1968 Camaro Build - Third time's the charm

[CMillwheels]

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....

[colorado80439]

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

[CMillwheels]

Originally Posted by colorado80439

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

[colorado80439]

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

[CMillwheels]

Originally Posted by colorado80439

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...

[CMillwheels]

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.

[jasonz28camaro]

Sweet looking build, keep up the good work!

Please post some photos of the ECM mounted once its installed. I'm looking for some good ideas to steal for my car haha. I'll also need to find a hiding spot for TCM but you get to skip that part.

[srode1]

Originally Posted by CMillwheels

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....

I know this is a couple year old thread, but curious what you ended up doing for relocation of the DS knock sensor with the headers. I'm debating what route to go with that on mine right now with the same subframe, headers and an LT5

[CMillwheels]

Originally Posted by srode1

I know this is a couple year old thread, but curious what you ended up doing for relocation of the DS knock sensor with the headers. I'm debating what route to go with that on mine right now with the same subframe, headers and an LT5

It’s funny you ask the question…. This car has been sitting on ice the last couple years while I was completing a C10 build, and a couple of Jeep wranglers for my boys. Finally able to get back to the Camaro.

I don’t believe I had to make any modifications for the drivers side knock sensor to fit under the header. It’s a tight fit, but it works. I installed a significant amount of heat shield on all of the wiring for the knock sensors and the starter. All of this wiring is very close to the headers. I can try to take some pics of the area when I have the car back up on my lift if you’d like to see a visual.

[srode1]

Originally Posted by CMillwheels

I can try to take some pics of the area when I have the car back up on my lift if you’d like to see a visual.

That would be great. There must be something different in the headers, although I did hang mine without a gasket just to check, but it had 1 tube touching the knock sensor bolt. Looked to me like the tube could have been routed a bit different improve clearance, but perhaps it would have changed the length too much.