LSA Powered 69 Camaro -"Lou's Change"
 

http://v8tvshow.com/1969_Camaro_LC/s...9_Camaro_L.jpg
Well, its been a long time but my son Dan and I finally decided to build the car we've been talking about and planning for years.

This dream started back in 1998 when Dan and I bought our 1969 Camaro as a Father and Son project. Within 24 hours of bringing it home we had it all torn apart. We put it back together to our liking at the time. It sported a mild 327 motor, Muncie M21 transmission and a 12 bolt rear end.

In 2003 we took it all apart and put it back together again. That round we installed a totally rebuilt subframe, built and installed a very strong 383 stroker motor, rebuilt and installed a Muncie M20 transmission and added lots of chrome glitter under the hood. Hey, stop laughing, all that chrome was really cool back then and pro-touring wasn't even born yet!!

Today Dan is a professional automotive designer and we've decided it's time for us to take our little Camaro to yet the next level. He converted our discussions and dreams into renderings of our vision for the next version of our car which we have named "Lou's Change", (a play on my first name and the fact that we can't seem to leave well enough alone)

Sharp eyes will notice the rendering includes design cues that serve as tributes to the new ZL1 Camaro including its modified LSA crate motor, striping and other subtle hints.

We're throwing everything the Detroit Speed catalogue has to offer a 69 Camaro at this build since their stuff looks so cool and they are continuously pounding on their products to make them better. For example, their headers play the part of beautiful sculpture every bit as well as that of performance parts.

We selected the LSA crate motor from GM performance parts. After initial mock up, we're sending the motor to Lingenfelter for a boost in horsepower. The goal is to get it up well over 700HP. We will be running a ZL1 top hat on the supercharger to get the intercooler lines facing forward and to stay with our ZL1 inspiration/theme.

We've going with a complete T56 Magnum set up including scatter shield, dual disc clutch and hydraulics.

Braking will take place via Wilwood's 6 piston calipers grabbing 14" discs up front and their 12" floating caliper system in the rear.

Forgeline's brand new DE3C Concave wheel design was our obvious choice because of its combination of concave center along with a smooth outer rim sans any steps.

The interior will "look" pretty much stock but it will have Vintage Air A/C and Dakota Digital's brand new 1969 Camaro specific gauges.

We still have lots of design details to figure out now that the build has started. I am sure I will continue to post lots of questions during the build to tap into your collective wisdom. Thank you very much in advance for your advice. It's been amazing to see how everyone here is so anxious and willing to help one another.

In the past, Dan and I did our own builds but this one deserves craftsmanship beyond our current skills.

We decided the right builder for us is V8TVshow. We had watched lots of their videos in which they describe their build philosophies and then show you how to do it yourself. We were able to crawl all over their most recent build, "Reloaded", at SEMA last October. Finally, once we met them, we could tell they would be really good people to work with.

Here's a link to the kick off video V8TV put together:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature...&v=fXe-9WjvkK0

Cool rendering. I like the different grill.

Last week Kevin Oeste of V8TV called me and said "Hey, my buddy Charley Lillard, who owns Jackass is coming through town with the Hot Rod Power Tour. Would you like to meet him and see his car ?"

I said "Are you kidding me?..... You mean THE Jackass Camaro that inspired my build?......The one that had a ZR1 engine in it practically before the first Corvette hit the streets with one?......Heck yes I would!!!"

Kevin introduced me and like so many of you, I found Charley to be one of the coolest guys you could meet.

He let me crawl all over his car.
He told me to get in and start it up.
He answered tons of questions.

Next, he asked me to ride shotgun down the drag strip with him!

How cool is that?

Wow, what an awesome day it turned out to be.

I was in sensory overload.

Welcome to the site, Charley is one of the good guys for sure.

Welcome Lou ! Sweet looking rendering. Glad to hear Charlie took good care of you. He's a true car lover indeed and has an awesome collection.
I can't wait to see more of your build.

A few "Before" Pics

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The plan is to first install the Detroit Speed subframe along with the LSA and T56 Magnum to make sure everything is basically sorted and operational.

Once that is done, the LSA will be sent to Lingenfelter so they can work their magic including heads, cam, porting, pulleys, tune, etc. The goal is north of 700HP.

Here are some shots of the work done so far:

Out comes the trusty 383 smallblock and subframe
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Incoming from Detroit Speed!!

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True Craftsmanship. Look at those welds.
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welcome to the site and enjoy the build, you got a nice car to start with. just be careful before you know it , you'll be buying more parts and spending more money than you ever anticipated. I have a project that sometime looks like my first born (will be a year old in few days ) is going to finish for me. :lol:

Look at the bright side,

It could be worse.....Dan is my second born:lol:

Your in great hands Kevin and the gang do great work!!

We're all very honored and privileged at the V8TV Shop to have Lou choose us to bring his Camaro to the next level. He and Dan have been great to work with, and we're all excited about the car. Here's the first video if you didn't get a chance to see it. You can meet Lou and Dan and get a feel for the importance of this car.


These are the projects we really like, the ones that have different dimensions of relevance to the owner. Being trusted with something very significant to the owner and family is a responsibility we don't take lightly. The added bonus is that Lou's family are very cool people to be around, so we are all having a great time with it.

Thanks to all for the kind words, you can bet we are working hard to make sure this car meets the high expectations of everyone involved, including us.

Nice progress thru the years, looks like it will be fun!!

Here is the Bad Boy LSA that is going into Lou's Change. It is a CTS-V spec GM crate motor. After mock up it will be sent to Lingenfelter Performance Engineering for them to work their magic on it. Heads, cam, porting, pulleys, tune, etc. are all part of the Lingenfelter plan. The goal is gobs of torque and over 700 reliable and trouble free horse power.

You will notice it has the CTS-V top hat on the supercharger.

We're hoping to go with the new ZL1 top hat because it has the intercooler lines coming out the front, an improved heat exchanger brick inside and a shape that improves air flow overall (according to the GM literature).
In addition, the intent of the Lou's Change concept is to include tributes to the ZL1 vs. than the CTS-V. Hopefully the ZL1 top hat is going to fit under the stock SS hood.

http://v8tvshow.com/1969_Camaro_LC/s...5.09.12_11.JPG



Here are GM pictures of the parts used in the CTS-V spec LSA motor and the ZL1 spec LSA motor. You can see the differences in the supercharger top hats.



The CTS-V has rear exiting intercooler lines and a profile that slopes down in front.

http://i1140.photobucket.com/albums/...rdi/LSA038.jpg



The ZL1 has front exiting intercooler lines and the profile does not slope towards the front.


http://i1140.photobucket.com/albums/...ro-zl1-001.jpg



The Detroit Speed headers were ordered to make sure everything would go together as a totally engineered and proven system with minimal surprises. Yes, they are expensive but look at the craftsmanship. They are works of art in my humble opinion.

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The CTS-V tophat has the intercooler lines exiting towards the rear.
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Their transmission crossmember, too? ;)

http://www.detroitspeed.com/1967-196...s-crssmbr.html

Very cool project. Are you trying to get 700 flywheel or rear wheel horsepower out of that Lsa motor? The Lsa heads flow pretty well out of the box. You could change the pulley and cam,
and hit your mark of 700 pretty easy.

Awesome plan Lou. Thats going to be one wild ride when you need it to be and a pleasure to drive on the street. Nice to see a son and his father doing things togther.:thumbsup:

Mock up has officially begun. Trial fitting of the Detroit Speed subframe looked perfect as you would expect.

We had to find some rollers that would clear the 14" Wilwood rotors we've ordered so we picked up a set of 2012 Camaro takeoff wheels and tires.

Hopefully, those tires will fit in the wheel wells...if not we'll have to find some lower profile tires for mock up.

http://v8tvshow.com/1969_Camaro_LC/s...5.09.12_28.JPG


We used Detroit Speed's subframe, steering rack, motor mounts and headers so everything fit together very nicely.

V8TV will custom fabricate a custom cross member for the T56 Magnum transmission and notch the subframe to clear the A/C compressor mounted in the low passenger side location as it is in the factory CTS-V and ZL-1 configurations. That will allow the use of the
OEM front accessory kit we ordered with the crate motor.

We could move the A/C compressor mount up high but we're in pursuit of the cleanest engine bay we can achieve as inspired by Charley's Jackass Camaro.
Kevin and Trevor have been kicking some ideas around in that regard.;)

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Everything fits so nicely so far..

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Looks like the rear exit supercharger intercooler lines would not have had a conflict with the firewall afterall.

As I said before, we hope to use the ZL1 top hat with front exit coolant lines anyway.

We're shooting for well over 700HP at the crank with all the Lingenfelter mods. Those are the kind of numbers we feel the CTS-V crowd and all the tuners have proven is safe without having to also beef up the bottom end of the LSA crate motor.


http://v8tvshow.com/1969_Camaro_LC/s...5.09.12_67.JPG

As you can see, the LSA oil pan hangs down below the subframe a little bit. It's not hanging down any more than my old motor did but we may need to get a different oil pan just to be safe.

http://v8tvshow.com/1969_Camaro_LC/s...5.09.12_85.JPG

Awesome project!

I've been thinking about the cooling systems on the car, and while the Linegnfelter ZL1 has done some pretty amazing things on a stock cooling system and charge cooler heat exchanger, I think our application will benefit from some increased capacity and additional coolers.

Their Z has run fast in the quarter, but that gives you time to cool the car between runs. If you saw heard any of the stories about the 200+ mph runs, you know that the limiting factor was the amount of heat the supercharger created during long runs.

We have seen it time and again in dyno tuning sessions with these types of systems, they really can pack in the heat.

Now I realize we're probably not going to be making 200 mph passes on the car, but we'd like to do everything we can to minimize heat soak when the car is on a road course.

I'm also considering oil temperature and steering fluid temps. Having recently spoken to a variety of "smarties", it's obvious we need to prevent these temps from rising and causing harm on track days. I think we can add an oil temp sensor to the Dakota dash.

I've long preferred an integrated cooling system - like OE auto trans coolers integrated in the radiator. I've heard that Stielow and Tucker are going to the approach of oil and steering coolers integrated in the radiator rather than stand-alone coolers. The benefits are not only for packaging and airflow and fan assist, but also the the engine coolant can help warm & cool the other circuits, preventing rapid heat spikes and potential bad stuff.

So now I'm thinking of a cooling module with engine coolant, engine oil, & power steering circuits, as well as an upsized inter cooler heat exchanger. Add to that a high quality a/c coil and we should be golden. I've heard DSE is using C&R for these kinds of radiators, I'm looking into them now.

Just another reason why I know I'm in good hands on this project.

I appreciate the way Kevin thinks about his customers' projects just as if he was building his own car.

His ideas about the cooling system are just the latest example.

Kelle and the rest of the V8TV crew think that way too.


Here are some pics of the new Dakota Digital gauges we are going to use in Lou's Change.

I want the interior to look mostly stock but to have modern gauges. When Dakota Digital came out with these 69 Camaro specific pieces they were the obvious choice for me.

They can be programmed to display all kinds of things including temperatures, pressures and even performance results.

For instance, they can display 0-60 times, 1/4 mile elapsed times, etc.

Very cool eh?

Oh, by the way.... for all you Fathers out there,

HAPPY FATHER"S DAY!

Father and Son projects are extra special today.

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Happy Father's Day to you Lou! Thanks again for the kind words.

We actually consider these cars to be our own in in some ways. We know it's yours, but any decent builder puts a big part of themselves into a car like this. Our team is thinking about it constantly, trying to make sure it does what it's supposed to do and makes you happy, which brings us satisfaction and possibly more projects. We often ask ourselves "how cool is it that we get to build this car?"

We'll be looking into cross members this week, as well as some other details. I'll post updates / questions / concerns here... We really appreciate the feedback from the Lat-G family. This is a great source of info form people who really know their stuff.

:cheers:

Lou I love the gauges, I already bought Autometers for my car or I'd be dreaming of a set of those for mine.

Awesome project. I love the gauges also. Let me know how the mock 2012 camaro wheels work.

Kevin and his crew are deep into the details to make sure all our subsystems (cooling, ecu, wiring harness, etc.) will play nicely together when assembled. We're also waiting for ordered parts to come in to move the mock up phase forward.

Amidst all of that, last weekend he took me for a ride in V8TV's latest major build, a 1968 Camaro named Reloaded.

What a treat. This car is especially nice in terms of fit and finish. I was impressed with lots of little details like how solid the doors felt and sounded when you shut them as compared to other first gens like mine.

The suspension and ride was impressive to say the least. It has Detroit Speed's enhancements to the stock subframe and their QUADRALink set up in the rear.

Reloaded rides like a daily driver with virtually no rattles or squeeks and can literally throw a person out of the seat if they are not strapped in and paying attention. I was impressed with the way there was no perception of lean in the turns.

Seems like every time I hang out around Kevin I get to ride in another awesome car. Very fun.

http://v8tvshow.com/images/stories/6...amaro_%204.jpg

http://v8tvshow.com/images/stories/6...ed_Camaro_.jpg

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There are tons of pics of the "Reloaded" build here:
http://www.v8tvshow.com/images/stori...ries/Main.html

The crew at V8TV has started opening more boxes and figuring out the details for the mock up phase of Lou's Change.

Since this car will have design tributes to the new ZL1, we want to run the actual Camaro ZL1 supercharger top hat instead of the CTS V top hat that comes on the crate motor.

Besides that, the GM press releases claim the Camaro top hat was redesigned for increased performance via more interior volume and a new internal heat exchanger design. :cool:

The ZL1 top hat can now be ordered from the dealer. It comes with the heat exchanger inside and all the sensors are included. It bolts right on.


http://v8tvshow.com/1969_Camaro_LC/s...7.03.12_23.JPG

OK, This next picture is scary because I really, really want to run the stock SS hood. Not sure if this top hat is going to fit as is.
The engine may not have to tilt this much once the transmission and cross member are installed....

Hopefully the V8TV crew will be able to lower the engine if need be.:fingersx:

http://v8tvshow.com/1969_Camaro_LC/s...7.03.12_24.JPG

The intercooler lines exit the ZL1 Camaro top hat in the front vs. in the rear as they do in the CTS V top hat.

http://v8tvshow.com/1969_Camaro_LC/s...7.03.12_23.JPG


The fuel rail and the lower coolant line look like they will want to occupy the same space. It's odd that the GM press photos of the ZL1 engine show the lower line to have a 90 degree fitting in it but the top hat comes with a straight fitting in it...

I think I might have to go to the Chevy dealer to see what they actually do to avoid any interference on the ZL1 production units. My curiosity is getting the best of me.

http://v8tvshow.com/1969_Camaro_LC/s...7.03.12_02.JPG

Looks good Lou, I like the attention to the details you guys are doing. Blower top hat does look better.

Thats a nice looking piece for sure.

To figure out the front supercharger intercooler line issue, I went to a nearby dealer who happens to have a beautiful black ZL1 in stock. (My guess is it is in stock because they have it priced $5k over sticker.)

They were nice enough to let me take a few quick pictures of the intercooler lines where they exit the front of the supercharger.

As I stated in my earlier post, we were a little concerned that the coolant line and the fuel rail would want to occupy the same space and we might need to get a different fuel rail but it looks like the fuel rail on the LSA crate motor and the ZL1 are the same piece.

The bottom ZL1 intercooler line just makes a zig zag to miss the fuel rail before it snakes out from the middle of the engine cover.

By the way, Chevy did a really nice job on the exhaust note of the ZL1. In my opinion, it definetely sounds better than my C6Z06.

I'm just posting these pictures here in case someone needs to figure this out later for their own build.

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Thanks for posting those pics, Lou.

What are your thoughts on the shrink-wrapped rubber coolant hoses? I was thinking we could make something a little nicer in powdercoated stainless tube with rubber ends.

That's the first thing I noticed, looks very out of place. I would route those hoses completely differently, it would drive me nuts that way.

Since we will likely be using a cooling fluid reservoir for the intercooler circuit like the one we saw on the Lingenfelter ZL1 on Power Tour and a larger heat exchanger we will need to fabricate custom lines anyway.

As usual, you have better ideas than what I am smart enough to ask for Kevin.

I agree, GM slapped that together. There will be failures down the road due to that design.

Well these projects are a function of learning the details and then figuring out what they all mean.

It looks like the Quick Time bellhousing we were planning to use will not allow the use of a double disc clutch.

Sure, there are single disc clutches that could probably handle the load but it doesn't make sense to lock ourselves out of a double disc option if we don't have to so we think we'll go with a factory bellhousing.

We may also need to modify the transmission tunnel in order to clear the
T56 Magnum with the stock bell housing. Oh well, better to do that now than down the road.

Radiator choice
 

Hi Lou,

I have the LSA motor in my Camaro and the one issue that i found is with the radiator return location. The standard camaro radiator have them on the upper driver side of the vehicle which is what i ended up with because i did not know the angled intake would be an issue till later on. Anyways I would suggest that you get a new unit with the return line on the upper passenger side of the radiator this will allow you to do your intake tube with no interferance from the upper hose of the radiator. Although I did manage to make the custom intake tube it would have been easier with out the hose in the way. Here is a picture of my installation, you can check out by build thread in Lateral G " Pioneer Stage 3 LSA 69 RS SS Camaro" to see more. One other item, not sure what you plan to do with the oil pan but you will need a version that is similar to the one that comes with the motor but you will need to have clearance for the cross memeber. I modifed mine and the stupid thing hangs below the cross memeber and has a small leak. I am switching over to the MAST motorsports pan that is perfect for the installation. I will post images of the change out on my thread in the next few weeks. I hope this information is useful. I would have liked it if someone informed me of what the issues where before i got there. Would have saved me some headaches.

Thanks for the pic, we've been discussing this exact topic in the shop about moving the upper radiator return to the passenger side for this reason. We appreciate the tip!

Additional information
 

If you need any more information let me know. You can call me at 714 553 2328. I have been running this car for over a year now.

Nev

Our Forgeline Wheels have arrived!!

These are their new Concave DE3C design.

18 X10s for the front and 18X12s for the rear.

Centers and inner rings are what they call their titanium finish. The outer rims are brushed aluminum with semigloss clear finish.

Sweet!!:razz:

http://v8tvshow.com/1969_Camaro_LC/s....17.12_141.JPG

We liked the way these have concave centers but still have a nice muscle car lip.

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I went with the hidden bolt option just because I'm a clean freak and those would be a lot of bolts to clean around.

So maybie that means I'm more lazy than a clean freak???

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Originally we ordered gloss clear over the brushed aluminum but Forgeline suggested semigloss clear might look even better. We took their advice. Glad we did.

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Fronts have a nice lip too.

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Trevor checking backspacing and clearances during mock up.


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WOW! Those are some sweet looking wheels :drool:

I just stared at those rims without blinking for about 2 minutes straight. :wow: :wow: They are beautiful!!:bow: :bow:

Very Nice Lou they'll look great!