1969 Speedtech Equipped Pro Touring Camaro
 

Been working on my 1969 Camaro in my two car garage for several years now. I bought this Camaro in Kansas about 5 years ago. Even though it was from Kansas this was one of the most rust free 1st Gen Camaro's I have ever seen. It had belonged to the same family since 1975 and it truly was kept in a barn.

With that being said, I have replaced nearly every panel on the car. It has a new full one piece floor pan, full trunk floor, both full quarter panels, custom firewall, new roof skin, tail panel, drop offs and rockers.

The reason everything needed to be replaced was so cool, I couldn't be to upset about it. As the owner described, "it was the early 80's, we lived on an 800 acre ranch with a natural creek running through it, a 1969 Camaro wasn't worth ****, me and my two brothers were teen agers and the Dukes of Hazard was the best show on TV"

I have dozens upon dozens of pictures of the tear down, and the bracing of the body on a jig replacing the panels, rust proofing etc. But we've all seen those type of pictures hundreds of time. I thought I would show some pics of some of the cooler things that were done. First was the process of how I got the perfect fitting rear spolier.

Fitting the rear spoiler Step One:

First, get yourself a friend who is a badass metal fabricator and have him make you a rear spoiler with the same shape and dimensions as the stock spoiler. Don't forget to notch the center.

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Fitting the rear spoiler Step Two:

Fit the spoiler on the car and decide you don't like because the ends above the quarter panels sit up too high.

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Fitting the rear spoler Step Three:

Mark the top of the quarter panels with an outline of where the spoiler lands when the trunk is closed. Cut out the marked area, recess it down about 3/32's of an inch and weld it back in place.

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Fitting the rear spoiler Step Four:

Find yourself an extra set of billet hood adjusters you have laying around along with some steel tubing you also have laying around. Cut tubing to proper size, weld in a nut and recess them into the tail panel. Insert hood adjusters and make sure your trunk closes the same every time.

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Fitting the rear spoiler Step Five:

Re-intall trunk lid. Hammer and dolly the ends of the spoiler to match the contour of the quarter panels. Add metal or trim metal where needed for perftect gaps.

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Fitting the rear spoiler Step 6:

Move on to the front spoiler, give your same badass friend the crappy original and tell him to duplicate it in metal. Then tell him to notch the center and make it look like the front and rear spoilers belong together.

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Nice fab work...

Thanks! Your build is pretty amazing, I have followed it since the begining. I am running the same firewall as you. I did modify it slightly because I am running the Wilwood pedals with the triple master cylinders. Here are some random pics of the install.

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Nice build Greg!!

Opened up the stock lower valance for better cooling. The sides will allow air to the front brake ducts and the center will get air to the oil and power steering coolers. Wanted to leave the parking light/turn signals in the same location as stock so we just cut around them.

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I knew I wanted to run some yellow fog lights in the location of the original parking light/turn signals but I wasn't sure how I was going to do it. I ordered a set of yellow fog lights for a stock Jeep Wrangler. The original opening for the lights was about a 1/2 larger than the Jeep lights. Wasn't sure of the best way to close this gap so I bought a set of 5 inch into 4 1/2 diesel exhaust pipe transitions and grafted them into place. Then fabbed some mounting tabs to attach the fog lights and keep them adjustable.

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Now that I was running fog lights, I need a new place for turn signals. I sketched out an idea for some one-off billet housings which would hold a switch back turn signal/DRL. I sent them to Jonathon at Sparc Industries and he machined up a set of lights that "float" in the center of the brake duct openings.

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It's a little bit hard to see, but if you look at that last picture of the front end you will see that the bumper "fangs" that normally highlight the license plate area have been moved outward and now highlight the foglight area. We used three bumpers to make the one on the car now.

Here is a few random pics of some work on the front bumper.

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Thanks for the compliment. Nice work on the front valance and bumper. I used 2 bumpers on mine and got rid of the fangs on mine.

Beautiful build Greg !!
So whats the drivetrain of choice for this bad ass machine ??

Cheers
Steve

I really like what you've done with the front end. Keep this pics coming.

great craftsmanship, that front end will look great when finished

I was originally going to get rid of the "fangs" also. I do love the smooth look. In the end I just decided to move them outward because I wanted something different. As you know it is so difficult to do somethnig on a 69 Camaro that hasn't been done before.

Great vision and execution!

Don

Thanks for the compliment! The engine is most likely going to be a LS7 427 wet sump. Hopefully built from Texas Speed or Late Model Engines. However my life might dictate that it could be just the GM crate LS7. I have a brand new T56 Magnum sitting in the garage and right next to that is a fully assembled full floater rear end built by Speedtech.

The rear end is the Speedtech Extreme 9 with full floater axles. It has a Strange HD Pro aluminum case with an Eaton Trutrac, Strange chromoly yoke, Dutchman axles, C7 hubs and REM polished gears. Gears are US Gear Lightning series. It also has additional bungs welded in for an external cooler if ever needed.

Nice build thread going, love to see all the fab work. Nice job!

Thanks guys! When I started the build, I was brain storming with a friend about the vision for this car. I do love all the full on pro touring builds with the front and rear splitters and the highly modified interiors but in the end I wanted a very capable pro touring auto cross car with a classic look and feel. I like to refer to it as "Pro-Classic". I wanted the front and rear spoilers to have the same shape and dimensions as the original. I am keeping the stock louvers on the quarter panels. I still like the look the of the chrome rocker moldings, although mine have been slightly modified and are fully CNC machined.

I am keeping all of the stainless window trim. The dash has been modified to accept the Holley 12.3 Pro Dash but it still has the look and feel of the original dash. Same with the center console. I want a modern pro touring beast, but I want to feel like I'm in a 69 Camaro, if that makes any sense.

Speaking of my CNC machined rocker moldings, here is how that vision started. I follow most of the Roadster Shop builds, especially first gen Camaro's. The recent build for Joe Rogan had some amazing hand fabricated rocker moldings. I kind of put it in the back of my mind that I may be able to do something very similiar but with my own twist like putting a notch down the center that matches the notches on my front and rear spoilers. Anyway, a few months later I took apart my ashtray to modify it so I could put some Holley Dominater goodies inside.

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Part of the ash tray had this little angled hinge thingy that looked like the perfect shape of the rocker molding that I wanted. I taped that piece on the car and liked the look and shape. I sent it to Vince at Mean Streets Performance and he bent me a full piece rocker molding with same shape. I taped that piece on the car, angle cut the ends and made some sharpie markings of where I wanted the notch centered on the door. Sent that piece to TJ of Atomic Machine in Nebraska and he machined some badass rocker moldings for me that now match my spoilers.

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Here are some hood louvers from Frank with Gray Area Steel Co. Amazing hand fabricated hood louvers with a perfect fit and finish.

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Some underhood work, filling in some holes and the porsche/VW hood latch modifications.

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Modified the headlight buckets to accept some JW Speaker LED headlights and still allow the doors to close.

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Made a new core support hood latch from scratch. This allows me to mount the external oil cooler and power steering cooler centered in the grill opening. I needed to be able to mount the Porsche/VW hood latch and most importantly, my OCD would not allow me to have a bracket that was offset and not centered in the grill opening.

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Here is some work that went into installing the Porsche/VW hood latch.

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Here is the closeout panel we made to hide everything. This is a drop in removeable panel. There is a lip on the back side which drops down over the stock core support to allow it to sit in place. Once it is in, it really doesn't move at all. However it is held in place with the bolts that hold the billet fender braces. This piece will be body worked and painted the same satin black as the engine bay.

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Here are the rear bumper mods. Pretty much typical of what everyone does now. Modify the brackets and pull it in closer to the body. Cut off the ends and tuck them closer and shave the bolts for a smooth look. Although I can appreciate the amount of work, I am not a big fan of notching the quarter panels with a pocket to bring the sides of the bumper in. I like the classic look so I just contoured them a little better to the body and thinned out the bulky ends a little bit.

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I did want to keep the original bumperettes (Pro-Classic), so I modified the the mounting brackets and the angle where the meet the bumper. The originals just sat out too far.

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This picture shows the difference after some slight mods. The driver side is now much closer to the body and has been contoured to the shape of the lower panel. The passenger side has not been modified yet.

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Here is what it looked like when I was done.

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In an earlier post I mentioned I am trying to keep the interior very close to classic with a few modern touches like adding the Holley 12.3 Pro Dash. I also wanted the two center A/C ducts to appear similiar to original but I can't stand the poor fitment into the dash pad. I fabricated a steel pocket and welded it to the dash. I used some stamped recessed panels from Holohans Hot Rods to install the Vintage Air rectangle vents. I cut the crap out of DSE steel dash insert and modified it to my liking. Some custom CNC and carbon fiber work and I now had a matching bezel for my Holley dash and the passenger side dash plaque and grab handle.

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Since the dash had been modified, I needed a custom dash pad. Again trying to keep with somewhat of a classic look. We hand fabricated a dash pad base out of steel and made it attach the exact same as the original pad. Then we made a giant mess with some expanding foam and started to carve out something close to original.

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I sent the newly fabricated dash pad to Tony Stitches in Washington and this is what he sent me back.

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He also covered my Shop LLC kick panels.

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Rear seate delete. This will house the battery, amps and some other electronic goodies. I raised the floor and the sides of the tunnel to help tuck the 3 inch exhaust and Borla mufflers. I made the muffler pockets extra tall so I can also add some heat sheilds to the mufflers as well. Help keep heat out of the electronics area. That piece in the center with over 100 small bow ties cut into is the speaker grill for the 10 inch subwoofer. 1/8 thick aluminum that was laser cut. There is matching laser cut grilles for the speakers in the package tray also. The bow ties are even smaller.

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DSE spring pocket reinforcements.

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Aerial view of the rear package tray. The ill fitment of the laser cut speaker grill has already been addressed.

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Greg, you've been holding out on us, I see. Nonetheless, thanks for all of the great pics. At the behest of my builder, I just brought my rear bumper in closer to the body as well and didn't notch or cut into the quarter panel...he made a good call and I love the look. Keep the updates coming.

Random trunk pics. This a CNC machined billet fuel tank access panel. It came for Billy Utley at B&B Classics.

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The rectangle plates are reinforcement plates for the crossmember of the Speedtech torque arm.

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We later welded the roll cage to the Speedtech reinforcement plates.

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And a few more shots

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