Camaro Build Pt. 1 – The Purchase

I’m finally going to take the time to document the build of my ’91 Camaro.  It’s going to take some time and will have multiple parts, so hang in there.

Back in February of 2004 my dad bought the car on eBay for $2,225.00.  It was a clean 1991 Chevrolet Camaro from New York.  It only had 11,000 miles due to a blown engine.  The seller’s official story was that a supercharger had been fit to the original TPI 350 for road racing and it didn’t last too long.  It didn’t come with an engine or transmission due to this.  We had it shipped for approximately $500 (to Butler, WI.)

Now to a lot of people, this doesn’t sound like that great of a deal.  It’s very difficult to explain to people who don’t work on cars why we purchased a vehicle with no engine or transmission.  The answer for everyone else is simple.

  • 11,000 garage kept miles
  • Very clean, very little rust
  • Recaro seats
  • Koni Red Shocks
  • Subframe Connectors (bolt-in)
  • Flexibility for a possible build (why pay for things you don’t want?

I feel like some of these should have more explanation, but hopefully the pictures will do most of the explaining.

Our original plan was to stick a 350 and an automatic transmission in it and let me drive it, but that faded when I decided I wanted a manual.  Tremec had a sale within a few weeks of the delivery of the car on their TKO 600 5-speed transmission and we jumped on it.  The cost was $1600 brand new.  The father-son Camaro build went from easy engine-transmission swap to a full on tear-down and build-up.

Continue to Part 2 – The LS1

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