Good Point Carl... in fact if it wasn't for the weight penalty of the ammo boxes and armaments I think that OLC could pull off the look accessorized with a .50 cal and some rockets. Mounted low to maintain good center of gravity of course... maybe drop down to .30 cal for weight savings?

:idea:

The tires especially front tires acount for some 20% of the drag. The front spoiler/splitter/valance is 100% functional. A narrow chin spoiler not so much.

Looks freaking awesome! I love it when funtion meets form and they become friends.

I had skipped a couple of steps in the process lately so now that I have a minute (or while I still have a minute, depending on how you look at it) I figured I’d get this thread caught up.

Last month we had an opportunity to secure some time at Willow Springs (one day on the Streets course and one day on the Big course) for some testing. I invited Bret and the crew from RideTech to come out (since they were in town for the Hot Rod deal in LA) and we were fortunate that in addition to Brit they were able to convince the guys from Fox to come out with their tech van.

With the changes that we had made in the aero, track width, and tires - and with a couple of days of not 100% pleasant autocross testing – we increased the front spring rate 100 lbs. and the rear 75 lbs. and loosened the rear sway bar about 50% to get the car to rotate better on corner entry. These changes made the car noticeably stiffer on the road but surprisingly soft on the road course. Over the course of testing we gradually stiffened up the existing shocks until they were maxed out on all settings. That’s when the crew at Fox, directed by Britt’s expert evaluation, stepped in.

First bit of fun was pulling the front shocks out:

http://www.onelapcamaro.com/1967%20O...20swap%201.jpg

which is not the fastest or easiest thing to do outside…

http://www.onelapcamaro.com/1967%20O...20swap%202.jpg

but we got it done nonetheless and then the techs at Fox did their thing

http://www.onelapcamaro.com/1967%20O...%20-%20Fox.jpg

http://www.onelapcamaro.com/1967%20O...%20Fox%202.jpg

http://www.onelapcamaro.com/1967%20O...%20Fox%201.jpg

putting a custom tune in the front and rear shocks that was ideally suited for the car.

The results were nothing short of amazing! I have to admit, never having had an opportunity to work in depth on shock tuning with true experts this was an eye opener for me with a lot of the adjustments being somewhat counterintuitive… adjust the back to fix front, change the rebound to smooth everything out, etc.

We are definitely fortunate in our community to have RideTech not only providing such awesome products, but also being dedicated to improving them – not through computer simulations or guesswork but by doing real world testing a development. It was also amazing to listen to Britt evaluate the cars from the sidelines, noticing even minute oscillations… “the car is bouncing three times on hard braking… we can tune that out by…” or “the front end is coming too far up (too far being about a half an inch) under hard acceleration… we need to…”

This was one of those days that made me exceptionally pleased to say that I am a very satisfied RideTech customer and am honored to represent them.

Shock testing done on the Streets of Willow led to some fine-tuning on the Big Willow track (see the videos a couple of pages back)…

With testing done and evaluating our options for wrap designs we shipped the car off to Car West Elite in Fremont, CA for a final cleanup of the front bodywork and installation of the wrap at their sister shop Elite Auto Films.

A couple of “in progress” shots

http://www.onelapcamaro.com/1967%20OLCR/Elite%207.jpg

http://www.onelapcamaro.com/1967%20OLCR/Elite%208.jpg

http://www.onelapcamaro.com/1967%20OLCR/Elite%209.jpg

http://www.onelapcamaro.com/1967%20O...%20L%20FRT.jpg

http://www.onelapcamaro.com/1967%20OLCR/REAR.jpg

And a couple of ‘finished product” pics back at David and Mary’s house:

http://www.onelapcamaro.com/1967%20O...0DM%20side.jpg

http://www.onelapcamaro.com/1967%20O...DM%20close.jpg

With the car safely back in the Pozzi’s garage it was time to get down to the business of prepping the car and taking care of some last minute tweaks and fixes…

The axle bearings on the Baer Full Floater need a bit of a tweak

http://www.onelapcamaro.com/1967%20O...0Brearings.jpg

The car was scaled, ride height was adjusted, and aligned was checked and set

http://www.onelapcamaro.com/1967%20OLCR/Scaling.jpg

and new brake pads were installed on the front along with fresh tires on all four corners.

With the new front end we have provisions for some basic air intakes for the new Spectre air box and the big Baer brakes. I didn’t want what I would call perfect ducts for the front brakes – we have way too many highway miles and honestly too few consecutive track laps to require a semi-sealed duct. The decision was made to run 3” ducting to just behind the brakes and direct the air towards the rotors. It should do the job without overcooling the rotors on long road runs or in wet weather…

http://www.onelapcamaro.com/1967%20O...%20drivers.jpg

http://www.onelapcamaro.com/1967%20O...0passenger.jpg

Along with “the basics” there were a couple of other things that we needed to address before heading out…

We didn’t have a chance to finish the inner fenders out of metal so we decided to quickly fabricate some panels out of plastic. A trip to Home Depot, a black spray bomb, and some Stock Car rivets and we’ve got sealed inners (in anticipation of a wet week coming up):

http://www.onelapcamaro.com/1967%20O...e%20prelim.jpg

http://www.onelapcamaro.com/1967%20O...er%20black.jpg

http://www.onelapcamaro.com/1967%20O...%20rivited.jpg

admittedly probably not going to win any points next time we hit a Goodguys show but they should work.

David fabbed up a new shutoff switch on the battery

http://www.onelapcamaro.com/1967%20O...f%20switch.jpg

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

And we added some mesh to protect the oil cooler and radiator.

http://www.onelapcamaro.com/1967%20O...20finished.jpg

http://www.onelapcamaro.com/1967%20O...%20closeup.jpg

Staples to the rescue for this one… going from this:

http://www.onelapcamaro.com/1967%20O...20starting.jpg

to this:

http://www.onelapcamaro.com/1967%20O...20sun%20DP.jpg

Mary took the car for a quick test drive (deciding that cycling shoes weren’t ideal in the process) and discovered that we had no tail lights… which led to an 11th hour thrash to track down the problem. We’ve had tail light issues EVERY year we’ve run One Lap and have spent too many hours on the side of the road trying to figure out what was wrong but never obvious (’10 – internal trailer plug short, ’11 – raccoon induced short in front signal light, ’12 – bad LED board on the passenger side). This time I think we caught it before heading out… once again not really obvious – the wrap guys had removed the rear bumper and pinched the license place light wire behind it, creating a dead short.

http://www.onelapcamaro.com/1967%20O...ted%20wire.jpg

I hope that we nipped this one before OLOA this time.

With a week of testing, a couple of weeks of wrapping, and a ten days of dedicated prep work the OneLapCamaro is buttoned up and ready to go!

David took a moment to snap some pics on the final test drive:

http://www.onelapcamaro.com/1967%20O...%20out%201.jpg

http://www.onelapcamaro.com/1967%20O...%20out%202.jpg

http://www.onelapcamaro.com/1967%20O...%20out%203.jpg

http://www.onelapcamaro.com/1967%20O...%20out%204.jpg


Before trying to load it up in anticipation of car leaving on Friday. Some things fit better than others…

http://www.onelapcamaro.com/1967%20O...%20-%20not.jpg

L.A. Prep (http://www.lapreptransport.com) picked up the car Friday afternoon in one of their deliberately non-descript but state-of-the-art transporters. They’ll bring the car to Long Beach where we will await the arrival of Mr. Casanova and the Honor Flight Camaro before heading off to FM3’s shop just a stones throw (ok a long stones throw) from South Bend.

http://www.onelapcamaro.com/1967%20O...oading%201.jpg

http://www.onelapcamaro.com/1967%20O...oading%202.jpg

http://www.onelapcamaro.com/1967%20O...oading%203.jpg

Next stop is the 2013 Tire Rack One Lap of America!

That looks awesome James. I wish you guys the best of luck. Have fun and most importantly, be safe.

Yep fun and safe James! Thanks for posting the ups and downs. :cheers: