Rebuilding An Abandoned Chevy Camaro Z28 1LE Race Car In 2 Days

this is a

race

car and they've given us a nice, fancy access panel that I think will get us to that feels bomb because I think they figured this could be a problem at some point and I'm not one hundred percent on this, this It might lead to nothing, but I'm thinking if we just remove the rivets we'll have access. to the fuel pump we can change it much faster than dropping the tank, although with our luck we will probably have to drop the tank and there will be broken bullets and whatever, let's see if this works, you only have a quarter inch drill . a little bit oh you got the tip of the rivet stuck in them hey when you get the tip started okay let's see what that's not what I wanted to see not very well I made an access hole but it's not enough going in here energy, but no fuel comes out.

All this has to come out. That's going to be fun. It is going to be very fun. So, um, let's go under. Want? You want to know? Do you want me to stay a little? Let's both do it so we can get under the engine bay and start driving. I know fuel pumps usually work very well when there is fuel in the tank, that wasn't the case, was it? Yes, for some reason I thought the vehicle owner had already tried adding fuel, so I jumped to the fact that the vehicle owner had tried zero. If you mean me, I didn't try anything.

The same note we made off camera. We apply. power to the fuel pump to force it to run and it was dead, yes the fuel pump was shorted while we were testing it, it sparked so the pump was bad and actually not having gas makes it easier , right, that's crunchy. okay, let's turn on the new fuel pump. I got out and we should probably get some fuel too to help a little. Let's take a look at this. This here is not what you want a fuel hose to look like. it is bent and when fuel is sucked into the system this causes quite a bit of restriction so we need to replace it, luckily we have a new one that we can use on our new fuel pump so this is actually very simple, isn't it, not bad.

Not at all, now I think this is like the real problem of why the car didn't burn out. Fuel pump without gasoline, yes, nothing, no, hmm, yes, there's nine volts here, that and that's the middle, but the outside doesn't have any voltage, so we need. To prove it, we have to find out why we missed a part of you. Yes, this is getting more interesting by the second. Well, Jared, we did a lot of work a little bit off camera because we had to do some diagnostics. Career of almost 30 years. The car with some history has had a few band aids along the way and we were not getting power at our fuel pump.

Sometimes this comes true but not consistently so we started chasing the relay, the relay was not delivering power to see the repair. manual, the factory wiring diagram, which is not always the best thing to do in a custom app builder like the one I write, let's use that as a base. This is our fan control relay and a fuel pump relay. The fan control relays have been modified, so as soon as possible. when the keys turn on, instead of waiting for the ECU to turn it on, it just runs which is not a bad thing in a

race

car, yes you always want it to be as cold as possible, next is the pump relay made out of fuel.

It's had some weird splices but we kept chasing and getting no power here this orange wire shares power with the ECU with the car running we assume you see you were getting power basically what we did was measure continuity which means there are no breaks physical on the wire and we checked all the fuses, there's a fuse box underneath and there's a bunch of splices around the car, but nothing seemed suspicious yet, not on the diagram it showed right next to the battery for this. The orange wire has a fuse on it, we couldn't find it, the batteries were relocated so we are testing a questionable wiring area and then that's when we got back to the engine bay and finally yes we found hidden pretty much where the little fuse holder is supposed to be and we measured on the output side, it had continuity on all of our orange wires and the fuse was fine, it wasn't like they weren't thieves or anything, but we weren't getting power, yeah, so that's when I looked down and this was the cable, the connector that would be disconnected regularly because it would turn off the fans.

Yeah, well, it turns out it's also our power bus. Yes, power to the fuse. Yes, to run the fuel pump. Good, now the fuel pump works fine. I actually haven't tested the fuel pump yet, yeah, yeah, so let's see if the fuel pump actually works, so I'm going to plug it in back there. No, no, Sookie, turn off the key. Generally, you don't want to run a pump. dry but this is just for a few seconds so it should be fine just to see that everything is working as it should be fine get a nice close up yeah there we go what if that's like it actually works ?

Because we've never tried it, it smells like it. again there is smell in everyone, yes, okay, that smells very, very bad, we don't want you yourself. Fred is dead, yes, Fred is your friendly and trustworthy electronic device. Someone let smoke out of the thread. Now all we have to do is put everything back in and fill it up. with gasoline and hopefully this thing will bring the war to life and then it's just a bunch of magnets yeah so we just cleaned it up honestly I was looking at the brakes here and this isn't bad at all this is just some rust on the surface and if you notice these are drilled rotors so they are a little bit more let's say high performance than you would normally get and a lot of life left in these pads so they usually don't have a lip when there is a lip.

That's when you know they need to be changed. They look like they are in good condition and are not pitted which is a great thing so I think we could just drive them or just clean them. with a little bit of steel wool, so probably what we'll do is just clean the brakes, clean with steel wool and we'll do one or two side laps, yeah, where you're more or less idling around the track and braking hard to burn the rust. We can take it down the street and then see if this comes out a little bit when we get close to Mexico, since the non-Mexico registered cars are down the street, so we've reached the moment of truth, now we'll fill this thing up.

I'm carrying gas and that's it, except for the fact that I'm going to clean the fuel system while I'm at it and I'm using this super concentrated fuel injector cleaner from STP. What this does is clean. all the carbon deposits that may have accumulated over the amount of miles the cars have had on them and the fact that it has been running very, very hard for its entire life. I have no idea what that engine has. I have no idea what is wrong with the fuel system. and judging by that fuel pump it wasn't very good so we changed the fuel filter and the fuel tank is completely dry so we'll fill it with 15 gallons of premium.

We're also going to use the super concentrated cleaner, this is something I wanted to do because this car is going to see a lot of tanks of gas through it and I wanted to make sure that this fuel system is running at 100%, so I'm going to put in 5 gallons and then I'm going to put in this. and then the rest we'll put in and then it should mix itself from there and then we'll start it up and it will work fine Jared absolutely Jared said absolutely No, Jared is never wrong, that's not true. I might get the big good jokes, but these are cheap and they also mess up gas everywhere, so that's good, we're already dripping.

Look at it so let's read the instructions and you just throw it in and I have an octane booster so what the octane booster does is it prevents knocking and it just increases the octane level of the gasoline and now we have premium gasoline. It's probably not tuned for premium but it can't hurt. I don't know what happened to the engine, so you know it can work. High performance, increases octane in jet fuel. I think jet fuel is a recurring theme with STP and as you know jet fuel is always a good speed filler so at this point we've lost about 15 minutes on the runway, all of our competition has us surpassed we have an octane booster we have a fuel injector cleaner in the fuel system cleaner already I drive like a pissed off teenager on the track so that always works - you're going to crash this car I'm nervous yeah everything is connected I feel a vibration let me go underneath check for leaks down here okay that's all our accessories look good the fuel filter that Freddie made is nice and dry and there's nothing puking up there we had power what happened try again okay I'll run the throttle, I can run, here it goes, we have a race car, hey, no fluids coming out, we have 40 psi fuel pressure, we have 70 psi oil pressure and the water temperature is rising and that is registering and we have our tachometer, oh friend.

This is going to sound incredibly cool, it's going to be amazing, so we've got our oil pressure registering there and we've got the battery voltage and the alternator running, we've got this car running, man, that's a little oil change, the drive chain is going to change and then we make it nice and go racing, it's gone everywhere except in the pan, okay, perfect, welcome everyone today; the sun is shining outside and the race car is running fine, not now because we took out all the fluids last night and Jared is already getting under the car. Putting all the new things that are now coming to the engine is a little more interesting than we thought because the oil pan is not original.

The oil pan is actually quite large. I want to show you that the oil pan is a big guy here. and you can say what a custom job it is and how many rooms you think it contains. I'm guessing it's probably two extra quarts and also, instead of using a short factory filter, it's using a much taller filter with a quart capacity, so we probably have three, three and a half, so yeah, like three, three and a half extra quarts, so we had to do a parts analysis and get more oil right now. You're just going to do a transmission fluid transfer right here and we.

I have oil brake fluid and it's ready to drive and then we can take it for a test drive. I'm still waiting for the tires. These tires are not great. It will just be a test to see if it falls off. Here's the exhaust it's very rusty there are downhills over there Jared don't you dare say it don't say it I'm just saying what you don't reject don't say it why Jeredy hey okay It's time to change the oil and this is actually quite easy. We already changed the oil filter. The oil filter was much larger than what the stock recommends but what the engine recommends is that we use 5w30 motor oil and I always want to use what the manufacturer recommends as far as oil, however this is a motor racing and we don't know what kind of oil life it has had.

We don't know if there is mud inside. I doubt it because engines generally run at full throttle all the time. They don't have a lot of sludge buildup because they change their oil pretty regularly, so we're going to use the 5w30, we're going to use a synthetic and for this engine to rev and have as much protection. As possible, we will use an FCPS synthetic oil treatment. This is quite interesting because it has an additive called ZD DP and it is a zinc dye. Alec made the old phosphate, which means it is now protected against any type of friction.

It's very, very good protection against any type of metal on metal and especially with something that is going to have high revs and high loads all the time, even when the oil wants to break down, this will prevent it from doing so, now it has a base as well. oil that doesn't dilute engine oil so some people might think this is just a heavy duty engine, well it's not like there's much in it, it's lab tested and it works so I want to make sure we have the best for our career. engine so I'm just going to put in five quarts of 5w30 and since we have a larger oil pan I'm just going to give it a quart at a time and then I'll check the dipstick because I don't really know. what is the capacity for this so now you can see an exciting montage watching me put oil in an engine.

Luckily, he's fine. Freddy just put in some oil, so we're getting ready to prime the oil system on these GM cars. It's really easy. you can disconnect the ignition coil, disconnect those two wires and it won't spark and since we know this will turn off the fuel pump, we disconnect it so we can go ahead and prime safely without it trying to start, it's not there. not yet, come on, she's doing well, so now we have a lot of oil pressure, the cousinschange the fuel filter, fill it up with some new gas and that Camaro race car will be running again.

One thing you'll notice is that we didn't film cleaning up all the foam, one of the things is working with a gas tank is really dangerous and I don't want to do something that you might try to follow and take a shortcut and risk getting hurt. The main thing is that you need to flood a tank. Some people will use water. I like it. it uses a lot of co2, you can use exhaust gases, but either way, if you're not familiar with working on a gas tank, don't do it, they can be bombs and anything you do wrong will probably kill you, so I didn't show it. because I don't want them to accidentally get hurt, but we have a clean gas tank ready for a fuel pump and ready to get the Camaro running again.

Cera is taking it out for a little test drive, how does it feel? Oh yeah, cool guys, that's right. another day is a little bittersweet for me because the car is leaving and I know you guys like to see these projects from start to finish, this is the end of the project, however, it is not the end for this car because this car is going to get to a very Good home, this will be a dumb car, it will be racing with my friend Bruce at Marinella Auto Sport and he has a race trailer ready. I love working on this car and can't wait to see what he has in store.

Before I close it, I have one last thing to put in here before it goes BAM. Thanks to SC p for sponsoring this and thanks Bruce for taking this amazing car off my hands. What do you plan to do with it? Who knows? some track events, some good times and I still think something interesting comes out, something charitable, whatever makes it fun, awesome. I bought this car for about $1500 and we put about $1000 into it and Bruce basically gave me what I like with that money. go to spina bifida of Jacksonville and it's a good charity that works with Amelia Island Concours.

They do a great job for local kids, so this car is already doing well and is definitely following Bruce. You have an Instagram and Facebook page, yes. We are one person, yes, but you work on high-value things, no, no, these things are cool, so I definitely want to go to your store and show them that some people are always welcome, amazing in the same vein and the things what you do so amazing. I appreciate it. so thanks to SCP for sponsoring this video, thanks to Bruce, thanks to Jared and thanks to all of you for watching this and supporting my channel, but until next time, it's me who reminds you that in cars like this that are now getting a pedigree own racing pedigree after your initial racing pedigree that you guys need to use every day