Without the albums that plot its evolution, you’d never believe that the clapped-out Camaro in the photos was the same car. While he’s quick to admit that he never could have pulled it off without help from so many friends, ideas from builders like Mark Stielow, and inspiration from the online communities at Lateral-G.net and Pro-Touring.com, Ryan smartly directs the majority of the gratitude to his wife, Milva, for patiently bearing with this saga.
Despite the presence of an all-wrong TH400, the car was originally a three-pedal model. “The clutch pedal was zap-strapped to the floor boards,” Ryan said, incredulously. It has a T56 and a SPEC Stage III clutch. Muffler Tech in Coquitlam BC stitched together a 2 1/2-inch-diameter system from stainless mandrel bends, an X-pipe, Magnaflow mufflers, and 3-inch-diameter tips. Its bark is just about as bad as its bite.
Nowadays Ryan keeps tabs on the engine with Auto Meter gauges set in a Detroit Speed & Engineering dash. He drops into leather-clad APC seats and pilots the car with a Sparco 14-inch-diameter Lap 5 steering wheel and a Hurst Billet Plus shifter. Mo Esmail, who helped wire the car, also set up the JVC head unit, MTX amplifiers, and JL drivers when he pitched a hand during the car’s finally assembly and interior install.
Given the seven years of trials and tribulations he put himself through to build his childhood dream car, it would’ve been foolish not to ask Ryan whether he’d do it all over again. “Are you crazy?” he snapped.