Need advise

I recently obtained my first car, an '88 Camaro RS 2.8 V6, and I love it. BUT not as much as I want to. I love that it is a maro and just that right there is good but I am very dissappointed in the engine. I mean seriously, what can a guy do with a 2.8 V6? The only thing that makes it have SOME speed is the five speed transmission, but it isn't enough. I have an extremely limited budget and was wondering if anybody out there had any ideas on with the hell I can to to this thing to make it faster. Right now I'm smoking V6 mustangs, and rice rockets, but anything with an 8 is faster. I want to remedy that but can't afford the 350 and T56 that I want. Any suggestions?

If you're on a small budget, could get an L98 from a junkyard for about $600( 350 tuned port injection, from 85-92 iroc and z28) and a 700r4 tranny for cheaper, the are some good automatics, very cheap to make bulletproof. If the budget is really hurting, you could get a 305, witch i assume would be really cheap, practically free from a junkyard. Clean up and build it up with bolt mods and later down the line get 350 swap, and swap all the bolt on's on to it.

I think that they started putting 350's into Camaros in 1987, not 1985.

I don't even know why i said 85, sometimes i think way too fast for my fingers.

a start is to get an exaust from the engine back. and make a custom cold air intake. dont know much about v6's though but you can just do a search on this website and find a $hit load of stuff

dont waste your money on exhaust/CAI.. etc.. wont notice a difference.. you cant make any power with the 2.8 w/o spending as much/more than doing an engine swap..

hate to burst your bubble, but if you really like it.. Dont race.. maintain it well, keep it running good and drive it til your financial situation improves.. I had two of them when I was younger.. Kept them in good shape, and had them painted, and drove them til I could get my 91 Z28

very reliable engines and they're good on gas

dont waste your money on exhaust/CAI.. etc.. wont notice a difference.. you cant make any power with the 2.8 w/o spending as much/more than doing an engine swap..

hate to burst your bubble, but if you really like it.. Dont race.. maintain it well, keep it running good and drive it til your financial situation improves.. I had two of them when I was younger.. Kept them in good shape, and had them painted, and drove them til I could get my 91 Z28

very reliable engines and they're good on gas

I had a friend with a V6, gas almost as bad as the V8's

I didnt notice much difference in fuel economy between my 2.8 or my 350tpi.. But properly tuned, and driven properly, the 2.8 can do pretty good..

Oh......., I thought you meant stock for stock...
I SEE
Nice car by the way, thought about ZR1's for mine, but was told wheel spacers are unsafe, especially as large as 2".
Glad it's working for you though.

mine are 3".. Havent really heard anyone say theyre unsafe, although I didnt do much research on them.. I dont drive the car much.. Just in the few summer months, and I dont race it at all.. they've worked out fine since I got em' on.. I still wanna get an alignment just to make sure everything upfront is tight

mine are 3".. Havent really heard anyone say theyre unsafe, although I didnt do much research on them.. I dont drive the car much.. Just in the few summer months, and I dont race it at all.. they've worked out fine since I got em' on.. I still wanna get an alignment just to make sure everything upfront is tight
How wide are your Z06's
Did you put them on yourself?
No tire place in Cali would touch them because of the size of the spacer

I'm sure spacers would be fine on a driver as long as you take it easy on them. People can swear up and down that they're "just as good as bolting the wheel up normally" but i've taken classes recently which make it apparent that the lugs will feel a greater shearing force with the adapter. In short, ok for normal street driving and cruising, bad for racing.

William

DaMoNe6969- Nice ZO6's what size did you get, and what kind of rubber are you running?

I had a friend with a V6, gas almost as bad as the V8's

Way too general man... just 3rd and 4th gens theres the 2.8, 3.1, 3.4, 3.8... the basic generalization is the 3.4 and 3.8 are the only ones to make decent power with, and thet the 3.8 is all in all better. EPA on the 3.8 is 29 highway 18 city, I get about that, a little better than that on highways.

You can buy a 4 barrel manifold and carb for the 2.8. We had one on our 2.8 s-10 for a long time. I couldn't believe the gas mileage and power gain. Cheaper than doing a engine swap.



I recently obtained my first car, an '88 Camaro RS 2.8 V6, and I love it. BUT not as much as I want to. I love that it is a maro and just that right there is good but I am very dissappointed in the engine. I mean seriously, what can a guy do with a 2.8 V6? The only thing that makes it have SOME speed is the five speed transmission, but it isn't enough. I have an extremely limited budget and was wondering if anybody out there had any ideas on with the hell I can to to this thing to make it faster. Right now I'm smoking V6 mustangs, and rice rockets, but anything with an 8 is faster. I want to remedy that but can't afford the 350 and T56 that I want. Any suggestions?

I'm sure spacers would be fine on a driver as long as you take it easy on them. People can swear up and down that they're "just as good as bolting the wheel up normally" but i've taken classes recently which make it apparent that the lugs will feel a greater shearing force with the adapter. In short, ok for normal street driving and cruising, bad for racing.

William

u talkin about the rear wheels right? i would assume they would be just fine on the fronts since the only stress they may get is from hard turning...

they are 17" x 9.5 Z06 wheels on a 3" billet aluminum spacer...
Shoes are 275/40-17 Cooper Zeon 2XS tires all around.. had to make a few very minor adjustments to get a decent turning radius but all in all, they bolted up very well.. I bought the rims, than bought tires, the place I bought the tires from mounted them on the rims, then I took them home and bolted the rims/spacers on the car..
will69, Ide imagine just by looking at it that there would definatly be more shearing force on the hub to spacer lugs, but being a daily summer driver, it shouldnt effect me at all..

anyways, back on topic. dont wanna be a thread jacker.. with your 6'r being a MPFI, I wouldnt recommend taking it off for a 4 barrel carb.. JMO, but ive never been a fan of carb's..

Right now I'm smoking V6 mustangs, and rice rockets, but anything with an 8 is faster.

Consider yourself lucky that its giving you that much.. But without either serious engine work and one major power adder (turbo, super, nitrous) or a 350 engine swap, your car will always be behind the 8's

If your lookin to stick with your 2.8, then here's a link to a site that has alot of performance parts for that engine. Good luck with whatever you plan to do.

http://www.engine-parts.com/GMV6/gm28stroker.html

I'm not talking about the rears only, i'm saying there is increased stress due to the weight of the vehicle being applied a greater distance from the hub (that's "torque"). Driving hard increased the load seen by the tire and thats results in a higher shearing force on the lug.

William

Way too general man... just 3rd and 4th gens theres the 2.8, 3.1, 3.4, 3.8... the basic generalization is the 3.4 and 3.8 are the only ones to make decent power with, and thet the 3.8 is all in all better. EPA on the 3.8 is 29 highway 18 city, I get about that, a little better than that on highways.
I believe the whole topic of this post is 88 2.8L, WHAT DO YOU THINK I WAS TALKING ABOUT?

Holy crap!!!!
How'd you get 220 posts in 2 days!!!!

EAT SLEEP CAMARO FORUM :wink:

Well, he's been around since Mar '04. That might have something to do with it, lol.

Well, he's been around since Mar '04. That might have something to do with it, lol.
OH CRAP I think ill just delete that post...and call it a night.
talk to you guys in the morning

Well, I think I'm just going to work on my 2.8 even though a 5.7 is what I want. One other thing, my car says that the body is by Fisher. What does that mean?

F-Body = Fisher Body... camaro, T/A, Firechicken.

hey i got a 2.8 also and i put a msd blaster coil on it and that helsped out sooo much, and now im swapping a remanufactured 2.8 into it and im getting a tbi spacer and a injector spacer i think and ill tell you how it goes, but if you find any performaance parts that help it out alot i would like to know cause i wanna go faster, well get to speeds faster. also im thinking in gonne get my intake bored out cause i heard the intake is way restrictive on theese engine and thats what makes em mad slow