1969 Speedtech Equipped Pro Touring Camaro

[garickman]

Originally Posted by Sheck44

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

Cheers
Steve

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.

[jmac]

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

[garickman]

Originally Posted by WSSix

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

Originally Posted by slimjim

great craftsmanship, that front end will look great when finished

Originally Posted by dhutton

Great vision and execution!

Don

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.

[garickman]

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.



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.

[garickman]

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

[garickman]

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

[garickman]

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

[garickman]

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.

[garickman]

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

[garickman]

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.