Loosecannon's 1967 Camaro RS build

Pete. (l33t FS) said:

And where may this be downloaded? 

The car is not quite ready for prime time but I'm sure the boys will post a link when it is 

First race weekend of 2025 and it was amazing. I added a 10 inch spoiler which caused understeer but a softening of the front shocks cured that. For day 2 I adjusted the splitter angle which then inproved downforce on the front and I had to return the shocks to their original setting. The biggest change was in my driving. I have been practicing on the sims and for the first time IRL I have had a chance to practice what I have learned and I am way faster. I shouldn't be surprised but it is shocking how much better I am driving after changing my driving style. Here is a video of the first weekend First Race Weekend of 2025

Some big changes this last week. I was doing some test launches and the car was ripping off 2.1 second 60 foot times on cold tires so I was encouraged by that. But then suddenly there was a noise and shifting became strange. I went home and put the car on the lift and discovered that the bolts holding trans to bellhousing were either missing or loose. I do a nut and bolt check on the car every week so not sure how that happened but it did. As a result, the aluminum bellhousing was broken so I ordered a steel replacement, which came in this week. The bolts have all been loctited and use lock washers.

Also, I had an Optima battery in the trunk which proved to not be quite strong enough when the engine was hot so I added a second Optima battery. This was just throwing good money after bad because I didn't realize that the Optima battery doesn't actually have that great of cold cranking amps. I was able to return the second battery and bought an Antigravity battery. The two Optimas weighed about 90 lbs with combined CCA of 1500 and the Antigravity weighs 19 lbs and has a CCA of 1800. 

I have had an entire summer of running the 315-30-18 Nankang tires at all 4 corners and they have been very good but this year we are going for the Championship so I got the newly allowed Vitour P1's. Sticking with 315-30-18 in the front but now 345-30-18 in the rear. They are very, very wide but seem to fit without any issues. I have not driven on them yet because it's been raining here but hopefully tomorrow.

Also, ever since I built the car, the power steering has been a problem. It leaks, it whines and nothing fixes it. I have replaced the rack, the pump, the resevoir and even changed the pulley to spin it slower but the problem persists. My theory is that the rack I got from Speedway Motors was rated for only 1200 psi and not up to the task of turning the fat tires rapidly so this week I installed a motorsports rack from Detroit Speed which is rated for 1800 psi. Again, haven't tested it because of rain so all these changes all happened at once and are untested and I leave for Lincoln Tour on Wednesday-I'm a little anxious.

I made a video about the frustrations of building and driving a custom car, I may have vented a little CUSTOM CARS SUCK

We made the trip down to Lincoln for the ProSolo and Tour events. We didn't have a chance to try out the Vitours at home so we signed up for 10 runs on the test course. Shock adjustments got it neutral on the test course but as we learn over and over, that matters little on the big course. I did the ProSolo and the car was pushy during the cold morning session. My times were somehow competitive but as soon as the session ended, I stuck the biggest sway bar I had in the back of the car. This was not bad and I had the quickest CAM-T time on the left course but on the right course I kept going into a big left handed sweeper too hard and when I lifted, I experienced big oversteer and looped the car in the first run and had a big slide in the 2nd run. The poor showing on the right side is what cost me the lead on day 1. For day 2, the courses were much drier than day 1 so everybody was going quicker. I felt like I could be at the pointy end of the results but after a run, my belt came off and it was cut so my ProSolo was over.

I talked to my suspension guy about the understeer and he suggested I go to Speedway Motors and get stiffer rear springs. Speedway did not have the 2.25 i.d. springs I needed so next best thing was increasing rear pressures by 6 psi, which honestly made a huge difference. I made 10 runs of the test course and experimented with the shocks and no matter what I did, as long as the front settings matched the rears, the balance of the car was good and the car did nothing untoward.

Briget and I raced in the Tour and I was the tire warmer. On my first run I had a big slide when I lifted off the throttle but the car was balanced on steady throttle or accelerating. It was the same on my next run so I added compression in the front and added rebound in the rear. Briget came back from her second run and reported that it felt good. I went out for my last run of day 1 and the car felt great, but I didn't know it early enough so I just didn't drive as quickly as I could have. Still, I was only 1 second off the leader and Briget was 1.6 seconds off the leader. We made zero changes and were optimistic for day 2. But then it started to pour rain and my suspension guy said "God help you on Vitours". We swapped on the Michelin PS4's from Brigets Corolla GR, softened the shocks and I went out into the lake that was the day 2 course. The car felt brilliant! I landed up on the wrong side of a cone but I was so confident that I was completely relaxed and just waited to go out and do it clean. I told Briget the car was great and just go out and be smooth. She did just that and landed up in 1st place after 1st runs. I went out on my second run and did it clean and jumped to the lead, which I held to the end. Others figured things out and changed tires or adjusted to conditions and got faster, pushing Briget down to 7th. She was the last to run in our group, went out and chopped a ton of time off and despite a giant slide that cost her at least .6 seconds, she put in a time only .2 off my time and finished 3rd. Video coming soon. Track pics courtesy of @noroi.media

Congratulations. Such a great car. 

Here is the video of the event GREAT EVENT-AMAZING RESULTS!

Just caught your upload on my YT feed- congratulations!  More for building a car that is very tunable and straightforward to figure out how to drive!   That's a hard thing to do, which I think you already know.  

Now you just have to keep a huge book of set ups, lol.  

In reply to loosecannon :

I watched this on YT this AM.  I have to say that I started watching your YT when you had like 250 subscribers.  I have enjoyed all of your content.  Congratulations to both you and Bridgette on your success at Spring Nationals.

Stan Laker

alfadriver said:

Just caught your upload on my YT feed- congratulations!  More for building a car that is very tunable and straightforward to figure out how to drive!   That's a hard thing to do, which I think you already know.  

Now you just have to keep a huge book of set ups, lol.  

 

I actually have an operations manual for the car which is basically the printed instructions on every single component on the car. Plus I have a log book that remains with the car and I record things like car washes, oil changes, tire changes, autocross runs and set up changes. Every time I race it, I write down the location, weather, number of runs, hot tire pressures and shock settings and make a note of how the car actually felt. And in case you're wondering, I do not have OCD and in fact have ADHD but use OCD behaviour to cope with my shortcomings. BTW The thing I'm most thrilled about with the car is how it's good at doing all the things I planned to do with it and it's so much easier to drive than the MGB is.