last year we got our hands on the sketchiest car in the world an old EF Civic with a B18 Swap and 325 turbocharged wheel horsepower we bought this death trap because of a drag race Challenge from The Humble mechanic despite our raw powered weight Advantage we lost two of our three races against Charles's Audi S4 because of inconsistent driving and despite the danger this rolling IED posed to our well-being or maybe because of it the series did well with our subscribers so now we're back for another competition with Charles you're all so happy to have you back we learned nothing from the first one because we're doing this again we were so miserable and we're doing it again yeah terrible idea well so what are we racing this time because I see you still have a German car and unfortunately we still have a Subaru in our shop well I was thinking on the way here and a lot of people suggested maybe we flip and you guys did German and we did Japanese but I have to be honest I don't think you stand a chance no I would agree hard I think you'd get crushed I would be miserable yeah in addition to hating yourself yeah you would lose horribly so that that to me is out okay yeah we need some some kind of Level Playing Field something that both of us all three of us know what about boats okay how about we do American cars do you guys know anything about American cars I know I've never owned one yeah uh so I also know absolutely nothing about American cars does this level the playing field I think that significantly levels the playing field you're still obviously a better mechanic than both of us yeah but it's a low bar American cars are pretty simple to work on you know push rods okay I they don't have as many computers One cam is what I know sometimes yeah yeah or no cams at all they we should figure out the rules yeah okay so to recap American Muscle budget 7 500 we've gone up from five thousand last time okay uh they've got to be relatively put together cars relatively safe and we're doing a drag race do you guys feel like the competition was maybe a little short that last go around well you mean like it was over quick and we had slow cars I feel like if we have fast cars it was only good for yourself it was only over quick because we had a 12-7 after after the event well whatever okay fine so you want to add more events how about like an autocross okay I think I can get behind that American muscle cars are known for how well they handle strangely they have a classic American class yeah a classic American Muscle yeah so we can't just do two events though so I'm gonna throw this one kind of a curve but if he also did a rallycross it's the same as autocross just on the dirt are using the same Tire I mean what do you think I think honestly We're not gonna have budget for two sets of tires that's true uh if we're trying to replace the tires if you're going all in yeah so what if we just run what we brung one car all three events okay call it done all right and so it's me and Ben versus you and I left a spot here for my homie Paulie D who just couldn't make it up today so Paul so what's the time for him four weeks see in a month let's do it all right no 1500 gt500s okay it's not on the rule board so uh what do you think this is a piece of crap okay well that's not a nice way to talk about somebody's car but I got an American car no you didn't no no no no that's not a muscle car no it's American no no no no no no four-cylinder what they don't sell cars here are you talking hey they do no this is a junkyard they sell car parts true we could probably find an LS out of one of these do you really think that anyone's left in LS in one of these cars maybe what about this it's a truck this is a big motor uh maybe not no do you really think they're gonna have them here I mean they have everything here they've never not had something yeah that's true hey man um do you guys sell cars like sell cars like yeah like a Mustang or Corvette or I'll tell you what okay sell your car but we can see your parts for it yeah did you sell LS engines we could see some upgrades for that last one okay well we'll take you up on that later yeah thanks is this an LS no is this an LS [Music] new yeah what did you think they picked him out already Maybe I and LS no you're not okay you know man I found it what do you think that's like 10 times our budget yeah but it's American [Music] I think it still does run and drive probably not uh is this an LS no then is this an LS it's closer got the throttle body in the right spot oh no that's why lq iron block probably yeah and boat anchors yeah but you can put a bunch of boost through them we can do better okay what about this pen is this an LS that's a Volvo Ben I think I found something on Facebook though yeah what'd you find what does he want for it probably talk him down shoot him attacks we were out here in rural Tennessee rural we found a pretty good deal on a car out here a little bit sketchy mildly sketch uh but we've got a good deal it's been listed for like three months so the man is low for this vehicle well the road was just blocked by a man with a uh a tractor from like 1920. a very cool tractor it was awesome honestly yeah this is uh I mean for a second there if we thought we were gonna I literally went to fight or flight I started like looking around for like a second shooter yeah look at that it's like an F Ford F1 no that's a Chevy sorry oh of course it's a Chevy how does the underside look though uh it's a little rough but that's not but you can see it's leaking down there not not too bad though like pretty typical honestly you ever have any problems with it with anything you know the floating gas tank yeah required it but the gauge don't work but the gas gauge doesn't work it's in first yeah this thing is raw the motor sounds healthy I'm not gonna lie yeah cracks in the dash yeah the dash I knew about I didn't know about the windshield dude yeah I mean this is honestly like rather marginal all right so you want it yeah all right all right yeah five [Music] well so the bank wouldn't give us hundreds they didn't have hundreds so we're gonna have to hand him this 5 000 here's our proof five thousand is what we paid for it well we've done it for some reason that right there is our Camaro oh boy what have we done well I never thought I'd say it but this is our new to us 1998 Chevrolet Camaro Z28 catfish well yes it is Ben and boy how did you ever caught yourself such a handsome looking catfish it's one of the ugliest cars I think I have ever owned you're hating you're being a hater man there's yeah there's a reason these you don't really see these around anymore um yeah because anyone who owns one ain't getting rid of it yeah well we we got one bud man somehow Ben can I tell you about the specs of this here finally oh let's hear it found American vehicle all right back in 1998 this was the second car after the C5 Corvette to get the LS motor this is an LS1 346 cubic inch 5. 7 liter it dropped 95 pounds off the front end of this car compared to the lt4 iron block which preceded it uh what else do we know about this vehicle it ran 0-60 in a scant 5.
2 seconds and it did the quarter mile in oh they're about 13 and a half seconds that's like a stock STI that was basically what we was doing with the uh with the Civic yeah yeah the entire time we were driving yeah so if we were able to squeeze any more performance of this vehicle I think we'll be sitting pretty well we have 2 500 left but before we squeeze any extra power out I think we probably have to figure out what's broken first yeah there's some stuff that's not so good but let's get inside the garage and we can go over it [Music] so we've got the beautiful Camaro into the garage now and it is again I think it's a fantastic car but it's not without its flaws and I'm going to show some of those to you right now one of the very first things I noticed on my drive home is that the steering wheel besides being kind of shaped funny uh also is constantly adjustable I don't know if we were missing a bolt or something or there's a very loose bushing on the steering rack but uh I don't think it's supposed to adjust like this on the outside of the car it's quite obvious that the windshield needs to be replaced because it is cracked more than any windshield I've ever seen before and also these wiper blades are multi-piece another thing I noticed on the drive home was the whole car was shaking a bunch and I think we might have isolated the issue the rear wheel bearings seem pretty not good also the dashboard looks like a pile of potato chips I mean I can almost pick one of these up oh yep should I leave it I'm Gonna Leave It t56s are known for their kind of truck-like uh shifter feel but also the boot is uh kind of coming with the shifter it's honestly the shift feel is not that bad uh yeah and this is just easy access to the shifter assembly we've also got this pretty cool feature in order to get maximum weight savings uh Chevy only installed I guess one uh climate control knob so if you know you want to change like the temperature for example you just pop it out move it over here uh then you know where do you want it to blow you want on your feet okay and then you go back over to your fan control and boom Bob's your uncle but thank goodness we have window tint another cool feature of our car in particular is this replica Trans Am Hood uh which has these Ram Air nostrils to suck in a bunch of cold air and send it straight into the intake except that this is not a ram air car so it is sending it nowhere [Music] foreign also the engine is has a little bit of an oil leak in a couple places and the serpentine belt [Music] [Applause] I'm a little scared to look underneath this car but I feel like we have to [Music] go okay we have a new fuel filter it's positive it's pretty Rusty I'm not gonna lie it's like the trans is leaking a little bit the oil pan is leaking a lot it hasn't had to have a ton of work done oh this stuff actually looks good like the joints actually look good the exhaust um someone just [Music] literally just chopped it off right here at the back at the diff this is honestly super cool the way this like the bottom of the bumper curls up into like a v-mounted radiator setup with this like little flap here so it's like it's scooping this air in this high pressure air because it's down low on the front bumper pretty pretty good engineering yeah it really is oh yeah that's a bent wheel see that oh yeah yeah that's my gosh dude well okay so this is like peeling off that's crazy so wheel wheel balance is definitely what's causing the shake yeah this AC compressor we could probably pull this out it's kind of crusty anyway oh wow does it work do we know all right well we'll take it out it kind of hurts to do that but that's gonna be a lot of dead weight this exhaust also looks Factory like stock cast and whatnot but you probably just cut it off so some more weight reduction here and Factory weight reduction these t-tops oh my gosh bent wait put it back on put the antenna back on and let's actually weigh the car first and see what we're starting with good point so Ben what's what's your guess how much you think it weighs So based on like Wikipedia and forums and stuff people are saying like 3440 3440 pounds uh I would guess 3445 accounting for the extra rust that's built up and dirt that's just weight reduction man yeah well there's some water in the trunk too which I guess we didn't show that on camera yeah I don't what's the fuel level we don't know that's should be a medium tank half tank that's just a guess right the fuel the fuel gauge doesn't work yeah also we didn't show that on camera yeah yeah let's see okay I I'd say 35. 50 30 35 50. yeah I'm gonna go 100 pounds heavier okay all right oh actually we were both wrong it's 34.
14. oh it's lighter than we expected so the rust is reproduction yeah I guess we've lost some of the car over time oh and the fiberglass Hood that's a good point actually yeah account for the the hood I mean that's half of the body of the car okay so like this the size of this Hood what do you do uh the size of this hood is absurd and like look how far back the the um steering wheel is I'm just like Curious yeah you want to hold that at the front the steering wheel is over seven feet behind the front of the car and the driver is almost 10 feet about nine and a half feet back what's the actual width of the car length yeah to the rear bumper which is another foot 16 feet 16 feet this is 16 feet dude yeah it's like a limousine it's crazy 34 uh right we can probably take some more off of that yeah yeah I mean I I think that's the easiest first step to make a car go faster is just start taking some weight off of it actually you know what that's a complete light tires I think is typically the correct answer but but that costs money and we don't have money we don't have money so if you're trying to do it for free just take bang for the buck yeah [Music] this is where the video was originally supposed to end but big announcement we have gone back to one video a week which means enjoy the next 15 minutes of this video glass is heavy this is going to be good okay how much does it weigh now so now it weighs 33. 96 so that was like 15 pounds 15.
yeah oh I actually expected it to be more you know removing interior from a car usually makes a car much worse but in this case it might make it better [Music] man the the carpet is damp everywhere why do we keep getting cars that take on water look at this why why is there so much water back here yeah the the fella we bought it from every time we were uh telling them something that was like wrong with the car that we spotted he kept telling us no no it's a good car it's a good car like the windshield is cracked it's a good car it wasn't wrong it is a good car yeah stop being mean it's a good car I'm no it is a good car it is a good car do you think that GM put duct tape back here I don't think you should rip it up that's for sure what is it is it fuel pump uh uh probably yeah why is it why do why is this already off why is it so easy oh spare tire holy smokes it's on the side oh yeah and we're taking this sucker out see if this will just oh yeah dude dude this is gonna be the easiest car we ever worked on the all the rust was a red herring okay this car is actually going to be a total gym it's a good car it's a good car uh we might need that wheel if our other wheel is bent not in the rear yeah is oh yeah okay I already want to check the weight again yeah yeah go around to the front dude we're down to 33. 35 we've almost taken 100 pounds I've almost taken 100 pounds off and we haven't even taken any of you like oh my gosh oh this clip's in here how does this really oh see I'm telling you dude these GMS are not bad to work on yeah because they're already falling apart that carpet goes all the way down this is the floor carpet for the car a couple screws in this guy 10 mil you think go ahead and try a 10 mil and let's figure out what is comfortable what's the conversion of a 10 some people are commenting right now like enraged that we don't know this a half inch is 13 mil I know that 7 16 I want to say it's like 11 mil stop trying to impress the internet 10 mil is universal that's what I'm saying is it really it's working nobody makes jokes about losing their 7 16. smells like mold oh man that's a lot of water oh gross our water's broke oh it's giving birth to another Camaro okay Dad let's go ahead and pick this up that's up like a 12.
I don't know it's a American version 7 16 7 16. which is it's like 11 and a half people that aren't from the US are watching this and freaking out if this is metric I will eat a sock yeah okay that's a half inch 33 26 right now [Music] what does it feel like check the weight what does it feel like uh this feels like 25 pounds 33. 95 I can't do math wait what 32.
95 32. 95 so I don't know what that 30 pounds 30 pounds yeah huh I I might be wrong I think the previous owner of this car cleaned it before he sold it it's a good guard it's a good car dude oh yeah this one's wet underneath that's wet and this is wet [Music] we're taking the carpet out oh this is bigger than most cars entire interior you're old if you know what this is [Music] now if you're a passenger in a comb Arrow you're you got a drink you got a cold one you got a bud you got a Miller you know you got to put it somewhere on the county you're trying to do it for Dale with your hands out the t-tops and you got to put your drink down uh well you got a cup holder right there would you just look at it would you look at the the share American Ingenuity see this is how we beat the British this is this is how we sent them packing back to Great Britain what do you know about that I think BMWs have something very similar to that yeah they copied it from us okay but I don't think I've ever seen near this level of Ingenuity in an automobile brings the tear tomorrow to have to take it out don't break now now I'm trying not to break it but I'm finding that to be a rather dubious Prospect oh dear this is this is why we can't have nice things it's on the shift boot right there well no that's a little bit over there you are yeah but that ain't the whole that ain't the whole problem pull back with it well well Ben I'm trying to pull back well there's only but so much I am pulling up with it I think this is probably a real conversation it's happened between two guys to talk like this all right does that e-brite go up any higher yeah so well I'm abusing it I don't mean to be now listen here you got to pull back while you're pulling up I'm trying there you go all right I don't want you don't need to be sounding so high and mighty when you're not even the one doing the work let's roll it wow look at all that padding yeah let's check the weight really quick oh 31. 92 31.
92 wow we own the driver's seat now yeah but that's still yeah it looks like somebody peed over here yep throwing dog oh any gloves ain't no way I'm touching that wetness oh my god dude why is there so much water and then why did they anticipate oh my gosh it's so wet under here yeah same here really on your side yeah there's some moisture it's not as bad but the t-tops are definitely leaking oh man dude this thing is like 50 pounds oh yeah this is coming is it pretty easy yeah oh yeah yes sir I love American cars dude I release this Camaro it's what over there too dude this is so heavy dude it looks like Coca-Cola I mean this is gonna be a ton of weight just don't spill it like on my lap please this is also wet okay dude this car is soaked I know there there's two inches of standing water I cannot physically pick up the carpet entirely by myself this is so much water dude why it's a good car it's a it's it's a good car it's a good car it's literally just mopping the floor we're mopping the floor it's 31. 38 . dude 60 pounds that's still absurd whoa that's heavier than the seat and we still have 10 pounds of water in the car it's about a gallon it's like eight pounds of it is actually literally a gallon yeah wow step one mop out your Camaro before we can do any kind of racing with the Camaro we have to address the car's safety concerns first and foremost the massively spider cracked windshield [Music] [Applause] [Music] have you considered us just running with no one too would we be allowed to I mean it would be pretty light uh you don't take out the back glass I don't think we're gonna be alive too while we have the windshield off it is uh probably a good time to just do some more weight reduction we're just gonna [Applause] felt Maybe maybe not there's some literally velcro yeah by Velcro [Music] [Music] all right so the other Bend is off getting some more parts for this car and while he's gone I'm gonna try to fix this steering column issue because this uh that's not We're not gonna drive like that at least I'm not going to drive like that so hopefully I can just tear apart underneath the dash and we can find maybe a loose bolts hopefully it's not something broken this is the uh the time period where there's probably a metal plate under here uh because people used to hotwire cars by just pulling this panel off just a guess maybe not just really thick plastic I'm gonna take this cover off next I don't know how this cover is on there I have no idea what I'm doing I fixed it that's better right that's a good car I need to look up a YouTube video okay so I found an article online uh man these late 90s cars had so many like security protections to prevent you from getting anywhere near the ignition cylinder it looks like we have to go in this way uh we have to take the airbag off anyway because it's dead weight but there's a bunch of stuff behind that that we have to get to to get the whole column off which would include taking off the turn signals the ignition lock all that stuff has got to come out and it all kind of slides forward and then apparently there's like a pin that's loose on the side for the tilting mechanism that's going to be what we're gonna have to do which is Big Time waster it doesn't make the car any faster First Step disconnect the battery then jack up the car I just steal Mighty carbon's jokes that's just my my new thing now something like that yeah there we are wow that's got some heft to it airbags are actually really annoying to get rid of because you can't just like throw it in the trash I asked a bunch of people I have like a pile of airbags at home I asked them what's the best way to dispose an airbag like hook a jumper cable up to it and blow it up in your backyard [Music] so I have a pile of airbags because I'm not doing that foreign [Music] we're in we have made it to uh the culprit it is this pin right here you'll notice it's kind of sticking out this for whatever reason it looks like centers the whole column for the Tilt like shift thing and it is known to wobble out so the solution is we take that pin out we cover it in epoxy we stick it back in so that the pin doesn't fall out and then we drill a little hole next to it and put a bolt next to it so that that bolt holds the pin in place nothing like epoxy and self-tappers trod and true internet method [Music] well I got the steering wheel on and guess what it still has a little bit of play this is uh one of the most frustrating things I've done on a car I have spent hours on this column and uh not really for much result it still Wiggles a little bit it's a lot better than it was before but this was basically a complete waste of time hey all right got a present for you oh man yeah so back wheels are bents on the Camaro obviously so one picked up some C6 Wheels got these for guess how much money I don't know how much with tires 300 bucks all right all right that'll leave plenty of budget left yeah these are a lot bigger they're 19s and a 275 yeah instead of a 245 so not probably a particularly sticky tire but I guess throw those on uh and then I did also order the hot cam and some sway bars but I have to go okay I'll be back in a week that should be plenty of time we do a cam sway bars wheels and tires and then I think it will be in good shape to whoop up on Charles put the wheels on yep when I get back we should make 300 horsepower 350.
