Well, my plans to get it back on the roasd in januari failed.... It took too much work to finish it by that time. Still it is not finished but.... 26-02-2008 was the big day…..after 3.5 years of which I worked on it for the last 2.5 it is back on the road!! I had it tested (APK) by the garage who report to the authorities so I can drive it legally again and it passed with flying colors. Everything works great but some things need minor tuning or finishing. End of march it will go to the painter Customike again. He did a good job last time and I know he will do so again.

I spent a lot of time aligning the fenders/hood, this is not an easy task but take it slow and make small modifications at a time. Tip: when the back of the hood sits too high, loosen the front bolts of the hood hinges and lift the front of the hood. It sounds strange....but it is true. Took me some time to sort this out, but thanks to the forums on www.nastyz28.com I got it done. This a great resource for all 2nd gen Camaro owners!

I spent a lot of time the last months just on finishing things. The air filter was something I had other plans for but hood clearance killed those plans for now. The chrome filter top was not nice anymore and it looked out of place. Fitment of the old filter was good so I decided to have the top and base powdercoated and installed a K&N element.

I made a bracket for the proportioning valve using a piece of aluminum “L” profile. I drilled and tapped two M3 holes, sanded and polished it so it looked nice. A foam strip is glued underneath to to make the bracket fit better on the inner fender since it is not a flat surface. Two small stainless screws through the inner fender keep it in place. The proportioning valve is mounted to the bracket using double sided tape.

I spent even more time aligning the fenders to get it as good as possible which will save the painter time and save me money. The sheet metal is mounted with stainless button head allen screws which looks nice and will not rust.

I finally mounted the dash and taped the air ducts together, put the radio in place and cleaned up the wiring a bit. I took out the seat belt harness since they did not work properly. They rolled out, locked when pulled hard but did not retract after that. Since this would have caused the Camaro to fail the test I put back in the lap belts for now.

I bought myself a small MIG welder which uses flux core wire. This is so much easier than the arc welder I had so I decided to shave my bumpers. Normally I would have my painter do this but doing it myself means I learn welding (the hard way) and saving money again. The rear is okay now and ready to be smoothed and painted. The fronts need some more work and stronger welds.

First thing at the garage was to align the wheels so it handles like it should and prevent the tires from wearing uneven or too soon. Then everything was checked and tested, lights, brakes, ball joints and bearings, all the things to be sure the car is safe. I think it is great to have someone else do a check, it is so easy to miss something when you take a whole car apart and put it back together. For people from around the area, Bandeko Lisse is a good place to go for testing, aligning and tires. The guys there are into rally cars, know what they are doing and handled my Camaro with respect.

It is a blast to drive! The motor is very powerful, even running on LPG and with a 2.73:1 rear axle it is still capable of spinning the wheels. It has got some serious torque :-) Brakes are great too, I must be careful not to push the pedal too hard or it will lock up the front wheels. The Powertrax no slip unit does it's job but is a bit noisy, at least it now has power to both wheels. Since the car is lowered I need to slow down for speed bumps... I know that is what they are there for but before I could go over them at higher speeds. At some (nasty) speed bumps my exhaust just after the drivers side header scrapes them, I need to modify it a bit there. For now I will just make short testdrives in the neighbourhood to be able to fix all (if any) things that might come up.

Now I need to get me a tank level sender to hook up my gauge, install/finish the AC, clean the inside and refinish some parts there. Maybe I can get this done before it heads out to the painter so that when it comes back it will be really done.

I will try to make a video soon and post it.

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You can reach me by e-mail at: pro-touring @ hotmail .com