48 Hour build

[bret]

Time for another 48 Hour Camaro update!

I think this car is living proof that EVERY hotrod gets a little better with age. You learn what the car likes, how it turns, how it stops, what makes it go fast. You make small changes to make it perform better and hope that at least half of them are successful!

It has been a great summer so far for ridetech and the 48 Hour Camaro. Most of the basic components are unchanged and working nicely...the Vintage Air is still ice cold, the Moser rearend is perfect, the Ricks/vaporworx tank performs flawlessly, and the Baer brakes are incredible. Oh, the ridetech stuff...yeah, it works OK too
So, what did we change and why is the car so much faster? In no particular order:

* Tune up - After some discussion with Lingenfelter, we changed over to the GM EFI ECU. This is the ECU that Lingenfelter has the most experience and success with. We spent nearly a whole day on the Lingenfelter chassis dyno tweaking and refining, resulting is 502RWHP and 496 RWTQ. Beyond that, the torque as low as 2000rpm was well above 400 lb/ft. It's now got as much grunt as my CTS V! It feels like a new car in ways that I cannot describe...smooth, linear, just ready to be leaned on! Definately the best engine I've ever had.



* trans rebuild - we noticed at the Midwest Musclecar Challenge that the trans was scratching going into second, so we opened it up to see if there were any problems. Nothing terrible, but while we were in there we replaced the blocking rings adn upgraded to bronze shift forks. We also replaced second gear because it was just a little chewed up adn changed over to ATF instead of teh gear oil that we were instructed to put in it at first. Day and night difference! NOW you can really shift the thing!

* Centerforce DYAD clutch - this thing looks like a piece of artwork...the design, the machining, even to packaging nad installation instructions are just...beautiful. AND...it flat works. Never slips, easy pedal, linear engagement...I'm not sure how you would improve on this piece!

* Hawk Blue brake pads - The Baer system cannot be beat, but since we are running without a power booster we wanted to get some more agressive pads for the upcoming roadcourse events. Glad we did...they work awesome!

* Tires - We tried out a set of the Falken 615k Azenis tires on our California Camaro this past spring. I was so impressed that I ordered another set for the 48 Hour Camaro. I could go on and on, but here is the bottom line: 2.5 second faster on a 35 second lap compared to our old setup. That is not a misprint. TWO AND A HALF SECONDS. That is beyond epic. I was HOPING for .5 seconds.

* Shock tuning - now that we have some grippier tires we've had to go back and retune the shock settings. Fortunately our TA's have enough range that this did not require any hardware changes, just some knob turning.

And the result of all these refinements and changes? Well, at the Battle at the Banks event in early May we were nearly 3 seconds slower than Danny Popp driving the Lingenfelter L28 Gen 5 Camaro. Last weekend at the optima Race at Road America...we won the autocross segment by 3/10ths over that same car and driver. And all this with a sock subframe Camaro with no subframe connectors!
And were not done yet. Look for us at Des Moines this weekend, Columbus on July 6-9 and then the Motorstate Challenge on July 14-15.