Project Heavy Chevy

[Pro Stock John]

I wanted to introduce you all to PlanetLSX's newest project car, Project Heavy Chevy. Some of you guys might recall I had planned to get one a couple of years ago, and had one on order, but the weight of the car was a real turnoff so I actually cancelled my order. I was still racing 4th gens and getting to 3300 race weight was a minimum for me, so the newer Camaro's reported 4100-4200 race weight sickened me.

But after some time passed, I found myself wanting a sporty DD and it had to be made by the General, so after deciding no more 4 doors, I turned my gaze back to the Camaro. I then planned to purchase a new 2012, and was focused quite a bit on the new Ashen Gray. But when I came across this particular Camaro www.Cars.com, I had to check it out. As it turned out, I have a friend who works at the dealer so he was able to confirm for me that one of the older sales manager had owned the car and traded it in. My friend Jim also shared with me that it was a 1SS, no sunroof, A6 car... SCORE!!!! A6 was a must, but I also don't like sunroofs so I knew I had to go check out. I went and bought it and have really enjoyed the car.

While I was posting about the car on PlanetLSX, Tony (Nine Ball) confirmed that it was also an RS, which I didn't really know much about when I bought it... SCORE again!!! It has the cool headlights, darker tinted wheels, red SS badges, apparently the taillights are different and I don't know what else. Just goes to show what I think is important, I never even noticed the difference in the badge and wheel color even seeing these cars on the road for two years. In the end, I got the car and I think for $29K it was a no brainer.

Project Heavy Chevy:
2010 Camaro SS/RS
1SS Option Package
6L80E Transmission
No sunroof
6200 miles

I'm planning to hit GLD this Sunday or sometime next week. I'm hoping for cool weather and low 13's. I can tell by the posts I've read here and there that I should go 13.5's no problem but 13.0-13.2 takes some trying, and the weather has to be really good. I'm planning to do long cooldowns, take the beauty cover off to aid that, and to keep it running in staging as little as possible. I've read that IAT's temps can really climb while idling.

I'm running down the gas in the car so I can put in fresh. I'm thinking about doing the fuel table fuse pull too.

My near term plan is to de-badge the sides this weekend and get ready to make some stock passes. I have a number in my head I need to run before I will modify the car. Once I do that, I start to 'enhance' the car's performance. After stock, my goal will be 12.5 on stock tires, no converter. After that 11.99 but with bolt-on's, drag radials and we'll see what else.


Pic, day 1:




Time to mod this heap, can't probably put them on this week but next week looks pretty good:

[Pro Stock John]

Previous owner added some SS badges, nice quality, probably the stock ones so not cheap but they are not working for me. I don't like the C A M A R O either, I took it all off to make the car look more modern sports car:

Before:


After:



Is smooth, like snake:

[Pro Stock John]

I hit Great Lakes Dragaway, my favorite home track on 4/24/12 to run stock. Got a tone of great advice from some guys on here, big thanks in particular to Josh aka blackflag he let me ask about 20 questions on how to best run the car.

I was happy with my bonestock results...

I made 7 passes:

14.401@105.53 2.59 - Floored it off the line, spun like crazy but still ran it out for the mph
13.223@106.53 2.02 - Rolled into the gas, stab/tcs both off, no burnout, left off idle, coolant temps <195F
13.441@105.95 2.07 - Stalled it up a bit more, spun a bit, inconclusive
13.291@106.10 2.01 - Tried to roll into the gas faster, ran decent, short dry hop to the line
13.258@106.58 2.04 - Again tried to roll into gas faster, also lowered rear tire psi to 28, short dry hop to the line
13.156@106.77 1.95 - Everything clicked on this pass, but I did a longer burnout.
13.335@105.28 1.99 - Hotlapped since track was closing, temps were 200F+. I also bogged off the line lol I rolled into the gas too slow.

[Pro Stock John]

I was going to hit the track again real soon, but just a week later....

Had a small accident driving home from Detroit today. A humongous tire tread, aka an alligator, came off a truck apparently, one of the biggest I've ever seen. Guy in front of me swerved, and then I tried to move over but there was a car there, hit my front bumper pretty hard.





I couldn't drive far as is, the whole driver's side bumper was dragging, and the inner liner on that side got pulled down out of the pins... So I found a small hole in the wall car shop and borrowed their sawzall..







Add in about 10 zipties used to make three long ones, and I was able to drive the 5 hours home no problem.

Unfortunately the fender has some issues, and the driver's door has some dents too. Wah.

[Pro Stock John]

Sigh... that stupid tire tread dinged up my fender, door, broke the inner fender liner, and cracked the rocker panel... $3900 in damage:

[Pro Stock John]

I'm back in my happy place...





Now I had to see if I could better that 13.15 pass from 4/24!

[Pro Stock John]

Track outing too was nothing to get excited about, 30% chance or rain and it did rain right as I got there. Result was it was humid, and the DA was probably shot.

We didn't actually make any passes until 8:15PM. Supposedly the DA was around 1800 which would explain some of the loss in MPH. Temps went from 85 to about 74 I believe, it was kinda humid and it was kind of a bust.

The 13.5@103.79 is the most useful slip, just about 104 that's 3 mph off (13.15@106.77) from last time when the air was much better. The other two slower passes the car was real hot, like 200F at the line. I was told by one 5th gen guy that once the temps get over 195 the computer starts to pull power out. So I figure the slower two slips show the pcm taking out 1-2 mph. Also, I can pretty much get this car to leave 2.0 or better every time. That one 2.07 was me trying to leave a little harder.

But I has the boredoms so I think it's time to change stuff on the car.

[Pro Stock John]

Hit the track on 5/15/12, my birthday cuz I love racing.Went last night, air was supposed to be around 1000 DA.

Air was great for May.

I tried, but couldn't beat my 13.15@106...






For some reason I forgot to take a pic of another pass, it was a decent 13.25.

Anyway, look at the the 1.94 60 foot on stock tires on the 13.20 run!

Oh well, no more running stock that's it!!!

[Pro Stock John]

Which brings me to current day.

I'm ready for mods. I have two goals this year, 12.5 and and 11.99. I want to run those times, with bolt-ons, with no cam, headwork, and power adder.

Phase I:

Cold air
Under drive pulley
Ported TB
JBA midpipe + cats
Muffler swap maybe
Simple tune

Most of the above list to me is a no brainer I've added those items or variants of them to other cars over the years. I'm still brewing up my list of items I would tweak in the tune, but I'm thinking AFM delete in sport mode, turn fans on sooner, bump up idle, dial back torque management in sport mode, and whatever else folks reccomend.

Old friends might remember my 1998 Formula, ran this from 1999 to 2007:






The 2000 Z/28 I put together when I co-owned LS1Tech:

[Padre]

Padre

[pierre777]

subscribed

[Pro Stock John]

I'm not usually someone who gets into exterior appearance mods, but I sure like the bowtie delete look:

[pierre777]

Looks really good man that bowtie is huge, I gave it a lot of thought and got the heritage grille without a bowtie.

[Pro Stock John]

JBA midpipe with cats, ready!
Powerbond underdrive pulley, belts and crank bolt are here, ready!
CAI, ready!
Ported TB... ported TB... ported TB... Not here yet.

Anyone know how tight for the TB bolts to the intake, snug or how many inch lbs?