[James Montigny]

I've put this off too long. This will serve as a thread to document the car's builds and changes. I hope that it is useful to others either in lessons learned,
ideas of pure entertainment. This is not my first project car, so I will be applying a lot of the lessons learned to (hopefully) avoid painting myself into corners.

This story starts in September of 2020. It had been a few years since I sold my previous project car and I was interested in getting into a newer Camaro.
I found this bright green one sitting on a local dealer lot and decided that it would be the one. Green happens to be my wife's favorite color,
so it softened the blow a little when I broke the news.
This would be a welcome change from the beat up 2005 Tahoe I had been driving around in for years.
It made a great kid and trailer hauler, but was ready for the boneyard at 280K miles.

The car is a Krypton Green 2017 Camaro SS





The young salesman was anxious to tell me all about the car, blissfully unaware that I had already done the research that
I needed to be familiar with the car, features and options. All that I really wanted was a test drive and time to
look it over for signs of damage or alterations.

Something important to point out at this point is that I had already missed out on buying a silver ZL1 that week so the
supercharger build plan seeds were already planted in my mind when I signed the check.

Everything appeared to be stock, with the exception of the plasti-dipped bowties. If it was modified, they did a nice job putting it back,
because the condition of everything that I looked at was consistent with being a 38k mile car.
The only issue I saw was that the runflats were reaching the end of their useful life.

The car's first official task was to shuttle a flat tire from my wife's Silverado to the tire store.



It didn't stay stock for long, I had a Rotofab CAI ready to install a few days later.
Simple project, I even had a set of sound tube delete plugs 3d printed.
It felt like it improved throttle response, but mostly is just made me feel better to have the first mod out of the way.

I replaced the tail lights with VLAN LED as well.
I like the sequential turn signal effect and I got them at a good price.

Then, I replaced the stock suitcase (non NPP) muffler with a Borla S type
I really liked the sound. But the change was enough to clue my wife in that I was back to modifying cars.
She enjoyed driving it as much as I do though.

[James Montigny]

December 2020.

I hit debris in the road on a ramp between interstates late at night. It shattered the front grill and cracked the bumper.
It actually ended up damaging the wiring for the glowtie that I recently installed. I fixed the wiring, but it eventually just started flickering again.
The front of the insulation panel under the driver's side got caught on the debris, I had to tear it off to get the car home.
No one was hurt, just some cosmetic damage.



I replaced the grill with a SEMA grill, I think that the red accents look good on the car.
I fully intended to do the bumper as well, I knew that it would eventually have to come off to accommodate the intercooler.
At this point, I thought that this would be only a matter of weeks away.
The license plate mount helped hide it a little.

[James Montigny]

In late 2020, I came across a deal on a used Pray ported intake manifold and throttle body.
Both were easy to install and provided a noticeable improvement in throttle response.
Being ported stock parts, you really couldn't tell that anything had changed just by looking at the engine bay.
It satisfied my desire to make changed while I was working out the details of the supercharger plan.

April 2021, I am ready to place an order for a supercharger.
I send a message to the local Firebird and Camaro club to get recommendations since all of my previous cars had been heads/cam.
Killer Performance was the recommendation from just about everyone, so I send them a message.
Justin Keith, one of the owners and a long-time local board member helped me with my plans.
My immediate goal was to install a Magnuson 2650 and tune the car as a daily driver / street toy.

Then, the bad news ... both Magnuson and Wipple were running months behind on shipping blowers.
At the time, the estimate was 16 weeks.
With that much delay, I decided that we had might as well get a few supporting modifications done at the same time.

LT4 HPFP, LT4 injectors, custom cam, LTs, catch can, big gulp, dsx low side, 103mmTB and flex fuel module were added to the plan.
That would be enough fuel to support a reliable 800hp street car.
We also decided to use ARP hardware and powdercoat the lid green.
Great deal, right? All I had to do was wait 4 months.

In preparation, I had installed Michelin P4S for traction and to replace the worn out run flats.
I added a spare tire and tools to the trunk from Modern Spare.
Overall, impressed with the tires. At the time, I was still regretting not upgrading to wider rims.

4 months passed ... 5 ...6 ...7 .... Magnuson was still not shipping.
You couldn't even get a 2300 anymore at that point.
Whipple had stopped producing the 2.9 and the 3.0 was not ready to ship either. So we really had no choice but to wait.
The shop took delivery of the supercharger just before Christmas, but the 103mm snouts were not available.
So the installation would have to wait since I was taking a trip to Canada for the holidays
and I fully intended to do this in Camaro comfort, not in the truck.

[James Montigny]

Early 2022 brought a lot of things to my life and getting my car into the shop got delayed longer than I would have liked.
I did however accumulate some extra parts to install over that time period.
BMR LCAs, cradle bushings and toe bar for traction.
LED side markers and 6000K HIDs for appearance

I also decided to trade my heads in for a set of stage 2 Texas Speed ported heads since it was all going to be apart anyway.
That would probably become more useful in a future stage.

On March 10th, I received a message "I am ready for your car"
I dropped the car off the following Monday with all of the parts.

Harry, one of the shop employees, loves taking photos.
So I got to peek at progress when he started sharing them through 9.9 Media.

[James Montigny]

I stopped by the shop on April 7th to pick up the old parts in my truck.
It just so happens that this was dyno tune day for the car over at JustTune.
I swung by the shop for a peek. They were just strapping it in for a startup tune dyno.
It looked great and sounded a lot more aggressive than it did when I dropped it off.
I left the man to do his magic and drove home with my box of stock parts.

[James Montigny]

April 8th, pickup day. At last!
I got a ride up to the shop and was greeted with the good news.
The car made 670rwhp on 6lbs of boost with plenty of room to pulley it down once everything is broken in and settled.
It runs well on e85, full 93 or anything in between.

They even made a video for the project and posted it on their Instagram page.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CcGiCglJlGK/



The car runs well, the cam is noticeable at idle but acceleration is smooth and street manners are excellent.
The kids were disappointed that the blower doesn't whine.
I broke it in on a road trip over the weekend. It's a lot of fun to drive.

One thing that was still bothering me was exhaust, there was just too much rasp at 1500rpm.
Light throttle from highway speeds was just irritating.
So, I took it to my muffler guy and we added a pair of Borla resonators, eliminated the AFM valves and the crush pipe all at once.
Exhaust tone is a lot better now, I'm happy with that change.



I later replaced the missing insulation panel under the driver's side and traded the tunnel brace for a red BMR one.

The other thing nagging at me was the 90mm snout.
Magnuson still didn't have one available, so we were running on a Lingenfelter 90mm adapter plate.
That will be resolved in the next round using a billet Katech snout when we install a smaller pulley.

[James Montigny]

After 20,000 miles of fun with the 2650, I took the car in to replace a failed LSx lifter.
It had already ruined the cam, but Killer Performance took good care of me, as always.
TSP rods/pistons, shortblock re-assembled and balanced. Johnson lifters this time.
Slightly more aggressive cam, meth kit, Aeromotive low side and upped boost to 13psi with an 80mm pulley.
They also replaced my damaged radiator and cracked bumper.

864 RWHP ... and a whole lot more fun to drive now.
It needs a few upgrades before it can see the dragstrip.

[Abilor33]

Love your journal man. You've done a lot of the things I want to do, so this is very instructional for me. Thanks a bunch. Need to start my own journal soon...

[James Montigny]

Originally Posted by Abilor33

Love your journal man. You've done a lot of the things I want to do, so this is very instructional for me. Thanks a bunch. Need to start my own journal soon...

Happy to add value.
I learned from reading other people's threads and asking questions.

Looking forward to reading about your journey.