Onward and upward, 2018 was coming fast and we needed a way to close a pretty significant gap to the front of the GTV. We've scoured tons of build pictures and had some ideas for a while on how to revise the front suspension to fit a proper coilover and make it much more effective with a redesigned lower arm, along with redesigning the upper arm mounts to cure some issues with the base geometry.


For better or worse, we're changing damn near everything. The car should be significantly stiffer, with a more compliant camber curve, and a vastly improved shock package front and rear to keep it all under control.

I've also started making video updates on our progress -


Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Just under 2 months til NOLA, we'll be ready - the question is, how much testing will we be able to do before then?

Looking forward to seeing how this all works for you. I love the videos and what you are sharing- Keep it up!

Appreciate the engineering behind that effort!!

Very nice! Are you going lower ride height too, Duston? Good luck making NOLA

Duston, You have quit an impressive build going on. One of these days I would love to pick your brain on your setup. I’m building a 78 Camaro here in Houston but I’m only closing in on 50% complete. I’m covering the build on Pro-Touring.com under the thread 78 Camaro Type PT. Hoping to come out and play in the cones next year.

Dustin,
Nice.Is this setup going to narrow the wheel track for better tire fitment?

79 Camaro
 

Really like what you are doing
I only have one question
When can I send mine over for the mods:)

Bob

Nice upgrade there. I'm in a similar boat, 2 months to NOLA and my car is completely apart.

Nice update!!! Go get 'em!!

Thanks Greg!

It's been done by the seat of our pants, hopefully it will work out, haha.

Planning to keep it the same. We're limited underneath by the bellhousing, and up top by the fenders with so much tire underneath them. It should be more composed, so it might open up the possibility to lower it a touch more, though.

Thanks, looking forward to seeing it at an event soon! We've been plugging away at setup with a lot of compromises around the stock pieces that were left, so this was the next step - we're operating based on what we've seen on a lot of other builds and some intuition. We'll see how it works out.

Plan is to stay the same, but we are gaining clearance on the inside with the frame mods and new swaybar, so we'll have more freedom to move it around if needed. After going to the CPP spindles I've been pretty happy with the fitment with using a 1/4" spacer.

You might want to wait to see the results first, haha.

Plenty of time - see you there!

Thanks, Lance, that's the plan. Lotta ground to cover over the next month..

Quickie update, it's on the ground!


In the process of powdercoating suspension parts and re-assembling everything. The race is on for NOLA April 14-15!

Also put together a new video showing the process of installing the Speedway Engineering swaybar.

Been a busy month, and we are back in business! Have a few more videos that tell the story, but here's the short version.

The swaybar build from the last update was the final major fabrication item on the list (major being the key word, plenty of stuff left to build, modify, or otherwise cut and grind on).

As we got ready for final assembly, I had to go to Las Vegas for the Mint 400 for work (had to, I promise). I helped get the motor and trans in, and over the time I was gone Dad was able to knock out a ton of the major re-assembly.


Videos from this stage that fill in the gaps.


Continued..

With this many changes, the first trip out was always going to be a crap shoot. After one run, it become obvious that a quickie modification made to the rear shock mounts to extend them wasn't nearly up to the task, and we had to call it a day.

Disappointing, but the car felt reasonably good (in hindsight, nothing was very positive to me that afternoon..) and in one piece at the end of the day.


Next up was a fresh hood. We've lived with the 4" cowl for years, but it was never ideal. We still need a cowl for carb clearance, but Harwood's 3" has a much lower overall profile. This necessitated going to an Edelbrock RPM Air Gap to gain more clearance, and this piece was ported to flow within a few points of what the old one did.

Initial impressions, I can't tell a difference and it feels even beefier in the mid-range.


The car is light years ahead of where we were. The surface at Mineral Wells absolutely kicked our butts last year, and it was predictable and controlled and planted right out of the gate. It tends toward a push as it is right now, but that is easily solved with subtle doses of throttle, making it easy to rotate the car exactly where you want it pointed. Before, the car would start to push and just never recover without either scrubbing speed or tapping the brake.

The new shock package also deals with the rough sections beautifully. The new springs have the wheel rates at nearly twice what they were, yet the car is mild-mannered thanks to having a matched overall package with custom valving by Penske in the shocks.

The morning runs were a learning experience, gathering up trust in the car and getting myself to not do the same crutches I did previously to account for the shortcomings of the old setup. Where transitions used to mean big braking to settle the front end down, now it can be a lift off. Or sometimes not even that.

It will take a few more trips out for us to fully get on the same page, but I'm super excited about the potential it has shown already.


Finally, a few videos to get caught up.


NOLA coming in hot, and we've got another surprise or two in store before then.

Go get 'em at NOLA! I think we are going to be there... Provided we get the clutch parts in time and get the whole clutch thing worked out.

Car looks great Dusty! The paint looks a lot better than I remember, did you do a respray on it at some point that I missed? Love the work-in-progress videos.

It also looks very settled on course, I bet you'll just get faster and faster in it as the driver adjusts to the car's new abilities. Go get 'em in NOLA!!

Thanks Lance. No re-spray except what's new on the hood, but we did wax it for the first time in quite a while heading into SEMA last year, lol.

So, on to NOLA.

But first, a few details to wrap up.

I've been wanting a set of AeroCatches for basically forever, and had even bought a set of them last year only to find that our old hood and pin configuration wouldn't work with them. New hood, new opportunities - let's nut up and rip into this fresh paint!


We've also been skating by on a Bluetooth speaker between the seats the last few years, and decided it was finally time to put something permanent in. Fabbed up a box out of aluminum, sprayed some insulation on the inside, and picked up a marine receiver/amp setup with dual speakers. Also put a phone mount on it so I don't have to chase it around anymore. Light, functional tunes: success.


Finally, the last piece of the 60-Day Camaro Makeover - a fresh set of shoes from Race Ready Motorsport.


On to NOLA!

..continued.

It's finally time. Got all packed up and hit the road to Louisiana with one event on the new setup. I said last year that seat time was the absolute key to improving..and here we are.


When the dust settled on Sunday, we came up 2 points shy of CB Ramey and his wicked C4 Corvette. The shortened autocross session had me being a little conservative, and that cost us in the end. Super encouraged by the performance of the car, and we have a list of tuning to do over a few events before we head off to Bowling Green the first weekend of June for round 2.

Finally, new video, and a few action shots from the weekend.


Back to the grind, the clock's ticking on NCM.

Car looks great!! Man, what a transformation from what it was when you started this adventure. Good luck with the fine tuning...

Lifting the inside front, too. Good job, Duston. Glad the car's working for you

Dustin,

Love the wheels.Whats the width & backspacing on them?

Thanks Lance! It's come a -little- ways since we started this turning corners business, lol.


We actually did some work to get that out of it. NOLA had a lot more grip than anywhere we get to run locally. That highlighted the need for some tightening of the shocks and front sway bar, which helped a lot in flattening it out.


They're 18x11s, but the backspace spec is pretty specific to our setup. The rear end is custom width, front track has been altered, and every wheel opening has been massaged to holy hell to help them fit..

NCM Time

We made a few tweaks to the setup after NOLA, including stiffening the front swaybar, some tweaks to the alignment, and the usual between event maintenance.

The plan was to get some quality seat time after making the changes and work on both the setup and the driver. The driver part consisted of hitting the Mineral Wells Evo Driving School (which I highly recommend).


Thanks to an uncooperative weather forecast and some other life events, the car setup part turned into 5 autocross runs with Texas SCCA, and an aborted trip out that ended up being a wet event which wouldn't have told us anything.


SO, we loaded up and headed to Kentucky. Arrived at the track early enough to get through tech and have some time to do some tourist-ing that afternoon.


We were sweating rain the whole week leading up to the event, but lucked out with just a quick shower during our afternoon autocross session. Pretty quickly in the morning session, we determined that a familiar foe was back.

Cody's 79 Camaro, that we did battle with in NOLA last year, has also undergone major surgery and -surprise- we were right back to running within hundredths of each other.


In the end, I had one run that would have closed the gap, and one that would have won, but both had cones. We swallowed the slightly bitter pill and took off for the road rally.


Sunday morning it was time for the big boy track. This place is a ton of fun, but pretty overwhelming with 24 turns, tons of elevation change and blind corners, and some pretty big speeds in 3 different places.

The first session got me turned around trying to drive faster than I needed to, and I ended up pulling off early to regroup. Hit the speed stop for a few runs, and just nothing was feeling right. Things turned for the better during session 2, and the day started to look up.

As the day wound down, we were sitting 2nd in Speed Stop behind Joe Gregory, and needed some time to get around Dan Ballard on the road course. An open track and some help with the line from a kind GT350 helped find the time and the road course win.


Heading to the awards presentation, we were optimistic but not counting our chickens. Thankfully GTV gets announced first, so we didn't have to wait as long as some others. Vegas, here we come again!


Super excited to keep developing this thing through the summer, and continue to get my driving up to its level. It's an outright blast to drive both on the autocross course and the track, and I think/hope we're just starting to scratch the surface.

Congrats on the GTV win and invite Dusty... Besting Grandma on the road course is no small feat...can't wait to watch the videos from NCM.

Keep the driver skillz sharp over the summer and you'll be a force to deal with in the desert in Nov...

Very Cool! Congrats on your win!!

Congrats on the win at NCM Dusty! It was a lot of fun watching you and Cody battle it out, two fierce competitors! Good thing Team Y88-R was parked between you two in the paddock.

We had a blast all weekend long!

Been a couple months, and we've been packing in as much summer as we can, so how about an update?

What does that entail? Let's go through a quick rundown..


continued..

Can't say enough about Barber. Incredible facility, amazingly fun track, and friendly people all the way around. It was an awesome weekend, and I cannot believe we were able to come out on top with the group of cars that were there.

Super excited to get some more seat time over the next few months and see what we've got in the big show at the end of the year.

Nice work, Duston. I did a track day on my motorcycle a few years ago at Barber. Loved the track and thought about what it'd be like to run a car there. .

Good Work Dusty! Not only has your car been improving and turning into a very nice toy to run the track, you've grown your driving skills at an equal rate!

Barber was a great time, always fun to have friends at the track!

Good work, congrats!

Very solid update! Well done... Keep it up now...

New year - new update.

So the last few months of 2018 were a blur, with a last minute decision to haul up to Road America and fight for the Optima GTV season points.

Traveling to this huge, historic track helped motivate us to try an idea that had been floating around for a bit on the spoiler.


We passed through the parking lot at Road America on Power Tour in 2004. I told myself then someday we would go back to run it, having never even done an autocross. It was surreal to pull in the gate knowing we were there to race.


In the end, we finished third in class, but bettered our score from Barber earlier in the year and locked up the GTV points championship. Still hard to believe..

Once we made it home from Road America, it set in that in mere weeks it would be time to turn around and haul to Las Vegas for the Invitational.


To be continued..

Stellar work Duston, can’t wait till I get mine finished.

Congrats Duston on the points championship. I live only 30 minutes north of Road America so seeing your post makes me more excited to finally get my car on the track.

I always enjoy getting to run with you. I can't wait to see how well you run this year. Keep the Disco Camaro on top of the charts.

Sorry I missed your update earlier, Duston. Glad the car is performing well. It looks great!

Been a crazy long time since I updated this. Kind of a lot happened. Installed EFI. Gave it a makeover. Had a kid. Got into a little fight with a tire wall a while back. Formulating the plan for what's next, and in the meantime putting together kind of a wild little update on our old farm truck.

Camaro time coming up again soon.

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COTA 2019, we dropped 10 seconds from going there with Optima in 2016 - running a 2:30 in the dead of summer.

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Added a black two tone and gold lettering, inspired by the R30 Skylines

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Upgraded to Holley Dominator EFI with race throttle body, also added cylinder EGT probes for monitoring

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Optima Invitational road course, 2019

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In 2020, we got a little bored like a lot of people did, and added some aero. Nine Lives wing paired with a splitter.

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Tried out some new tires in 2021. It didn't go to plan.. ended up going off track in the worst possible spot at Heartland Park during Gridlife.

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Cars are dumb. But we wouldn't have it any other way.

Keep up with the latest on everything we're doing on instagram: https://www.instagram.com/silverc10/

Glad to see the update. I actually came across your Instagram while hunting out pictures of C10s. I don't really use Instagram but the C10 looked great. Good luck with it all, Duston.

Thanks for the updates and great pictures!

Thanks Trey! I'm so geeked to get the truck back together, I need to make a thread for the saga of it someday. We've had it for 25 years this year somehow..

Thanks! We're lucky to have some great photographers around. Most of the great action ones in here are from Kaleb Kelley - he shoots all the Optima events and does fantastic work!