8 Days. 3,500 Miles. 0 Excuses. 1 Lap. 1 Fast Camaro.

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8 Days. 3,500 Miles. 0 Excuses. 1 Lap. 1 Fast Camaro.

This can only be the formula for One Lap of America, a brutal competition and that may be THE ultimate test of a street car’s performance and reliability as well as teamwork and driver skill.

Optima Batteries, Hellwig Products and ISIS Wiring are supporting the “1 Lap Camaro” team in this 8 day, 3,500 mile battle where teams rally around the country competing at some of USA’s top race tracks.

Dig this PCKStudio rendering of the 1 lap Camaro over the race track locations.  Man that is cool!  I think you’ll be able to get that logo on a tshirt.

The 1 Lap Camaro seen here is a highly modded 1967 Camaro RS running an LS7 427ci Z06 engine tweaked by the well known Katech Performance crew who preps the engines for the C5R and C6R endurance Corvettes that race and win at Daytona and LeMans.

This is a rad Pro-Touring style Camaro real track focus. Dig the front splitter, low ride height, big and wide wheels with grippy rubber.  This thing means business. Keep your eye’s peeled on pro-touring.com forums as well for updates during the 8 day competition.

For all the gritty details of the build and specs of this road racing street Camaro, check out the 1LapCamaro website.

2009 Optima Street Car Invitational

Whoever came up with the idea to put on an event that would demonstrate the performance capabilities of the cars being showcased at SEMA was a genius! And that’s exactly what the Optima Invitational is all about. Happening the day after SEMA ends, it gives people a chance to put their “money where their mouth is” so to speak. 2009 was just the second year for this event, and the fellows at FM3 made sure that it was pulled off without a hitch.

This year there were 38 vehicles competing for the Ultimate Street Car title along with 14 other cars under the “exhibition only” category, making for 51 beautiful cars out at Spring Mountain Motorsports Ranch on race day. What goes into an Ultimate Street Car you ask? You might say it needs to be well rounded. At this invitational race they competed in 4 catagories: Road Course, Autocross, Acceleration/Braking, and Styling.

Having driven the course the day before, I had an extra appreciation for what these cars and drivers were doing. Not surprising to many, Bruce Cambern’s 1966 Cobra took the cake in three of the four catagories. On the Ride Tech Autocross it got time of the day (by at least a second I believe) of 39.546 seconds. In the Baer Brakes Speed Stop it did 6.7 seconds.

Everyone was quite surprised however when they tallied all the scores to designate the winner of “Ultimate Street Car.” It wasn’t the 1966 Cobra but last year’s defending champion “Bad Penny.” This announcement surprised most at the awards ceremony since the Cobra had done so well. When I’d talked to Bad Penny’s driver, David Pozzi (who also does work building the car), earlier in the day he said he was disappointed with the performance of Bad Penny and was expecting better results. In races like this though, it’s consistent performance and split seconds that separate a winner from a loser…so Bad Penny, congratulations!

Bad Penny winning wasn’t the only surprise of the day, a few cars went down throughout the day in some very interesting ways. For details (come on, we all know crashes are the most exciting thing!) See’m here: Crashes from Optima Street Car Invitational. And roll on over to the MyRideisMe gallery page to see pictures of all the cars in action, including some really cool Hot Rods such as a 1927 Tucci Roadster, 1933 Factory Five Ford Coupe,  Hollywood Hot Rod’s Model T Roadster Pickup, and even a 1957 Malibu Wagon!

5 Tips for Building a $5000 Pro-Touring Mustang

1965 Mustang Fastback – Pro-Touring Budget

“I bought a 1966 Mustang Fastback out of a junk yard for $400.  Thought I would challenge myself to build as exotic a g-machine as possible for $5000. ”

It sounds impossible, anti-Pro-Touring even.  MyRideisMe.com asked Ron Schwarz, owner/builder of this Grabber Blue beauty, to share his 5 Tips with our readers.  He tells it like no one else can.  This guy is hilarious!  There are some killer classic quotes here.  Stick to these 5 Tips below and you too can build your own budget dream ride.

1. Choose The Right Car

Your car has to be affordable, but still turn you on. If it doesn’t keep your interest it will be just another project that doesn’t get finished. Choose a car you can get cheap parts for, period.

2. Do your homework

The mods on this Mustang were done with factory (Ford and GM) parts from performance models/sports cars.  The front suspension is all C5 Corvette parts; great handling, big brakes, relatively cheap, and fairly easy to come by.

3. Choose The Right Drivetrain.

Find a drivetrain that meets your horsepower goals and doesn’t need an expensive rebuild or power adders. Instead of the original 4.6L Mustang mill purchased, Ron ended up with an LS1 that had been in a fire for $300.  In fairly stock form the LS1 can easily reach Ron’s goal of 400HP. The purists hate it, but it fit the budget.  Best bang for the buck!

4. Use All The Deal Finding “Tools” Available

The “tools” are Ebay, Craigslist, Racing Junk , trade and barter, your buddies “take-off parts”, etc.  Network with car buddies, see who is upgrading. “Take-offs” can be picked up cheap. The barter system is alive and well.  The tires on Ron’s ‘Stang were traded for a wine cooler.

5. DIY=Do It Yourself!

This is the hardest of the 5, but its also a MUST to meet your budget!  The more you cut, weld, grind and paint the better you get and the more money you save!  Books are good for learning fab’ skills, but we learn more from being around true craftsman.  Don’t be scared to screw up, you can fix it.

Let’s see how Ron used the 5 budget building tips on his own Pro-Touring Mustang Fastback:

We’ll let the Mustang out of the Corral and tell you that Ron didn’t quite make the $5000 budget he set, but who cares!  He did do it for under $9000 though, which is amazing.   Here’s the parts and cost rundown to see how he pulled off the impossible using his Top 5 Budget Tips.

$2750 Car and Rolling Chassis

A must-see YouTube video taken by a Pro-Touring forum member at the Peach State Musclecar Challenge!

See Ron work his magic on his personal website and pro-touring build thread.  Lots more pictures and build details if you want the nitty gritty version!

With the economy doing its downward spiral, building our rides on a budget is as important as it’s always been!  Give us your comments below on what you thought about these 5 Tips and send this story to all your friends so you can start working those trade and barter swaps with your car buddies!

Hechtspeed

Pro-Touring + HellaFlush = Ill-Touring

Being passionate about modified rides, I spend a lot of time on websites that span the spectrum of hotrodding to “tuning” and everything in between. Two favorite build styles of mine are Pro-Touring and the Street Drift style called HellaFlush. HellaWho? I’ll explain in a minute. Call it DetroitFlush or Ill-Touring (Ill, as in Siiiick wheel fitment dude!). We can nail down the name later. Let’s dig into this concept a little and see what you, the reader, has to say.

First, lets define the two components of DetroitFlush individually.

Pro-Touring. The Pro-Touring.com’s definition as a reminder, is old muscle with new sports car performance. Modern suspensions, brakes, big wheels/tires and late model drivetrains (like a 6.1L Hemi Crate motor, 6 speed Tremec and 20″ wheels with 315/30/20 Pirelli’s like the TerraCuda built by Chip Foose)

HellaFlush on the other hand is the concept, “Offset Is Everything” and traces its roots to Japanese Street Drifting which pushes the limit of fenders on import cars such as WRX’s, EVO’s, 240SX’s and RX-7′s. As seen in the picture above from the HellaFlush website, the wheels fit flush to the fender. Simple in concept, difficult to achieve, especially for a street driven car. It takes careful engineering and attention to detail to fit 18×9.5, +35mm wheels in fenders designed for 16×6.5 +45mm wheels (ie Subaru WRX stock wheel size) just as it does fitting a Shelby GT500 Supercharged 5.4L V8 into the bay where a 260 ci small block once lived, like the Pro-Touring Comet we featured.

Ill-Touring or DetroitFlush… Starts with a Detroit classic, add Pro-Touring modifications like big brakes, upgraded suspension, interior and exterior updates and a modern EFI mill. Then add aggressive flush fitting wheels. Both Pro-Touring and HellaFlush movements are gaining momentum and the definitions will continue to morph. As an example, check this RX-7 ‘vert with a Mustang 5.0L featured on Speedhunters. For this discussion, let’s ask Willy Wonka. The candyman would say, “Strike that, reverse it”. Take the RX-7′s wheel fitment and transplant it onto a ’64 Ford Falcon Sprint or ’72 Chevy Nova SS. Today, we won’t dive into the HellaFlush ways of the force in achieving perfect wheel fitment, but to simplify, the Cliff Notes version would say: fender flares, fender rolling and massaging, serious negative camber, stretching tires, stiff adjustable coilovers, and wide low offset wheels.

Any hot rod artists on board want to bust out some renderings of this concept? I’ll take one of a ’64 Falcon in white running either a Turbocharged original inline-6 or high revving 289 with black Rota Torque R’s in 18″x9.5″ all around, a CF front splitter, rolled fenders, and nasty front camber. Anyone else see the potential I see or am I off my roller rockers? Time will tell… maybe I need to build my own Ill-Touring Falcon to demonstrate my illness.

Let’s hear what you have to say! Is Ill-Touring crazy cool, or just crazy! Tell us about your own crazy hot rod ideas. Leave a comment below!

Hechtspeed

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2009 Peach State Muscle Car Challenge-May 15-16

Come join us for the 2009 Peach State Muscle Car Challenge. It begins tomorrow and there is still time to register.

For more info and to register visit Pro-Touring Peach State Muscle Car Challenge.

Basic info:

May15 Dinner – $5 per person
Friday will consist of Meeting up at David’s toy box in Canton GA, Hang out with our cars and get to know each other over some music and food.

May 16 Drag Racing – $15 per car
Saturday we will meet up around 8:00am then head over to Calhoun http://www.paradisedragstrip.net/ and run our cars until around 3:00pm. Then we will all cruise the back roads of Ga. to Canton for the Cruz night. There have been as little as 400 cars and as many as 700 cars at this Cruz night.
Have some dinner at one of many different restaurants. Then back to the David’s toy box to hang out some more.

May 17 Autocross – $25 per car
Sunday will meet up at the host hotel around 8:00am then cruise up 41hwy to the parking lot for the auto cross at http://http://www.redtopautoauction.com/
Wallace Sanford the owner is graciously letting us use his parking lot for our event. He has a couple of nice cars as well and might join us for the fun.

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