Hi guys. The time has come to get back into a classic musclecar. With E-body mopars out of my budget I figured I'd take a page from my past and look at 2nd gen Camaro's. I also wanted something with a pedigree instead of another clone. I came across this 74 Z on craigslist. In the past I owned a 73 and also a few 80' so never owned a mid generation with the battering ram bumpers but being a real 4 speed Z, the simplicity of it and the early rear window, I really liked it. My 10 y/o son liked it as well and egged me to take it on. So over the summer I trailered it home from Mass.

It has its matching motor and ST-10. Its a base sport coupe w/o AC. Medium red (paint code 74) with a black gut. The car was never "restored". Its been painted and engine/tranny rebuilt but still wears the factory hood decal (masked off when resprayed) etc. It was a 20' driver.





What to do with it now??

LT-1 supercar it of course!!!

Look at the rules, make a list of what needs to be changed to comply with the rules, sort out any issues your car currently has, check and fix the car of any fluid leaks of engine oil, coolant, power steering fluid, brake fluid, gear oil; service the brakes; inspect the suspension; and tune the car to make it run as clean through the gears as possible. Run it down the track. Have fun, then make the car quicker in compliance with the rules, and beat the next quickest competitor.
TNT

Looks clean! i hope you build a supercar, would be nice to have you back around

Make it safe and reliable and have fun running it down the track. You can have fun with it and there are probably others running similar ET's to what your Z will do.

Are you planning to respray the car? Is it staying a manual trans?

Hrmmm....

viewtopic.php?f=7&t=1588

Could it be?

I'm kidding, I know exactly what to do.

In Oct we headed out on a foliage cruise when a tap under the hood turned into a knock in a few miles. So the car was taken off the road, numbers L-82 engine plucked and put on a storage stand for later and disassembly of the front end started. This is what it looks like now.

Its going to be a 2 phase project. This winter I want to overhaul the entire drivetrain, suspension and brakes. The factory engine will be replaced with a 383 stroker with a custom hyd roller and other tricks to get the most out of a stock appearing package. The underhood area will be fully redone but the exterior paint and interior will remain as is during the next season.

Phase 2, next winter will be gutting the interior, repairing rust issues, fresh paint, decals and redoing the interior.

IMHO I don't think Z28 and automatic mix. This car will stay manual.

How durable is the manual transmision in 1974?

Ho boy are we going to have a group of four speeds to race maybe our own eight.

The factory ST-10 will be more than up to the task of sitting in storage while a TKO-600 gets bolted to the bellhousing.

I found some metal issues that need to get fixed. The heater box leaked and rotted a hole in the firewall. There is also a crack in the firewall that needs to be stitched up.



So I stripped out the carpet and most of the stuff under the dash so the firewall insulation wouldn't light up. I also found a couple of issues on the pass floor pan. Easy stuff.

While the floor is being patched I plan to have my helper strip all the undercoating underneath. The previous owner started and did from the rear bumper up to the start of the rear floor pan and it looks nice and clean. We'll just keep going forward until the firewall. He's going to need a shower tonight.

Sounds like a good plan!
Is that the same kid that wanted his "daddy" to beat Ralph?
You better not disappoint him.

More progress albeit slow. Put some metal back in. Pretty much done with the welding for now. I need to blend the patches and paint the underside of the floor and firewall and then I move to reassembly. The subframe and control arms are at the blaster now.

Firewall



pass floor





Drivers floor



There are a couple of other small spots on the floor pan that have some sporadic perforations but will try some other repair methods to maintain the integrity of the original stamping.

Not even thinking about the engine at this point.

It's shaping up nicely, keep up the good work.