April 14th, 2008
Although I was without my ’68 Camaro for my fourth SCCA autocross event, showing up in the ’01 Trans Am WS-6 on the morning of the 13th and tech’ing in was uneventful. Although the Trans Am would be legal in ESP, I decided to race in CP since there is a year-long points race and I would be spending most of the year in my ’68 Camaro which is not legal in ESP. This time my map covered all of the area that we race, and I was able to get all of the cones down pretty well while I walked the course. The course started off to the right with a few cones set up in an exaggerated slalom, then entered into a narrow section that required a little weaving but was fast if you could stay steady through it. A sweeping 180 degree turn brought you back around and through a relative long slalom followed by a turn to the left, then a hairpin turn followed by a turn to the right before a hairpin exit from the course.
I didn’t expect to be able to perform as well in the Trans Am as in my ’68 Camaro mostly because I knew the suspension was a lot softer and I had no experience racing the Trans Am. Since this was only my 4th SCCA race and my autocrossing skills were still infantile, I didn’t figure I was going to be able to switch between the two cars without missing a beat on the track. My first autocross day in December of 2007 with the ’68 and ’98 Camaros taught me that. I was, however, very interested to see how well the 315s in the rear and 275s up front would grab the blacktop in an autocross event. I was racing in the afternoon heat so watched some of the morning racing and hung out in Rick’s American Muscle tent the rest of the time.
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April 12th, 2008
As you recall from earlier blogs in addition to the 1968 Camaro I raced the 1998 Z-28 convertible during my first SCCA outing but I had been wanting a fourth generation WS-6 for some time, and one came up on Craig’s List for sale at the right price. The only problem was the car was on the Big Island of Hawaii, and I live on O’ahu. After talking it over with my sainted wife Cris, we decided to fly over to the Big Island and check the car out for the day. We used miles to fly over in the morning on Hawaiian Airlines and return the same evening. Dad was here to stay with the girls for the day so it cost nothing out of pocket, and Cris loves visiting the Big Island. To make a long story short, we bought the WS-6 and sold my Z-28. In the process I stepped up to a higher class car (the WS-6 is, performance-wise and options-wise, on par with the SS, while the Z-28 is one step lower) as well as a 3 year newer car. The WS-6 has the 6 speed T-56 transmission with the optional Hurst shifter and a 3.42:1 rear gear with an Auburn limited slip differential. Additionally the WS-6 has sharper styling and leather interior, and was black on black, all of which I preferred. The last and best part was the fellow I purchased the Trans Am from had tastefully modified the car with the addition of SLP resonators and stainless steel exhaust, less restrictive air filters for the Ram Air, an SLP smooth bellows, a shock tower brace, and American Torque-Thrust wheels at all four corners sporting 275 rubber in the front and 315 steamrollers out back. He also had installed a sub-woofer to go with the 8 speaker surround system and a couple of amps controlled by a nice Alpine head unit that has the i-pod interface built in.
Preparing the Trans Am for autocrossing wasn’t that difficult. I had checked it out before purchase, giving it my own tech inspection. Mostly I just had to remove anything that was loose in the car. One of the amps was laying on the back deck without being secured, so I secured it with some Velcro and was good to go. I wasn’t sure how the car would handle relative to the ’68 Camaro. If driving the ’98 convertible Z-28 was any indication it would be a lot softer in terms of the shocks. I did expect it to be a bit tighter than the Z-28 as the WS-6 suspension is supposed to be a higher performance suspension. I was also keen to see how the big meaty tires would fare on the race track. Being a stick car, I knew that I’d be able to put the torque down a lot more directly than with the automatic-equipped Z-28, so it would take more finesse to handle the WS-6. It wasn’t the Camaro I’d be making my debut in the CP class in, but at least I did have a very nice back-up until I got the bent valvestem in the Camaro fixed…
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April 11th, 2008
I decided to install my full roller chromemoly steel 1.6 to 1 rockers from Comp Cams (PN 1302-16) in the ’68 Camaro before the next SCCA race day. I pulled the valve covers and took out the Pro-Magnum roller tip 1.52:1 rockers that were in place and installed a pair of the new full roller rockers and turned the motor over by hand. I was a little worried that I would have more lift than the springs on the heads could handle but I had plenty of room with no coil bind so went ahead installing the rest of the rockers. I finished with cylinder #8 on the passenger side firewall and decided to fire the engine up. Always turn the motor over several times by hand after changing the rocker arms out! When I installed the rocker arm on the #8 cylinder I put the pushrod in wrong and it was hanging up on the edge of the lifter…when I turned the engine over it tried to run but the exhaust valvestem on the #8 cylinder was bent on the first revolution and was interfering with the top of the piston on each subsequent revolution. The sound of the engine trying to run but not able to get up and idle was a sad one. After some inspection and observation of what had happened came the realization that I would not be racing the Camaro in the next SCCA autocross because I was only 2 days from race day and there was no way I was going to pull the head, have it repaired and replaced within that time span. This rookie mistake on my part born out of trying to get the job done in a hurry during the waning hours of the evening was going to cost me a race day in the Camaro.
This was particularly sad because there is a season long points race in our club for Solo II racers in each class. I had figured out after an overdue review of the class rules that the Camaro didn’t belong in E Stock Prepared (ESP) but rather in C Prepared (CP) and because of this would already be out points in CP because I raced ESP for the first race of the new season on March 30th. I didn’t want to not accumulate any points toward the season-long competition during the second race either. So I did what any aspiring autocrosser would do: I started preparing my daily driver for race duty on Sunday. Luckily, my daily driver is a 2001 Trans Am WS-6 that has been modified a bit for peppy acceleration.
Posted in Building an Autocross Car | Comments Off
