The Hard Way - Time Attack In a Vintage Camaro
tracktuned.com Contributor
Duston Nixon
My dad and I picked up a Camaro in 2005 and immediately went to work disassembling it. The idea was to build a car that would be a solid platform that could do a little bit of everything. To start, we set our sights on Hot Rod Drag Week. It’s similar to the One Lap of America, but less miles and with drag racing), along with autocross, road course, and standing mile events.
Suspension & Chassis
Up front is a modified stock subframe with custom built control arms and modified mounting points using our own geometry. A Speedway Engineering splined swaybar and Penske 8300 shocks custom valved for our application keep things under control. The rear uses stock car style truck arms inspired by a Hot Rod Magazine article about a first gen Camaro that ran in Formula Drift in the mid-2000s with a similar setup. The chassis features subframe connectors and a 12-point roll cage to stiffen things up.
One advantage of the Camaro as a platform is that we are able to fit 315s front and rear under stock fenders. Up front the wheel openings have been pulled and rolled and the inner fenders removed, and a small mini-tub is used in the rear along with rolled lips. We run 18x11 BC Forged wheels from Race Ready Motorsport.
Wilwood 6-piston front and 4-piston rears slow it down, using a set of their reverse mount race pedals inside. We’ve worked with them since 2015 and they’ve been a huge help to make the car work well under braking across the different disciplines we run.
Engine & Drivetrain
The car has been powered by two different traditional small blocks - a short stroke, high-RPM focused 377 originally, and most recently a 421 cubic inch combination. The 421 made 505hp at the wheels at Peitz Performance, and used AFR heads, a .660 lift solid roller cam, and Holley Dominator EFI. Power is sent through a T56 Magnum transmission to a Speedway Engineering Grand National full floater rear end.
Body & Aero
The aero on these cars is almost as bad as the suspension out of the box. We made an effort to solve that up front with a custom built air dam and splitter up front coupled with lexan covers for the upper grill and lights. In the rear we’ve run multiple solutions depending on classing, including a 10” spoiler for SCCA and Optima rules, and a maxed out Nine Lives Racing builders Wang for Gridlife Track Mod.
Competition
We ran as fast as 10.99 at 124 on Drag Week back in 2009, and most importantly survived 5 days of racing and around 1,000 miles of street driving. We later put in an automatic transmission and transitioned to bracket racing with my dad driving up until 2013. We got a manual transmission setup again along with a few other tweaks (gearing and spring rates primarily) and went straight to its first autocross with our NHRA numbers still on the windows.
The car is currently in hibernation after a close encounter with a tire wall at Gridlife Heartlands 2021. There is an extensive to-do list to make the car lighter and better for the track, while retaining or even improving its streetability and dual-purpose nature. In the meantime, we’ll be playing with our 63 C10 farm truck and bringing up the rear of street class in a 350Z.
