User:Awashharthcock

Hot Rod 1 Camaro

Intro

The brain child of Mark Vogt of Classic Inudstries and Orignial Equipment Reproduction(OER), Jim Barber of Classic Automotive Restoration Specialists, and Doug Evans,Group Publisher of Hot Rod magazine. The HOT ROD 1 Camaro is the first car HOT ROD magazine has ever licensed. HOT ROD got in on the ground floor of the Camaro body production to build the HOT ROD 1 Camaro using the second all steel reproduction body built by Dynacorn. The car also includes a very exclusive GM Performance Parts all-aluminum Ram Jet ZL1 big block engine. For ideas on the design of the car, HOT ROD contacted artist Steve Sanford who came up with the Camaro Remix concept. Sanford used cues from '69 but added some modern touches. The car was then painted a 1969 Rallye Green and debuted at the November 2004 SEMA show in Las Vegas.

The Bodies

All steel stock replacement 1969 Camaro convertible bodies from Dyacorn weighs 900lbs crated and ships in about 4-6 weeks. "The sheet metal is all stamped in Taiwan, requireing 850 seperate sheetmetal stampings welded into 35 seperate subassemblies." The welding is much better than the orginal 1969 bodies, so much so that the rigidity is significantly improved and the cocktail shakers are not needed. The bodies accept original parts, but do require some fitting to get seams right. It is hard to predict what these bodies will do to the value of the real production Camaros.

The Engine

The original 427 ZL1 from General Motors was all aluminum and was made for Rat Rods, but found its way into 69 Camaros and only 2 Corvettes. "It was short lived and became part of hot-rodding lore, but 30 years later GM Performance Parts decided to resurrect and recast the ZL-1. They put a 454 crank into the blocks, slid in a Comp Cams solid roller, topped it with a pair of aluminum oval-port heads and a Ram Jet electronic-fuel-injection manifold." It pulls 510hp and 500lb-ft troque. GM made 200 of them but they were all sold to dealers. Instead of buying one back from a dealer, HOT ROD convinced GM to clean up the R&D prototype of the engine, thus making the HOT ROD 1 Camaro the first all new ZL1 '69 Camaro in 36 years.

Assembly

According to Jim Barber at CARS Inc. he and his crew put about 874 hours into building the car. Being the first of the turn-key camaros (HOT ROD licensed CARS the ability to make 69 of these under the HOT ROD 1 nameplate) they learned as they worked. For instance, "the optional Detroit Speed minitub kit requires a lot of cutting on the stock floorpan and wheelwells." They have since cut down the time significantly by using a laser-guided cutter. Another example is the firewall, the body came with a heater-box hole cut into the firewall but CARS wanted it to be flat. They now have gotten the firewall with 3 different treatments: filled in, heater hole and ac hole. There are 307 different parts required to build a camaro from scratch but they learned as they worked and can now assemble a turn-key camaro in half the time.

Performance

The CARS Inc and HOT ROD magazine crews took the car out on the '05 Power Tour where the car was driven well over 80 mph a lot of the way. It averaged 14.5 miles per gallon. When it was taken to Farmington Motorsports Park and raced on the eighth mile dragstip it ran 8.21 and 87mph translated to quarter mile 12.69 at 109.64mph in 95F' weather.

After the HOT ROD magazine staff had the car for an extended amount of time it was returned to Jim Barber and is currently being considered for musuem showing.