Re: Mid-Life Crisis '68 Camaro
 

Just thought I'd share the pics that were posted by the fellow who helped build and painted my Camaro, Steve Dobos. Not sure if he's on the site yet, but a great guy who put these up on another Camaro site.
https://www.yenko.net/ubbthreads/pics..._cam_pic_1.jpg
https://www.yenko.net/ubbthreads/pics..._cam_pic_2.jpg
https://www.yenko.net/ubbthreads/pics..._cam_pic_3.jpg

Re: Mid-Life Crisis '68 Camaro
 

Awesome! Were those picture from the Pgh WOW show back in the 1980s?

Re: Mid-Life Crisis '68 Camaro
 

I believe these were ones from Montreal, thanks.

Re: Mid-Life Crisis '68 Camaro
 

Great story! Congrats on the purchase.

Re: Mid-Life Crisis '68 Camaro
 

Steve, the gentleman who built and painted the car with the original owner, Norm, wrote me this awesome message. What a great guy he is, and I'm going to try to get him on this site. Can't imagine winding the little 302 up to 10k, yikes.

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Mark, glad the Camaro made it to someone who will enjoy it. Me and Norm had a lot of fun building, showing and driving it. It started as a 1/8 mile drag car then we turned it into a show car then weekend cruiser. When Norm past away his wife wouldn't sell it to me we were not friends she hated the car I lost track of it. The best 1/4 mile time for the vehicle was 10.2 and from what I can remember the racing motor was still in it when Norm passed away. Get in touch with me I have all the build pictures, engine information original DZ motor, 202 heads with Manley valves, old school pink rods that have been x-rayed, Crane rev kit and girdle, Pete Jackson gear drive, a true 13.1 compression, spark plug need to be indexed so pistons do not hit plug at 10,000 shifting point, 670 Crane roller cam, should idle 2,000, cam comes in at 5,000 rpm and goes to 10,000. It launched at 5,500 and pulled gears at 10,000. The last time I drove it had 6.17 gears in the rear end. I have attached a couple pictures of a show we took it to in Montreal Canada. Hope to hear from you Steve! </div></div>

Re: Mid-Life Crisis '68 Camaro
 

Looks like an 80's ISCA car. Cool.

Re: Mid-Life Crisis '68 Camaro
 

Took my boy to school in it last week. He loved that [img]<<GRAEMLIN_URL>>/smile.gif[/img]
https://www.yenko.net/ubbthreads/pics...school_cam.jpg

Re: Mid-Life Crisis '68 Camaro
 

[img]<<GRAEMLIN_URL>>/biggthumpup.gif[/img] NIcely played!!

Re: Mid-Life Crisis '68 Camaro
 

Looks nice!

Re: Mid-Life Crisis '68 Camaro
 

Mark , great to see this story here, congrats, love the paint and everything about this
Chris

Re: Mid-Life Crisis '68 Camaro
 

Thanks Chris; glad I got to see who you were on here. Cheers.

Re: Mid-Life Crisis '68 Camaro
 

Did you decide on wheels yet? [img]<<GRAEMLIN_URL>>/wink.gif[/img]

I still think this is such a cool story. Too bad you aren't back in PA so you could crank up 'DVE and cruise the park! LOL [img]<<GRAEMLIN_URL>>/smile.gif[/img]

Re: Mid-Life Crisis '68 Camaro
 

Pretty sure Cragars with either N50's or 325/50 R15's on 15x10's in the rear and possibly 14 or 15x7's on the front with a skinnier tire up front. I think I have a line on some older ones from a guy in my car club who's had them a while but not sure yet.

I was in PA last week visiting for a week buy my car was in FL. Hoping to bring it up to PA next summer, definitely.

Re: Mid-Life Crisis '68 Camaro
 

Wonder if the original builder is still around? I'm sure he'd love to see it.

Re: Mid-Life Crisis '68 Camaro
 

The original owner was named Norm LeBlanc (Tom M. aka Day 2 Z on here knew him) and he passed away a while ago, however, the guy who helped him build and paint it, Steve Dobos actually saw a post about the car and we got in touch. He was the one who sent me the BITD pics earlier in the thread. I've emailed him more recently but he hasn't responded so I hope he's doing OK just busy or something as he's a great guy.

Super good-guy White Top aka David, sent me this picture he had of my car from back when it was being shown in the early 80's, thanks Dave. I never knew it had a roll bar in it.

What a cool car and perfect example of the period!

Amazing the paint treatment went all the way around & under!

An acquaintance posted this pic of my car from a show back in the day. I shared it with the guy who painted it and he said it was a from a World of Wheels show in Montreal, and they won Best Paint, Peoples Choice and The PPG Paints awards, which I thought was pretty cool.

Just great getting more history on your car. Love it. Subdued is not the 1st word to come to mind when I see that paint!! ;>))

The paint is killer. Can't imagine the hours in laying out all those stripes. Awesome that you found it and had the opportunity to buy it. Good luck!!

I miss the old show cars like this from the late 70s early 80s!!

Mark,
Any updates, new additions, old news, good news , bad news ????
Is your son practicing with the shifter and vrrroooom sounds ?

Hey Tom, well, I do have a newer pic with the new wheels and tires on it. Bad news on the engine though; thought I blew a head gasket, but it appears I lost an oil ring so now I'm unsure which direction to go in. I think I'm going to go with a new motor and retire this one.

Looks so much better with the Cragars.

Thanks TJ

Met up with Steve, the guy who helped build and paint my Camaro back in the day and he gave me some pics.

Those are awesome!

Great pics to have acquired Mark. Lucky guy! :)

Those pictures of the work being done back in the day are awesome!

Mark, great car!

Thanks guys. It's really a strange thing, when I was talking to Steve (painter/co-builder), I asked him what happened to Norm (owner/co-builder) as he seemed fairly young (50-ish) to just pass away. I wondered if maybe he had an illness or accident, but he said there was speculation that Norm's wife poisoned him. Yikes. The speculation around the sudden death of a 50 year old guy who is otherwise healthy is normal, but to add to this, his wife's sister had poisoned her husband previously. There's probably a lot more to this story, but that part was just beyond crazy.

Cool Pics. Where in the 'burgh was that car built?

When I learned of the car, it was in South Park, at a shop down in Broughton by the fire department. Norm had his shop in there for years after I knew him. I'm not sure if they did the entire car there, but I know he was down there when I used to see it.

Really neat time capsule! Reminds me of the cars I worshiped when I was growing up in the 70's / 80's. I used to build models and did custom candy paint jobs with an airbrush. I dreamed of doing that for a living. So much for that. I have always wondered what happened to a lot of the old show cars from back then, especially the really high dollar ones. I can't imagine someone would just let something go when they have invested a lot of time and money into it, but it happens. Glad yours was so well preserved.

I would try to find a good engine guy to see if you might just be able to get by with rebuilding the engine that is in it. Might be as simple as honing one hole and installing some new rings. I would take it somewhere and have them check it out before dropping something else in it.

I don't recall reading if this car was an original 68 Z. If it was, all the more reason to keep that engine in it.

Thanks RSSSFan, appreciate it. I thought it possibly was an original Z when I got it, but after some research, I found out it was originally a plain 327/4spd Camaro. I'm OK with that. The 302 in it is a original DZ out of a '69 Z (3970010 casting, so I guess it's a late '69 Z?) but the block has been decked. I tried using the acid etching to see if I could raise the DZ stamp but they must have decked it too deep and wiped out the stamping. Bummer.

I have started taking it apart to see what happened to it as I initially thought it was a head gasket, but turned out not to be that. I'm hoping it was just a collapsed lifter and that the cam isn't wiped out, but I have several other projects to get finished before I can dedicate myself to finish taking it apart and seeing what's up. I really hope that it's not going to take a full rebuild but I guess that might be the best option. If it does need a full rebuild, I may take out the DZ block and replace it with a 383 and see if I can get the other numbers off it and sell it to someone who needs one for their OG '69 Z/28.

Well, the last year has been one full of really hard times (lost my mom in May, found out my job was being eliminated as part of a merger in the same month, the loss of some friends and acquaintances) and some decent times (good severance package and a new job that's pretty good). Through all that, I was finally able to make some progress on my '68 with a new engine that I've been pretty excited about and we got it put in this week and I've started working on hooking everything up to get it running in the next week or two.

Glad that things are going better for you, Mark. Sorry about the loss of your mom-and the elimination of your job. My wife knows all about that...:beers:

Very cool. Keep the pics coming.

That is one iconic day-two ride!

That should make some tire smoke!

Great car, seen pics of it on FB maybe that's you posting but it's a sharp ride!!