1968 Camaro Build - Third time's the charm
 

Hi everyone - I've spent quite a bit of time over the years following the awesome build threads on Lateral-G. Now, I can hopefully contribute a little bit. I'm a rookie build thread writer so please bear with me!

I've owned this 1968 Camaro for 27 years. When I first bought it, we did a very low budget build to get it on the road. Drove it like that for 10 years, and then had finally saved enough money to repair all of the rust and do proper body work. Well, the car had way more rust than anticipated and I spent considerably more to get there body back in shape than I had wanted to spend, but I wanted it done right. Unfortunately, that meant that I had to make sacrifices on the performance side of things.

Finally, after it looking pretty for 17 years but not really being that fun to drive I get to Step up the performance a bit!!

I've decided to completly rework the suspension and drivetrain as follows:

complete Speed tech Extreme sub frame kit
Speed tech Torque arm rear suspension
Full floating 9" rear axle
GM performance parts LT4 crate motor
T56 manual transmission
Stainless steel headers for LT4
Stainless steel Ricks vapor works fuel tank
DSE mini tubs and speed tech fiberglass inner wells in front.
Forge line RBC3 wheels
Vintage air HVAC system
PRC radiator
Stop tech 6 piston 14" rotors all around
Ron Sutton valved coil overs with Draco springs

Here's how she started the day
Attachment 64007

Attachment 64006


By this evening I had the interior out and all the fluids drained.

Attachment 64005


My plan is to get everything dismantled this week before having to head back to work next week. Tons of parts are showing up to the house daily, and the engine/transmission is being delivered Thursday!

Roger and Ben over at Speedtech have been super helpful and great to work with while I was trying to figure out the direction to take this build. I'll be taking a road trip to their shop in Utah in the coming weeks to pick up the chassis.

And Ben will be drawing a rendering in the coming weeks so I can show you guys the vision for the car.

The Speedtech guys have been keeping my UPS guy super busy...

Attachment 64004

I'm going to need a lot of luck and help from my friends to get this car back on the road. Hope you guys enjoy!

Chris

Subscribed! Keep the updates and progress photos coming.

Subscribed, great list of suppliers, looking fwd to progress ......links to attachments don't work for me.

Thanks for the heads up on the attachments, I was struggling with that s bit. I'll learn how to correct it and get more pictures posted ASAP.

I'm in for the ride on this one too.

SpeedTech+Hackster+Sutton...fugetaboutit!

Looking forward to watching this come together.
:flag2: :thumbsup:

That's an awesome build plan and I love the Forge line RBC3 wheels!

This will be a fun one to watch for sure.

:captain:

It seems like I spent forever in the shop today with not much to show for my effort. I did manage to finish getting all the fluids drained, all fuel, coolant, power steering, and brake lines removed. Also got the exhaust taken off and started on the front sheet metal.

tomorrow should be a big day. my son and I will remove the front sheet metal and if all goes well, we will drop the old sub frame out along with the engine and tranny.

here's a few pics of today's action:

I have a lot more to show for my work today than yesterday! We were able to get the old drivetrain out of the car and all sheet metal removed. It was kind of sad taking all that stuff apart that we spent so much time building back in the day, but it will be worth it...

Also, Santa Clause showed up with the new engine and transmission. YES!

Tomorrow will be spent cleaning up the shop and organizing things a little bit. It's an absolute disaster at the moment.

I love the project, and What a sweet drive train!! Awesome garage too.

Thanks Wayne, I appreciate the encouragement! We have a long ways to go with this one...

Chris

Wow, nice build. You're moving along quickly so far. :thumbsup:

Daniel

Nice looking car, lots of good parts lined up, looks like you had some good stuff on there in the old build,

Chris this is going to be a fun project.I like the LT-4 choice as well...I'll be following this build for sure seeing as I'm just North of you.

Dave

Thanks Daniel!

Unfortunately things will slow down considerably when I go back to my day job next week.

Working on clearing everything off the firewall today in preparation to smooth it.

Chris

Thank you Steve! I do have some nice parts coming off the car. The engine/transmission will be going into my 1968 C10. I'll be selling everything else..

[QUOTE=Dave Pratt;670958]Chris this is going to be a fun project.I like the LT-4 choice as well...I'll be following this build for sure seeing as I'm just North of you.

Thanks Dave, appreciate you following my mayhem!

I should have more pics posted up this evening..

Another day in the shop and finally the dismantling project is mostly complete. Thank goodness, four days in a row of taking a car apart and I'm wiped out...

The Ridetech dampers showed up today, and I got a kick out of Ron Sutton's sticker on the outside of the box. It's so true, I've been super anxious to see these things. They look amazing.

next on the agenda is to tackle the DSE mini tubs and the Speedtech firewall smooth kit. I have the tubs, so that'll be first.

I'll be taking a road trip to Utah as soon as the Speedtech parts are built to pick them all up. I'm excited to meet Ben and Roger and see their shop.

Lucy, my shop Labrador, is a little bewildered why I've been spending so much time in the shop this week. If she only knew....

Ugh, back to work today so the Camaro progress is going to slow down considerably. My hope is to start the mini tub installation next weekend. I've never tackled installation of them before, so it'll be a new adventure for me. Here they are sitting and waiting to go..

Attachment 64103

Also, I've been thinking a lot about safety and what kind of trouble I'm going to be able to get into with an LT4 in this car. Specifically, do I install a roll bar or not. After a ton of reading and learning from Ron Sutton's post on roll bars, I decided to pull the trigger today on a Chassisworks pro touring roll bar with removable side bars. I plan to take the car out on the track, but not enough to warrant a full cage. I hope...

From a chassis stiffness perspective I think it should be much better than stock with a 6 point roll bar, Speedtech weld in subframe connectors, and downbars from the firewall to front subframe. If anyone has run a similar configuration in an f-body and wouldn't mind sharing their experience with their car I'd love to hear your thoughts!

Thanks again for following along!

Chris

Hey guys - I had a chance to work on the DSE mini tubs today. It's a slow go for a guy with no sheetmetal experience but I'm learning...

I got the drivers side factory tub removed and everything cut out in preparation for the new tub. One suprise I found was a ton of sand in the rocker from when I had the car sandblasted 17 years ago. Not sure I'll every have a car sandblasted again after seeing that. Also got ride of an old shock cross member that was installed back in the day that won't be needed any longer. Oh yeah, I also learned that 17 year old Dyna mat is a royal PITA to remove!

Nice! Keep at it. Car is going to be awesome.

:thumbsup: :thumbsup:

Looking good.

Thanks guys, appreciate the encouragement!

GREAT progress!!!!

on a side note. your dog and mine are twins!!! when i saw the pic i had to do a double take, only mine is older now!

Thanks Blake! That's funny about the dogs!

I spoke with Roger yesterday, I'll be headed down to pay you guys a visit and pick up my subframe sometime in February. Can't wait!

Chris

Damn, it's been almost a year since I posted any progress on this thread. Too many other hobbies, kids, and car wrecks have gotten in the way of good progress. But, the car hasn't been ignored completely and hopefully I've got a clean slate for a while to make some significant progress on this thing.

Since my last post, Wheel tubs, roll cage, sub-frame connectors, and smooth firewall kit are all installed. With the exception of Hackster bailing my rookie #$% out of couple of times i completed the work myself. It took forever, and my body/paint guy has a bunch of body work to do now. but at least that's behind me.

here's a few pics of the year's progress:

And, more pics...

I must say the Speedtech products have been a dream to work with. everything fits great, instructions are awesome, and quality is top notch.

I've taken a little time off work over the holidays to spend in the shop. Here's the damage I've caused this past week!

With the car finally a roller again, I'm now trying to figure out how to mount the radiator, condenser, supercharger heat exchanger, air to oil cooler, and PS cooler.

A Few more pics...

And to make things more exciting my Fesler door panels showed up today along with a bunch more parts.

Finally, some progress...

Man, you weren't kidding about getting fired up! Nice progress on an already great looking car...keep the updates coming!

Thanks Shane, it’s pretty incredible how similar our two cars are. If I can stay focused on this hopefully she’ll be running and driving by next summer.

NICE - this project is Badass.

I just added a Speedtech Torque arm to my build. Can't wait to drive it.

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Looking Sharp!!

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Thank you! the Torque arm setup is pretty awesome. takes a little bit of work to make everything fit, but once I figured out it went very smoothly.



appreciate it, been spending of long hours on this thing the last week or so.

I had the luxury of spending another long day in the shop today and made some good progress.


Was able to get the fenders back on the car in order to mock up the Speedtech fiberglass inner fender wells. installation was straightforward enough but the factory mounts on the firewall must be trimmed in order to get them to fit. No going back now! These things add a significant amount of room for the 315 tires. I haven't adjusted ride height or tried turning the wheels yet but I don't see any obvious signs of it being an issue as there is a lot of room in there.


Also mocked up the radiator, A/C condenser, and heat exchanger for the supercharger today. Not sure yet how I'm going to plumb up the condenser as I will need to relocate the filter/drier so none of the Vintage air pre-bent tubing will work. Has anyone done something similar? I'll probably locate the filter/drier between the headlight bucket and the heat exchanger.


Now that this complete I was able to figure out dimensions for the oil cooler and PS cooler. those are going to stack on top (above) the supercharger heat exchanger. I'm a little worried about airflow through all of these before air gets to the radiator but going to move forward with it and see how it goes.


pics of todays work....

Awesome progress, I've been waiting for this to unfold. I'm ready to start a similar project.
I'm pretty set on a roadster shop ft chassis and curious about the speedtech but don't know much about the torque arm setup.
I drove an LT4 vette earlier this fall and the low end torque is incredible. I'm interested in see what you do to get hood clearance.
I hate to be the guy that asks where you purchased this or that, but the roll bar is interesting and I haven't seen it before.
Thanks Dave

Thanks for the compliments Dave! It feels good to finally be moving forward on the car again. I was on the fence about a RS full chassis and the Speedtech products as well. They both seem to be amazing companies that build super nice products. What ultimately pushed me in the direction of Speedtech was the impressive number of Pro Touring Camaros they’ve done and the proven handling characteristics they’ve been able to achieve. That said, I think RS is great, but it seems like Speedtech has a bit more documented “proof” of performance on the race track. This car will see mostly street driving, but hopefully will be on the track as well.

I’ve got a cowl hood on the car now, but I have no idea yet if it will fit. Time will tell...

I purchased the roll bar kit from Chris Alston’s chassisworks but did make a few tweaks to it during the install. The largest one was we fabricated a different harness bar with an offset to the rear of the car to allow for better rearward seat travel. We also used different tubing connections to make the bar removable which provided bit of a cleaner look that what comes in the kit. They are manufactured by Trail Gear. We also installed “kickers” That connect the main hoop just below the harness bar on each side and connect to the weld in subframe connectors to hopefully provide some extra stiffness and some triangulation for the main hoop. The last thing to figure out are the door bars. I’m waiting on my new Recaro seats to show up so we can do a mock up with them and the Fesler door panels to see of everything will fit together. If it does, then I’ll be installing door bars as well. Still on the fence about putting a rear seat back in the car....

Chris

Thanks Chris, you might take a look at roadster shops site, under current builds, "Don's 68 Camaro" they modified a cowl hood for an LT4 with the large lid. It may give you some ideas

Thanks Dave, it's been a while since I've been on their site, I'll check it out!


I was able to spend a little time in the shop today to finish up the raised transmission tunnel modification and mock up the vintage air evaporator.


Headed back to the office tomorrow, so unfortunately my couple of weeks in the shop came to an end tonight. Back to working on the car on weekends only...

The only real progress on the car this weekend was that I met with my buddy Aaron who owns Southbound Customs, a auto body restoration shop in Oregon. We walked through the car and built our plan for body work. As most custom car builders are, he’s super busy with current projects but we settled on having the car into his shop to begin body work the 2nd week of April. So, I need to crank on this thing the next couple of months to get all of the mock-up complete and disassembled to be ready for him. Gonna be fun!

I did manage to find locations for the supercharger coolant tank and pump assembly. Also found a perfect location for the LT4 ECU and engine harness fuse box up underneath the dash above the vintage air evaporator. That’s a huge win as I was worried sick that there wasn’t enough room under the dash for them.

Here’s a couple picks of the coolant tank and pump locations. The pump fits great behind the passenger side headlight bucket.