Vorshlag Build Thread - 69 Camaro Pro Touring/Track Car

[Fair]

Originally Posted by preston

Looking good.

Still a lot of weight to add to that car, I wouldn't be worrying about the F/R distribution yet. Are you adding door bars to the cage ? I assume you are I think I remember reading that. So what types of doors ? Fiberglass or stripped out steel ?

Yes, the door bars have been built but we are adding them pretty late in the build - they make it harder to work inside.



The car will also get gutted fiberglass doors, which are also already on hand,



The doors were mocked up early on, and fit well, we just didn't have the door hinges back then so they were taped on for fitment checks.



We have the hinges here. Ryan is back working on the Camaro tomorrow so I might get him to mount the doors - would be nice seeing those installed and functional.

[WSSix]

Fantastic update as always, Terry. The car looks fantastic. I appreciate the detail pictures and explanations.

[Fair]

Project Update for October 20th, 2017: Yes, it has been several months since my last installment in this build thread, but Ryan in our shop has been cranking through the work on the 69 Camaro - when he wasn't buried on another project. Again, I have him tasked to about 1 week out of every 4 on this car, so its drawing out the timeline, but its what we agreed with the owner to do a while ago. The image below is a preview of another round of work beyond this update.



This time we are showing work on a number of systems: transmission tunnel, interior panels, the front upper tubing structure and fender mounts, engine bay cross brace, radiator hoses were built, hood modification/mounting/hinges, AeroCatch hood latches, upper and lower radiator duct boxes + hood opening, and twin oil cooler ducting was built. Whew! Lots of pictures and details shared along every stop of the way.



We did drop coverage of this build on another forum, which had withered and died a while ago - a real shame. We're not giving up on forums, however - and I want to take a minute to shout out to the readers on Lateral-G forums. This a large, active Pro Touring forum that is one of the last big, car forums out there. It has great traffic with some great builds shown within. We also get great feedback from the members there. Thanks!

MORE TRANSMISSION TUNNEL WORK

Last time we showed most of the transmission tunnel structure built and most of the aluminum panels installed, but there were still some work to go (see below left).



The missing panel (which will cover the external linkages on the G-Force trans) was mocked-up in cardboard, transferred to aluminum, then taped together before welding. The funky shape of this vertical panel clears the exhaust and external shift linkages and levers while leaving as much room for the driver's legs as possible.



The upper panel of the tunnel was trimmed for the shifter opening and the driver's side panel was tack welded together. We will soon add a Joe's Racing Nomex shift boot and lower mounting frame to the tunnel, sealing the opening from the interior with a fire-proof, thermally insulated boot.



The interior was readied and the seat installed for a fitting with the customer when he came into town. The Racetech 4119 seat positioning was marked with respect to the steering column angle, steering wheel placement, shifter layout and pedal locations that fit the driver. As we have said before, the driver's seat is pushed back by over a foot, and the pedals, shifter, and steering column are all adjusted for this rear biased position.

ENGINE BAY CROSS BRACE + FRONT TUBING/FENDER BRACES

Last time we showed the structure ahead of the firewall there were several "missing links". There were a number of tubes and struts needed to help mount the front sheet metal. These are smaller diameter, weaker structures made to "fail first" in a front impact. This is common on GT style tube framed cars - make these front structures smaller than the main cage, to allow for energy absorption and pre-determined failure points in a light front end hit - ahead of the larger, critical structures of the front frame area and cage. Something gets hit, these non-critical areas bend, and can be cut out and replaced without sacrificing the larger frame/cage sections.



Ryan started by adding these larger diameter tubing reinforcements cut on an angle at the ends of the "stronger" sections of the upper tubes. This now strengthens the engine cross brace mounting brackets, which were added earlier.



With these reinforced tube sections cut, shaped, and TIG welded into the front cage structure, the cross brace was then bolted in place atop the engine. Then the fender mounting struts were built...



These two-armed structures are built from aluminum tubing with small threaded rod ends to link up the upper front cage structure and the aluminum XXX branded front aluminum fenders. These give the front fenders enough stability in the middle of their span, and the adjustable ends of these small tubes allow the front sheet metal to be aligned better.

continued below

[Fair]

continued from above



With the engine cross brace area beefed up and the fenders tied into the mid engine bay upper structure it was time to tie into the front nose, to support the upper front panel, and give the hood a place to land some hood pins onto. The front end aluminum sheet metal needs some support, so we will add that next.



Above left you can see Ryan using a digital angle finder to show how much of a bend is needed on the front downbar layout. Above right you can see the rod end and bracket he built for this downbar will tie into.



The above two pictures show these small diameter downbars bent, welded to the rod ends, and bolted ion place. There's still one section of tubing needed.



Here you can see the final "front hoop" added in this smaller diameter tubing, which nests under the front horizontal panel that is in front of the hood. This panel is also aluminum and needed some support in case somebody leaned on this panel. But I wouldn't go putting too much force there. Its all "just strong enough" to support these panels during road racing and high speed runs. Below you will see where the hood pins mount into this section for the AeroCatch hood latches.

RADIATOR HOSES BUILT

Much of the tubing above was designed in such a way as to not block airflow to the air cleaner and ducted hood box for the rolled C&R aluminum radiator. We ordered this radiator from their catalog, which had a core the right size for the space we needed and the inlet/outlet mostly where we wanted. It was time to modify the radiator and bit and make the main hoses to transport water to this core and back into the engine.



First the neck of the radiator and lower outlet were modified. The lower radiator hose has to route around the radiator duct box so Ryan TIG welded some mandrel bent aluminum tubing to the end to point it in the right direction. Then the radiator neck was cut off and welded closed - we will have a remote coolant reservoir mounted higher in the engine bay and plumbed in-line with the heater hoses. This is how all modern cooling systems are built, and with the radiator mounted so low on this car it would never hold water with the cap off in the original position - because the engine would be higher than the top of the radiator fill. The remote reservoir fixes all of that.



Using HPS branded silicone hose bends, some aluminum mandrel bent tubing, and good planning the lower radiator hose was built and plumbed to the water pump. It snakes around the duct box in this area. The upper radiator hose assembly was made with some long runs of tubing and more HPS bends.



Jumping ahead a bit in these last two pictures but you can see above how the upper radiator hose routes back and behind the duct box to meet up with the water pump. This C&R core is a twin pass design so both the inlet and outlet are on the same side. A single pass radiator would put the inlet/outlet on opposite sides of the core - which would would have been marginally easier to plumb, but not as efficient as the twin pass core.



With the main radiator hoses built and installed (these will be clamped and secured later in the build) it was finally time for the massive hood ducting structures at the front of this car. So much planning went into this next step... the whole front of the car was designed around this feature.

HOOD DUCTING LAYOUT AND CONSTRUCTION

While the Camaro's owner was at the shop for the seat fitting we took the time to talk about hood ducting shapes. This is a very visually and functionally important part of this build. I grabbed some blue tape and made a few lines that were pre-set limits for the hood opening, confined by placement of engine, radiator and some other aspects. Then Stewart had some freedom to mark the final shapes for the hood opening he wanted within that confined box. This takes some extra effort, giving our customers the freedom to express how they want something to look all the while keeping it within sound engineering practices and the fabrication limits.



After a few tweaks and some changes made during this customer design meeting, the final shape of the opening was mostly set out and cardboard mock-ups began later that same day.

continued below

[Fair]

continued from above



With the cold air inlet tube and air filter box in place the final "definitions" of where the duct box could fit were set.



By the next morning the mockup of the lower duct box was completed, along with the mating flanges for the upper duct box - that would be attached to the hood and seal with the hood down.

With the lower duct box mocked up in cardboard its time to move to aluminum. We started with a full sheet of .080" thick 3003 aluminum, which is a common alloy for these formed sheet panels. 3000 series is RADICALLY easier to bend & form than 6000 series tempered aluminum!



We might have been able to use the next sheet thickness size down (.063" thick), but the .080" sheet is stronger and the final weights for these duct boxes don't add up much (12.2 lbs for all 3 lower duct box pieces).



I skipped ahead a few steps to show these weights... back to the initial construction of the main lower duct box structure.



The initial lower box sections were made in aluminum and as you can see above they slip over the swaybar, and mount near the back face of the radiator core. There is also a cut-out for the lower radiator hose. This means the duct box is not 100% sealed to the core, but it is better than most and still very effective at increasing airflow thru the core and exhausting out of the hood.



At this point the basic outer structure was in place but the "V" cut for the air tube would need more structure, and of course the upper mounting flanges are not present. But now it was time to move ahead to modifying and mounting the hood, which is where the "upper" duct boxes mount to. These will mount to the bottom of the hood then mate to a sealing surface on the top of the lower box.

HOOD MODIFIED AND MOUNTED, HINGES BUILT

The hood we ordered from VFN is fiberglass, which was chosen because it was one of the only composite hoods we could get that was completely flat. Everything else had a raised cowl, scoop, etc. On this 69 Camaro hood design, VFN incorporates the rear cowl panel (normally a separate panel bolted to the base of the windshield) into the main hood design. This is how most drag racers use this hood - as a 1-piece, pin-on design. Well we wanted to keep the wipers and a hinged open hood, and since the wiper arms mount under this cowl panel, it had to be cut off.



We knew about this issue long before the hood was ordered and worked with VFN (with drawings and measurements) to incorporate the hinges and OEM rear inner structures in the "stock location". Their mold for the underside was modular and they could accommodate this, but the upper mold is only able to make the "elongated" hood. So with the old OEM flat hood still here from our earlier mock-up phase the "cowl cut" measurement was accurately transferred to the fiberglass hood and cut.

continued below

[Fair]

continued from above



As you can see above, the VFN "long" 69 Camaro hood was now cut down to the "stock size". The underside looks very similar to the the OEM inner structure - because they moved it forward for us when they built it to order. Now this stock sized, lightweight, flat hood could be fitted to the car with the AMD stock replacement aluminum cowl panel in place.



The AMD aluminum front sheet metal (that is all made to the OEM sizes, just stamped in aluminum) was squared up together with the hood. This took a few hours to get everything lined up and it all fits pretty well, but we'll have the body shop set the final gaps.



The air inlet tube was installed and the hood clearanced at the OEM front latch location - which was not a concern as we wouldn't be latching there. The fiberglass was ground back, little by little, to make this area clear the tube.



Making hood latches from scratch is tricky, but our crew has been planning this for a good while - remember the billet hinges we tried early on? Those OEM sized hinges were so big they hit the 315mm front tires! These are much lower profile, single pivot, non-assist hinges being built from thin aluminum plate. First the area of the hood area where the hinges could sit was laid out with tape. Then a then slot was cut into the edge of the cowl panel, where the hinge could fit into and sit flush with the top of the hood.



Next a pair of slim, single pivot hinges were built with a lateral offset forward of the cowl panel. This is how race car hoods are often hinged when the OEM hinges are gigantic, like the 1st gen F-body hinges are. The slim slit in the cowl that the hinge arm passes through will be hard to notice once all of this is painted.



Cold riveted threaded inserts were added to the recessed pockets that were designed into the fabricated steel firewall structure. This is where the back of the new hinges will bolt down.



The above left image shows the vertical part of the hinge that will be flush with the hood surface with the hood down. Most of these hinge structures will be completely hidden inside when the hood is closed. The above right image shows the lateral offset of the hinge parts where they line up with the under hood structure.

continued below

[Fair]

continued from above

AEROCATCH HOOD PINS

With the hood trimmed, mounted, and hinged at the rear it was time to latch the front. We have been a fan of the British built AeroCatch hood latch for some time and have used these to secure hoods and trunks on a number of cars. Watch this video to learn how these latches work and you will see why these are THE preferred motorsport hood latch worldwide.



Ryan started the layout of the latches by locating where the pins would mount onto the thin tubular "front down bars", shown several steps above. He then lined up the underside part of the Aerocatch assembly with the hood and marked that.



The Aerocatch kit comes with a cut-out template (part of the packaging) you use to mark the oval shaped hole for the cut-out needed in the hood. These were carefully measured and marked to line up with pins added to small brackets welded to the "front down tubes" under the nose. These pins are threaded and can be raised or lowered to align with the latching mechanism within the upper latch.



Since we had selected to use the AeroCatch units early on, we asked the customer if he wanted flush (under) mount or top-mount upper latches. The top mount style leaves a flange above the hood surface which better spreads the load onto a composite hood - this is what we recommended, and what he chose. For show cars or hyper critical aero applications the flush mount is often used (the red hood on my Mustang, shown at the top of this section, has that style). Then the two hole sizes in the oval were marked and cut using a vacuum to remove composite dust - otherwise you get fiberglass dust everywhere.



With the holes cut the air saw was used (again with a vacuum) to connect them and make the teardrop shaped hole that matches the template for the AeroCatch assembly to drop though.



Since this was well marked and carefully cut the latch dropped smoothly into the oddly shaped hole. Then the mounting holes for the flange were drilled, which bolt into another load spreading flange underneath. It all lined up perfectly with the pin underneath. Its really not that simple, so the first time you do this plan on spending the better part of a whole day installing two of these. The pin can be used vertically like this for a hood or horizontally for panels that slide off in a different direction. Again - installing these takes careful measurement and planning, but a good fabricator can put in a pair in a few hours. Don't rush this job or it won't line up and/or will look like crap!

GIANT HOOD HOLE CUT

Now that the hood is trimmed, aligned, hinged and latched it was time to cut a BIG ASS HOLE in that thing, to work toward our goal of a ducted hood.



This was part of the plan from the first day, but getting here - picking the shape of this very visible hole - took many months. We had the customer come in and finalize mockups of the 3D shape of the hole, which was then transferred from the initial mock-ups to the hood. There was only one final detail left to pick: the radius of the leading edge of the openings. We laid out an "A or B" choice, and the customer chose B.



With the hood in place and the final shape chosen the upper details of the "lower duct box" could be completed, and the box itself tack welded together. There was a shaped mounting flange built that would hold a sealing gasket, shown above. It was completed and now it was time to cut the hood...



There's no going back now! With the final shape approved and a pilot hole cut for the jig saw, Ryan (helped by Ryan3 on vacuum) began to cut out the shape of the hood opening. This could make or break the look of this build...

continued below

[Fair]

continued from above



The hole is shown above and the tacked together lower duct box was completed, with the sealing gasket flange. Now it was time to make the upper duct box...

UPPER DUCT BOX + MERGE TO HOOD OPENING

As soon as the hood was installed and the opening revealed, the first thing I said was "Bigger!" Ryan mocked up a few more rear cut lines, which the curved rear edge of the upper duct box would blend into the hood. I asked him to cut it back to the farthest line - for the largest opening.



Now some cardboard was added, to show how the aluminum panels that would make the upper duct box "flow" into the hood opening. The point here is to get the air exiting the radiator to gently merge into the horizontal plane of the hood, to prevent too much airflow separation or turbulence. More laminar flow means better cooling and more front downforce. There is also a blue tape line down the middle that will make sense in a minute...



After making several "walls" in tape these were transferred to cardboard for more accurate mock-ups. The reason we opened up the back of the hood hole more was to get the curved upper duct box sections to merge more smoothly and just... "look right". Notice the spine down the middle? This is where the two openings in the lower duct box (that go around the bottom of the air intake tube) merge back together to hide the intake tube from above. This "spine" drops at the front of the hood opening, which was a design element the customer liked from a modern Ferrari race car. Somehow this look on a boxy Camaro still really works.



The cardboard shapes were reworked until everyone was happy with the form and function. With the fabricator's, engineer's and customer's sign-off it was time to move to metal. Remember - we are not a composites shop, so we would be making the upper box sections in the same 3003 aluminum. Once bodyworked and painted these parts should look fairly seamless and integral to the hood.



The cardboard was transferred to aluminum sheet and these were Cleco'd in place. The spine was mocked up using a piece of aluminum TIG welding rod to show curved vs straight, to visualize options for the spine. Straight looked better than curved.



After finalizing the spine panels in cardboard they were transferred, cut, curved, formed, shrunk and stretched into shape. Once those were shaped well and mocked up, everyone was happy with the look - it was time to weld.



There was a good bit of welding time here, and we'll need to allocate more time into "filling" and finish work in metal, but I'm happy with how the upper duct box came out.

continued below

[Fair]

continued from above



You can see how far down the upper duct box extends under the surface of the hood in the shots above. Again, we're trying to direct the airflow from the radiator "exhaust" to smoothly merge with the hood, to keep flow as high as possible.



The lower duct box was now fully welded, which took some time. Then it was ready to go back into the car. But there were more heat exchangers that needed to be exhausted into the lower duct box - more ducting!

OIL COOLER DUCTING

So remember earlier in the build where we had mounted two oil coolers to the side of the radiator? These were there to cool the power steering (smaller core, left side) and engine oil (larger core, right side). The image below left shows one of these mounted, from earlier.



These coolers are fed by air from the front of the car. The inlets come from two dedicated openings (see above right) that feed each cooler - the outer/upper holes in the dual plane splitter. There is aluminum ducting from the inlets to each cooler, but they need ducting for proper exhausting as well.



These funky looking pieces of aluminum are the exhaust ducts, which bolt to the back of the cooler mounts and then feed into the main "lower duct box" behind the radiator.



These "square-ish" ducts curve and snake from the back of these outer cooler locations and land with a quadrilateral (almost triangular) shaped outlet that mounts and feeds into the sides of the lower duct box. You can see the 3D shapes progress from cardboard to sheet aluminum to square ducting.



continued below

[Fair]

continued from above - last one!

These are somewhat mirror imaged, but the coolers are different sizes so each side is a little unique at the cooler interface.



This shot above shows the two massive, rectangular lower duct box openings from the radiator and the two curved ducts from the oil coolers that feed into that. The massive engine setback on this chassis is apparent when you see the amount of space used by the radiator and ducting underhood.



Once these final ducting pieces were designed, tacked, fully welded and installed Ryan could move back to final welding, filling and smoothing on the upper duct box fabrication. He used the TIG to fill and smooth out the transition from the center spine to the flowing, curved sections below. Welding, grinding, sanding, smoothing - rinse and repeat. All of the visible inside corners on the upper duct box will need a bit more smoothing as well - it will look great once finished.

WHAT'S NEXT?

Well I better stop here - already getting too long. We already will have plenty more completed fab work to show for next time. The rear tubs to clear the giant 345mm Hoosiers under the stock rear fenders were all formed from aluminum and installed. Lots of interior panels were built as well - this time behind the front seats. More exhaust work was plumbed out back, too.



The flat bottom panels were completed and a rear diffuser was also built. The exhaust is routed into the diffuser box for a "blown diffuser", which we will show.



We will also show the swan neck AJ Hartman carbon fiber wing (with a giant 14" chord!) being mounted to the back of this beast.

Thanks for reading!