Originally Posted By: Clevy
So the camaro is a 5.0. Throttle body fuel injection. Amazing how engines have evolved.
I remember the first time I saw the intake on my 89 ram as a kid. The jets on top of a carb basically.
Funny thing though. The fuel delivery system was very basic which helped contribute to never having any problems with it,even after 450k on the odo.
Yessir, she's got the throttle body injection.
Yah, the fuel delivery system of the TBI typically doesn't have many problems, but there's of course the rule of thumb catch about it, and any car - if it sits too long it's bound to have issues.
Story time (yes, it's relevant to the thread)...
See, the Camaro used to be my mom's daily. My parents bought it before I was born, brand new off the showroom floor back in '89. They had previously had an early 80s Camaro that was the base V6, but since that was just mom's (old) old daily driver, the V6 was fine... but what was special about that car (to my parents) was that it was the [California?] Gold color. They loved that color. They sold it to one of their friend's sons, as they had been wanting something newer.
So, when my parents bought the Camaro we have now, they were looking for something similar. Thing is, what's funny is that my dad didn't particularly like the color scheme. It's white (obviously) with a red cloth interior. I can't remember what interior he wanted, but the red cloth wasn't his first choice --- but, at the time it was all the dealer had that somewhat caught my parents' attention. So, dad said to the dealer, something along the lines of "sticker price out the door, and I'll buy it." It was around $14,000 to $15,000 sticker price, and dad didn't want any added costs tacked on. The dealer was hesitant, so dad started walking out, saying, "alright, your loss" or something. The dealer said "wait... okay. You bought it. Sticker price out the door." And that was that.
Then, when my parents adopted me as a newborn in 94, mom needed a more family friendly car... So the Camaro changed from a daily, into a showcar. Most of the time it sat in the garage besides for summers, and that's basically what it still is. We keep it garaged until carshow season in the summer, and then we get it out. It's all original, and still under 50k miles.
Now, back to the rule of thumb - since it sits a lot, we've gone through a lot of parts. Water pumps, alternators, etc... I keep telling dad we need to drive it more often. I don't like seeing our cars sit and rot! But of course, insurance isn't cheap. Luckily now since it's 25 years old+, we've got antique plates that cost half the price of regular plates.
Anywho, it does get driven in the summer a decent amount. I love it. The only complaint I could have is that I don't like the gear ratio and shift points GM gave it (yah, she's an automatic). Sure, it's lowest powered V8 GM had that the Camaro could get, but still... I can cut nearly a second off the 0-60 time if I manually shift the automatic from first to second, revving to 5k instead of 4.5k RPMs. The engine really does have potential; the TPI version of the 305 has 25 more HP and 40 more ft-lb/TQ (automatic) than the TBI - and, the manual version has 50 more HP! Our TBI auto has 170 HP, and 255 foot pounds of torque. It's not slow, but, it ain't fast comparatively, either. But nonetheless, it's a nice car. I'm glad we've kept it in such nice condition.
~ Triton
