Because I’m on a tight budget, I’m viewing this almost as a ‘kit-car build’, for want of a better term. By that I mean, I plan to purchase as many off-the-shelf parts as I can. Invariably, its cheaper to purchase an item thats mass-produced than it is to have a one-off part custom made. Because there is such a massive after-market industry dedicated to the first gen Camaro, there is a vast array of bolt-on performance parts available for the model that will also fit my car. Things such as sway-bars, for example, are available in a wide variety of thicknesses from a wide variety of manufacturers. They start at just over US$100 each.
So too, because the Camaro has been raced in the US, Australia, and the UK/Europe in the same basic guise in historic competition as it did in period, there is widespread knowledge for things such as spring rates and the like. Indeed, Chevrolet themselves produced a small pamphlet in 1968 called the Camaro Chassis Preparation Manual for privateer racers wanting to compete in the Trans-Am and SCCA A/Sedan events, that specified part numbers they could simply purchase across the parts counter at their local GM dealer, bolt on their car, and be relatively successful. It also showed the best way to build a rollcage, and other useful info. GM gained this information through bringing one of the Penske Camaros to their proving grounds, where they hooked it up to all their electronics, and drove it around their huge skid-pad, gathering reams of data for their engineers to pour over. This actually had the added benefit of allowing them to produce and homologate parts that would help the model perform better on the track. It was a win-win.
For Chevrolet, although they outwardly had a no-racing policy in place, and didn’t openly sponsor race teams or fund their own racing efforts, as Ford did, they knew the importance of achieving sales through success on the race track, and did everything they could to help customers build and race Camaros that performed well.
So this information is all available, and I plan to use it in my build, rather than spending money trying to reinvent the wheel. Its nearly 50 years since the Camaro model first began its racing career, and while a huge amount has been learned since then, at the same time, the combined might of Chevrolet and Penske Racing knew a thing or two, and enjoyed enormous success. I know I won’t go too far wrong by tapping into this.
I’ll be making a small concession with regards to the bodywork. The Craig Fisher Firebird, like most Trans-am cars of the era, had a basic exhaust system whereby each bank of four header pipes fed into one collector pipe, which dumped out on either side beneath the doors. There were no noise limits back then, and the cars didn’t use mufflers. They just had straight open pipes. In the modern world, however, most tracks have noise limits, and therefore I’ll need to fit my car with mufflers.
I asked Eric Broutin about the noise limits in Europe, and he confirmed most tracks now have them. So I’ll need to build my car to fit a muffler. Eric said on some tracks his mufflers hit the ground. His car has the mufflers under the body, as his car still has the period style exhaust system hanging down underneath. Add a bulky muffler, and you can have ground clearance problems. With just the straight open pipes, ground clearance usually isn’t a problem. However, with mufflers fitted, there becomes an issue.
Therefore, I’ll build my car with the full exhaust exiting out the passenger side, and will cut an indentation into the floor to make space for the muffler so it can be tucked up to give better ground clearance.
Both the Craig Fisher and Jerry Titus Firebirds used the 400 hood, with its twin scoops. On the road cars, the scoops were functional and created a ram-air effect, ducting cool air into the carb. But this was really a road car gimmick that several manufacturers featured on the muscle cars in the ‘60s. However, on the race cars, these scoops were blocked off, with the cool air instead being directed from the base of the windscreen. I’ll talk more about this in the engine section.
It took a little extra research to get confirmation that the Firebirds used the same cowl induction system as the Camaros in 1968. My thanks to Jon Mello and Chad Raynal for helping me with this. I should point out that Chad has been an amazing resource, but preferred I didn’t make a song and dance about the amount of help he has provided me. He is a very clever, very talented and knowledgeable guy, but also very modest.
To best see the blocked-off scoops, its probably better to show a photo of the sister car to the Fisher car, which was originally built as a Camaro by Jon Ward in 1967, before being converted to a Firebird for the final 1968 Trans-Am race, when Jerry Titus joined the team. It was this same car which, with Titus/Ward driving, and a new paint job, finished an incredible 3rd outright at the 1969 Daytona 24 Hour race. It was after this the organisers decided to drop the Trans-Am sedans from contesting the race, which some determined was because they embarrassed the factory sports prototype teams, as they were only ever intended to be grid fillers.
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