Rozelle Camaro USCA Buildup
 

Hello everyone,

Many of you already know me or are familiar with the car but I thought I would do my best to share what has gone into our Camaro throughout the past year to take it from the car that was a basic driver with bolt on parts to the beast it is today.

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Just a quick note, for the most current information on our racing and the car make sure to follow me on instagram @jakerozelle and on Facebook! You can also check out my website: http://jakerozelle12.wix.com/jakerozelleracing

To start my name is Jake Rozelle, I grew up racing motorcycles off road in Southern California with my dad Roy and this year switched over to primarily competing in cars, focusing on the USCA series while also doing Goodguys and countless local autocrosses. My dad bought this 1969 Camaro RS for his 40th Birthday 10 years ago with the white paint and the black stripes already on it. I was only 10 years old at the time.

Throughout the first 9 years of ownership we did purely bolt on mods, outfitting the car with front Global West tubular control arms and their rear leaf springs. We also upgraded the brakes with c5 corvette components and my dad had a 536hp 400ci gm bow tie block small block built that found its way into the car. The car rode on American Racing hopster wheels with 245/18 front tires and 275/18 rear tires with Falken rubber. We began autocrossing the car like this and that is where it all started.

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After deciding to get more involved in driving, we turned to Cris at JCG Restorations and Customs. We put together a plan to simply mini tub the car and add the DSE four link which would allow us to run a 315 rear tire. Since new wheels were in order, we turned to Forgeline and ordered their GA3R three piece wheels in a brushed finish center with polished lips.

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Since the rear end was coming out we upgraded to a Ford 9 inch with a Speedway full floater system. My dad LOVES parking brakes, something Cris and I always joke about but it was important to him that this car has one so it does. To do so took a little creativity since we were using C6 Corvette Z06 brakes from Kore3. However with a little thinking from us, Cris, and Tobin at Kore 3 this car has an amazing stock-style parking brake and everyone is happy! The rear end is also equipped with a gear driven pump to an oil cooler for extended track sessions.

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At this point in the story is where things started getting a bit out of control. Cris is a darned good salesman and convinced my dad that adding The Detroit speed hydroformed subframe would be the ‘right’ way to build the car to make it ‘balanced.’ Of course he was right so out came the old and in with the new. He also smoothed the firewall while he was at it.

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I don’t think I mentioned it already but the car already had a tremec t56 magnum that had been installed a few years earlier.

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With the new wheels(Forgeline GA3R), wider tires front and rear (275/315) and the Detroit Speed Subframe and quadralink the Car went back together and was ready for its first test which is where I will leave it for tonight. I hope you all enjoyed it and I will continue to post more if there’s interest!

One last gratuitous completed pic:

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Welcome to the site Jake. I saw you in person at the Optima finals in Vegas, you can definitely drive that car!! :thumbsup::drive:

Cool build Jake, car does look like a beast in its current setup.

Welcome to Lateral-G Jake. 2014 was a great year for you. Looking forward to hearing more.

:captain:

Welcome to Lat-G Jake... Have followed along with your adventure from afar and yes...please keep sharing the details of the build of the Camaro and your plans for the new year.

Welcome Jke to Lateral-G, very cool write up so far!! And yes you will find lots of interest for sure!! :hello:

Agreed!! You were definitely a stand out! Great car!!

Welcome, Jake. Car looks good. Thanks for sharing the back story. I look forward to reading about your adventures.

Welcome to Lat-G Jake, it was a pleasure talking with you at OUSCI and watching you 'dirt track' that '69. :thumbsup:

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Great build up Jake, your lucky to have a supporting family. At 20 your doing pretty good with a long life ahead of you.

Beautiful car!

Are you running the kore3 Z06 brakes on four corners?

Nice work Jake she looks fantastic...

Looks great Jake, and for those of you who have not seen Jake drive yet, find a way to. The kid is an animal. He once beat me soundly in an old El Camino....

cool
 

Very nice!

Thanks for the warm welcome guys! This year was incredible and sharing it with you all will mostly likely be just as fun for me as I hope it is for you.

Sieg it was great meeting you at OUSCI, and everytime I think you're out of great pics from Vegas you turn up a few more! Very nice work, I hope to see you at more events this year.

Jr: yep Kore3 C6 Z06 brakes on all four corners. Tobin there is incredibly helpful and if you mention us he'll know what you're talking about and can hook you up with a similar set up.

Tom you are way too modest you are a darn good driver yourself! I'm sure I'll be seeing you at an autocross soon.

And Vince you hit the nail on the head, without my incredibly supportive family none of this would have been possible. I'm very greatful for them and will continue working hard to make the most out of this opportunity.

More progress pics coming soon!:hello:

Way to go Jake! Congrats on a great year and a bright future.

Well said Kid :thumbsup:

Keep the pedal down and nose into the wind and capitalize on your opportunities.

its all fun Jake! its why we do it

Hey Jake,

I wondered if you guys had any info on the car somewhere. I guess not until now.

Good seeing you and Roy around some of the events the last few months. I hope i can make it to a lot more this year and hopefully close the gap at least a little :)

very cool JCG can build a hell of a car. I came from riding bikes too, sadly my projects aren't track worthy yet but working on it.

Camaro's
 

Jake
Remember seeing you run at
the Laguna event this year. You were
Spinning it hard. I figured you would
qualify for Optima with your skills

Thanks for the write up and maybe we
will see you at Thunderhill in February

Love the 69 Camaro's but don't tell my Mopar buddies

Panteracer

Jake- from me & the crew @ JCG.. Thank you for allowing us to build you a very fast 69 Camaro! Seat time will in this car will only amaze people of of your driving abilities.. As Danny Popp stated in a conversation we had this week.. He most definitely has the " Cowboy" part down in his driving! :lol:

Roy- Jake is lucky to have such great support from a father like you! It reminds of the relationship I had with my dad.. Looking forward to the other project we will be working on soon!

Good stuff, definitely worth sharing!

Thanks again for all the positive feedback guys!

Picking up where I last left off….

Test #1 with the new suspension, wheels, tires, and brakes went incredibly well. The JCG crew have done their fair share of first gen camaros with DSE suspension and have considerable development on the Blu Balz ‘68. Utilizing this wealth of knowledge our car was pretty set up right off the bat, which was good because USCA Laguna Seca was less than a month from this first shakedown.

We tested at the Camarillo airport where you will see a lot of the California USCA crew practicing and that weekend I also met Danny Popp who gave me a few pointers. He also confirmed that I wasn’t a half bad driver. Phew!

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While the test went well what became painfully apparent was what the car was lacking most, motor. While the small block in the car made ample power, (540 HP/505 Lb/Ft) it was tired and was blowing smoke after thoroughly wringing its neck all weekend. It was obvious that an upgrade was going to be needed to get us through the season. With two weeks before our first event, USCA Laguna Seca, the decision was made to rip out the small block and replace it with a GM performance parts LS7.

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With input from Mr. Stielow, Cris decided to mount the stock Z06 dry sump tank from GMPP in between the radiator and the motor, very similar to a new Z/28. To do so the radiator had to move forward a little over an inch requiring modification to the core support. While this caused a little more work, it seemed to be the best option with our impending deadline and allowed us to keep our functional RS front end.

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We also chose to mount the computer on the passenger fender well for ease of access until we got the car sorted.

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JCG fabbed up a new fuel tank, fitted with Vaporworks goodies, and air intake.

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and just like that it was time for Laguna Seca! Cris finished the swap the night before the deadline and we picked it up on our way to Monterey the next morning, I can’t say enough about how the JCG crew has been able to crank out our projects under a time crunch.

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Also, photo credit goes to Casey C. and Cris from JCG for most of the pics in this batch, thanks guys!

With the first major batch of changes for the year complete, we now arrive at the car’s first event, USCA Laguna Seca. With such a crazy deadline the car had almost no break in miles when we picked it up from JCG while on the way to the event. I drove it for approximately 100 miles of the journey to get a feel for the new setup before pulling off the freeway and loading it in the trailer my dad was towing.

My dad was smiling on the inside, but we were all pretty nervous about how the car would perform.
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The car performed flawless all weekend aside from the minor issues like a couple minor leaks that popped up due to constant 7000 rpm abuse. Every little issue we had was quickly handled by my dad or Tony from Wilwood who both worked their butts off to get us the result we did.

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The road rally had some pretty incredible views:
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At the end of the event Mike Maier walked away with the win, followed by Danny Popp, and then yours truly in third, with there being hardly a gap between the three of us. To be competitive in a car with no previous testing against those two drivers was an honor and exceeded all expectations we had going into the event. Looking at the scores if we had taken the time to get our reverse lights working we might have even left with the win! No complaints for the first event though.

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That weekend was extra special for us because my grandfather was also able to join us for the trip and got to watch me drive on track for the first time.

After Laguna Seca we drove the car at every event possible, racking up wins at Goodguys Del Mar, the Pomona Street Machine Nationals, and more. Meanwhile, the car was getting a ton of street miles as well, including 600 miles of highway driving to and from the event during the weekend of the Goodguys Del Mar Nationals alone. With multiple track days and autocrosses per month, by the time USCA Fontana rolled around, we were ready. Throughout this time period while we focused on setup we also made some changes such as adding 4 point Schroth harnesses and Recaro seats which are some of my favorite additions to the car.

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USCA Fontana turned out to be one of the most fun weekends of my life, taking the win in the GT3K class after a great battle with friend and competitor Jordan Priestley from JDP. Leading up to the event we had dialed in our set up and I had run multiple events at the track in the camaro and my daily driver Mustang which allowed us to set the fastest lap of the day for our class in only our second session on the road course.

The car performed flawless all weekend and my dad, myself, and the JCG crew couldn’t have been happier.

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For more coverage of the event and some great shots of the car check out the article Chevy Hardcore did on the car, which was shot while the event was still being wrapped up!

http://www.chevyhardcore.com/feature...et-car-camaro/

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Following this event is when we tore the car apart one last time to get it ready for SEMA and OUSCI. That should all be covered in my next one or two posts!

Nice write up Jake! Keep'um coming.....

Hard to believe that event at Laguna was a year ago, i went in the Camaro, but it wasn't ready for the event....

great stuff Jake,

One stupid question, with the engine set back what radiator hoses did you use?

Thanks and hope to see you at the track.

Hi Vince,
The motor is still in the original DSE location, the radiator was just pushed forward a bit to make room for the dry sump tank.
The hoses are a custom mix that JCG made for our application, however with how little the radiator was actually moved it had little to no affect on what hoses we ran.

The first picture in your thread, the car is wearing different paint. It also looks like you have louvers in the hood? Any details you can share? Is it a factory steel hood or glass? Congrats on all the success!

Thanks!

That initial photo was the completed pic and my next update will cover the paint change, the whole new front end, etc. which was when we added the vents. My posts so far have been catching up to where we are now.

Our current hood that you're referring to is a full carbon hood from Anvil that JCG cut holes in for some vents that they fabbed up and epoxied in place.

I'm still compiling pics and will definitely include more photos of the hood and the vents in both the fabrication stage and completed in the next update.

Man you killed it this weekend. First time at Thunderhill?

Jake - Congratulations! :thumbsup:

I was very impressed with your performance, both on track and in the pits, you're much more than just a talented driver. Job well done. :cheers:

Props for some amazing driving and lap times. Never did I ever think I would see a '69 Camaro run sub 2:00 lap times on 200 tread wear tires at T-Hill. Hopefully you have inspired others to continue to run vintage iron in these events. :thumbsup:

Jakes run
 

Jake,
Great runs this weekend. Having fun and winning
you cannot beat that

I actually saw your car going slow this weekend
because I was following you on the tour and watching
the Chp going by us:)

Panteracer... Blue Firebird Trans Am this weekend

Thanks everybody! Pretty incredible weekend for us and yes it was my first time at Thunderhill. To run a 1:58 on my last session was pretty exciting and with guys out there like Mike Maier and myself I think we definitely proved that these old cars have some serious speed in them. :D I loved that track too.

Bob your car looked so good on that road rally I was watching it the whole time!:thumbsup: I kept expecting some of you guys to pass me since I was driving so slow to keep from getting pulled over, too perfect that CHP passed us going the other way.

Jake, that is seriously impressive, congrats!!!

Was fun as hell watching Jake!! The dude can wheel!!


Yipppeeeee for old iron and some new blood!

+1! Jake job well done. 1:58... Nice time: ) Your in car video was loads of fun too!

Regards

CurtiSS 69

One area of Jake's car I really like is suspension travel and weight transfer, many on the forum should take note that fast doesn't require limiting travel and using massive springs and bars, especially on a street car. I'm guessing his setup with a few clicks of compression taken out of the shocks is pretty compliant on the street.

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