1968 DSTRYR Camaro

[ADiCarlo]

With the trunk pieces made it was time weld in the new hinges we received from AMD but to do this a new trunk lid was needed because one never came with the car.

Weighing my options I considered the follow:

Oem used trunk lid - I've searched for 6 months already and could not find one that was in good enough condition to deserve going on the car. 37-40lbs of sheet metal plus metal work plus bondo, I might as well use a man hole cover.

AMD aluminum trunk lid - $400 - drops the weight to 13 lbs but shipping is going to be killer and to be honest I've had some issues with them (parts are out of stock, no shipping timeline, and first set of hinges were defective).

Last... Anvil Auto trunk lid - 9lbs - This is the most expensive lid out of the list but it's lighter than the rest and comes from a company with a good rep. Also there local so no shipping cost and great to work with.

And the winner is:



Anvil Auto! After weighing my options and talking with the people at Anvil I felt that this was the best option for the car. I was able to go down to there warehouse last Wednesday, review there inventory, and talk to the staff. I picked up a satin trunk lid that i will be painted down and the fit on the car is great.

While at the shop we had to determine the final fitment of the wheels so we mounted the hubs to the Speedway Engineering floater rear and got some final numbers.



If you look closely you can see the Fuel Safe fuel cell where the license plate would be. We opted for a 22 gallon fuel cell so the car could make the distance on long drives. I previously had called DSE and they said with a 16- 18 gallon tank (approx) they were making about 200 miles per fill up (LS7) and that just doesn't cut it for me.

Once mounted up we got our final inside measurements and after mulling over the math when choosing a rear end size we ended up with 1 1/8 clearance from inner fender well (with mini tubs) to the wheel - pretty tight tolerances but just enough room.

The tank plus DSE suspension, plus the wheels and rear end come together nicely. (please excuse the cell phones pics)



better look at the tank set up (still not finalized)


The wheels are currently at 10 inches wide and I'm planning on widening them. After discussing with my welder we feel that massaging the fender like Tim Allen's car or Blu Ballz would be needed to handle track conditions with a 335/30/18. Doing this is still up in the air... any thoughts guys?

[ADiCarlo]

Final install

So first up we had to get the trunk hinges welded in so a riser was made to position them correctly.

I thought they came out pretty cool and the dimple die is a nice detail touch.





After risers it was time to finish off the fuel cell cage. Each end is tied to the frame rail for added reinforcement. A filler panel was made for all four sides of the box to close out the trunk floor. Final out come...







I'm really happy with the end result!