I can't wait to see how the changes work out. :thumbsup:

We've now done a few test sessions and are pretty happy with the way that things are working. I'll add some additional documentation shortly about the specifics of our test sessions at Willow Springs but for now a quick update:

We got the wing (mostly) working:



We ended up shorting the VSS signal line when we swapped shocks in the pits so the high speed correction wasn't working properly but you get the idea. We have some additional work to do on dialing the angles in for the airflow off the first gen but so far, so good.


Mary took some laps on the big track at Willow Springs:



It was her (our) first time on the track and things went well all things considered. We had some rubbing issues with the front end (which more-or-less fixed itself) but other than that everything was perfect. The rub was actually really interesting... Carl went out and came back with some mild damage do to a rub with his new setup and as I walked back to the OLC I found damage at exactly the same spot. If nothing else demonstrated the similarity of the two cars (at the time).

With a couple of days on the road course done and a couple of autocross weekends in the books the car went to Car West Elite in Freemont, CA to get the front end prepared for the wrap and for the wrap itself. Nice thing about Car West is that their general manager - the talented Mr. Brian Hobaugh - is pretty understanding of what we are doing. I can't thank Brian enough for getting things squared away.

Here she is before the wrap:

http://www.onelapcamaro.com/1967%20O...WestElite1.jpg

and with everything done:

That airdam/splitter looks right at home Jim. Great design and will definitely do the job it is intended for........ and I think you just topped the charts in the coolness colomn with that wing. Pretty amazing technology.

Looking forward to hearing more. :thumbsup:

It's okay I guess -- if that's what you're in to.



Love the new front end James! Car is going to be awesome!

I think it looks great, you kept lots of '67 Camaro appearance by using the standard grill.

The soundtrack of the rear wing video really would make a nice lullaby... the forward facing one not so much.

Thanks guys.

Greg - I'm going to assume you're home now so I have something on its way to you - should be there by the end of the week.

Yeah... Sorry about that... I forgot to post the "turn the volume way down" warnings. Video 1 is a Hero 3 and video 2 is a Replay. As frustrating as the older GoPros were the new one is actually pretty decent. The Replays (which I bought after I lost all faith in the GoPros) have proven to be unreliable at best :rolleyes:... This years One Lap updates will most likely by via Crayola...

HEY! You left out the most important picture. And, why am I the first to mention this?

I have five GoPro's that 3 of 5 have audio interference issues which are manufacturing defects that they dodge via their warranty policy. My Hero3 has been OK so far, but a Google search reveals they are having issue too.

I was hoping the Replay XD would be the solution.........

Have you tried the Contour?

The car is looking great, can't wait to see it with the wrap. :thumbsup:

Looks great James. OLC just gets better with age:thumbsup:

When trying to fit a 10lb tire in a 10lb hole, sometimes somethin's gotta give.

It's looking good James. You're well sorted considering the condensed timeframe. I still wish there was another month or two, but 29 days and it's time to go.

That front end is looking just right. And that wing in action is so high-tech.

Looking at some of the high tech/high dollar stuff that is available, and is making its way on to some of the P/T cars really has me feeling like I am rubbing sticks together on some of the crap I'm building.

James that car is turning out to be a true world class supercar, that looks truely fantastic. I keep saying what else could you possibly do to a first gen Camaro to make it different, and people like yourself keep stepping it up to the next level. I am however glad, I'm not the guy writing the checks on this last revision.LOL Great job, Ron

Thanks Ron - I think. :)

The nice things about the changes this year is that I didn't actually change anything on the car. The sheetmetal is all modified repop stuff and the complete "original" OLC clip is put away safe and sound.

If I keep telling myself that maybe I'll be able to convince myself that I am not modifying the OneLapCamaro... I'm using it as a test bed for the next car...

Yeah! :headscratch: What he said.


:popcorn2:

I don't know why, but my frugle nature always makes me worry when I start counting shop hours, and parts installed on the sexy stuff on our websites. I really don't know why(mental disorder?), I'm not writing the checks, and don't really know what it is costing. I just know I am really jealous of the work that is done and the parts that are installed. That car is so different then your original, that I don't know why you'd want to do another car at this point, of course thats the pot calling the kettle black.

Well I was going to wait on these but since they are already out there... I give to you the 2013 OLC.R

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

Huge thanks to everyone who made this possible - Dick and the crew at Best of Show Coachworks for turning my vision into reality from 3000 miles away, Brian Hobaugh and Car West Elite and Elite Auto Films in Fremont for cleaning everything up and doing the wrap and, as always, the Pozzi's for handling the PITA things.

James,

I saw the pics on FB. I have to say I was skeptical as you were bringing this vision together. I have to tell you, you killed it. This thing is bad! :trophy-1302:

Best of luck this year! I think you have a chance at the overall! I must have missed it, who is co=pilot this year?

:popcorn2:

Thanks Chad - it was a risk and there are things that can still be improved but I think it came together really well. I doubt I'll ever be 100% satisfied but this is a great start.

And thank you... but to be honest we have ZERO chance of finishing near the top in the overall. We might be better than ever but we're still bringing a knife to a gun fight. My goal is top 20 overall but this year Vintage American is going to be increadibly tough on it's own so a top 3 in our class will be an accomplishment.

And sharing the wheel with me for the better part of 3,500 miles... and 100 plus hours... will be the always incredible Mrs. Mary Pozzi.

:trophy-1302:
More pictures! More Pictures!

Knife to a gunfight? Maybe so... but wouldn't a U.S. Marine Sabre, Knights Templar broadsword, Medieval battle axe, or a scimitar also all fall into the knife category by loose definition of edged weapon?

What you are bringing is spectacular and in the right hands... look out!

I recognize those colors...:cool:

Hopefully more pictures in the next couple of days... we have a bunch of work and not a lot of time before it ships out.

And yeah... it may be a good knife... it may be a very good knife... but when the defending champion is playing around with a 1300 rwhp GTR between weekend stints in the Brumos Porsche... it's still just a knife. And you can't overlook Carl in the '68 or Jimi in the Centerforce AMX - they will both be tough. Carl is a heck of a driver and his car is really well sorted out and Jimi has put a lot more miles then most people know on his car.

When you enter a competition with no rules... you can never bring enough.

That said the number one thing to remember about One Lap is that you have to finish to win...

I must say that I've never really liked the over-sized front air-dam on this. I much preferred the styling of the previous chin splitter setup. But having said that... HOLY CRAP! That looks killer!

Go Get 'em! :guns:

That thing turned out wicked as can be. Good luck, hope you and Jimi make out well on that one lap.

wow!
that thing looks like it's ready to eat something. Awesome!

James... Car looks super not..... I'm trying to get some final issues sorted on my ride. It seems that no matter HOW far in advance you plan.... somehow it is always down to the deadline.... (and I'm not happy about it).

me.... just looking forward to participating. Winning is for other folks.

:-)

A couple more pics to tide everyone over until we can get some better ones... unfortunately, the reality that the car has to leave next week dictates that some mechanical prep has to take precedent for a day or two...

http://www.onelapcamaro.com/1967%20OLCR/OLCR%201a.jpg

and one of my personal favorites

http://www.onelapcamaro.com/1967%20OLCR/OLCR%201b.jpg

Believe me - I know what you are going through. We are in decent shape this year but still have a long list to address in the next three or four days. Being on the West Coast (Canada or USA) is a huge disadvantage - you lose at least a week, if not two, for transportation and like you said, it doesn't seem to matter how far in advance you plan it always comes down to deadlines.

Fun story about the first One Lap of America that we did. My flight (from Calgary) was cancelled due to a storm and delayed a day. I pulled up to the host hotel at around midnight the night before tech and the start (that year we had tech in the morning and started in the afternoon). Dave and I pulled in to the parking lot of the hotel and it was like a huge outdoor garage with work going on everywhere. The defending champion GTR had the hood open and the guys were soldering together a new injector harness IN THE PARKING LOT! They had an extension cord running back in to the room and were cutting off and replacing the ends for new injectors that had just arrived. Another guy was replacing brake pads and a third was struggling to get his car running - they had trailered the car, unfinished, and were working to get it going the day before the race started.

It's like nothing you can imagine... see you there... :)

and a bit of history saved from the past...

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

Wells done James, the car looks spectacular!!

Werd. But, that did not stop Mary and I from scheming about who is going against who on-track :drive:

When someone sees OLC coming in the rearview mirror, it may seem a bit like this :Tomcat:

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: