Rozelle Camaro USCA Buildup

[Vince@Meanstreets]

Originally Posted by SSLance

Holey blind elevation changes!!!

its actually not that scary when you are looking at the track through your drivers side door window. fun story

[Sieg]

Jake you're head is just fine!

If you're not yelling at yourself, good or bad, you're not pushing hard enough in my opinion. Personally I loved that moment in the video, took me back to my desert racing days. I'm sure there were times my yelling scared some of the local wildlife more than the bike.

[Beach Cruiser]

Car looks great! I have a lot of "compliance" in my car too, but it sticks where ever I point it. Nice job on the win!

[JakeR]

Alright here we go updates on the car from our win at USCA Fontana up until SEMA 2014 and the OUSCI. A lot happened and after this the build thread is pretty current(ish).

After Fontana we wanted to do something to help our chances in Vegas and needed to decide what. More horsepower and less weight were the obvious options and after we considered both we decided that although big power would be much appreciated on the road course, if we were able to drop weight it would help us on the autocross and the speed stop as well as on the road course so that is the route we decided to take.

Making the decision even easier was the option of running Anvil fenders which would bolt on and not only drop weight but allow us to fit a 315mm Falken front tire setup. Anvil's headquarters is less than half hour from our house so my dad and I met up there after work one day and did our best to clean out their 69 Camaro inventory. The owner was cool to work with and we ended up getting a good deal on everything by picking up 'blem' items which was fine with us since we would be covering all the panels with wrap or paint anyways. In total we left with a Carbon cowl hood, carbon flared fenders, carbon valence, carbon cowl panel, carbon trunk, and carbon rear spoiler which completely filled my dads truck and my mustang.


After talking with Matt A. about his experience with the Anvil stuff we decided to have the fenders fitted up and run them for awhile unfinished to allow any settling of the material that would cause changes in fitment. Best of Show in Escondido took care of fitting all the panels for the first time for us and did an excellent job. We then ran the car like this for a month or two which was fun since driving around southern California in a 69 camaro with a carbon clip definitely gets some funny looks.





With the fenders on we measured and ordered up another pair of 18" Forgeline front wheels for the car. We could have rehooped our original wheels but we knew we would be able to repurpose the old ones for another project.


After testing was complete and with SEMA fast approaching we sent the car to JCG for bodywork and prep. As it always seems things were happening way too last minute and Cris and the crew only had 3 days to refit all the body panels and prep the body for its wrap appointment. Somehow they got the whole car straight and looking perfect and also found time to make hood vents that we requested out of aluminum and epoxy them in place.





Here are the pics of the wrap process done by Troy Weeks, we collaborated on the phone and tried to create a design that was different and mean looking while also having the feel that it could have been an actual design option in 1969. I really like the Baldwin Motion cars in particular and you can see that influence as well. The colors are primarily white and matte black with gloss black accents. The whole wrap was completed in less than 48 hours and sent back to JCG for final assembly.





In an attempt to boost design score we had our front Recaro seat's centers reupholstered with houndstooth to match our back seat, and also had the trunk redone with lightweight close-our panels covered in the lightest black carpet possible. JCG also fabbed up an aluminum center console to keep all our track junk in as well as hold a couple drinks, including a Big Gulp if need be.


To help aero Primo at JCG quickly knocked out a new front spoiler out of aluminum which went down significantly more than the stock spoiler and went out wider to hopefully keep some of the air from lifting those big 315s up front. Since it is a streetcar it was still high enough for speed bumps and what not.




Completed shot:


Huge thanks to JCG, Troy and Best of Show for doing such a great job on the car and especially to Cris and the guys at JCG for knocking out an insane amount of work in a completely unreasonable time frame right before SEMA. Some day we'll bring them an easy job... maybe.

[eric1967]

Looks good Jake. Do you know how much weight you saved with the carbon fiber stuff?

[JakeR]

Originally Posted by eric1967

Looks good Jake. Do you know how much weight you saved with the carbon fiber stuff?

Good question! Its hard to say exactly since so much changed but it was about 100 pounds worth of weight savings.

[PTAddict]

Very cool Jake. Did the handling balance change much with the lighter front and 315 front tires? And did you manage to keep the RS doors operative with the Anvil front end? I've been eyeing the Anvil stuff off and on for a couple of years now ...

[MattO]

Man, this thread reminds me so much of my dad and I and the process of building my truck.

Difference is, you two were smart enough to build a Camaro. I feel that speaks volumes about the differences in our thought processes and life choice

[JakeR]

Originally Posted by PTAddict

Very cool Jake. Did the handling balance change much with the lighter front and 315 front tires? And did you manage to keep the RS doors operative with the Anvil front end? I've been eyeing the Anvil stuff off and on for a couple of years now ...

There was a HUGE change in handling balance. Pre-updates the car was fairly balanced with a tendency to under-steer slightly and drive off the back tires. With the wider front tires and weight reduction with the same suspension setup the car was almost uncontrollably loose. We expected this to an extent but without time to test we were caught quite off guard at OUSCI by just how off the previous setup was with all the changes.

This really hurt our result in Vegas but since then we have really been able to dial in the new setup with help from JJ at Ultimate Performance and it is now leaps and bounds better than ever so the changes were definitely worth the effort.

The RS doors do still operate with the Anvil front end. We have been using the DSE electric headlight door conversion for years and just transferred it all over. We have been really happy with the Anvil stuff so far, surprisingly good fit with very little modification needed. Just a heads up though I have heard the carbon Anvil stuff fits better than their fiberglass versions for some reason.

[Sieg]

if we were able to drop weight it would help us

Moderate hp equals reliability.

Less weight equals more hp, improved handling, better braking, and reduced component stress.

What's not to like with that logic?

Good decision making!