'68 Camaro - Another one?! Again?! Really?

[Leroy Rochester]

Phase 1 -

Drivetrain, suspension and brake upgrades.

Rust repair and bodywork necessary to effect the upgrades.

Goal - running driving car and a platform for future upgrades.


I know, I know... You guys are like "Dude! A 570" big block and a T101A aren't exactly what I'd call 'daily-driver' stuff..."

Initially, I wanted a cool weekend bomber I could run up and down PCH with and have a little fun laying tire in then neigborhood along with a Saturday morning swing by Adams Ave. Donuts occasionally. But the more I thought about it, the more I wanted to drive the car like a "real car". So obviously the Merlin had to go.

I am still very attached to running the T101A in the car, although popular opinion is I will want to shoot myself after a month of driving it with the dog-box. I just miss my Jerico from the '67 and haven't been able to get over that yet.

About the time I'd sobered up and decided the 570 wasn't the right direction, another buddy decided that he didn't want to go ahead with the LS2 project in his '67 Chevy pickup. This ended up at my house...

[Leroy Rochester]

OK, so get to the point right?! What I'm actually doing to the car in Phase 1.

This is the current powertrain/front suspension parts list. I'm sure I'm forgetting some stuff. I'm sure I'll get some "ugh" responses to some of this stuff.

• LS2
• T101A
• McLeod Hydraulic Clutch kit for 1st gen F-body
• SPC upper control arms and Global West lowers
• Ride tech musle bar
• Wilwood 6 Piston front brake kit
• CCW 17x10 front 17x11 rear wheels
• Hedman/Musclerod stepped headers
• Dirty dingo sliding motor mounts
• QA1 semi-coil over front spring/shock
• Ride Tech TruTurn

On the bodywork side, this is what's either been done or coming down the pipe (need to finish the front so I can turn the car around and start on the rear - wait, that didn't sound right?!)

• Stock replacement subframe blased and powered coated
• stock inner fenders (minor modifications) blasted and powder coated
• rust bucket / bondo filled orignal front fenders replaced
• firewall cleaned an repainted
• trans tunnel modified for T101A shifter
• trunk floor replaced
• Mini tubs (75-25% to do it or not)
• new fuel tank with in tank pump for the LS
• Replicate the '67 rear wheel openings to cover the rear tires without being overtly flared and without doing full quarter stretch
• Inboard rear shock mounts

Again, I'm sure there's a buttload of stuff I'm forgetting but that's sort of the overriding list of things for this phase of the project.

I'm likely going to do a Fay's watts link in the rear as well. But still sort of sniffing around on that. The car also already has bolt in subframe connectors, a 12 bolt rear with Tom's KA axles and rear GM style single piston discs.

As you'll see in some of the photos, I wanted to use a Unisteer rack conversion (given to me by my buddy with the LS2) but ultimately wasn't happy with it. I'm not going to complain or bag on the company because I never went to them directly to try to remedy what I didn't like (since I didn't get it from them) and ulitmately, I'm actually overall happier with using stock style power steering, given the overall drivability goal.

At the end of Phase 1, I want a car that I can turn the igintion key and drive to work, to the store, to lunch... Expectations regarding comfort and "drivability" would be equivelent to my recently departed '87 C30 dually or my '95 F350 PSD. So I'm shooting for "effective" not "perfect".

[Leroy Rochester]

Back on page 3... Dang, that ain't cool. I'd better get off my butt and get some more pics up.

OK, so as I said, the car had a 427 in it for a while. The 427 had a bit of a bad day and had to take some time off... Here's the starting point.

And yes, that is duct tape on the MSD box. No worries boys, it's not holding the box onto the car! It's covering a hole in the box... I know you're all pretty impressed so far! Ha ha.

[Leroy Rochester]

So with some help from my buddy John (who will feature prominintely in this project... a bit of a spoiler alert, but I wouldn't be surprised if he ends up finishing the car when the F-it button gets pushed at some point in the future) the cat got skinned.

For those playing along at home - John is one of my closest friends and is nearly always involved in my vehicular shenanigans (cheeky and fun, I assure you). John is a very experienced and meticulous fab guy... Me, not so much! His handywork can be seen over at Steve's Nova Site, where he's doing a really nice resto-mod rebuild on a '67 Nova wagon.

So simple point of refrence... Nice and well thought out = John, halfassed or slapped together = me.

[intocarss]

[Jr]

Cool.

17x10 on the front? How wide of a tire are you going to run?

[Leroy Rochester]

Originally Posted by Jr

Cool.

17x10 on the front? How wide of a tire are you going to run?

Yup. 275 Hoosiers seem to fit up front. Rear is 17x11 with 315.

Thanks guys. More to come!

[Leroy Rochester]

That was the original, 40 year-old NY salty fresh subframe that came out of the car. The tails were a bit rough, but all in all the Turbo-Thrift Leak-o-Matic rusts proofing seemed to do its job pretty well in keeping a lot of the underside, slimy, grimy and relatively rust free!

Still, I picked up a nice solid subframe locally and had it blasted and powdercoated the perfect Penske-poser-grey...

[FETorino]

Originally Posted by Leroy Rochester

Still, I picked up a nice solid subframe locally and had it blasted and powdercoated the perfect Penske-poser-grey...

Cool stuff Sean. I keep seeing people call you Sean so I guess that's right.

Did you weld up the seams in that sub after blasting or do any clearancing mods?

[Leroy Rochester]

Rob, it's Sean. Leroy Rochester is what it says on the NYS Thruway exit (47) that you'd get off to go to my parents house if you were coming from Buffalo or points west. Always thought it was hilarious...

I did some fairly arbitrary seam welding on the subframe. Didn't really do any mods for clearance becuase it wasn't done on my '67 and those wheels worked fine. The factory welds on the sub were (are) horrifying... It's honestly the worst I've seen. I had half a mind to cut them all off/grind them and start over, but then I figured they were on there for 40 years and haven't broken, I'll give them a shot...

I think ultimately, if I decided to get a lot more radical with the car, I'd go with a fabricated subframe rather than polish this turd much more.

I'm always at something of a crossroads about what I "really" want to do with the car. Sometimes I want it to be more hard-edged and sometimes I want it to be a cool street car I can pass on to my kids when the time is right... Day to day on that one! Fortunately the time won't be "right" for a long time!