Painting the Drum Brakes for the Second Time

The first time I painted the drums I did not know what I was doing so it is actually a surprise that they have lasted this long.

Both drums had been sand blasted some time ago, the one on the left is what they looked like before I started working on them. The drum on the right has had zinc primer applied.	Before zinc primer was applied I grinded the drums to get off all the surface rust then cleaned them with cellulose thinner.

When the primer was dry enough to apply paint, the drums were painted with enamel flat black paint.	Mounted drum brake with wheel spacer.

Toolbox with Stickers

I have finally found a place to put some of the stickers I have collected through the last eight year. This is my new toolbox for the trunk in my Camaro.

New Parts Arrived Today

New parts from summitracing.com and up22.com arrived today. From Summit came my new camshaft, which I have carefully selected with tech support from Summit and Comp Cams. It came along with a lot of other very nice parts as you can see in the picture. I am of course looking forward to have all the goodies installed and find out how my new valve train performs. But it will be a while before I get that far, I have some rust issues and other things to deal with first.

From up22.com came my fiber glass trunk lid with spoiler, rear bumper and two front inner fenders. I wish I had googled up22.com before I ordered, in my opinion their products are not of high quality. I have checked the trunk lid and it needs a lot of work and trimming before it can be fitted. I should have ordered from vfnfiberglass.com or glasstek.com instead.

Engine Rebuild – part 1

Friday evening Michael pulled the engine so it was ready for me to work on. I started to take it apart Saturday morning and everything went fine. It quickly became evident that the cam shaft and lifters needed to be replaced. Both the intake and exhaust lobes on the cam had been worn quite heavily on cylinder number six.

Yanking the engine.	Stripping the engine.

Engine parts all over the floor.	The bottom of the engine is looking good.

 

This week I spent cleaning the engine, painting it and checking it for wear and tear. Mechanically, everything seems to be fine and I only need to change the cam and lifters. That is until I decided to get a solid (mechanical) roller cam instead of a hydraulic flat tappet.

Some of the things I did this week:

As you can see in the first picture the intake manifold has some leftover aluminum from the casting and it should be grinded. The leftover aluminum is removed in the second picture and it was quite easy to remove.

The valve covers have been painted.	The engine block is ready for paint.

The engine block has just been painted and it now has the color I wanted it to have from the beginning.

The intake manifold is cleaned and ready for paint.	Freshly painted intake manifold.

See all the pictures.

Creating the TourDeluxe Poster

People have asked me how I create my posters. So I have decided to post the things that I find important when I create posters.

Get to Know Your Software
I use Photoshop myself, I am no Photoshop expert and I continue to learn new things about the program but I know my way around it.

Doing a Sketch or Not
Sometimes I do a quick sketch of what I have in mind for the poster. The sketches I do are not pretty but they serve their purpose. Commonly I just pick out the main picture for the poster, load it in Photoshop, add a headline, try out different fonts, add other things that may suit the poster, move things around, try different effects, etc. Then things usually start to happen, but if they do not I look for inspiration elsewhere; like in newspapers, magazines, nature, other people’s posters, movies, etc.

Doing a Sketch..	..or Not

Thinking You Are Done
Sometimes somewhere along the process you get new ideas, feeling that something is not quite right or your wife comes up with something!

So what should you do, should you pursue your new ideas or should you finish what you are doing? Well I usually ask myself the following questions to figure that out.

• How long will my new ideas take to do?
• Are my new ideas really better than what I am already doing?
• Does it require a total redesign, then perhaps I should save my new ideas for another poster?

Sometimes it is better to leave it as-is, sometimes it is better to follow you new ideas. It all depends..

Thinking You Are Done	The Final Version

Useful Tips

• Remember to use the web, you can find lots of useful stuff there for both inspiration and for Photoshop (if that is what you are using).
• View your work on different monitors and do test prints on a printer you are familiar with. That way you know that what you create looks right on more than just your own monitor.
• Get critique from others. I use my wife for this, she knows me inside out and she is honest and I can see right away when she is right about the comments she makes. (Which can be a bit annoying from time to time).

TourDeluxe Poster

A Father’s Day present.

Mr. McGuire’s tourDeluxe.
Poster design by me – Simon Holm List.

Syborg Twin Turbo Poster #3

Poster 3 ouf of 6.

Marty McGuire’s Syborg Twin Turbo V6.
Poster design by me – Simon Holm List.

Wheel But No Tire

I could not wait to see how the Foose wheel looked on the Camaro.

Tires for the Bigger Wheels

After checking a lot of tires at tirerack.com, these made it to my final selection:

BFGoodrich g-Force T/A Drag Radial	BFGoodrich g-Force T/A KDW 2	Kumho Ecsta XS

Dunlop Direzza Sport Z1 Star Spec	Kumho Ecsta MX

Then considering all the pros and cons I ordered 4 Dunlop Direzza Sport Z1 Star Specs at the tirerack.com.

Dead Weight

The engine in my Camaro engine is not breathing the way it should and is therefore a bit exhausted.

For some time I have felt that the engine was lacking power. And after doing a 0-100 km/h (0-60 mph) test the car was a whole second slower that it used to be. Later a knocking sound could come and go untill the beginning of this week the knocking sound would stay when pushing it only a bit.

A quick check of the engine reviled that the exhaust valve on cylinder #6 is not opening as much as it should. So either the cam, the lifter or the push rod or all of them need to be changed.

Another thing I found looking through the engine:

The weights in the distributor have been torn by the pins that hold them and you could easily move them from side to side and up and down. Not something I have seen before.

Bigger Wheels

I have decided that my Camaro needs bigger wheels. In my opinion 17″ front and 18″ rear look better than 15″ and they will also suit my project. A kind of street Trans Am racer with a modern look, is perhaps what describes my project best.

American Racing Torq Thrust II	Vintage Wheel Works V48

When I got my 15″ Centerline Warrior wheels I was also looking at the American Racing Torq Thrust II wheels. Now I am looking at them again but everybody has these it seems and I want something a bit different. If I was building a “traditional” Trans Am racer I would go with the Minilite copies, V48 from Vintage Wheel Works with the center painted black. I was also looking at the AR Torq Thrust M with the black center, but then I found these:

The Foose Nitrous Legend Gray

They look like the TT-IIs only better, in my opinion. They will also fit the future paint scheme on my Camaro and they come in the sizes I need. Looking like that  they are perfect for the Dark Horse.

Now I need to figure out which tires I should get..

What Have Been Done Lately

My old battery was not performing well anymore so it was time to get a new one. I wanted to get one with high cranking power so the Optima RedTop battery seemed to be a good choice. And it was, the Optima sure does have a lot of cranking power!

I also installed four new ball joints, a drive shaft loop for safety, a few wires under the carpet and then I changed the oil, the oil filter and the spark plugs.

The New Parts