2000 Camaro Z/28 (LS1)

 

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Got it 4 weeks ago. There's a back story to this. More on that in a few minutes.

 

The back story.... hang onto your seats!

Rolling the calendar back to August 2013. I'm hanging on a tech site reading some posts and some guy starts a thread about having a somewhat large but not huge forum. 1.7 million posts give or take. He says it's dying, he'd lost interest a long time ago so he was asking if it was worth selling. He didn't say in public what it was.

I contact him and share my experience. He tells me it's www.z28.com, so I take a look. I see old software, hardly any posts (under 20 per week), no enthusiasm left, etc. Basically, what was once a vibrant enthusiast site was left to whither. He didn't intend for that to happen, it did. So I end up buying it from him. Since then I've upgraded the software to Xenforo, setup an article system (different from here), start contests to get interest going, contact many old members to let them know I'm working on reviving it, and getting a couple of the last few remaining users on board as moderators.

With help from some dedicated people, it has grown to between 25-100 posts per day. Not huge, but a huge improvement over what it was before. The site is slowly growing every week. It helped me want to get back to my roots even more with a Ford truck site, something I really loved doing.

I started a search for a Camaro shortly after I bought it, I don't believe in doing things I have no stake or interest in. Every time I was ready to pull the trigger, that #@!^&#! 6.0L Powerstroke had one problem or another, even the stupid sun roof jammed up and started leaking. It wasn't until four weeks ago that the right car for the right price at the right time happened.

Peggy was very "eh" about getting it, I can understand.... she's been a Ford gal all her life. Even her father had an F150. She got to drive it home from the sale. By the time she got back home she had changed her mind. So we're both pumped about it, especially since we're doing this as a project together. This is the first GM product I've owned since I was 17 (I totaled my Mustang and my parents took me to get a car of their choice, a Chevette ).

This Camaro is completely foreign to me, but part of the excitement is doing something completely new. And there are good folks there at z28.com, like here, though I don't have the history of breaking bread with them as I do here.

 

He's owned the Roush since 06. What Ken is not saying is that I've only been behind the wheel twice!

The first rebuild I did with my dad was a 56 Chevy 265. I was always hanging out in the shop with him, and he got tired of hearing me ask questions about what he was doing, so he handed me a wire brush and said "go over there and clean those!".... The rest is history. I was about 11-12. I was the one to get in all the tight spaces. Don't know how many times I have been in the engine compartment. Can't remember how many wrenches and sockets I was sent after.

Still skeptical about the Chevy. Never owned anything but a Ford. More than anything, its something to tinker with.

 

Gets terrible mileage. My feet are just heavy I guess. Get it from my mom the dirt track driver...