1984 Chevy Camaro - Power Struggle

This regimen netted us some good gains, but as it turned out, what we didn't do haunted us. Good news first, however. Our Camaro re-baselined at 204 hp and 232 lb-ft of torque, down 7 hp from our June figures but up 3 lb-ft. With our mods in place and Murphy on hand to read the air/fuel ratios and tune our Q-jet on Primedia's Mustang dyno, we picked up 14 hp and 5 lb-ft. More importantly, our average numbers improved significantly, to the tune of 18 hp and 13 lb-ft. It's as if a great midrange abyss was bridged, filling a huge hole in our power curve. At the track, this translated to a 0.4-second drop in our e.t. On the street, throttle response was much crisper and there was much more power on hand at part-hrottle, making the car a lot more enjoyable to drive.

Then again, you've all heard some version of the maxim that says you should build your house upon a solid foundation. As it turns out, our performance foundation ain't so solid. From a tuning point of view, Murphy's largely successful efforts were hindered by the fact that our Camaro's fuel delivery system wasn't up to the task we'd set for it, and we were running out of fuel at high rpm. Of more concern was the blow-by we saw on day two of our testing...and that's just the stuff that happened on the dyno.

Some of you have asked if, given this Camaro's pathetic 60-foot times, we were having a traction problem. During our track testing, an observer commented that we only had one wheel spinning during our burnout. Next time around, both tires turned. So it looks like our posi is on the fritz. If that's not enough, we also found that our oil had turned a nasty shade of beige, so we're taking on water too. And from the "Damn, that was incredible" department, the fiberglass shell of the hood we'd grabbed from Freiburger's derelict '82 Z flew off as we crossed the line on our last run, still going 90 mph. It didn't come loose and flap-instead, the thing shot into the air like it'd been expelled with explosive bolts and flew over the top of the car, landing in the middle of the track behind us. Viewed from the driver's seat, it was an amazing sight.

We're disappointed that the thing seemed to come apart at the seams, but we're not all that surprised. You take a 20-plus-year-old car and start beating on it, and things break. We're not giving up on our Z by any means, but we're obviously gonna have to go back and make some improvements to the base mix. That means a new posi, as well as an improved fuel system, for starters. If our '84's original lower end proves up to another go 'round after a session with a leakdown tester, we'll pick things up from here. If not, we'll get to work on a new engine. Either way, we made pretty good progress with this old 305; here's our report.