Take Two - Back with a New Project - "Lawyer Up"

[Midlife]

Hi Everyone - Well, I'm back after an eight year hiatus. Back in the summer of '12, I bought a base '72 Camaro with the plan of building a pro-touring car - the ill-fated "Project Midlife." Things happened, and I ended up selling that car and focusing on other projects, including finishing my Factory Five Cobra replica build - which has been on the road for five years and 14k miles.

A few months ago, I decided to resurrect the idea of building a pro-touring 2nd gen Camaro and found what I think is the perfect candidate..... meet "Lawyer Up."

It's a one-owner '73 LT Z28 4-speed that has just 16k miles on the odo..... most of which were racked-up a quarter mile at a time at Milan Dragway in Michigan and likely earned its driver some additional gas money on Woodward and other Detroit area haunts late at night. It was a dedicated drag racer from day one until the late '90s, when it was put back on the street for the cruise night and car show circuit. Over the years, its first owner blew things up (original motor... gone - same for the transmission and rear end) and applied various paints and finishes to protect the car forever. All this added up to a non-numbers matching car with lots of gloss black Imron surfaces, but an otherwise perfect time capsule of a survivor - but one that was hotrodded from day one - and always will be. There are bumps and scrapes here and there, but overall the nearly original paint (front and rear valances have been re-sprayed) is in great shape and covers all original sheetmetal. The interior is nearly perfect, as most of it was removed when the car was new and stored for decades.



My plan is the leave the exterior as-is and do limited updates to the interior. The focus will be on suspension, brakes, wheels/tires, and engine. The transmission is already taken care of, as it received a TKO600 just a few hundred miles ago. The engine is an early LT1 solid-lifter with an Edelbrock upper end - heads, intake, and carb. Although I haven't made too many decisions on exact parts that I'll use, I'm leaning towards the new LS427 (wet sump version) crate engine, but will be enjoying the current motor for the remainder of this summer as I drive it around and get to know the car.

Here are a bunch of pics - some from back in the day and others from just last week.....