overst33r
Diamond Member
http://www.edmunds.com/insidel...tures/articleId=121432
2500hp potential!? sheesh...
I always thought up to 6-7 liters was considered a small-block engine. This one is 7.43L, what gives?
I am glad they beefed up the brakes.
One hundred miles into our drive and we're still working to wrap our heads around the idea that this one-of-a-kind 1969 Chevy Camaro makes almost as much horsepower and has been appraised for as much money as a Ferrari Enzo.
Ah, the heck with it. That's why somebody invented insurance, right?
Right foot to the floor. Lift off the accelerator for a moment, strain against the long clutch pedal, yank hard on the Hurst shifter. Second gear. Right foot back on the floor. Rear tires spin like tops. Gain control. Third gear. Tires bark. Wide open. Fourth.
Now we're well past 100 mph and there are still two gears to go. But it's raining again, and the last thing we want to do is pull a Stefan Eriksson ? "No, I swear some guy named Dietrich was driving" ? so we put the Camaro's well-being ahead of our ego and back off.
Reworked by GM Performance Parts (in only a month and a half, no less) into a 641-horsepower monster, this 1969 Chevrolet Camaro, known as the Reggie Jackson Camaro, was the star of the 2006 SEMA show. Now we're driving it for a full day across Michigan during its weeklong appearance on the Hot Rod Power Tour.
The Tour is a yearly traveling road show of mostly cool cars (well, we did see a Pontiac Fiero) that wends its way around the country, stopping each evening at a car show wherein participants might sit on a lawn chair and talk about Holley carburetors at some length. This year it's packing something like 150 million participants, and they all want to know what the Reggie Jackson Camaro feels like.
Raw Power
We tell them all the same thing. Forget about the neck-straining, eye-widening brutal thrust. The best part about the Reggie Camaro is the thunderous wall of sound that accompanies the acceleration.
This Camaro is pure vehicular violence. It's a motor vehicle on a cranked-up 24-hour high. A rolling onslaught of rawness. Just before we had our turn at the wheel, this car had ripped one of its exhaust pipes free of a hanger and took to beating its own floorboard with the length of stainless-steel pipe.
It is, in the best possible sense, an unpleasant thing.
Accurate or not, the audio clip filed under "454-cubic-inch American V8" in our brain is all big, round-sounding burbling and rumbling in the lower registers, but this cast-iron small-block V8 sounds more like it's trying to blast its way out of a concrete bunker.
It's that bunker-buster of an engine that has been the impetus behind building this monster. You see, GM Performance Parts (GMPP) had been looking for a way to publicize its new small-block V8, the LSX. So the company hooked up with baseball hall of fame slugger and muscle-car nut Reggie Jackson for a little cross-promotional car-building.
But don't take the Reggie connection too literally. This car might have Reggie Jackson's name on it, but it is not Reggie Jackson's car. After SEMA, GM bought the car from Jackson for fear that he would sell it to some other collector.
Also, Jackson's lack of involvement allows us to imagine painting over the checkered-flag/Reggie-at-bat logos on this Camaro. They are the one misstep in a subtle visual makeover of the car.
Irons in the Fire
Ah, the engine. Think of the LSX as the hot-rodder's dream Corvette motor and you wouldn't be far from the truth. It's an iron-block version of the LS-series of small blocks that has powered the Corvette since the introduction of the C5 model. Yes, the transition from an aluminum block to an iron one seems like a step backward, but iron has certain advantages if you're after lots of horsepower.
For one, the iron block can be bored out by an engine builder to a displacement of more than 500 cubic inches. This is something that cannot be done with the Corvette Z06's LS7 engine, which is also available through GMPP. The strength of the LSX iron block should also hold up well to supercharged, turbocharged and nitrous-oxide applications. The company says the block, which has been on sale since March 31, can handle up to 2,500 hp. List price is $2,500, but you should be able to find one for about $1,800 or so.
The Reggie Camaro makes due with none of these power-generation devices. The engine displaces a still-monstrous 454 cubic inches and breathes uncompressed air through a Holley 950-cfm carburetor. Inside this engine you'll find a Lunati crankshaft, Mahle pistons and prototype LS7-based heads with an 11.0:1 compression ratio. It also uses a camshaft with a custom-grind profile. GM says it makes 641 hp and 611 pound-feet of torque on plain pump gas.
And the engine looks great. There are no garish shiny bits. It's all serious matte-finish, powder-coated menace. The red valve covers and ceramic-coated headers lend just a bit of gleam to the engine bay.
A crate-motor version of the LSX 454 as seen in this Camaro will go on sale in the spring of 2008 for about $10,000. It'll be rated at 620 hp.
Smells Good; Steers Bad
Other than adjusting to the peculiarities of a carbureted engine, we have nothing but praise for this motor, which feels impossibly strong. The build team bolted it to a Tremec T56 six-speed transmission and the hydraulic clutch from a fourth-generation Camaro. The avalanche of power is sent through a custom aluminum driveshaft to a 12-bolt, limited-slip rear end with 3.91:1 gearing. The car wears serious-looking 18-inch Budnik wheels shod with Goodyear F1 rubber.
GM tells us this car can pull a 10.80-second run in the quarter-mile. Good thing it's been converted to four-wheel disc brakes with big 14-inch rotors and four-piston Brembo calipers.
With going and stopping well taken care of, GM went to work on the way the Camaro handles, always the weakest aspect of any pony car of the past. The front suspension has been replaced by new stuff from Detroit Speed & Engineering, including lightweight tubular control arms and coil-over Konis, while the solid rear axle also gets Koni coil-overs. The result is a '69 Camaro that looks wicked, all hunkered down on its big new wheels. But even the folks at GMPP admit, "You just can't get these things to turn."
Obviously, this beast will be more at home doing a little Saturday-night Mustang-baiting or simple tire-burning than as a daily driver. It is a blunt and specialized tool, but the folks at GMPP tried to actually make this engine-with-a-car-attached somewhat drivable. GM even threw in a few modern touches such as power windows, leather-covered seats from a Chevy Cobalt and Auto Meter gauges with carbon-fiber faces that look great.
Considering we drove it without incident through at least three intense thunderstorm cells during our day-long drive, we must say that they have succeeded. We arrived with the car at the appointed time at a small car show in Kalamazoo, Michigan, without any damage. Our nerves were something of a different story, though.
With a 641-hp radio blaring at all times ? one that has only one volume setting, LOUD! ? and two thin windshield wipers in a losing battle with torrential rain, the 250-mile day was exhilarating but it wasn't exactly stress-free.
Lookey
Slathered in the same red paint that covered the Camaro concept that appeared at the Los Angeles auto show, this Camaro looks exactly like our memory imagines all '69 Camaros should. GM has removed the rocker panel trim and the fake brake vents so the body contours speak more clearly. The way the rear quarters wrap around the deep-dish rear wheels is a study in potential energy and the wheels are so deep you could store old garden hoses inside them.
Call it cross-generational automotive pollination. This reworked '69 Camaro uses the stance, color and minimal adornment aesthetic of the modern interpretation represented by the 2006 Camaro concept. And that concept, which will see production by next year with few visual changes, owes its brawny coolness to the old car.
The new Camaro couldn't possibly be half as intense as this Reggie car and it won't have the outrageous power (at least not from the factory), but it'll still be worth a hard run up through the gears with a heavy foot and a strong arm. Things don't change that much.
2500hp potential!? sheesh...
I always thought up to 6-7 liters was considered a small-block engine. This one is 7.43L, what gives?
I am glad they beefed up the brakes.
