My Car

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Powertrain

My car is a Chevrolet IROC Camaro, circa 1989 (the last year that the IROC was made in the F-body). It's got a 5-litre (305 ci) tuned-port injected engine, 5-speed manual transmission and the usual street gears for this model car. The exhaust system has been replaced with a high-flow catalytic converter and straight pipes. I have modified the computer system to be aware of this, as well as changing how aggressive the engine setup is under power. In one of the images you see here, the car is fitted out with 22-inch wide rear tires - "fighting trim". I don't run them normally, as the ride is, shall we say, rough.

Appearance

It was originally blue, because I couldn't find a black one. As you see, this made no difference anyway, as I had it painted black.

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The hood is a custom fibreglass unit purchased to fit over the blower. Which I do not (yet) have installed in the car - maybe this year (1996) if I can spare the cash. Replacing the original (metal) hood resulted in serious RF interference on AM and shortwave; to correct this, I designed and had installed a custom copper shield for the distributor. It works reasonably well.

The louvres on the rear window and the headlights were purchased to go with the louvres on the hood; however, the ones on the rear serve a very useful purpose, namely they keep a great deal of sunlight out of the car. The headlight louvres don't do much but look cool.

Electronics

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The car has a custom sound system; I designed and installed it. The stereo is a Sony single CD unit with a ten-CD changer located in the rear of the vehicle. Power for the stereo comes from two discrete 500 watt RMS amplifiers utilizing a local 900-ampere battery, and the output from these amps goes to a ported Pyle box with two 15-inch woofers, a pair of mids and a pair of tweeters. The box, complete with amplifiers, is removable. I thought that would be useful if I wanted to sell the car, as the box is installed where the rear seat used to be. For communications, I've equipped it with a digitally synthesized shortwave radio (500 khz through 30 mhz, continuous coverage, AM, SSB & CW); full RX & TX on all legal HF HAM radio bands; as well as UHF and VHF transmit and receive; weather radio; VHF utility (police) band scanning; and cellular phone. And of course, there is a radar detector.

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Questions or comments? Email me: ben@blackbeltsystems.com