Back on the road

After being more or less snowed in for about 2 months, and being generally not interested in driving her in well below freezing temperatures for a number of reasons. I was finally able to get the camaro out and drive her today. Even though all I did was drive to work this morning (there will be a subsequent drive home as well), there is still, even after nearly 3 years, something intoxicating about the feel of all that power. The roar of the exhaust, the feel of the engine trying to twist in the frame, and the acceleration, you can't forget the acceleration. I can't wait for spring to get here.

Choosing upgrades for the drag race camaro

Now that I've decided that stages was the way I was going to have to get my camaro drag race ready it was time to decide what those stages would be. I thought things through and decided that this camaro was still going to be a street car for the forseeable future so I wanted some fun stuff.

At the time I was deciding on this, a few things went into my thought process. First, I wanted to spend about $5000. Second, I also have a 1991 Nissan 300zx twin turbo, and that car handles like a dream with the 4 wheel steering, lower center of gravity, and better suspension. All said and done, I decided to get some engine work done.

The package I settled on for stage one of my camaro drag racer upgrades was: Custom grind cam kit, ported oil pump, new timing set, under drive pulley, new plugs, airbox lid, mass air sensor, american racing long tube headers, off road y pipe, magnaflow catback, dyno time and a custom dyno tune. The total cost for parts and installation: $5500.

The results were pretty inpressive for a cam only car, especially considering that this is a 2000 and it has the older, somewhat crappier LS1 intake. 402 hp and 398 tq SAE corrected.

More important than what I did choose to do with this stage is probably what I didn't do. Come back in a few days and I'll talk about the short-comings of this setup for my camaro drag racer project.