Thanks! We had to do a little bit of clearancing on the swaybar, which is a 1.25" Suspension Techniques piece. We also welded a small piece of metal (1/8" or so) on the steering stops to gain a little more clearance there. Doesn't appear to have hurt the travel much.

I feel like they would probably hit on the stock inner fenders in the rear, but I don't know for sure.

They are 18x11, +20 all the way around.

79 Camaro
 

Thanks for the info on the wheel sizes and offsets

Bob

More progress! We took the weekend off from playing to get the spoiler built and wrap up some other miscellaneous things. Of course, the SCCA event on Sunday had lovely dry, warm weather, but so it goes.

Little items included chasing down a leak in the front which turned out to be accumulated rain water, swapping rear brake pads to Wilwood Polymatrix Bs from a stock compound, and doing some interior cleaning.

The big ticket item was out back, and I'm extremely happy with the results.

After scrounging our scrap pile, we didn't have a suitable piece of aluminum, so we hit up OnlineMetals for a piece cut to our specs. This provided us with a square, straight-edged piece, and eliminated a ton of work - all for around $60. The material itself is .100" thick 6061-T6.


We sourced two pairs of Wehr's struts from Performance Bodies to provide the strength for the setup, along with some piano hinge from the Lowe's cabinetry department for lower mounts.


Our secondary decklid was swapped on (the tail-less look is still cool for drag racing and the street, so drilling into the painted one wasn't an attractive option), and the marks we made previously for the template were recreated.


Each mounting screw required a hole all the way through both layers, which was then opened to 5/8" on the inside to accommodate a washer - 4 separate drilling tasks per screw.

Placement was determined in part by how the inner structure is made - we lucked out with the holes falling outside the weatherstrip for the most part.


With the hinges in place, the blade was sat in position and marked for some additional clearancing. We added a relief cut at each hinge, allowing the aluminum to sit down over each and flush with the deck.

Once everything was happy there, we marked and drilled holes for the hinges, starting from the center and working out.


Finally, we placed the outside struts in about the spot that felt right and attached them to the blade, then moved to the bottom side of the decklid to evaluate our options. This ended up being our one 'oops', as they were a bit too short to make it where they needed to be on the deck. The secondary holes will be useful if we ever want to stand it up higher, at least.


Our original plan was to use 4 struts, but looking at the beefy hardware included and how busy things got with all 4 of them up there, we settled on 3. There is some give in the blade thanks to the tolerances of the rod ends, but nothing too bad.

With 16 #10 screws on the bottom, and the 3 rod ends having 1/4" screws in them, I don't think we have anything to worry about strength-wise. Nights this week will be about getting it painted along with getting some of the interior pieces (shifter boot cover, dead pedal, and gas pedal cover) that never got finished out properly coated in black as well.

Last item of business was safety-related - I've had a HANS for a while, but never had gotten my non-drilled Impact helmet prepped for it. Turned out to be pretty easy. Along with a firesuit and some schweet Alpinestars gloves, we are officially ready for the road course.


Next weekend will serve as final assembly, then it's on to a mid-week Optima test and tune set up by the local Camaro club on the 24th.

Optima and the 28th of March coming up fast!

Pre-test-n-tune / Optima Week update time!

So, the plan for the second decklid was to add a matte black stripe down the hood using vinyl wrap to match the width of the black decklid and filler panel under the back glass.

A low cost (red flag) eBay (red flag) listing for wrap material was found, and ordered. After many days in limbo, the material arrived on Friday – a WEEK and 2 days from Florida, on 2-day priority. Thanks USPS!

Once the material was unrolled and the first section peeled back, problems were immediately apparent. Modern wrap material has a whole host of features that make it possible to, you know, actually wrap a car. This had none of those, as it was regular old sign vinyl (live and learn). Time is of the essence, so the spoiler will be permanent on the painted decklid.


Still came out pretty cool (we think, at least).

It's off to Lone Star Park bright and early in the morning for a load of seat time and some fine tuning - and DRY PAVEMENT! To missapproriate a phrase from Roadkill - Best week not at work ever.

A couple bonus images, just because.


We'll eventually build a splitter/air dam/chin spoiler thing to balance everything out (both aero-wise and visually), but there's no time left for this time. Can't wait to wring it's neck this week!

spoiler looks good I think. Hope it works well for you, Duston.

Wow, what an incredible two days of absolute awesomeness! That's a lot of adjectives, but still not enough. From the running of the event, great people, and a cooperative and capable car, this weekend will be a tough one to top.

I'll do a full writeup of our experience with more pictures and video later this week, but I wanted to get something in here while it's fresh.


This car just continues to amaze. For something that is mostly unchanged from a foundation standpoint from what we took on Drag Week, it's an absolute monster around the cones and on the road course. I can't wait to see what we can do with it with more tuning, there's still so much left in it.


Before I finish this, we have to give a HUGE shout out to Mike from Wilwood. He took a ton of time to discuss our setup, some upgrades and tuning ideas, and even pitched in and got dirty when we were reassembling the shifter after it unceremoniously ended our first road course session.

Excited to get some changes made to make the brakes even better, and I'll cover that as we go.

It was absolutely amazing to step up to the podium twice. Just mind-blowing. We ended up 2nd on the hot lap, between the Ridetech cars, and 3rd overall in GTV - far and away better than even my wildest hopes for the event. Not enough words to express how happy we are with the little red Camaro.


More later this week..

Congrats dude, nice job. I bet it was a lot of fun.

I promised more, so here we go!


This is all also on our website, with links to high res versions of all the images and such -

Day 1 Recap: http://www.acmeautopartsonline.com/b...s-day-1-recap/

Day 2 Recap: http://www.acmeautopartsonline.com/b...s-day-2-recap/

So, let's dive in. Where to even start? First of all, if there’s an Optima USCA event in your area, and you’re on the fence about going – GET OFF THE FENCE! Everything about this weekend was just fantastic, from the operation to the attitude and helpfulness of all involved both within USCA and the participants, it’s one of the most fun experiences we’ve ever had with the car.

Ok, with that out of the way, how did things go? We couldn’t be happier with the results. Let’s start with Saturday today, and wrap up Sunday in a second post (there’s kind of a lot to cover).

Saturday: Tech Inspection, Autocross, Speed Stop, & Judging

We arrived at the crack of dawn. Well, before the crack. Way before. The schedule to said to arrive no later than 7, and that turned out to mean that gates would open at 7 (live and learn, better early than late, etc.) Once in the gates, we scrambled to get the truck parked, the car unloaded and into the garage, and soon we were off to tech inspection.

The process was fairly thorough, and no major hiccups were found so we were on our way to getting the various decals put on. This was one part I was kind of dreading, but everything went smoothly and we had plenty of time to stand around and BS a bit before the drivers meeting.

The meeting started promptly at the time prescribed, and Jimi welcomed everyone and explained how the weekend would go. Saturday, everyone would split up based on car number, with odds heading to speed stop and evens to the autocross in the morning. Being #51 this really worked to our favor. I was able to get the feel for everything in the speed stop, which I assumed going in would be our weaker event given that I hadn’t done it before.


This ended up being the case, and we managed a 10.991 on the 4th of 8 runs. While this event started as a pure test of acceleration and braking, it’s morphed into a very simple autocross over the years. This was one was a run out that had us tickling the rev limited in first before a hard braking zone, then a right turn back almost 180 degrees, hard acceleration into an offset, and finally the 40×20 stop box. It’s much more a handling and braking test rather than pure braking now, but still fun.

Seeing a short line for judging, we decided to hop over there and get that taken care of. The hope was to get back and get a few more shots at it afterward, but we weren’t able to get back in time.

Speed Stop final: 10.991 – 7th in GTV


Design & Engineering Judging:

You get funny looks when you mention that the car you’re autocrossing also did the distance on Drag Week. You get even funnier looks when you say basically the only things that are different are the front springs and the differential in the back. These looks can be good or bad, but in the case of Mike Copeland from Lingenfelter and Bangshift Chad, the host of the MAV TV series that covers the events, I think it worked in our favor. Each remembered the car, and in the case of Chad at least, it paid dividends before the weekend was over (more on that later).

Judging went smoothly after we got our turn, with the admission that it’s no Rolls, but I’d drive it pretty much anywhere with a great big sweaty/shivering smile on my face.


Autocross


After a brief lunch, and a quick walk through the (by Texas autocross standards) pretty tight course, it was time to take on the cones. The first several runs were really frustrating, as it’s been forever since I’ve run a really tight course, and on top of that, I’ve never had to negotiate elements anywhere near as tight as the 180s and offsets along the back were.

After a few runs, several cones, and some head scratching, things started to fall into place. Five runs in, a 45.559 was the best we had, and we decided to head to the garage to investigate some unusual sounds coming from the rear end. No major issues were found, so it was back to the course to get a few more laps before time was up. This paid off, as the next to last run we picked up nearly 2 tenths.


Autocross final: 45.361 – 4th in GTV

Video from the Autocross and Speed Stop


Road Rally


This was one of the best parts of the event for me, as it’s been forever since we’ve just driven the car. As hard as it is to get in and out of, and as loud as it is going down the road (though, not nearly as loud as it used to be), it’s still an absolute joy to just cruise in. The seats are incredibly comfortable, it trucks along at 70 around 2,600 RPM, and it’s just fun in general to ride around in a full caged car with 5 points on if I’m honest.


The route took us to Pole Position indoor karting, where Holley had sponsored discounted karting and Rudy’s BBQ for everyone. Since none of us had had enough driving that day, the karting was on shortly after the group arrived. Lots of good racing, both of the kart and bench varieties. A great end to a fantastic day (even if I didn’t manage to take home a first place time in any of the 3 races).

After the short drive back up the road, it was time to call it a day and get some sleep – the big track and a bit of uncertainty was up next. More on that in the next post!

...and, part 2!

And Sunday's Hot Lap Challenge:

Now, on to day 2: the Falken Tire hot lap challenge, on the 1.1 mile, 7-turn road course.

Sunday may have been our most anticipated and unsure part of the weekend. I was anxious to get some track time in the car, but also a bit leery of how well the relatively puny 12-inch Wilwood brakes would hold up. I was also unsure of what the relatively small road course in the infield of TMS would be like, particularly after running at the most epic 2.9 mile Texas World Speedway last month.

In the drivers meeting (started promptly according to the schedule again – these guys are good), rules were set forth for each run group, flags were explained, pretty much the standard track day fare. We were running intermediate, or blue, which meant point-by passing on the straight, and each group would get a total of 5 15-minute sessions. Expert and novice were split into two groups each, while intermediate would be a somewhat crowded 18-car single group.


The first part of the day started a little rocky, with cars going off or breaking down in each of the first two groups and leading to some delays. Big time credit to the USCA, as this could have set the whole day askew and led to a late finish or lost sessions, but they kept the grind going and still ended the day ahead of schedule.


Things started with a 3 lap orientation at around 50 mph, led by Jimi in a big bad..Dodge 200 rental fleet special! We had found oil in the engine bay that morning, so this brief trip out allowed us to be reassured that it was just from the high-G, high-rev autocross tossing the breather reservoir around and dumping a little out the day before.

Intermediate Group to Pre-grid

Before long it was our turn to head out. Session 1 was a bit of a mess, with the blue group being 18 cars deep and no times to go on for grid procedure. The bigger mess, however, came on lap 6 as I reached for 4th gear on the front straight and was greeted by a shifter that was attached to – nothing.


All 4 bolts had managed to back out of the top section, allowing the stalk, two pieces of aluminum, the bolts, and the two steel pieces that locate the stalk and their respective springs to all come undone on track. Something was on our side, as the pieces that fell out did so in the hot pit and not at 90+ mph going into turn 1.

The missing bits were returned by two different people (thanks to Lance and the other gentleman whose name I didn’t get!).

While we were in the process of putting the puzzle back together, Mike from Wilwood came up to chat with us and ended up getting his hands dirty helping us keep all the pieces together and back in the car. He would end up sharing a wealth of knowledge with us, and I’m looking forward to putting it to good use – big time thanks!


We ended up with a fairly unrepresentative 47.5 in that session, which would haunt me for the next two as it was used to grid us in both 2nd and 3rd sessions. Going into the 4th, we were sitting on a 43.588, which was reasonably competitive in GTV – but I knew there was a lot more to be had with some luck on traffic.


In the 4th, through a bit of work creating space, I was able to get a mostly clean lap and a 43.001 (video below). By this time, the car was getting exceedingly warm about lap 5 or 6. I actually pulled off to let it cool this time, but couldn’t better the 43 after going back out and catching traffic again.

Finally, the last session of the day arrived, and after some thoughts of skipping it the temptation of open track was too much to bear. This paid big dividends, as only 7 or so cars went out, and we were gridded 2nd behind Jay in his 2015 Vette.

Jay and I had been pretty close in time on open track, so I knew this would be a fun one. It proved to be just that, as we both turned in our best times of the day, mine being a 42.982.


Unfortunately, the GoPro wasn’t cooperating during that session, so here’s the 43.001 from the third.


Awards Ceremony and Thoughts

Un-freakin-believable. Throughout the awards ceremony we were hearing the names we’ve heard on the shows and read on the website posts and blogs. Then, on to the Hot Lap challenge in GTV – 3rd place goes to Bret Voelkel with a 43.9. Dad and I looked at each other, knowing our time of 42.9, and exchanged dumfounded looks – SECOND. We got freakin second in something!

The biggest surprise came later, though, when the results for each class were announced. Car number 51, 3rd overall in GTV. No words.


Going into the weekend, I had two goals: finish somewhere in the top half of the 19-entry class, and roll the car back into the trailer in one piece Sunday afternoon. For all that our little Camaro has done, this has to be the hardest it’s been run in the 6 years it’s been together, and it took every bit of it like a champ.

The exciting thing is, there’s still a ton of work to be done. The suspension, the brakes, and the driver all have a lot of development work left to be done, and it’s going to be an absolute blast every step of the way.

Thanks for reading, and a huge thanks to everyone who offered kind words and helping hands this weekend – is it time to do it again yet?!?

I somehow completely missed this build thread... Nice work on all of it. I love this car and the work you all are putting into it.

Great job on the great showing at the Texas USCA event. And fantastic write up...thanks for sharing.

I'll watch the videos when I get home on a better connections, but I can't wait to see them. Congrats...