Part Number
912-0011

You can tell that this Chevelle is a little bit different from any that have gone before and that it’s probably the stance that does it. Pull back just far enough and those big, fat wheels become monolithic and the undeniable focal point. Is this a natural offshoot of the Pro Touring shtick? No, you can’t just leave it at boisterous rolling stock. There’s more to it than that.

Email me: chevyhi@sorc.com

Some folks might have a problem working all day, then coming home, and doing the same thing until the wee hours of the morning. That is, unless you’re a professional mechanic working after hours on your dream car. Ed Nash from Port Orange, Florida, has been a professional autobody technician for the last 28 years. The enthusiast seed was planted early, thanks to his father, in charge of the local Chevrolet dealership, who would bring amazing cars home and do burnouts and donuts in front of the house. Back then, the split bumper Camaro was one of young Ed’s favorites, and it still is. Having built almost a dozen high-performance vehicles in the past, he decided it was time for an awesome street car and decided to make the fantasy of that second-gen Camaro a reality. He found this ’71 Camaro SS locally and, although it was in genuinely poor condition, the price was right. Ed had a clear view of the potential however, and the beat-up car was the perfect choice since he planned to upgrade everything anyway. Ed has a unique philosophy: “I don’t like cars that I don’t own. And if I don’t build them, they’re not really mine.”

COPO Colors

Frank D’Aquanno lists his vocation as race car mechanic. In a flash, that could encompass a great many things and a great many duties peculiar to keeping a competition vehicle in the best possible state of tune at all times. That’s the backstory. The reality is much different.

1968 Camaro Z/28
Pete Wessel
Somonauk, IL

Have you ever noticed that as a guy gets older he likes to add a few refinements to his car that just weren’t as important to him as when he was a kid? Take the interior for example. Instead of accepting a folding beach chair for a seat, with a floor shifter to grab onto in case the driver-side door flies open around a curve, a set of proper seats might prove more desirable. Such was the case for the ’70 Camaro seen gracing these pages. Its owner got tired of the worn-out Vette buckets he’d bootlegged in with homemade mounting brackets years earlier, and sought out a better solution.

It was 2002 and sadly the last year of the Chevrolet Camaro. Those were dark days and some postulated that it was the end of an era. But, Chevrolet promised that the Camaro would come back. Eight long years later that promise was fulfilled in the form of the ’10 Camaro. Just like the fourth-gens, the new generation of Camaro was anchored by a commuter-friendly V-6–powered version, but all we cared about was the thumping 6.2L LS3 under the hood of the SS. The power was decent, however with a curb weight hovering around 3,800 pounds, every pony was needed. The handling was a bit heavy, but we had our beloved Camaro back and all was good. Still, we wondered what the GM engineers could unleash if given the chance.

Easy View

Dustin Burch is a doer. His father and his brother are doers. He and his close family (San Jose, California), with a little help from local talent, built his ’68 El Camino in the confines and privacy of their own home. Thus, they pretty much had control over the entire project and never had to cow to the paint jailer or anyone who saw it as a potential hostage.

’79 Malibu Wagon

An Adjustable Crescent Wrench

It was the seventh running of the Street Car Super Nationals at Las Vegas Motor Speedway in what has become the premier heads-up race west of the Mississippi. The event’s humble beginnings started with the notion of being a West Coast–based event that is a big deal, much like many events in the eastern part of the land. In the seven years of existence, the Street Car Super Nationals has blossomed into an East versus West showdown as several East Coast hitters make the cross-country trek each year. The promoters of the PSCA racing series put the SCSN extravaganza together and the racing categories are a mixture of the PSCA series rules with an outlaw influence. The late season race date before Thanksgiving provides cool conditions for exceptional performances.

’94 Corvette

Let’s say you’re pulling your race car with your dualie through the countryside, and pass an Amish commuter in his horse-drawn buggy along the way; the irony here is that the truck, trailer, buggy, and race car all share the same primitive leaf-spring suspension. Although it’s true that some drag racers have managed to run mid-7s on leaf springs, they still have some severe limitations when asked by the chassis to turn or stop. As such, dumping them in favor of street-style four-link conversion kits has become very popular. By allowing the springs to do the suspending, and the control arms to locate the rearend, four-link systems provide dramatic improvements in handling and ride quality. However, they’re not the only game in town anymore.

Have you ever noticed the number of parts that can be taken out in one shot when we break our hot rods? I have a great example of this. I was racing my roadster at one of our local races here in Fontana, California (luckily, I was close to home). I made my first time run of the day and rolled up to our pits and shut everything off, cooled the car, recorded the weather, and downloaded my data logger. Everything looked great, and we went up to make a run with Daniel’s wagon. I went back to my roadster when they called us for our second-time run. I hopped into the car and fired the engine. When it started it sounded like there were marbles in a coffee can being rattled around in the cockpit. I immediately killed the engine and thought to myself, did it have oil pressure? The RacePak dash in my car has warning lights and nothing lit up. I cranked the car and the pressure was right there. I jacked the car up and looked to the flexplate, hoping to find it cracked or the converter bolts loosened up. No luck. Next, I fired the car again and put the car in First gear. The noise was immediately gone. Well, like I said I was glad that we were close to home since I didn’t have a spare transmission.

Letters

Holy heaps of lb-ft, Batman, this 572 Rat is wicked. Although Robin has a reputation for getting excited far too easily, there’s good reason for his enthusiasm this time around. The Smeding Performance 572ci crate big-block presented before us makes 692 lb-ft of torque, but that’s not the impressive part. That 692 figure isn’t peak torque, but rather the motor’s average torque throughout its entire 2,600- to 6,000-rpm rev band. Yikes. Peak torque checks in at 740 lb-ft at 4,400 rpm, and better yet, the massive Rat kicks out 700-plus lb-ft from 3,900 to 5,000 rpm. Now that’s what you call kicking some serious heinie throughout a very broad rpm range. That said, man does not live by lb-ft alone, and torque without horsepower is nothing more than a glorified dump truck motor. Fear not, for the Smeding big-block backs up its impressive torque tally with 737 hp. Can you say block-long burnouts with 2.73:1 gears? Now this is our kind of motor.

Get Mounted

We warmed up for this exercise by watching turbo-car frolics on YouTube. The scenes are somehow magnified by those couple of seconds before boost rolls on and the tires light up insane. There’s nothing … and then the smoke grenades go off all at once. Instead of running out of steam, turbo lungs keep pulling like a maniac as the rubber becomes hopelessly unraveled. It’s a sight and an experience not to be forgotten.

’80 Corvette

’67 Camaro SS

The great thing about buying a beat-down classic A-body is that you don’t need to hock household items or sell off family members to medical science to afford one. The bad thing is that it has a low buy-in for a reason. Lots of wear, lots of tear, but then again making treasure out of trash is what this hobby is all about.

’70 Chevelle SS