The Camaro Club (UK)

The Evilzee is coming home tonight Woo Hoo!!! can't wait to get behind the wheel again. A huge thanks to Martin (Sportsroof) for fitting the crossram for me & for taking the huge amount of time it took to set it all up so that it's got maximum performance & economy. There's still a few things to do, like fit hard lines for the fuel lines to replace the rubber hoses, but that can be done at our leisure, at least I can have it home again & begin to have some fun before the Summer finishes

Long shot here, but do any of you have a starter motor with an iron "nose" as opposed to the usual ali nose??. Search your sheds & see what ya got, as I need one fairly soon

cheers...Nige

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Too much power...not enough hands!!

Looking good with the cross ram setup !
Will be interested to hear how it performs [ I know they boost top end power ],not sure how flexible it will be lower down the rev range ?
Always good to see something a little different it certainly makes your car stand out from the crowd ,not many in the States never mind the UK !

Common misconception - don't believe all you read. When the bonnet is shut, you wouldn't know what intake was on the engine - it pulls hard from tickover up. It is a very docile and driveable setup with good response and monster torque in the mid-range. Not that you'll be there more than a few seconds as it peaks each gear quite rapidly.
Might not work so well on milder engines but this one makes use of the breathing capabilities rather well. Big-blocks? Pah!
Cheers, Martin

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Hey Martin ,interested and impressed that you have managed to make it docile at low revs and with good mid range torque .
As you say everything you read is not always true and I admit to no real world experience of the cross ram , but Car Life tested one in '69 and stated''The engine in the test car didn't begin to work until 3000,and didn't develop any power until 5000." They managed a 15.12 quarter mile time .
In '68 Car and Driver tested a Z28 cross ram against a 302 tunnel port Mustang they judged the Camaro to be the better car and achieved a better 13.77 quarter mile time .They also stated "really, it's just for racing. Works best in the 4800-7200 rpm range which you don't get to use much on the street ."
I know jetting, cams and ignition systems have moved on since the 60s but that is a very different beast to the one the books describe

It most certainly is

Cheers...Nige

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Too much power...not enough hands!!

Right, I've a bit more time to give some info on how it drives. I've only driven it the once so far when I picked it up from Martin the other day, but hopefully I can test it soon & see what it does in dry conditions. The engine fires up first time from cold without using any throttle whatsoever. It probably just cranks 2-3 times & fires up. You need to tickle the throttle to keep it running as there are no chokes on the carbs. After a few moments it will sit & idle at 800 rpm. Once up to temperature, throttle response is instant!! It will comfortably cruise at 2-2500 rpm in 4th gear (55 mph) with just 1/4" of throttle movement. It was damp when I drove it home, but found that from 2500 rpm in 4th gear it could brake traction instantly if you stabbed the throttle. The car hasn't got underperforming American tyres, it has Avon ZZ3's, which have very good road holding charecteristics in all weathers as a rule. Admittedly the road was damp, but even with the single carb fitted it could brake traction in 3rd gear from those sort of RPM's in the dry if you nailed it, just ask Ray (camaro 78) . Looking forward now to driving it in the dry. Thankfully we've a local race track/private old airfield, so I can see what it will really do without having other road users to contend with.

As you say, cams, technology etc have moved on, but as Martin said, you really wouldn't know what was under the hood unless you looked. It certainly didn't feel as if it's lost any of it's low down/mid range torque & it was certainly used to be very torquey with the single 4bbl on. If anything its made the engine feel "bigger" whilst increasing mid to high range power. Incidentally, the crossram powered '69 Camaro of Penske/Donohue was dynoed at an average of 440 hp & could run the 1/4 mile in the mid to low 12 second bracket.

Just gotta get a fine day now to get a feel for it .

cheers...Nige

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Too much power...not enough hands!!

Impressive stuff
Sounds like it was well worth the wait and Martin did a great job dialing it all in
definitely sounds like the torque and power are there in the right proportions

Here's a couple of pics of the crossram fitted. The only thing to do now is to repalce the rubber fuel lines with steel ones at some point in the future & to detail the engine bay.













I'm going to get a video of the engine running soon, which I'll post up on here once it's done

cheers...Nige

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Too much power...not enough hands!!

Yum! We heart fruity engines.
Firebird68: Thanks for the kind words. This setup would probably behave as you have read if we were dealing with the sort of engine they had back then, but modern, fruity engines are much better IMHO. Not talking about the LS series, just an intelligent rehash of the venerable SBC instead of buying stuff randomly from a catalogue or cheap 'from a mate'.
It's not really too difficult to build a nice, good performing engine but you do need to think carefully about parts selection before spending the hard-earned. Part of what turned me off drag racing years ago was the apparent lack of learning displayed by some racers. Same old mistakes, same old slow cars. But with bracket racing it doesn't matter! It still goes on today, but I'm sure you are not one of those.
Cheers, Martin

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Hi guys that set up looks sweet and if it goes half as good as described it should be a awsome now we have seen Niges treat and one very happy man to be reunited with the more evilzeeeeee lets see pics of your part of the deal Martin it looked nice with the dust on it Cheers Neil