69 Camaro Makeover
 

With the ever growing vintage and pro-touring market, it is now easier than ever to find decent 'restored' vehicle as a starting point for a project.

Vehicles with older (80's and 90's era) simple restorations can be purchased at a fair price when compared to a completely new 'from scratch' pro-touring car build. This creates a much more enticing and affordable long term project for those on more of a strict budget.

At our shop, we are seeing more and more of this type of project: vehicles arriving in good running order, nice paint, simple interior and drivetrain. The owners are happy with the cars, but are seeking the ride comfort and quality of a newer vehicle. With a good foundation for the chassis and handling, many upgrades (such as bigger brakes, audio, wheels and tires etc) can come over time or as the project evolves.

As an example, I thought I would post up a thread on the makeover of this '69 Camaro we currently have in the shop. The aim, to help illustrate how the average builder can build a fun and competitive car without starting from scratch with drastically improved handling and ride quality. We will be removing the existing factory subframe and rear rails, doing the necessary modifications to the floor and installing one of our FAST TRACK full frame chassis. (info on chassis HERE)


This is our starting point. A decent and clean '69 Camaro with good paint, standard interior and a healthy little small block with a built TH400 which, at this point, the owner still plans to re-use.
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The first step is to completely wrap it to protect the paint and start dissassembly and removal of the original suspension.
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Okay! This will be fun!


I absolutely agree with you... there's plenty of guys out there with pretty decent cars that just want to "upgrade" the ride/handling/braking without
the complete custom re-do and it's costs. Good for you guys for being willing
to take it on!

I'll be watching for more.

After pulling all of the suspension, exhaust and underpinnings out... we cleaned up everything and did a full inspection to see what we have. It turns out that the Camaro is as solid as it looked. The only item up in question is if we use the factory gas tank or go with one of our new stainless tanks. The OE tank will work just fine with the Fast Track chassis but this one looks to have some possible rot issues.

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At this point we can go ahead and start removing the rear rails and outlining the portion of the floor pan to cut for clearance for the new chassis rails. On the 1st gen Camaros it is pretty minimal cutting and pan work. The tape marks here make it appear larger then really is so I will post up some images of the pan after we finish trimming it out.

Start removing the rails by drilling out the factory spotwelds

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Rear rails completely removed to make way for the new chassis rails

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This rear portion of the rail remains in place and becomes another anchor point for the rear of the chassis

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These rear marks to cut are to gain clearance for the rear four-bar frame bracket. It will slightly protrude through to the rear seat pan area.

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I like this approach a lot!

yep, find a finished car! I tell my customers to find a "quality" older restoration and let's update it. No paint jail and they get to get out and enjoy the car.


How 'bout the 66-7 Nova frame? Can you keep the stock floor pans with your chassis?

Chris, The early Nova's like the 2nd Gen Camaro unfortunately didnt make as good as the first gen did and requires more pan work.

Here is a good shot of the floor cutouts required to clear the chassis rails. The forward trimmed portion only effects the rear foot well pan to where it rises and meets the seat base. The rear cutout is the very rear of the rear seat pan.

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In order to design the chassis to accept mini tubs and up to a 345 series rear tire. The frame rails had to be brought in slightly. In doing so we have found on most cars we have done here with the factory trunk pan, that you will need to relieve the front side and corner of the suitcase well to allow for clearance. There are many ways of doing this small detail from a dead blow hammer to how we prefer to do it :D . We start with two cuts. The vertical cut starting where the bottom of where the pan contours up and the horizontal cut at the top transition of the pan effectively creating a "T".

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Now we can join the body and chassis together for our prefit. This is where you want to double check your clearances and take measurements to make your and fit your floor cover pieces.

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It looks right at home in there. Nice!

Time for another quick round. We are now to the point of fabbing up and fitting the filler panels where we trimmed the floor for clearance. This first panel is being placed where we clearanced for the four bar bracket in the rear of the rear seat pan.
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After we tacked the pieces together creating our box, we pull it up through the bottom of the pan giving us the flat flange portion as a place to tack in place and then fully weld on the inside.

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You guys make it look too easy :)

BBC... the guys in the shop definitely have it going on... Phil is smart and wont let me even turn on a welder... :getout:

Looks amazing so far....nice work!

We have made a lot more progress on the car than the we have on build thread over the past few weeks. So, here is a big update to get this one brought up to its current state.

Here is the area of the rear footwell that needs to be modified for the frame rail to pass through. We have fabbed a sheet metal channel that is welded into the floor for the frame rail to pass through. We also add an extra body mount in this location.

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A complete view of the required floor modifications to install the chassis into a stock body. You can also see the reinforcing plate with the hole drilled for the new body mount.
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A view from underneath
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The car was also fitted with deep wheel tubs. Here you can see the front corner of the trunk (that was modified on the previous page) has been welded up and ready for metal finishing.
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Assembly has progressed on the chassis in this picture and the body is ready to be mated to it for the final time.
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The inner fender required a minor notch to clear the upper shock mount.
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The rear frame bracket bolts up the the original rear leaf spring mount in the stock sub rail.
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A little branding!
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New stainless exhaust system was fabbed up and stainless tank from Rock Valley was installed.

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A few suspension detail shots.
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And the completed product outfitted with a new set of Forgeline ZX3P's with Matte black centers and polished hoops that really set the car off. We were extremely pleased that the customer took our recommendation to replace the directional billet wheels with the new Forgelines.

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Turned out really nice. You guys really do make it look easy. Excellent work!

Absolute proof that wheels and stance do make the car. In this case a Roadster Shop FAST TRACK Camaro chassis and Forgeline ZX3P Wheels

From a dated, poor handling, average cruise night car into a serious pro-touring machine in just over 200 hours!

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Very nicely done. The wheels were a nice update to the car. :rockin: :rockin:

Another hit out of the park by the RS team!

I would have to agree this is an awesome option for those looking to upgrade the underside to a solid chassis. My car is not top notch immaculate as it gets driven weekly and was made that way for a reason. No trailer queen as they say as I enjoy driving my car...This is the route I am wanting to shoot for to upgrade the chassis, suspension one day and glad to see this. I know there are a lot of different routes that could be taken but this a package deal...

Nice job....sent PM.

Very Nice!

Very nice transformation.

Stance IS everything !!!

200 hours as in 5 work weeks or as in 200 hours of labor?

That would be 200 BILLABLE shop hours.... which in my opinion, is a smoking fast great deal, by a very capable shop.


Nicely done guys! It looks great and we know it'll drive great as well. :thumbsup: :thumbsup:

Kinda figured that but had to ask. $18,000 in labor definitely puts a RS chassis out of reach for at least a couple more years.

Thanks all. We are very happy with the way the car turned out. We were able to get some drive time in today and start fine tuning the suspension and everything under the hood. This car is going to be a blast to drive.

A full chassis install is definitely not for everyone or every budget. But I think that when you factor in the list of what was done to this car, 200 hours is a pretty efficient install for something to come in a driver, and leave a driver. It had opened my eyes as to how easy a chassis swap can be on a first gen Camaro. This doesn't necessarily have to be done at a shop either. I would guess that an extremely high percentage of guys on this site could do this install in their own garage.

• Disassembly
• Necessary floor mods for chassis install
• Test fit chassis
• Mini tubs
• Seal and paint underside and interior of floor
• Prep and paint trunk and mini-tubs
• Prep and paint a complete chassis and all suspension components
• final assemble a complete chassis including motor, trans, brakes, etc...
• Install complete chassis and align body panels
• Re-connect all linkage, wiring, and plumbing on motor, trans, steering,and brakes.
• Fab steering linkage, run new power steering lines and convert pump to work with A/N fittings
• remove steel braided heat, a/c, and radiator hoses and replace with new
• Fab complete stainless exhaust system
• Mount fuel tank and fab complete fuel system
• Re-install interior
• Fill and check all fluids, charge A/C
• Mount and balance tires
• Fix a few other unrelated issues with the car
• And a few other items that I am sure I have missed
• Have the car ready to go out the door as a complete running/driving vehicle.

Is it more expensive than a set of bolt on control arms and Cal Track Bars? Absolutely.

But if you stack this up against the popular front subframe, subframe connectors, and rear suspension systems on the market, I feel that it is a very competitive alternative that most would have thought to be out of reach.

Dis-assembly and re-assembly time would be identical to any front and rear suspension install. Mini-tubs, exhaust, fuel system, prep & paint times would again all be the same. The floor mods are similar to welding in subframe connectors.

And after installing several other rear suspension systems in the past, I know that the full chassis requires less floor mods than some, and goes in faster than most. Plus everything is already pre-located in the chassis so you are not left having to locate, fabricate, and install crucial suspension mount points.

Great transformation. Amazing chassis.:thumbsup:

We had a chance to scale the car at the end of last week. Good looking numbers for a car that we had no intention of watching the weight during the build. SBC/T350, full chassis, A/C, stereo, large stainless tank, 75 lbs of Dynamat, stock interior... 3,348 lbs.

Unfortunately we did not weigh the car as it arrived, so I do not have a good "before and after". But we are still very happy with the "after".

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these chassis are way too nice to put under a car they should go in your living room,great job big improvement on this camaro

That is a beautiful car. The black/gold with the black wheels and new stance really change the whole attitude.

srh,
It is wild that just a few detail changes will completely change a car all together...... :)