Update on the Car Collection Two Out, One In

Work on the new house is still taking up a hell of a lot of my time but it is now getting there. All the external woodwork on the house and garage has been taken off and has been replaced with nice new UPVC, we have all new gutters and down pipes. We are now all comfy and toasty thanks to an oil fired heating system that works splendidly and costs about 1/6 as much as an electric system to run. I have a basic but functional workshop in the double garage, the conservatory, lounge, bedroom and en suite are all decorated, the dining room is well on the way. The loft has been part boarded, as has the roof area of the garage. Loads of little jobs have been done, the bathroom is next.

I haven't been to the workshop very much at all, poor old Russ has had to do it all single handedly. It was the busiest Christmas / New Year ever down at Boston Bowl, which has meant lots of things have needed repairing so progress on the cars has been slower than anybody would have liked. The Anglia sold at auction, the Astra GTE sold, one of the CS400 Subaru Cosworths got swapped for a very tasty race prepped Z28 Camaro with a pretty decent history of success and a ton of paperwork to back it up.

There is a massive amount of work that has been done to prep it, somebody has spent plenty on it.  it features a 4-bolt main block, Dart II sportsman heads, steel nitrided crank, ‘H-beam’ rods, flat-top pistons, competition bearings, billet timing set, competition cams, aluminium roller-rockers, Edelbrock manifold, Holley 750cm carburettor, electronic ignition, an Accusump and much more. A brand new full race clutch and new flywheel assembly were also fitted in 2003, the gearbox is a Richmond manual 4 speed item with a very short throw on it. The clutch is heavy and very digital in that it is either engaged or not, there seems to be very little between the two, which makes it fun. We have a theory that maybe Peter Crouch specified the seat position because it is an awfully long way from the pedals. I drove it from the museum to the workshop and could only just press the clutch pedal far enough to allow me to engage gears. Russ has moved the seat forward about 12 feet and it's much better now.

The car was previously owned and raced by a gentleman called Jim Graham, from what we can work out  It was part of a group of 24 cars that were shipped to Sebring to take part in a series of Invitation Races and we understand, behaved really well and finished every race, that was back in 2001. It had a replacement engine in 2003, it does not appear to have been raced since. The engine dyno sheets show approx 440 BHP, pretty healthy for a 302, maybe revving to 7,000 RPM helps that number.

The Z28 is a bit weird in that some of the tech is shared with the rest of the Chevy range from the era but oddly they chose not to use the more common 350 cubic inch small block, instead using the higher revving 302. Why they didn't do the same wih the Corvette is a bit of a mystery, I expect the answer is well known stateside but I couldn't really find a reason for it.

The car runs beautifully although it is very over silenced for my liking, a race car should sound like a race car, it's very muted at the moment. I am trying to persuade Malcolm it needs to be a bit more vocal, I think I am preaching to the converted, he does like a shouty motor.

I am looking forward to playing, sorry - working, with this one, it needs a fair bit of cosmetic attention and maybe a few mechanical improvements. I think what it really needs is at least a week of regular journeys, I have kindly volunteered my valuable time to assist in this matter. More on it later when we really get in to it.