Chad-68’s 1968 Chevrolet Camaro

Autocross Sunday at the San Diego SCCA regional event.  I came in 2nd.

I finally got to retun back to this track for a track day after a little over 4 years and a whole lot of changes to the car.  I only got to run two sessions before the rain came but the highlight was beating my previous best time on my first session and adding to it my second session for an improvement of over 3.5 seconds.  The thing I like about Streets of Willow Springs (SOWS) is that it is close enough that I don't have to stay in a hotel.  However, that means getting up nice and early!  Here I am on the road around 5:30am. After my first session I was feeling good.  The weather wasy staying cool and it was looking to be a beautiful day. Here is some data of my previous best lap at SOWS going counter clockwise (CCW) with what I call V2.0 of my Camaro. And data from my outing yesterday with what I call v3.0 of my Camaro. Darren was there with his C7 Z06.  He extended me some great hospitatility and let me crash in his trailer and even eat some of his cheese and crackers :)  The rain continued to get worse... After waiting 6 hours I decided to head home.  In the mean time here is a cool video that compares my previous best lap from 2011 and my best lap from yesterday. https://youtu.be/owXgxIkdg7A And a full session the last dry session I got. https://youtu.be/Ry8JnqTHHi8

It has been on my todo list for almost a year but I finally upgraded my driver seat.  My old Arizen seats were great on the street and a vast improvement over the stock bucket seats on the autocross or road course.  However, the allowed to much body movement, especially since I just have a 3 point OEM style seat belt set up. So I've now installed a fixed back racing seat, the Sparco Evo II.  At 6'3" Its a tight fit with a helmet on but it is about the same amount of headroom as my old setup.  

Hit up the SCCA SDR at Qualcom yesterday and the stars aligned enough for me to take 1st in my class.  These are a great group of guys.  Also got a chance to test out my new manual brakes. We had 19 competitors in the CAM classes yesterday. Here is a shot of some of them in the pits. Video of my best run. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ch2WkVcA96U

Spectre Camaro spoiler doesn't fit.  

So after the failure of the tach welds on my hood.  I realized it would be much safer to mount the lock nut on the other side of the hood latch plate.  I'm not sure which is the factory mounting but mine was not done this way when I bought the car  

Track day at Willow Springs (Big Willow)!!! Had a blast this past Sunday running the car hard on the Fastest Road in the West!  I didn't hit the 150 mph I have hit at the Auto Club Speedway but sure enough my average speed around the course is higher at Big Willow. Here is a video with my fastest laps and some passing.  My favorite was passing the white Nissan GTR :) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JS1pUH5VhVk This is my first time back to a road course with the TCI engineering subframe and torque arm setup and new motor.  So it was awesome to be able to compare laptimes and data. And some data of my best lap (1:40 laptime): For comparison here is my previous best laptime of 1:44 from 3 years ago Don't let the corner speeds fool you.  Those are the lowest speed hit in the corner but I was carrying much higher average corner speeds with the new setup.  I need much better seats and a harness as I litterally could not hold on at 1.0 g forces in the corner! Oh and glad this happened 20 miles from home instead of 130 mph!  Though I think the two are linked lol.

So I'm trying to figure out how to reroute the lines at the pan/filter    

I installed my oil cooler finally.  Parts list: - Earls wide (13") 34 row (13") air to oil cooler.  - Improved Racing oil cooler adapter with 180* thermostat (fully opens by 200*) - -10AN pushlock hoses by XRP

pics of accy clearance

First time out with all the new parts. Improved my time from a 48 to a 44 and that is after no seat time for 3 years!

Took the Camaro to Adam's Motorsports Park last night. This is a Kart track so its more like doing a fun autocross than a road course but it still gave me a great view to the changes in the car. 3 years of no seat time and 4 years since I've been on that track and I improved my time by 3.5 seconds from a 48 to a 44 second lap.

Ready for Adam's

Version 3.0 has begun! I will be adding an LS3 stroked out to 427 cubic inches from Mast Motorsports.  TCI front subframe and rear torque arm set up with double adjustable coil overs, new Currie 12 bolt, Willwood brakes and Fikse 3 piece wheels to go with my mini tub.My crate motor's dyno sheet

Page 4, Exterior assemblyUPDATED 5/14/11 FOR INSTALLATION OF HELLWIG REAR SWAY BAR.First of all I posses zero fab skills and decreasing motivation for working on cars.  I'd much rather be driving.  So, I took the car to Brett at Fab53 (fab53.com) to have him help me with mounting up the rear Hellwig sway bar.  Given that I run EFI with a supply and return line and the location of my fuel pump I would of had to do some plumbing magic to install the bar per the instructions.  Instead Brett fabbed up custom frame brackes for use with custom end links made from heim joints.  Came out great.

The following pics show the painting process on the interior. Helped having rock solid floor pan and trunk pan.The interior was totally stripped and then sprayed with POR15 and paint. Next secondskin audio sound dampening was laid with overkill sound proof foam on the floorboards and firewall. Jute backed cut pile carpet with the jute mats was laid so that no sound will come from the floor boards :p Interior mods include: Autometer 5" guages in the original dash pod. Vintage air a/c and heater, Arizen bucket seats, modern cut pile style carpet.

Page 3 Engine & relatedUpdate November 2008I replaced the crappy 16" Spal fan.  I didn't need any additional airflow as the engine staid plenty cool with the Spal.  However, the Spal fan was obnoxious in the sound department.  I could here it driving down the road at 40 mph.  So here are the pics of my Lincoln Mark VIII fan installed.  I used the advice of a friend and ignored the original mounting brackets (actually had to cut off the top drivers side to clear anyways).  I used some smally long aluminum L brackets I picked up from Home depot.  They mount to the top and bottom of the fan shroud directly.  The top bracket is inside the shroud and runs the entire width of the shoud and provides 90% of the support.  The bottom bracket is mostly used to keep the bottom in place thought it does provide some support.

Check out my youtube channel.  Lots of track day vids and autocross videos of my 68 Camaro! http://www.youtube.com/user/TheDude023 June 11 track day at Big Willow (Willow Springs Raceway).  My first time on this track.