Full Build: Transforming A '92 Camaro Into An Autocross Machine

today on carcass this thing runs like absolute junk we take a 25th anniversary camaro auto crossing and there's a lot to improve on this thing pretty much handled like a bulldozer when you want to build something different you turn the carcass they transform cars and trucks into one-of-a-kind builds from street to mud if you dream it they can build it this is carcass a non-traditional speed shop sporty stylish when you're sitting in the driver's seat you're only 14 inches off the ground it thumps it bumps and it's well fast-ish this is our 1992 chevy camaro but this isn't any ordinary camaro this is the 25th anniversary edition with 16-inch alloy aluminum wheels and a whopping 170 horses under the hood now 1992 was a big year for this car but just 10 years prior in 1982 gm released the 3rd gen camaro and it sold somewhere in the neighborhood of 173 000 units that year well 10 years later gm had sold a total of 3.7 million of these camaros and that's a whole lot of third gens on the road now our third gen camaro sports the f-body platform which has more room under the hood and it had quite a few engine options ours has a 5 liter v8 backed by a four-speed automatic transmission which made this puppy reach a top speed of 129 miles an hour and a slow 16.5 seconds in the quarter mile with 170 horsepower putting out 255 pound-feet of torque this planted the camaro right in the mix of sports cars for this era coolness aside the 25th anniversary edition came with some novelty perks known as the heritage package this came with a color match drill racing stripes that stretch from front to back and special 25th anniversary badging and since we're in the looks department check out this body style in the front you'll find this aggressive body kit and as it sweeps down the side you'll notice horizontal lines that span the length of the door panels around back a large glass panel encompasses the rear hatch and the brake lights well they scream 90s era now the inside is much of the same you'll find all the 90s amenities down to the cigarette lighter and ashtray we have power windows and locks ac controls on the dash and the classic instrument panel that many of us remember from those days our five leader in our 92 camaro shows about 193 000 miles and we're about to put this thing through the ringer so for a little added insurance we're going to be running sea foam high mileage motor treatment in the crank case and in the fuel system now on the fuel side it's going to help clean the injectors and on the crankcase side it's going to clean and reduce the residue that can build up in your crankcase and as a bonus the stuff acts as a lubricant in those critical upper engine areas and if used regularly sea foam will reduce rough engine performance and high mileage vehicles like our camaro we're back at ncm motorsports park here in bowling green kentucky and they have an awesome road course where someone can have a once in a lifetime experience and take a ride in a corvette but that's not why we're here we're here to utilize the paddock area to test out our stock camaro on an autocross course ready yes sir set go sounds okay for a 305. [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] nice job buddy [Music] all right how fast was that 49.59 well this thing pretty much handled like a bulldozer really yeah so like when you get into a corner you got to like make a hard left yeah it's pretty much going to go straight like a bulldozer perfect yeah tires are terrible yeah but that makes sense one last thing i'm pretty sure it runs on seven cylinders half the time really i wish you the best of luck oh that's awesome see how well you do that's awesome great get me in here ready set go let's see how many cylinders can make it to the finish line [Music] 32 33 34. he's actually not doing terrible wow wow a little race going on here oh son of a he actually beat me how's that possible two seconds faster 47.78 what's my time it's barely running what's my time 47.78 oh winner winner chicken dinner how was that possible that's on like five cylinders that's on like five cylinders yes yes hey hey just you don't need to gloat i'm standing right here oh my god this thing runs like absolute junk and i still beat you i i can't understand it because i don't know how many cylinders you ran on i i think it's like an ignition issue or something because like throughout the whole track it kept going in and out and like i pick up speed lose speed but like you said the suspension just needs to go away i think so and now that we have an issue underneath the hood i think everything under here needs to go away too yeah and now we can pick up every single one of these cones and go home because it's hot ah i don't want to up next what's in store for our 1992 camaro perhaps some engine power you're watching carcass [Music] okay so here's what i learned from yesterday with the ignition issues and everything uh this motor probably needs to come out and it's super underpowered anyways but pat and mike have that low buck vortech the 53 ls based engine that i think would be a perfect fit for this yeah i think a really good thing to back up this low buck vortec which is a great idea to put in it because guys put ls's and everything we'll get rid of the 700 r4 that's behind here the guys from gearstar built us a turbo 400 that is specifically designed for auto crossing and obviously that's what this car is going to do yeah so i think we could probably just get on to getting the stuff out of this car get it on the hoist yep and make some room for all this new stuff going underneath it yeah get the old stuff out new stuff in sounds good here's the grand idea for this build we're going to take our 92 25th anniversary camaro and turn it into an autocross car we're going to get rid of the 170 ponies go all the way up to 406 ponies we're going to back that up with a turbo 400 transmission specifically built for auto crossing then we're going to move underneath the car ditch all of that old tired suspension and replace it with a bunch of good parts that's going to make this car hug and handle on the course we're going to wrap a wide set of wheels with a wide set of tires and then put some fender flares on the side of the car to give it a nasty stance when we're done with that jimmy and i are going to design our own mild arrow package but we're going to do all of that right here in house we'll make life easier for us by removing the hood it'll get set aside for some attention later then with the vehicle in the air we'll need to do a bunch of odds and ends to get this drivetrain out like draining the oil so this has got to be a first i've been working on cars for like 20 years now somebody left the harmonic balancer installer in the balancer without the crank bolt in there so literally the installer is what's holding the balancer on that's a free tool right there that is dirtiest part of any job fluids look at that little additive projector cleaner beauty that didn't help in addition to draining all the fluids we'll need to cut out the old exhaust and make room for us to remove this old transmission [Music] up top we'll make some room so we can pull out the engine the best way to do that is to get rid of the radiator [Music] dude that's a new radiator look at that that's a new fan look at that let's take a break from our 305 tear out and take a look at what's going to be replacing this thing this is the 406 horsepower 5.3 liter ls from the guys down in engine power now this thing came out of a rec silverado so pat and mike tore it completely down to the engine block cleaned it all up and threw it back together now when they were done with it it ran like a watch and the big thing for us is man it's gonna double the horsepower underneath the hood of our camaro with the added horsepower we're gonna need a transmission that won't grenade into a million pieces and this is where gearstar comes in they custom built this level four turbo 400 transmission but zach the owner of gearstar wouldn't call this a transmission at this level he calls it a horsepower transferring system this transmission can handle up to a thousand pound feet of torque and all the transmission that come out of his shop are custom built by a single expert from start to finish and they're dyno tested for a hundred miles and gear star backs all this up with a 36 month warranty and dedicated tech support [Music] now that we know what engine and transmission are going in this thing let's get rid of the 305 and make way for the new drivetrain [Music] coming up we drop in rls and find a plug and play way to use our existing gauges next on carcass [Music] this is the 406 horsepower ls that we got from the guys down in engine power now pat and mike got this out of a rex silverado and gave this thing a thorough inspection and the ep guys really dialed this thing in for us to use in our camaro with it getting its final run on the dyno they sent it down to us and we were able to add up all the accessories and pieces that'll suit our needs holley has a lot of support for these ls engines so we picked up everything we'll need for the install we're not the first guys to put an ls inside of a camaro and there's some people out there that are helping out with this this is a bracket we got from holley performance now what we're going to do is take the stock clam shell off of the cross member where the 5 liter used to sit the upside to this is that these four bolt holes are actually going to go into four holes that are already on the cross member and then the flip side of that is we're going to take a stock clam shell for a new series ls and we're going to bolt this directly to our ls [Music] all right go ahead and go down man it's like this thing fits in here keep going our engine fits easily into our motor mounts and a couple taps with a hammer get the bolts all the way through there's a lot of you guys out there putting ls's in anything and everything there's some vital signs we need to keep track of like the oil pressure and the coolant temp now we know that the stock sensors on our ls aren't going to work with our gauges inside of our camaro what we could do is switch out the dash but we want to leave it the same and look stock appearing we could also come out here in the engine bay find our stock sensors look for our wiring to match see if the connections match and if they don't get into the harness cut and splice new connectors in it now that's all fine and dandy if that's something you guys want to do but we're looking for something a little more plug and play ready so we're going to be adding a brand new set of stock 305 sensors we're going to start with the coolant temp sensor now the coolant temp sensor for our ls we need to keep that because it's going to run our msd ignition box to run our coils so we're going to go ahead and add a stock 305 coolant temp sensor back here on the passenger side cylinder head now that's a pretty tight fit and we knew we weren't going to be able to do it when the engine was installed so we went ahead took care of that when it was sitting out on the engine stand this port didn't match the thread pitch of our new sensor so to remedy that we used a 9 16 drill bit with some grease on the end of it to drill out the hole and then the grease will now help collect the metal shavings and prevent it from falling into the places where we don't want them we'll follow that up with a 3 8 npt tap to match the pitch of our new coolant temperature sensor on the oil pressure side of things the stock oil pressure sensor is on top of our ls and that's not going to work for us because it doesn't plug into our harness but the cool thing is is that every ls oil pan has an oil passage cover and they're removable so we're just going to take that cover off of our pan we'll drill and tap it so it matches the stock 305 pressure sensor we're using a 7 16 drill bit to go along with our ntp tap when cutting threads with any tap it's smart to drive it in a couple of turns and then just back it out a little bit this allows the metal chips to clear the cutting edge we're gonna use an adapter because we're gonna get close to the headers put the sensor in back at the car we'll put the oil passage cover back on the oil pan [Music] now all there's left to do is just plug in the sensor [Music] next on our to-do list we squeeze our turbo 400 transmission into its new home and hear the roar of our new powertrain you're watching carcass [Music] we had a lot to do to finish up the engine install on our camaro and a carburetor is going to be our choice for fuel delivery because that's what the guys down in engine power set this engine up for now our stock fuel pump's going to deliver way too much pressure for our carburetor so we're going to switch that out with the fuel pump that's going to deliver 7 to 10 psi to run our quick fuel carb we opted for a quick fuel fuel pump from holley performance which we plumbed up with dash 6 fittings and hoses during the break we went ahead and took care of a couple of things on the camaro we finished up the fuel system we threw the headers in because we knew that was gonna be a bear jimmy put the radiator underneath the hood and uh we're getting ready to finish up the install on the drivetrain and help with that we got our brand new matco tools two stage transmission jack that can hold up to a thousand pounds and this thing has a foot pump with a foot activated release to really give us control over what we're doing and this saddle has four ratcheting arms to fit pretty much any transmission pin you could put on it and the best feature of this i think is that it has a safety overload valve which doesn't allow the jack to work if it's loaded over traded capacity which makes it safe and convenient for us and it's going to get this up there now prior to jacking up the transmission we need to install this adapter it'll allow the crankshaft on our ls to match up with the torque converter on our turbo 400 transmission on top of that we installed an ls flex plate we picked up from summit racing it gets six bolts that we carefully snugged up with an impact we then torqued them down to 35 pound-feet in a crisscross pattern and followed that up with a final round at 74 pound-feet let me give you a hand with this thing so a little trick to this since we have the headers in it's a really tight squeeze we actually loosen the header bolts so that the engine can tilt back a little bit more so it'll clear the ears on the spell housing we also pulled the torque converter because we didn't want to chance it falling out and dropping it and once we get the transmission back up and in here and straight we'll put the converter right back in it so what i'm looking for is a solid engagement with the converter and to make sure that the face of the converter is behind the face of the bell housing you just need to get this lined up [Music] before we connect the flex plate to the torque converter we need to install the crossmember the turbo 400 crossmember comes with an additional mounting hole which we will drill a hole for and add an additional bolt finally we can marry our engine and our transmission together to do that we'll have to work in a really tight space using three bolts to connect the flex plate to the torque converter to finish up the transmission we have to install the shifter that we got from summitracing.com our stock shifter won't work with our manual valve body transmission so it needs to go but we want to make every effort to make sure our new shifter looks like it belongs here so carefully disassembling the old shifter will allow us to see where we'll need to make any mods to the center console and prevent our new shifter from sticking out like a sore thumb [Music] i think that'll work with jimmy finishing up the interior of our camaro i'm going to go ahead and get started on the exterior of our camaro because we want this thing to look as good as it's going to perform and to do that we're going to be using sonax's polymer net shield and their brilliant shine detailer now their polymer net shield is actually a sealant so it's going to help protect the finish of our paint on our camaro and it's pretty simple to apply we'll just spray a little bit onto our applicator sponge and we'll work it into the panel in small areas and when we're done before it dries we'll buff it off with a clean microfiber towel the polymer net shield will give us up to six months of protection but when we're ready to bring the camaro out and just dust it off before we hit the track we can go ahead and use their brilliant shine detailer now this stuff can be used as a waterless wash and when you combine the detailer and their polymer net shield together it will give our camaro up to nine months of protection this thing started right up easiest swap we've done all this it sounds super good too wrap it up a couple more times for more builds like this find us on powernationtv.com [Music] today on carcass we swap out our old tire suspension for a more adjustable system plus we give our camaro some sporty new shoes and the fenders to match when you want to build something different you turn the carcass they transform cars and trucks into one-of-a-kind builds from street to mud if you dream it they can build it this is carcass a non-traditional speed shop let's get you caught up on the progress we've made on our autocross camaro it started as a 1992 25th anniversary third gen camaro and it may not look like we've changed much but everything we did was in the engine bay and underneath this 90s muscle car that's right we removed the low power 305 and dropped in a 5.3 liter ls taking it from 190 horse all the way up to 406. to back that up we installed a turbo 400 transmission along with the new shifter that will work with the manual valve body with headers a new fuel system and a carb sitting on top we were able to fire this guy up and check all the vitals of rls on our stock gauges and today we're going to see a much bigger transformation on the outside of our camaro this car is really going to have to grip the ground going around the track and it's going to have to handle a lot better than it did last time yeah and to help this thing grip the ground we're going to be adding a much wider set of wheels and tires plus we're going to be throwing on a set of fender flares because we want to stick with this autocross theme and we want this thing to handle so we're going to be completely overhauling the entire suspension but before we do that we've got some interior work to do yeah that's a tall order but let's get at it we're going to do our best to keep as much of the interior intact as possible we're leaving the dash alone and we're definitely going to be keeping the center console but what we're going to get rid of are these two worn out front seats the first thing we're going to do on the interior of our camaro is install a roll bar kit that we got from summit racing now this is a perfect kit for you guys that don't have access to a tubing bender because it has pre-bent angles and the tubes are even notched now we don't necessarily need a roll bar in the autocross camaro for the safety aspect but what this is gonna do is help stiffen the chassis and it's gonna make this car handle better so the first thing we got to do to get this installed is take a measurement inside the cab that way we know where to trim our main hoop [Music] so the inside was 35 ish looks like we got to cut off about two and a quarter inches [Music] see how it fits snug fit now that we have the hoop in place we can get to work on installing the base plates and what these are for is that in the event of a wreck it'll spread the load over the floor instead of the tube punching a hole through the floor to install our base plate we'll prep the area with a grinder and with our base plate trimmed down to fit the space we'll give it a few tacks to hold it in place now that we have our main hoop in we can move on to the down bars get a measurement get them fit up and get them tacked in with our measurement of about 30 inches we'll measure from the notched end of the down bar then we'll take it over to the chop saw where we'll cut it at a 55 degree angle back inside the camaro we need to tack in our base plate for the down bars [Music] and then we can test fit to see if everything lines up those fit pretty good yeah mine fits good all right now let's just weld the plates in and we'll hold the bars in we'll need to take some care when we're welding in these base plates first we don't want to burn a hole through the floor of the camaro and second we don't want to warp any of the sheet metal that makes up the floor to prevent this we're going to be using a mig so we can turn on and off the heat quickly and we'll be moving around so we don't put too much heat into one place with the hoop and down bars we'll be taking a different approach for one thing we're going to be using the tig the welds look a little bit nicer and the metal is thick enough so we're not afraid of piling in too much heat we'll tackle the point where the down bars meet the hoop first this way we can just tack it in slide the whole assembly out of the camaro and weld it on the bench that way we don't mess up our nice headliner with those welded solid we can slide the cage onto our base plates and burn those in with the tig leaving only the crossbar to be installed [Music] the last thing we're going to be installing on our interior is a set of seats and seat brackets we got from summit racing now the best thing about these seat brackets is they bolt right in to the stock locations [Music] coming up we tear out our old suspension and make room for a slew of new parts next on carcass [Music] [Music] with the interior of our camera all buttoned up it's time to move our thoughts underneath the car so we got all these parts to throw on our camaro like adjustable caster and camera plates to give our car a better alignment for track purposes and we also got stiffer springs and sway bars to keep the handling tight when we're on course and in the rear we're gonna ditch the stock coil spring and shock setup and move up to a coil over shock setup plus we're gonna get rid of the tired old rear end that's got 190 000 miles on it and replace it with a remanufactured one that's got 373 gears and a limited slip differential but before we can put all these parts on our car we got to take the old ones out to kick start the suspension tear out we'll remove all four wheels and tires we have plans to add a wider set that's more suitable for autocross later with those out of the way we can disconnect the tie rod end from the spindle a cotter pin is removed along with the castle nut before giving it a few hefty taps with a hammer to knock it loose next we'll remove the sway bar first by unbolting the sway bar links and then we'll finally remove the mounts and the bushings got it we'll remove the calipers because this is all getting updated later we'll be putting in new rotors pads hoses and calipers they will help control the camaro as we enter the tight corners on the autocross course now to keep our shop floor clean we're going to do some fluid management before we disconnect the calipers we've already drained the master cylinder up in the engine bay but there's still plenty of brake fluid in the lines that can drip all over the floor so to help us we're going to use a vacuum bleeder to keep the shop floor nice and clean this does a good job at getting most of the brake fluid out but there's always some stubborn drops that you'll have to clean with a shop towel with our brake hose disconnected we can remove the calipers and scrap the center link which we'll also be replacing we'll work on removing the spindle next the most dangerous part about this portion is the coil spring and you can tackle this in a number of different ways the way we chose to do this is by loosening the lower ball joint nut using the spring tension to help us knock it loose now it's important that we don't take the nut completely off otherwise the spring tension could cause some serious damage with some six ton jack stands we'll support the lower control arm on the cradle and this is where we can safely remove the castle nut at the top of the strut tower we can remove the nuts that hold on the caster camber plates and the one holding the strut this releases the entire assembly allowing us to remove the strut spindle and rotor assembly all in one piece [Music] then we'll raise the car off the jack stands and carefully pry the coil spring loose with the long pry bar there's left to do is remove the lower control arm [Music] put the front all apart it's time to move on to the rear [Music] we'll begin with the panhard bar the teardown outback isn't nearly as complicated as the front you still have a spring that is under tension that you should be careful with but with our vehicle these are so worn out they can be removed without a problem the lower control arm needs to be unbolted next this is under a little bit of load but with the help of a pry bar that allows us to free up the bolts at this point the rear axle is only being held in by the shocks the last thing to be disconnected is the e-brake cable a pair of pliers help release it from the bracket allowing us to lower the axle and support it on a set of jack stands in the cab we pulled back the carpet so we could unbolt the top of the shock this is pretty easy especially since we had already cut back the carpeting for the roll cage jimmy you want to raise the car up and i'll watch the axle come out you ready yeah go for it [Music] up next the upgrades that will help our camaro hug the pavement you're watching carcass [Music] it's time to get started installing the suspension on the camaro but before we get started on the rear suspension of the camaro we're going to go over a little trick on how to find your rear gear axle ratio without popping the diff cover now there's two ways of doing this one is with the rpo tag that you can find inside the car what you can do is look up the tag number for your axle and that will tell you what gear ratio you have but what if you don't have that tag or what if it's missing well there's another way to do that on the front side of the passenger axle tube is your axle identification number well if we take that first number plug that into google that'll also tell us our gear ratio well by looking that up this says we have 273 gears and that's just not going to work for autocross so that's why we ordered our remanufactured axle with 373 gears because that's just going to give us better off the line acceleration the first part of our rear suspension install is going to be these coil overs but they install a little bit differently than the stock shocks as you can see the stock shock uses a stud with a nut to hold it in place on our coilover we have a rod end type end with a special bracket that goes on top and then this stud goes in the original shock location [Music] the coilovers we're using are a single adjustable unit that we got from summitracing.com the great advantage to using these is just by twisting this dial you can make the shocks stiffer or softer the reason why you might want to do that is because you can actually affect the rate of weight transfer to illustrate that point if i set these shocks to the softest setting i can push these in and out with relatively little effort if i turn the shocks to the stiffest setting i can barely push these in by myself so this is going to be a huge improvement and it's exactly why we're going to put these on our camaro to put one of these together we'll start with the locking collar and then the lower spring perch running them all the way down then we'll add some permatex anti-seize and we'll add a shim before adding the coil spring [Music] then the upper spring perch can go on allowing us to snug up the whole assembly with our shocks in place we can install the rest of the suspension kit we picked up from summit racing the lower control arms get bolted in then we need to add some shock mounts to our remanufactured axle we got through autozone we'll need to drill out a hole in the stock shock mount to accommodate for our new bracket so we'll tighten up one bolt and use the other hole as a drill guide [Music] with it drilled out we can finish up the installation [Music] with the axle in position we can lower the camaro down to it this allows us to line up the lower control arm with the mount on the axle then we'll tap the bolt all the way in next we'll line up the coilover with the new mount we installed on the axle this gets bolted in as well the panhard bar goes in next this is probably the easiest suspension piece to install but it's super important it locates the axle laterally with the car preventing it from moving left and right with the lateral movement taken care of we need to add the torque art it attaches to the differential housing and prevents the axle from rotating under load the last part of this kit for the rear is the sway bar the new one is thicker than the original and will help reduce body roll especially when we transition from one turn to another that takes care of the rear now let's move on to the front we'll start with the control arms the kit we got from summit racing works with our 1992 camaro with all the holes lining up in the stock mounts with the car lowered so we can access the engine bay we can start installing the coilovers the new caster camber plates include a back plate that uses the oe slots in the shock tower all we have to do is add the remaining plates and get them bolted in we're making sure not to drive these home knowing that we'll have to make adjustments later before we can go any further we need to marry the spindle to the coilover this will just make assembly easier going forward with it all in one piece we'll slide it through the caster camber plate and add a nut leaving it loose for now down below we'll raise the control arm and connect it to the spindle we'll add the castle nut firmly tightening it down then we'll just add a cotter pin for safety with everything installed we'll go back to the engine bay and tighten the nut on the top of our coilover to finish up our front suspension install we'll throw in the front sway bar this is a simple bolt in using the stiffening plates provided in the kit we'll use the factory bolts and stock mounting locations for the middle sections and then the provided bolts and bushings for the ends that connect to the control arms anytime you add more horsepower to your vehicle you're going to make it harder to stop so to help with that we picked up this brake upgrade kit from rockauto.com now it's designed to help with faster speeds and the high heat that goes along with those faster speeds and there's a lot of r d involved in putting a kit together like this like carbon fiber infused ceramic pads that are thermal scorched for fast breaking times precision drilled rotors to help with cooling and they're slotted to help wipe away any gases or debris now finding a kit like this on rockauto.com is easy sorting by year make and model we are able to find what worked for our camaro and our autocross application before you install new rotors you should always remove any oils from the manufacturing process this is where crc's parts cleaner and degreaser comes in handy this spray can destroy tough dirt grease and grind that builds up on parts over the years and crc has been proven side by side to clean 14 times faster than other products on the market and it dries very fast not leaving a residue behind which is important for any brake application coming up we slice and dice so we can make our camaro look like this you're watching carcass [Music] so [Music] it definitely sticks out but we did do this by design yeah it looks a little odd from the first set down but i really like it that's the easiest way we could get the wide wheels and tires on it and give us that wide track with yeah so the look is right the weld wheels we got from summit racing look great with the continental tires wrapped around them but the stance of our camaro looks a little bit funky yeah jimmy ordered these wheels specifically with this backspacing because that gives us that wide track width and that's going to help decrease lateral load transfer which can help in autocross and in road racing so to fix our stance we ordered these really big fender flares to give it an aggressive cool look [Music] oh that does look good doesn't it yeah holy cats that changes the whole look of the car i think it's actually going to fit pretty well on the body too yeah get them installed these are universal fender flares we picked up from summit racing with them being universal they're not going to fit right out of the box and right off the bat we know we need to do a little trimming to the bottom lip there are a couple ways you can do this but we're going to use a cut off wheel to make our cut [Music] we'll follow that up with a file to clean up the edges with our cuts all cleaned up we can now prep the fender to go on the camaro we'll start by drilling out the holes for our fastener then at the camaro we'll set the fender exactly where we want it and mark out each hole on the body all there's left to do is carefully drill out each hole location with a 1964 drill bit it's a rinse and repeat process drilling all 10 holes [Music] a rivet nut goes in next this is one of those tools that you may not use often but you're glad to have it when you need it with all our rivet nuts in place we'll slap on the included rubber seal and bring in our fender flare adding all the supplied hardware this is a repetitive process and there's really no kind of technique to this just get it good and tight clean install well the rear is going to be the easy part front's going to be a little more challenging because of the the turning radius here yeah yeah yeah that's already already yeah we're going to have to do some major trimming on the front side of this yeah at least same on the back side of the fender too well the upside to that is the fender flare covers up everything so we don't have to get too precise on the cut we can just cut it until it yeah you know reaches turn so we're going to outline our cut with some tape and use a cut-off wheel to make a smooth transition to the outside of our tape line [Applause] [Music] now this didn't do the whole job we'll need to use a reciprocating saw to finish off the rest that's full lock and we still touch up front yeah and as the wheel goes through its travel we might risk cutting a tire so i think we should just cut it farther out here and more up top i think the flare will cover all of that so i'll just grab the cutoff wheel and we'll just cut a bunch out yeah this is the kind of thing you can run into when doing mods like this we wanted to make sure we weren't going to cut too much and leave us without enough material to work with but like anything it makes for a slower process yeah and this is a perfect example we trimmed less than we needed in the beginning because we didn't know where this fender was gonna land but the second go around we got it close and even after we screwed it into place we trimmed a little bit more off before cleaning it up with a sanding disc [Music] this thing's really looking like something now yeah i can honestly say i've never seen a third gen look like this beefy i think though the parts that we're gonna add to it later are really gonna round out the look that's right we have big plans for an arrow package to go right along with these fenders next time on carcass we're adding a splitter to the front end of our 1992 camaro that should help us grip the pavement and out back we're fabbing up a spoiler that will help finish off our autocross look today on carcass we finish off our autocross camaro with an arrow package before weaving it in and out of turns on the track you're watching carcass when you want to build something different you turn the carcass they transform cars and trucks into one-of-a-kind builds from street to mud if you dream it they can build it this is carcass a non-traditional speed shop [Music] our 25th anniversary camaro has seen a bunch of improvements since we last took it out to ncm motorsports park in bowling green kentucky we started by ripping out the old power plant and replacing it with over 400 ponies that we got from the guys down in engine power and we backed those up with a gear star turbo 400 transmission sending all that power to the wheels and speaking of wheels we mounted up some continental extreme contact sport tires on some weld racing forged wheels we got from summit racing with all that horsepower we added a little bit of life insurance with the prefab roll cage and then we added some racing style seats then we directed our attention underneath the vehicle we did a suspension overhaul to prevent this thing from steering like a bulldozer on the track this included adjustable coilovers front and rear and even a new axle with 373 gears and finally with the new stance of this combo we took a set of universal fender flares and tweaked them to give our camaro a fast new look to go along with the fender flares we installed on our 92 camaro we're gonna make a front and rear arrow package to match in the rear we're gonna get rid of the cheesy spoiler that really wasn't doing much good anyways and replace it with an aluminum spoiler jimmy and i are going to fabricate to help with rear downforce and up here we're going to make a splitter to help with front downforce and we're going to make it out of materials you might not have thought you could make a splitter from but before we can lay down some serious track times on the course we're gonna have to install the hood that we got from summit racing and bolt in the exhaust we got from holley performance so the first thing to come off is that cheesy spoiler the spoiler is held on with a couple easy to find nuts and some that are hidden under some plastic plugs and what was waiting for us when we pulled off this 28 year old spoiler was well oh it's nasty to make this job easier we're going to separate the deck lid from the back glass after removing the plastic trim from under the deck lid we unbolted the nuts that hold on the bracket with the window struts and that sandwich the lid and glass together applying a little pressure to the deck lid releases the butyl tape that seals the lid and glass together sticky and a razor blade helps clean the excess tape off the rear glass with the deck lid off we'll trace it out on a sheet of 90 thousandths aluminum then we'll cut out the shape with a jigsaw making sure we follow our line as close as possible to mount the first piece of our spoiler to our deck lid we'll have to drill some holes in a very specific location to about three and 15 16. this way the hardware that holds this cover down won't interfere with the back glass so here's a little tip we're using our matco tool step drill and it's got a bunch of steps on the edge of the drill bit to get to its final size so when i drill through the aluminum like this [Applause] i'm not going to go all the way through because i can reach to the bottom side use the step part of the drill that way i don't have any burrs on the top or the bottom we'll transfer the holes from our cover onto the deck lid with a marker then we'll just drill them out we'll use light pressure to make sure that we don't distort or dent the top sheet metal of the lid with our cover in place we'll add some hardware and then just snug it up for now for the rest of the mounting holes we'll utilize most of the original holes from the stock spoiler adding two additional holes on the edge of the deck lid [Music] we'll follow that up with some hardware to keep it all together right sir million dollar question here how tall do we make the spoiler uh maybe like five or six i say six inches there's really no rhyme or reason to that though yeah i mean unless we could actually do like a scientific test it'll probably do something if we have something here yeah but it'll look cool right it'll look totally cool yeah and then i think we'd talk like 20 degrees off a vertical right yeah something like that all right i think that's something i can totally handle over at the shear we'll mark out our spoiler using the same 90 000 aluminum we're making our mark at seven inches this allows for a one inch overhang on the bottom of our newly installed deck lid cover [Music] coming up a few pieces of aluminum to give the rear var camaro a brand new look plus a splitter out front to go along with it you're watching carcass we've disassembled and pried back the deck lid free from our camaro and now we're ready to add the aluminum spoiler we've been working on we're going with a 20 degree angle with a one inch overhang which looks like less near the edge due to the curved nature of the deck lid with jeremy holding the spoiler in position we're ready to weld the aluminum pieces using the ac setting on the tig machine we'll start with a tack on one end and use an angle finder to ensure we are at the correct angle tacking on the opposite end to hold everything in place [Music] now we set our spoiler at 13 degrees that's different than what we talked about when we were over on the car well there's a reason for that when the deck lid sits on the car it sits at a seven degree angle when we put the deck lid on the table we set this at a true zero that's what these two wooden blocks are for so when we set our deck lid back on our camaro at the 7 degrees we have the 13 degrees of our angle for our spoiler that'll give us a 20 degrees we're looking for we're gonna add a few more tacks to ensure our spoiler isn't going to move on us then we can expand those tacks laying down a three inch long bead to permanently affix the spoiler to finish off our spoiler we're going to add some turnbuckle supports to help prevent our aluminum from bending out of alignment we chose seven and a half inches from the edge to drill out the hole for our first support measuring seven and a half inches from each end we measured the distance between the two locations 39 inches in our case we divided that by three giving us equal spacing for all of our turnbuckle supports [Music] with all the base holes spaced out we need to install one end of the support and locate where we'll drill the hole for the top we can then drill that out and chamfer the back side to accommodate the bolt heads from here it's just rinse and repeat [Applause] [Music] our spoiler is now ready to be reinstalled on the camaro and since we kept the original deck lid all the bolts line up making for a super simple install [Music] we just wrapped up the rear spoiler install on the autocross camaro which in theory should give us better track times and more downforce so to get more downforce in the front we're going to be building a splitter and to do that we're going to be using tools that a carpenter might use and using materials you'd more likely find in your house than on your car to make our splitter we're using a three-quarter inch piece of plywood the reason for that is because splitters are considered to be consumable when you're out on a real road course and your car is low enough to the ground there's a good chance that when you go through the curves and turns or hit a really hard braking zone that the splitter is going to hit the ground all those impacts and that scuffing can cause it to deteriorate or break over time and the best part about using wood is that it's really cheap and you can just go to your local hardware store and get another piece with the plywood under the car we're using a plumb bob to transfer the shape of our bumper [Music] the trick is to let the plumb bob stop moving at each point with the shape of the bumper mapped out we'll move the plywood over to a tabletop to make the rest of this process easier we're going to use a compass set to five and a half inches to create the lip on our splitter [Music] for each mark we made with the plumb bob we're gonna make a matching mark five and a half inches away this will create our cut line at this point all the dots have been connected and now we're near one end of the splitter but we don't want the splitter to stick out past the edge of the fender flare so jeremy actually marked the edge of the fender flare here and we're going to taper it from the edge of the curve of the bumper all the way to the edge of the flare just using a straight line with our handy jigsaw we'll carefully cut along the line you'll notice on the bottom we have a nice clean cut but along the top we're left with a lot of tear out we're not worried about this because we're going to hit it with a seven inch air grinder and a 36 grit sanding disc this will clean up the tear out and allow us to shape the rounded corners of the splitter [Music] ordering parts online for your vehicle can be a challenge and ordering the right part can be extremely time consuming while when jimmy and i wanted to replace the worn out window sweeps on our camaro we didn't want to spend a bunch of time searching through a bunch of websites to make sure we get the right part well rock auto makes it simple by doing all the hard work for us all we had to do was type in our 92 camaro click on the body tab scroll down to find our part and add it to the cart it's a fast and simple way to make sure we get the right part and it'll finish off the look of our camaro up next we finish off the arrow package with some fabricated mounts and we'll show you how we plan to seal off the gaps next on carcass [Music] oh yeah that bracket should work it's pretty simple too um these should work for the front i think i got some more but i gotta go take a look cool during the break we made one set of the brackets to hold the splitter to our camaro this bracket one side will get welded directly to the radiator support and it'll sit just like this this bracket has two holes that'll get bolted directly to the splitter and it's got a slot at the top these two brackets combined will allow us to adjust the height of the splitter to whatever we need now we've already made one side but we're going to show you guys how to make the other side we'll start by making the bracket that will get welded to the radiator support we're using two inch by 1 8 inch thick strapping cutting an 8 inch long section on the edwards iron worker [Music] back at the bench we'll mark out an inch and a half from each end moving over to the edwards horizontal press to bend roughly a 60 degree angle to match the first bracket then we'll flip it over and bend another 60 degree angle giving us the shape we need at the bench we'll use our trusty center punch to mark our hole locations using a 3 8 inch bit to drill out the holes [Music] with one of our matching brackets done we'll move on to the plate that will attach to the splitter and allow for vertical adjustment using a five by six piece of eighth inch steel we'll measure two and a half inches in to mark the center then with it rotated and the piece hanging over the edge of the table we'll measure in one inch for our bend line from the center line we'll measure one and three quarters inches on both sides with those lines extended to the edge we'll locate our holes 3 8 of an inch from the edge this bend and subsequent holes will allow us to attach the bracket to the splitter with the plate flipped around we'll mark out the area that will attach the bracket we just made since we made it out of two inch wide strap we'll mark out a two inch wide area to match with that area marked out this is where things get a little arbitrary we're trimming this plate down so it makes sort of a triangle shape so we measured in an inch and three quarters from the edge and then just connected the dots with our overall shape figured out we need to figure out where the slot will go allowing us to adjust the splitter height we went with a half an inch from the edge for the top of the slot and two and one-eighth inches for the bottom giving us just over an inch and a half of adjustment we'll mark out all the holes for a sanity check and use a 10 millimeter socket to give us a line to sneak up on when we go round off the corners then we can begin drilling all the holes out using the drill press and a 3 8 inch drill bit next we'll cut all the waste away with a cut-off wheel like we said we're making this into kind of a triangle shape so everything outside the lines can go [Music] we'll follow that up with cutting the slot and clean it up with a die grinder [Music] whoops at the belt sander we can round off the corners and make the bend for our flange that connects to the splitter back at the horizontal press with our brackets made we can get started assembling the splitter [Music] the first bracket is welded to the radiator support then we can measure the distance between the two brackets 41. this measurement will determine where we place the second bracket on the plywood with our bracket holes marked out we can drill each hole [Music] and insert the hardware that will hold our second bracket onto the plywood splitter tightening everything up with our brackets installed it's time to marry the two together we'll line up the slotted hole on the splitter with the bolt hole on the first bracket leaving the hardware loose for now these brackets won't be the only thing holding the splitter in place in lieu of using cabling like some of the pros do we're gonna install this nut we welded to a larger washer then we can pass the threaded rod through the splitter add a jam nut and thread it into the nut and washer combo securing it in place with the jam nut [Music] now that we have the main structure done for our splitter we need to build an air dam so we can actually force air to hit the top of it because when air hits the front of the car air will go up and air will go down the air that goes down on top of the splitter will put force on the front two tires now this won't work unless we close the air gap between the splitter and the bumper so we'll be sticking to our plan using readily available and disposable materials we opted for some no dig edging this stuff is flexible enough to work in the corners but stiff enough to withstand the forces the air will be putting on it with the tab installed on the splitter we can install it again on the camaro adding the remainder of the edging screwing the bottom to the first layer of edging and the top to the bumper [Music] so to explain how our arrow kit works we'll start at the front when air hits the front of the car it's either going to go up or it's going to go down the air that goes down will hit all the surface area on our front splitter providing downforce on the front two tires but the back is a little bit more complicated when air flows over our camaro without a spoiler it just kind of flies off the back but the spoiler changes things up the spoiler acts like a wall and it slows the air in front of it down when air slows down the pressure increases and the increased pressure on the deck lid provides force on our rear tires coming up we hit the pavement and put our autocross camaro to the test next on carcass we're back here at ncm motorsports park with our autocross camaro and the last time we were here with this vehicle we tested it out bone stock on a course made up of a few hundred cones the last time jimmy and i each ran a couple laps with our best time being about 48 seconds while we're here today to best that time with 408 horsepower a completely overhauled suspension wider tires to grip the pavement and a sleek aero package that should provide some downforce when we're hammering it through the corners [Music] now instead of running this course cold turkey jimmy and i are both going to run the course twice and then our producer is going to reveal the results at the end of the day oh it's a lot faster than it was before all right [Music] this thing feels stuck to the ground i feel like i'm carrying a lot more speed too now the first time out here i was still having fun in a third gen but i can tell you this is a lot more fun how was it it was way better than last time i'll say that it's uh i'm ready for a second run soon out there go for it man awesome compared to our old stock tires these 295 series continental extreme contact sport tires probably made the biggest difference for me on this course [Music] you want to talk about having fun in a third gen this is the car this is so fantastic yeah hey dude speaking of having fun get out of there it's my turn to take it for a spin this thing is absolutely stuck to the pavement the suspension is unbelievable right now and it's just absolutely hammering it wow that's a completely different car this is a hundred percent a completely different car one lap down one to go [Music] oh man this thing is just running out like a million bucks [Music] all right man results are in and there's no way you're going to believe this i ran a 41.78 and jimmy he wrote it down right here jimmy ran a 42-25 that's sad i actually beat him in something first time this year i beat you in something i'm really happy for you actually but that's all i have to say about that um moving on to the car i'm amazed that this thing got as fast as it did with you know the upgrades we needed to oh yeah from the upgraded horsepower i mean 408 410 horse we've got way different suspension really wide tires and the aero package had to do something because we are way quicker than we were before yeah i wouldn't change a thing i think this car i would just bananas totally if you guys like anything we've done with the build or want to see anything more with the build why don't you go check out powernationtv.com and as always you're watching carcass

Channel: POWERNATION

Views: 247,587

Rating: 4.7144351 out of 5

Keywords: Car, PowerNation, howto, how-to, diy, automotive, cars, trucks, automobile, do it yourself, automobiles, auto, powerblock, camaro, chevy camaro, autocross, carcass, 25th Anniversary Camaro, Low Buck Vortec, widebody, wide body kit, widebody camaro

Id: HIeKtoHgasw

Length: 64min 22sec (3862 seconds)

Published: Wed Sep 01 2021