Your Opinions? - Nova, 3rd Gen Camaro or do we go drag racing?

[Ben@SpeedTech]

Moving forward with our ExtReme chassis designs in house we've narrowed it down to three candidates for the next in line chassis to produce. From these three we'd like to know which car you'd like to see done next, please take a minute to vote on the poll or comment below...

'62-67 Nova- Sure there's other front frame clips out there for the hot rod cruising scene, but with the ExtReme front suspension's geometry, ability to tuck the wide tires, and our torque arm rear suspension there's huge potential to bring these cars more into the realm of serious handling. We'd love to see more of 'em at track day events.

'82-92 Camaro/ Firebird- Although already a decent platform and popular in some SCCA classes there's always room for improvement. These cars are still affordable to buy for project cars and lets face it, they likely have some good memory value to many of us. If we did this platform it would mean adapting our current ExtReme front suspension into them, eliminating the struts and pitfalls of the factory design.

'67-69 Camaro and '68-74 Nova Drag Race Subframe- Although Pro-Touring is a blast, we all still have roots built in drag racing and with the increasing popularity and speed seen in small tire "street" cars we're considering expanding into a line of drag race parts, starting with a lightweight drag race tube subframe.

Let us know your opinion! Thanks!

[cornfedbill]

Ben,



I voted for '82-92 Camaro Pro Touring because the early Novas are hard to find and getting too expensive for most builders. I'm not a drag racing fan, so that ruled out the drag racing selection for me.

The '82-92 Camaros can be purchased at a reasonable cost, but have very few suspension modifications available outside of bushings, springs and shocks. They are very adept track cars and have a lot of potential. They are among the most aerodynamic cars readily available that fit V8's, both in terms of drag and lift. They are a good canvas to work with in my estimation.

[Build-It-Break-It]

As much as I like to see a drag race frame for the 1st gen camaro the 82-92 camaro platform would make more sense.

[nvawgn]

agreed w/ the others, most classics are getting way to expensive as a starting point for a project but the 82-92 makes sense as an affordable starting point for people..

[mike@sim-seats]

I'm seeing more coverage of 3rd gen f-body builds, but I still question whether the owners are ready to spend big money on chassis improvements. Probably they are if you can get a >300 width tire in front.

Just a guess, but I would imagine the biggest market is for a drag racing sub frame.

[Ben@SpeedTech]

I've done a lot of surveying and polling among different groups over the last month or so, and at this point the 3rd gen is a strong lead, followed by the '62-67 Nova. Drag racer frame was a slow contender but you have to consider that most of the places I polled there was a little bit of a Pro Touring bias.

We originally asked folks about several platforms that made sense to manufacture parts for and these were the most popular. So mostly we were out to determine in what order of popularity the masses wanted us to produce them. I think we have our answer. We've begun tear down and study/ measurements of a car we bought a couple years ago for an ExtReme conversion and as that's taking place we're also under way on another truck chassis with a 2nd year range/ platform following close behind. Expect some continued really cool stuff coming from Speedtech in the near future!

[ilikeike]

The only thing that sux about the 3rd gen Camaro is us hot rodders stuck out here in Ca. have a tuff time with the smog police, they take all the fun out of modifying later model cars.

And since my buddy's building a 63 right now, I vote NOVA!

[Ben@SpeedTech]

If it were LS or new LT powered like our ExtReme chassis is set up for it would likely be even more efficient and burn cleaner than an '82-92 SBC, so how does that weigh with the swap nazi police? Logic would reason that it's an all around upgrade that would benefit the environment rather than be a concern to it. But with tree huggin "everyone should be forced to follow my own personal agenda" leftists it seems logic is often in rare supply.

Here in Utah where there are smog tests in more pollution concerned areas I believe the car simply has to pass a sniffer test based on standards for the year of the car or the engine, whichever is newer. Now that's a simple and logical solution to engine swaps.