine [$1747.00]
RPO [M22] Heavy Duty Four Speed Transmission [$100.00]
RPO [M40] Turbo 400 Automatic Transmission [$0.00]
RPO [N40] Power Steering – Not Power Assist [$115.90]

I have omitted a few things from this list, but most likely you will never wee the things that I have removed, because very few corvette of any model were sold with those options, the list above should be the most common options that you'll see on any corvette of this year.

Well I hope that this will help a few people with their corvettes. I'm a huge corvette fan, and I will do all I can to help if you ask.

Nickey Chicago To Build 700 HP 2010 SS Camaro

2009-02-02T11:28:00.000-07:00

In my searches on the net I ran in to some great information about one of the super car builders of the 1960's, I must say I love this news, as far as performance, and the new SS camaro news doesn't get any better then this, I'm sure if your a camaro fan at all you've heard of Nickey camaros.

Nickey Chicago plans to build a 427 LS7 powered 2010 camaro that will put out 700 HP, this for a camaro freak is great news, it will help the new camaro get the fame it so much deserves, all of the details are not yet worked out, but this is exciting for you if your a camaro freak like me.

However; many of the details are now available, and we'll get in to the details that we know about in this article, we do know that it will be a lot like the original Nickey of the 1960's, with three stages of the camaro mods available, Stage I, Stage II, and Stage III camaros will be available.

If you know anything about Nickey this should get your blood pumping, Nicky has established a dealer network that they feel confident will be able to promote their new Camaro super cars, these dealers will at some point have Nickey Camaros in stock.

With the second option you'll be able to place a sold order through one of the selected dealerships, and them have your car built to specs, knowing every last nut and bolt, down to the final details, pricing will be available soon, so keep checking in.

Camaro For Sale – A Buyers Guide

2009-01-22T18:16:00.000-07:00

If your looking for a camaro for sale, I will help you find a good deal with out getting taker to the cleaner, the first things that you need to look at is your budget, once you know what you have to spend then you can begin looking for the right camaro in that price range.

A short piece of advice, your budget will determine the car that you can buy, and to that end, you need to plan on spending no less then $10,000 if you plan to find a camaro for sale that is in decent shape, don't for one second think that this is 1980 any more, you don't buy good cars for $3,000.

Now that we have the hard part out of the way, we can concentrate on looking for the right camaro for sale for you, first of all you need to do some studying on the different years that are available to buy, and decide what body style you like the best, you have choices from first generation, to fifth now.

Your with out a doubt not going to get a fifth gen for even $10,000, as they are starting in the $20,000 range, if your dealing with a small budget gen 5 is out, most of the other four generations you can research, and find a $10,000 car, but don't expect a perfect car, expect a resto car.

Now let's deal with what I think is the most popular camaro ever built, the first generation camaro, this would be the 1967-69 years of camaro, these were special cars, and they were loved by a lot of people, and the chances of you finding a smoking deal on one of these in not great.

If your a bargain shopper, and you think that your going to find some old lady, who doesn't know what she has, it's probably not going to happen, as information about these car is every where, all you have to do is look for it.

Now that we have that out of the way, allow me to help you with a few things here, first of all know what your looking for, don't plan on getting a Yenko camaro for $10,000, plan on a standard camaro, and feel lucky if yo do better then that.

Now you need to decide where you want to sacrifice to get the car for the amount that you have to spend, if your working with $10,000, lets say that you know how to rebuild engines, so you can build a engine for your car id you need to, and this could save you some flow.

Now that we know one way to save you a little cash, let's talk about what you don't know, if your not familiar with body and paint work, you need to look closely at the car, take notes, and if the owner asks why all the notes, tell it's so you can compare it to the other car that you have found.

On the body you'll be looking for dents, dings, rust, paint peeling, misaligned body panels, these things will all be reasons for you to save more money, so take a lot of notes, look at more then one car, and compare your notes, figure out what car has the most things on it that you can fix yourself.

Compare prices on all the camaro's for sale that you have found, and then compare your notes, and look for the bast car for your to get, based on what you can do to fix the car yourself, and what you need a shop to do, obviously it will cost more for a shop to so the work.

Keep in mind the more you can do yourself, the better price you'll get in the end, use the list that you created as a bargaining chip to help you save money on your car, if you use these ideas, you should get a good car for you to play with.