There's just something totally intoxicating when you take apart a project build for the last time to tend to the final details as it moves closer to the paint booth. In the blink of an eye, Project Orange Krate, our '71 Camaro, went from full roller to fully disassembled and was laid out creating the visual of a vintage scale model kit like we used to build at the kitchen table on a Saturday afternoon. For Peter Newell and his team at Competition Specialties in Walpole, Massachusetts, it's now time to wrap up any concluding revisions to the sheetmetal. As with any teardown, you'll thank yourself later if you properly bag and tag every grouping of hardware in plastic bags noting from where it was removed.

To us there's nothing cooler than a finding an untouched classic Camaro. Unfortunately, the nostalgia we feel while gazing upon all the original goodness can get squashed once we jump behind the wheel and hit the open road. Yeah, we know that people drove these cars cross-country with no problem back in the day, but the driving characteristics of today's modern cars have spoiled us. Vague steering that's way over assisted, mushy suspension that darts about the road, and brakes that pucker you up every time they're needed in a hurry are all aspects of the classics that we would rather ditch. Thankfully, the aftermarket is thick with parts designed to make our old Camaros as much fun to drive as they are to look at.

Forty-five years ago the world was a simpler place. If you don't believe me then crawl behind the wheel of an early Camaro and behold the utter lack of information provided by the instruments in the dash. In comparison, today's cars seem like road-going versions of a space shuttle in terms of instrumentation. Back then, especially on the base models, the only two pieces of info deemed necessary was how fast you were going and how much petrol was sloshing around in your tank. Everything else was considered "optional." There was no oil pressure, water temp, or voltmeter to concern yourself with. Instead, they armed the dash with big red lights. The concept was simple; if the light was off, you were good to go (unless the bulb was burned out) and if the light came on, you were most likely screwed. At some point they were dubbed "idiot lights," but we're not sure if the derogatory part was intended for the light or the person behind the wheel. In any event, it's 2013 and modern cars have spoiled us. With what we have invested in our engines, we want to know little tidbits of information like oil pressure and if the alternator is still pumping out a sizable charge.

OK, we love Mother Nature as much as the next gearhead, but sometimes a plan to preserve the environment can cause more harm than good to our cars. At first it seems like a great idea, (like using food to make fuel), but then the law of unintended consequences kicks in and you're left with another problem to deal with.

There have been over 5 million Camaros produced. Every Camaro was sold from one of hundreds of Chevrolet dealerships.

If you’ve been reading Resto Shop long enough, you know we cover many aspects of restored supercar Camaros (e.g., Yenko and Dana), rare parts, restoration processes by the pros, and great products. We also love cool tools. We’ve seen the Eastwood Stud Welder in their catalog for a long time and thought, That looks really cool, but there’s no way it works as easy as it looks. Well, we tried it out and are here to say that it exceeded our expectations by far. We’re old enough to remember drilling holes in sheetmetal in order to use hand-held dent pullers and slide hammers to pull out dents. That always seemed so crude.

We love our Tremec T56 transmission, but let's face it, Fifth and Sixth gears might be great for knocking down good mpg, but they suck in terms of performance. Many times we've been rowing gears at a road course and blown a shift by hitting Fifth gear from Fourth instead of the lower Third gear we were shooting for. Or we end up going from Third to Sixth. In those moments we find ourselves wishing our Camaro had a good old four-speed tranny. Of course, on the drive home from the track we sure enjoy the low revs of the overdrive gears. But what if you could have your proverbial cake and a fork to eat it with, too?

Drag racing is a game of seconds—even tenths and thousandths of a second—where the racer is trying every trick possible to shave off tiny bits of time from their elapsed time, or e.t. Some changes knock off a little time, others knock off chunks, but getting the quickest e.t. possible is always an activity done in stages rather than all at once. One way to knock a sizable chunk off your e.t. is to replace your stock converter with one geared more towards quick launches. After all, a stock torque converter is set up more for smooth street manners and gas mileage than low 60-foot times.

Six Deuces is a shop known for building ’60s-style hot rods and customs, so when Mark Wieczorek brought them his ’68, the eventual plan was almost a foregone conclusion. “Mark wanted a street car that could attend track days and his local road course. So after shooting around some ideas, we decided to build a ’60s Grand-Am-influenced Camaro,” remarked Six Deuces shop owner Corry Hunter.

OK, LS engines are arguably one of the best, if not the best, engines ever fielded by GM, or anyone for that matter. But sometimes they just feel a bit sterile and “soulless.” Maybe what you need is something a bit more retro, and nothing says, “old-school performance,” like a supercharged big-block. We’re not talking one of those fancy centrifugal blowers either, but a good old roots-style huffer. Knowing you want a big-block with a blower sitting majestically on top is only half the battle. You also need to make sure you properly size the supercharger to your mill. This is where hot rodders often make mistakes. Most people think in terms of boost and don’t consider how much atmosphere the unit is capable of moving. It also happens that when they see a blower that’s advertised as providing an X percent increase in power, they just assume it will translate to their engine. Maybe it will, maybe it won’t. Keep in mind that when a manufacturer states that a blower will give a certain power increase, the amount is based on a specific engine combination and doesn’t apply to a variety of engines. A small blower may give you that 40 percent boost in power on your nearly stock 396, but it just won’t move enough volume to give you the hoped-for results on a built 454 or 502. It’s akin to the law of diminishing returns. The bigger the engine, the smaller (percentage wise) the gain will be at a given boost level; at least until you step up to a bigger blower. At that point the cycle repeats. So the small 177 Weiand might be just the ticket for your 396, while that 454 or 502 might be better served by a 6-71, and even larger engines might require a monstrous 8-71 supercharger. Also, you might be better off running a larger blower and spinning it slower since this generates less heat. So, an underdriven 8-71 will most likely make more power than an overdriven 6-71. Try and follow this rule of thumb: A larger volume blower will typically make more power than a smaller volume unit at the same boost level.

In the last issue we gave you the 411 on floating rearend technology. For those that missed class (and shame on you if you did), it’s race car tech that has migrated over to our street cars, and given how hard our Camaros are being driven these days, it’s a very good thing indeed.

Hi Tony,
I have a dream of buying a salvaged ’69 Z/28 Camaro hard top, stripping it down to just the body, and installing everything new from the ground up. I have been buying issues of Camaro Performers here and there for about two years and am just dreaming of the car I want to build. I’m no expert mechanic – I’m more or less a parts changer. I’m about to start a nine-month school course, and once I finish, I’ll be making the money needed to pursue the expensive hobby I love.

Q. Tony,

There comes a time during a build when everything starts to come together. It’s a moment when you can step back and really look deep into what you’ve been working hard to achieve and actually see (in our case) an artist’s rendition finally coming to life. Regular readers of Camaro Performers magazine have seen Project Orange Krate, our ’71 Camaro, evolve over a number of issues. At Competition Specialties in Walpole, Massachusetts, Peter Newell and his talented staff have taken on numerous tasks from initial teardown to fabrication and installation of everything from cutting-edge suspension components to replacement sheetmetal, exhaust, and rollcage to name but a few.

We’re all about recycling here at Camaro Performers. Our beer cans go in the blue bin and the bottles get redeemed for cash so we can buy more beer. It’s just our way of showing we care. This urge to avoid wasting applies to our cars as well. After all, if you can save a few bucks by refurbishing a used part, why pay more for a new one.

We all know that the new LS-powered Camaro is a performance hit, but quite a few V-6–equipped versions have been sold as well. And while many of these went to people that care more about sporty looks than healthy performance, quite a few went to those who wanted a Camaro but couldn’t afford the nearly $32,000 that a new SS would set them back. If you’re on a tight budget, the sub-$24,000 price tag is obviously more affordable, and the 30 highway mpg keeps even more dollars in the owner’s wallet. Add in cheaper insurance and the V-6 Camaro makes even more sense.

Hot rodding has a long tradition of adapting race car parts to street rides. In the last few years, thanks to the increase in performance driving events, the trend has really accelerated. After all, it only makes sense that parts built strong enough for the track are perfect for guys wanting to push their street-driven Camaros harder and harder. Racing harness systems, huge six-piston brakes, two-piece rotors, three-piece forged wheels, safety cages, fire suppression systems, and Watt’s links are just some of the tidbits once reserved for track-only cars but are now increasingly common on hard-driven street Camaros.

They say knowledge is power, and when it comes to protecting your investment under the hood and keeping your ride rollin’ down the road, it’s even more important. Most cars have the “fab four” in terms of gauges: fuel level, water temp, oil pressure, and voltage. These are considered the bare minimum for tracking a Camaro’s vitals and keeping it running properly. But there are other tidbits of information that are handy to have access to.

We guess back when 400-horsepower engines were considered big, chassis flex wasn’t much of an issue. But now that a 500-, 600-, even 700-plus–horsepower engine in a street car is nearly commonplace, it’s something that needs to be addressed. This need to stiffen up the car’s chassis is made even more imperative now that classic cars are capable of pulling well over 1 g during hard cornering.

The newest iteration of our beloved Camaro is, to be kind, on the heavy side. And the quickest way to make it feel “lighter” is to up the car’s power output. It’s all about the power-to-weight ratio, which is why a 30hp go kart can feel scary fast and a 436hp ’10 Camaro can feel, well, not fast enough. Once you have the epiphany that your Camaro needs more power, then the big question becomes, “How?” Well, one answer is forced induction. Slamming more atmosphere into your LS3, L99, or any engine, is the quickest way to boost output and ratchet up the fun factor of your Camaro.

Unlike all the other “fun” trinkets pertaining to your Camaro, safety gear is the one group of items you hope you’ll never get the chance to find out how well they work. Unfortunately, many people buy it like they purchase car insurance. That is to say they shop price on the faulty and dangerous assumption that they’ll never have to use it. We call it the “other guy” state of mind where people just figure that the bad turns in life always happen to someone else. Well, when things go sideways and you find yourself upside down and on fire, do you want to be wishing you spent a few extra bucks for a fire resistant helmet or a better driver suit? Just like insurance, you should shop like you’re gonna’ need it and that your life depends on it, because it will.

A set of wheels can make or break the look a Camaro. And we’re not just talking style; fitment matters just as much. Ever shed a tear when you see a ride with wonky offsets? We do. Or even worse, at least from a practical standpoint, are wheels sized so poorly that turning radius is non-existent and the back tires stick out past the quarter-panels. That may have been cool back in the ’70s—not so much today. Add in the fact that a nice set of rollers is a pretty serious investment, and it’s easy to see why getting the right set of wheels the first time is important.

There’s nothing more wicked than hearing a Camaro with a nasty V-8 fire up and idle as it gets ready to take on the streets. With a killer combination of performance parts all working in unison and generating plenty of aggressive power, the symphony streaming from the tailpipes immediately grabs your attention. Regardless what the sum of the parts are however, if you don’t have the right exhaust system in place, you could be robbing yourself of valuable horsepower before you even burn that first gallon of fuel.

One of the things we try to promote with our project cars here at Camaro Performers magazine is the fact that we build them with the ability to do a lot of things well as opposed to doing just one thing great. Sure, we could build a sole-purpose drag car or an autocross track fiend, but the simple fact that we don’t own a trailer makes those bad ideas. But in all seriousness, we actually like driving to and from events, and after a long day at the track, it’s just easier to pull into the garage and shut the door instead of having to offload it from a trailer.

We hate to use the term “poseur” since it has such a negative connotation, but let’s face it; a lot of Camaros out there are given the Pro Touring treatment in looks only. After all, it’s a lot cheaper to just toss on some wide rollers and slam the stance, than to actually make a car handle better. And to be fair, if that’s all you want, then building a Faux Touring Camaro falls into the “no harm, no foul” category.