Quick Change Camaro at LS Fest West

[Ben@SpeedTech]

Once the old was out, replacing the front suspension with Speedtech's tubular control arms and sway bar was fairly easy and straight forward. While in there we replaced all steering linkage and added a set of Baer 6 piston 14" brakes and BFG Rival S 245mm tires on Forgeline wheels. Out back the work was a little more involved, including about 30 minutes of fitting and welding in the rear crossmember that strengthens the rear frame rails and provides the Panhard Bar and Coilover Shock mounts. From there the Speedtech exclusive Articulink lower trailing arms were fitted into the leaf spring pockets. Next up was assembling the Torque Arm center link onto the Dutchman built 9" Ford axle and the complete assembly was bolted into the car. Finally the panhard bar and rear Viking Coilovers were bolted in and the outer ends finished off with matching Baer rear brakes. The car's existing dual exhaust required some slight modification to clear the center link and Ryan knocked that out with his 110 Volt Hobart welder plugged into the semi's generator. Just as the event was shutting down at 7:30 pm the rear 315mm BFG tires on Forgeline wheels were bolted on and everything was given a double visual check over. In just about 8 hours two guys with hand tools and a basic welder in a home garage type setting completely transformed the entire car.

[Ben@SpeedTech]

Saturday morning consisted of final setting of the ride height and cross weight on our race scales, a guess base setting on shock valving and then a wheel alignment with our trackside alignment kit.The car was ready to roll and was taken for a quick drive around the Las Vegas Motor Speedway grounds to bed in the new brake pads and then we went directly to the autocross grid to await our turn.



Right out of the box the car turned a mid 35 second time, and over a few runs and simple between run shock dial adjustments the car saw a best of 35.08, a near full 4.5 second reduction! We felt we could have easily continued runs and broken into the 34s, but at 35.08 we decided to stop there to try to win the event award for the lap time closest to 35.00 seconds. That drop in lap time was pretty significant on a half a minute course, and we ended up less than 3 seconds behind the event winning race prepped suspension 1100+ hp Camaro.



In the end we feel we've proven that even our entry level, essentially all bolt in suspension systems on a stock subframed Camaro or Nova with even a stock pull out used LS1 powering it can turn a classic car with poor old school handling into a very competitive street and track car, it can be installed at home in as little as 8 hours, and it can be done at a cost that fits most any working man's budget. Click here for a few more pics

[extralight]

Wow, that is incredibly impressive. What were the tire sizes, before and after on the rears?

[Ben@SpeedTech]

Scott said his old tires were 225-50-17 all around, and the new combo was 245s and 315s on 18" wheels. Scott had already had the car mini tubbed before before meeting up with us, something typically required to get much bigger than a 275 under the car.