Modern Muscle Supercharging

Today, horsepower revives an old project. Camaro for new life as an auto cross racer, then discover secrets of modern day muscle car super charging at the home base of

bra.

Sometimes when you're looking for your next project, the best place to look for. It's your own backyard

like that. Camaro back there. That seems to just not want to go away.

And I'm glad it didn't because today we need it for a new horsepower project.

It's set in our warehouse for years with many of the parts including the engine used as donors for other power block projects.

Today we're rescuing it for new life as a weekend auto cross car.

Yeah. After we're finished, we can take it to track day events where anyone can battle the clock as they test their cars and driving skills through a series of twists and turns

to navigate an auto cross in winning times. Cars also got to have the right power suspension that break

to get started on this project. The car needs to go up in the air a little bit and well, hopefully the wheels will follow. So what's it gonna take to make this auto cross conversion.

Well, this,

this

and this

plus for an engine, an LS one, we converted from EF I to carbureted recently with a 750 CFM double pumper

peak horse power, 490 peak torque 457 ft pounds.

And that stout LS is gonna sit on top of this a BMR tubular K member. Now, this thing is gonna retain plenty of strength that's gonna help us lose some of the weight off of the nose. That's even gonna improve the looks underneath the hood

and we're using all of their components to stiffen up the front and rear suspension.

We're also gonna refresh our air ride system

at a roll cage from auto power to strengthen the chassis

and repurpose some original parts.

Before we tear into any more boxes, we need to tear out what's left under the car that our new stuff's gonna replace.

That includes the old K member, entire front suspension and even the power steering rack, which is getting replaced

out back. We need to free up the pan, hard bar,

unbolted control arms,

disconnect the brake lines and the rear end will come down and out

to remove the mufflers and exhaust pipe. Check out this cool tool from cherry bomb that helps you remove the exhaust hangers.

The last thing to go is the fuel tank which will get replaced with a safer track friendly fuel cell.

Now that all the weights off the car and it's relaxed, we're gonna start to build with a pair of BMR sub frame connectors and this row cage.

Now it goes without saying that you can go auto cross racing with just a helmet and a car, even one that's phone stop.

Now we're building up the Camaro to go serious modified racing.

And while the SCCA recommends a ro cage for safety,

this kit from auto power is also gonna further stiffen up that sub frame chassis

to make the cage fit correctly. Though, the Subra connectors need to go up first.

Here's how it goes. Put one in place with a bolt,

then mark around the bracket with a sharpie.

Next, remove the paint from the contact area on the frame. Same goes for the power coating on the Subra connector itself. Now, if you're installing these with an engine trans and other components on the car, you'll first need to support the front and rear suspension to distribute the weight correctly and keep everything level. Finally, just for looks, we can touch up these places with some duplicate color engine enamel we had in the shop

inside the car, we gotta pull out the front and rear seats to make way for the cage components,

remove the console and pull up the carpet.

This auto power cage bolts right into place and the rear roll bar hoop goes in first as far back as possible.

Then put the two forward supports in place

and make them to the main hoop with eight inch sleeves

using four inch sleeves, the door guards can go in place now

and finally

the windshield cross tube.

And if you're wondering how well this thing fits, check this out,

use the mounting plates as templates and drill 38 inch holes

followed by the backing plates.

You might remember on our Mustang track car, we drilled holes through the sleeves and bars so we could bolt them together.

But since the cage is gonna be permanently inside the Camaro, we decided to put the welder to work.

We got fired.

Yeah. Well, with paper around,

we came home

fire

being as safety conscious as we are, we're going back to the boats around the headliner.

Now we can replace the carpet. It came out a lot easier

and only one thing's missing seats. Summit racing sells these pro car seats by Scat for 100 and 57 bucks a piece. Now, they look awesome. They actually recline

and they also come with adjustable sliders. Now, these aren't the mounting brackets though for that. We had to get an optional set to make it all work

the seats and sliders bolt up to the brackets.

Then the RC I harness goes in

while we finish the passenger seat.

No reason at all for you to leave yours. Now, when we come back, we'll jump on to the next phase of our Auto Cross Camaro project underneath the car.

We're back with our auto

Cross Camaro project ready to stuff about 490 horsepower into that car with the help of this new K member from BMR. That is, this thing is a thick wall tubular design and only weighs in at 24.5 pounds.

That's 42 pounds less than this old stock K member that came out of the Camaro.

And it's gonna leave a lot more clearance room for components like our exhaust headers.

We're gonna reuse the stock motor mounts, but not the heavy cast iron stand.

Well, now we're ready for the new K member.

We're gonna replace the lower A arms with this and what a difference, not only lighter

but they have NASCAR

style ball joints,

polyurethane bushings

and these chrome molly adjustable rod ends. And speaking of this right now, we're gonna remove this one to show you the tip.

The stock A R here was properly aligned at the factory. So if we place the new one exactly on top of it

and a justice brought in so that

these holes match up,

tighten it down,

we'll be really close to the original alignment

for mockup purposes. We're installing this manual steering rack from our kit, which is fine for drag racing,

but for auto cross, we'll need to swap it for a power rack. As soon as we get one ship.

Since we're reusing the stock mounting plates, we'll first blast them clean

and give him a fresh coat of paint.

While they dry, we can swap out the upper control arms and attach the new ones to the spindles

both on the plates

and installed the entire spindle assemblies to the K member.

We're reusing the Camaros air eye shocks which first bolt to the plates

and then to the K

members.

After running a half inch drill through the mounting holes, we thread the outer tire rod ends about two inches into the steering rack.

We're using a couple of spacers to both the tire rods to the spindles. This way, the tire rods will be level once there's weight on.

Now, we're gonna swing the engine, hook up the transmission and put on the tires and wheels. That way we can roll it under the car the same way you guys went in your driveway. If you had the motor out,

of course, if your engine was already in the car, you wouldn't need to remove it to install the K member and suspension parts.

Same goes for this trimming magnum 6 ft we got from American power train. Tell you more about that thing later. But we also got quite a package between it and the motor, including the science friction clutch kit

rated at eight 150 ft pounds.

They also sent us this fly wheel that's lightweight billet and meets SF I specs.

This street Slayer clutch kit features an 11 inch high load pressure plate

and a fully sprung Cerami

disk that has a hub designed to protect the trans from shock load. It also provides a smooth uptake for good

street manners.

Trim's

magnum six speed is rated at 700 ft pounds right out of the box. Then after American power train gets through, this thing is rated at 1100 ft pounds.

How do they do it? Well, they cry

gently harden the shafts, forks and gears.

Then they rem polish all the machine surfaces before heat treatment

adds up to 30% increase in metal hardness. Plus it's fully synchronized and great for street strip and road to

shoes,

to mount it. We're using a BMR cross member that also doubles as a panhard bar relocation bracket.

Ok. Now it's hello, Dolly and goodbye. Engine hoist. We're ready to roll this monster assembly under the car. Your toes clear, Joe.

I think so.

I'll let you know if they're not.

We're on the home stretch. Now

we can hoist the engine up from the top

and jack the trans up from the bottom.

There we go.

Uh

This is a perfect example of good engineering.

Everything fit

the rear end is next but not without the new lower control arms. As far as the Campero goes, you can see for yourself, the new arms are adjustable and I'm gonna go ahead and match up the lens before we install them.

Now it's time for this beefy torque arm

and new airbags

jack that big old chunk under the trunk

and secure it with the original shocks.

Finish all that off with the pan hard bar.

We installed the engine and suspension in the car with it on, jack stands the same way you would do it in your garage at home to show you it can be done. Now, like everything we're doing, there's a right and a wrong way. Sadly enough, there's more wrongs than there are rights. Now. I've seen people use logs, cinder blocks, even stack two by force to support the way to the car.

And we've also seen those type of people in the obituaries. So just use your head. Now, what you wanna do is make sure that you're on a level ground. You're using the properly rated jack stands and you lift the car in increments. So the stands don't kick out from underneath it. As long as you follow those steps, use a little common sense, you'll be all right. We got more work. So make sure you come back and see us.

But that's another day next, we're going to discover the secrets of modern muscle car supercharging at the home base of Edelbrock.

Just one of the best thing that's happened to this company in a very, very long time.

This is the story behind Edelbrock E Force Super Charger for late model muscle car engines.

It's a system that adds over 100 30 horsepower to a stock G MLS 3/100 60 to a Ford 4.6 L

with only about five pounds of boost

the design

testing, casting,

machining and assembly of this breakthrough system all happens at a company with a 70 plus year history of high performance innovation.

It's something that we're able to do because of what Edelbrock has here. We're not just a machine shop out here. We have a foundry, we have a heat treating system, these castings and we'll show you are very complicated, very hard to make.

And if you don't make the casting right,

then forget the rest of it because it's not gonna work.

It all starts with the design

and the man charged with that is Rob Simons. We always start on the computer

uh with the C ad data of the stock vehicle.

We can then go in there and then evaluate,

you know how much room we have to work with and then start to get some ideas on paper or in the computer of how we want to lay out the systems.

Now, when you look at a corvette and you look at the engine, you wonder how in the world you can get all that in there, but Rob did that, he did a great, great job.

Rob's unique design allows for long intake runners, one for each cylinder

and that's what gives you tons of low end torque.

Well, from the computer design comes a plastic prototype.

Then a true functional aluminum prototype,

we print a mold out of sand

and that sand mold uh allows us to make a casting

and we'll make, we'll make a one off casting that will machine

and we can actually run that on the

dyno and on the vehicle

today in the company's

dyno Center, Kurt Hooker is testing a competition prototype for the LS two engine.

Let's see how it does.

That torque is what lights up those tires and,

and uh puts a big smile on the driver's driver's face.

So I'd say Kurt, you got a winner, right? We can go on to the next step,

which is of course in a vehicle on the chassis. Dyno,

only after extensive successful testing

can each E force version be ready for mass production at the pound?

This is the casting. This is why we own our own founder. You look, look at this and the complexity of it.

When we pour this in

the mold, there's

84 pounds of sand, core sand and green sand to make one of these castings. When we pour it, it's 64 pounds of 3, 56 virgin aluminum. You see how heavy it is?

Oh

man, it's too much for my bed

too. I like

we powder coated

and now it's ready to go in this machine.

This is

a Makino,

a 88 model. It's the largest horizontal that they make.

And when we machine, this will take 2.5 hours 47 separate to

changes

and this goes in, it's be

casting. When it comes out, it's completely machine.

I think this is where your rotors go in backing plate here that we have been eating.

They're all clocked.

Half 1000 tolerance.

Half 1000. Your hair is 3000. Now, Joe, what we got here is your casting now

has been machined, then cleaned

and then it's got to come in here and tell us

that everything is a OK.

The program is set up

to where the operator mic. Here. He just presses that button and this thing goes in there tells everything is doing. It's all recorded in the computer

when it says it's ok, you know, damn well, it's ok.

And we do this to everyone. Here's where they hand assemble the manifolds with components like the Eaton G

64 lobe design rotors.

Then after a pressure test,

the self contained oiling system gets installed and filled.

It won't need servicing for 100,000 miles.

Next, the dual high capacity inner coolers go in place,

followed by the nose with a low restriction in the two.

Then a small component with a big job when it comes to fuel efficiency, the bypass valve. But what that does essentially is equalize the pressure

on either side of the supercharger when you're not asking it to do any work.

So if you're just idling or driving in traffic light throttle applications, basically that bypass valve will always be open

the kit includes all the other parts needed for an easy installation

plus a 100,000 mile warranty.

So we've seen much of the creativity and technology behind the E Force, but of course, it all means nothing without the fun part. Right.

Yeah, that's coming right up.

You're watching Horsepower for a DVD copy of this episode. Just go to Power Block tv.com and order your copy for just 595 plus shipping and handling. Start your own horsepower collection delivered right to your door from the power block.

We're back after discovering some of the tech secrets behind the e-bond

Muscle

machines.

Well, we saw performance proof on two Dinos.

Well, it was finally time for the ultimate test.

It's been a fascinating visit. Thanks a lot. Thank you, Joe. Great to have you here. You got them for all these cars and

more to come, got them all and Moore's coming as we talk and we're here, man. All right, I guess that's it. No, you're not. It. We got to take you for a ride. I'm taking you for a ride and then you're gonna take me for a ride. Get in this car, I promise. All right, you got it. All right.

Sounds like bone stock right now.

It does

and uh it is bone stock except that, that pressure hasn't come in yet

one.

You know what I'm gonna let you drive this now.

There you go, man.

Remember I'm in the right seat,

smell it.

Ok. Make this, we'll make this turn. Now

it's definitely a slipper.

He's sleeping. Now,

I

got a smile on my face. It's gonna take a while to get rid of.