Vorshlag Build Thread - 69 Camaro Pro Touring/Track Car

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The folks at G-Force admitted that this early GF-5R model trans had some wonky shift cam issues, and while they never admitted fault, they did have an upgrade kit of about $535 in parts ready to fix this issue. That was ordered in late April 2020 and arrived within days, and we didn't mark it up one penny. The upgrade parts they strongly suggested included the 1-2 and 3-4 shift cams (one of which is what broke), the 5th-Reverse shift cam, and an updated 5th-Reverse shift fork.

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That meant that in May of 2020 we had to crack open a new transmission we didn't supply and completely tear it down to fix it. Luckily these straight cut gear race boxes are made to be serviced quickly and easily.

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It kind of sucked to have to tear into a new transmission that had zero miles on it, but I get their point - at what time frame does an old part no longer have any "warranty period". In the case of most race parts, it is on day zero. While the revised shift cam is much thicker and should provide years of hard use, it should not have sheared off.

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The upgraded 5-reverse shift fork was also visibly thicker, and stronger. After getting all of these shift cams and forks in place it was time to put the main and intermediate shaft and gear stacks back in.

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Myles helped Evan get everything lined up and the stacks were reinstalled. Once everything checked out the split case was reassembled with the correct gasket sealant between them, then bolted up.

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It took a little file fitting to make the shift arms fit the new, thicker shift cams' shafts, but that was worked out and the arms were clocked and bolted down.

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Once the transmission was back in, fresh Motul 75W140 went back into this box and we were almost ready for test drives. Frustrating to have to fix something new that shouldn't have broken, but the revised parts have proven effective on the test drives I have made since.

WEIGHT CHECK MAY 2020

A quick weight check - and yes, these are almost meaningless. This was with a running car and all fluids, but no doors or door bars, no seats and much of the front aero removed. It kept gaining weight, but this was a "feel good" picture opportunity.

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MCS SHOCKS DESIGNED AND ORDERED

It was apparent that the RideTech dampers ordered years before this car came to our shop, where we made major changes to the ride heights and mounting, that the dampers needed to be replaced with something of a special length and travel.

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We convinced the customer to let us - a shock design shop - order a custom set of MCS remote triples made for this exact custom car. Jason took a bunch of measurements in April of 2020 and made two drawings for MCS to go by for body length and stroke as well as the end types already on the car. The rear is an "eye to eye" shock and the front is an "eye to T-bar", since the front suspension is all C6 Corvette.

TRUNK INSTALLATION AND "SLOTS"

This is one of my least favorite details of this entire build - the rear wing uprights. They are mounted at the rear frame rail, which makes them very sturdy, but there was an argument I lost on getting them through the trunk.

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The customer provided a rare aluminum OEM style rear trunk lid, but it had not been installed since the rear wing uprights were installed. And it couldn't be, because those items occupied the same space.



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Now I was in favor of a trunk mounted wing upright with separate bracing underneath to the frame, which would allow the trunk to swing up with the wing attached, like we have done many times - see these two cars below:

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The customer didn't want to pursue that design, so now we had to make the trunk and frame-mounted uprights fit together. Many suggestions were discussed but nothing elegant came up. It was time to hack two giant slots in the trunk, and the customer was on board.

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There was no rear trunk latch anymore and that part of the trunk had been cut out. The uprights were installed and so was the trunk, and it was time to mark where the slots would be...

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As you can see this was an iterative process, with the trunk swung down, the slots extended, and on and on. Care was taken to keep the slots as tight as possible, to prevent a giant gash from appearing once the trunk was able to be closed fully.

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Evan did an admirable job here, sneaking up on the cut until the trunk closed. But this isn't a laser perfect set of uprights - they are very square to the centerline of the chassis but not so precise that they don't require a little margin for error. So the slots grew in width more than I had hoped, and we had some work cut out for ourselves to cover up this pair of slots - on the now weakened trunk lid, which had no latch. We solved it in 2022...

INSTALL CUSTOM BUILT MCS RR3 TRIPLES

The dampers that Jason designed arrived in mid June 2020 and they looked really good. He had ordered up some Hyperco springs for this car in 700 lb-in front and 450 lb-in rear spring rates. These were photographed then Evan got down to the install .

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The remote reservoirs give additional travel and a more substantial compression curve, with both low and high speed compression adjustment.

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The front shocks mount at the bottom like any C6 Corvette damper, with the "T-bar" lower mount that attaches to the lower arm. The "eye" upper installed to a mount on the frame we had added before and built towards. The reservoirs are mounted under the hood - I will show more of that in a later write up.

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The "eye to eye" rears mount to brackets at the rear axle (bottom) and chassis (top) with bushings and bolts on the spherical ends. The reservoirs were very temporarily mounted to the Watts Link lateral arms, but the car was never driven like this. I will show those reservoir mounts in a later post as well.

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Even got the wheels back on and set ride heights, with input from engineer Jason. This was the last task he tackled on this '69 Camaro before he left to start his own business in September of 2020. We still work with Evan on projects even today and wish him the best!

WHAT'S NEXT?

I wrote for the better part of a day and only got us through June 2020, dang! We still have a lot of work to cover to catch us up to "it runs and drives and is ready for dyno!" Next time I will cover several big tasks that took both heavy fab and some engineering wizardry to complete.

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Also, the first of two Racetech front seats was also mounted - you can see that I'm sitting where the back seat would normally be! That's the driver setback that we designed in from the beginning, which allowed for so much engine setback.

Tune in next time for more on this build!

[camcojb]

Thanks for the update Terry!! VERY nice work.

[syborg tt]

This is such and incredible build and I can't wait to see more updates

[CHJNCSU]

Amazing build and car!