HOMEGROWN COPO #7 - Tons of Goodies in This Segment!

HOME Grown

COPO

RPM PROJECT CAR

by

Jay Misener

>> Our project Camaro attempts to rise from the ashes and gets a whole bunch of new tricks!

A

few mont hs back, in the April 2018 issue of RPM, we reported that Project HOMEGROWN COPO had experienced more adversity in its life….as if being poked

and prodded by a fork truck and rescued from the crusher wasn’t enough. Thankfully, our COPO tribute survived the fire with just a few bruises—nothing that can’t be repaired. In our last installment we also touched on

the initial plan for the first naturally aspirated LS powerplant that would be slid into the car (if you missed it, you can bring yourself up to speed by visiting the RPM April E-magazine at https:// issuu.com/rpmmag/docs/

april_2018 ) After recovering from the fire, HGC (HomeGrown COPO) was moved from its secret location back to the shop and there were a number of small items needed on the car that were taken care

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1 of while waiting for engine parts.

We chose Optic Armor windows for the tribute car. Optic Armor windshields combine the light weight, strength, and safety of polycarbonate with the optical clarity and scratch resistance of glass, so they were a no-brainer for the project. Both Optic Armor

door glasses have been cut and fitted in the car. You literally can’t tell them from real glass. This stuff is amazing—the curve of the window sheet is perfect. Stacey Cromwell of CT Auto started by laying a factory glass on the rectangle sheet of Optic Armor so it could be traced out. Once that was done, he carefully cut the glass with a

2 jig saw leaving it a touch big so it could be sanded smooth to the correct size. The driver side glass went into the door first so that we could test our newly-figured-out window motors.

You might say, “they’re just window motors, put power and ground to them and away you go.” Unfortunately, in today’s high-tech

Stacey Cromwell of CT Auto expertly handles the Optic Armor door window fabrication and install, first rough cutting the shape with a jigsaw (1) then sanding the edges smooth with a sanding block (2 & 3). Installed, you can’t tell it’s not glass (4)!

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RPM PROJECT CAR 5

5 & 6: With the Optic Armor side widows cut to shape and installed, Eric Webber tackled the chore of integrating the factory window motors/regulators to work with the new setup. Far from a simple “plug and play” operation, the finished install saves weight but still gives a clean, factory-fresh look.

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world it’s not quite that easy. We are trying to keep this car as light as possible and reducing the amount of factory wiring, and ditching the factory body control module and all its wiring, will save weight and clutter. To do this we had to figure out how exactly the factory window motors worked. So, with the help of good buddy Eric Webber (AKA The Green Bastard) we took them apart and found a chip in them that controls all the functions, and Webber figured out a way to bypass these chips and in fact use the little relay that is on the chip to control the up and down movement of the windows. Now that’s cool!

Optic Armor will also be installed for the windshield and rear window. Check out this video of the window operation. It may seem like a small thing, but winning many small battles wins the war.

On the engine front, parts have been coming in and we’ve been getting them to the engine shop, New Generation Engines.

As reported a few months back,

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7: New Generation Engines’ Andrew Blanchard is setting the Mast Motorsports cylinder head up on the flow bench.

They flowed 406 cfm on the intake! While at it, we also measured for valve springs and camshaft lift. we have our Mast Motorsports cylinder heads that have now flowed a little over 400cfm on the bench along with their matching intake.

We now have our Lunati Pro Series I-Beam rods and crankshaft that are rated for 1500hp, and Ross Pistons is making a set of custom pistons for the motor.

More on these parts when we cover our LS motor build in an upcoming issue.

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RPM PROJECT CAR We also now have 95 percent of the fuel system from Holley, and another friend, Darryl Chatterson, is fabricating a fuel cell to fit the car so we can drop the Holley pump directly in the tank for a cleaner look and the pump being submersed in the tank will help cool it.

Inside the car we have really just been poking away at whatever we can. Willy The Stitch from Tom’s Upholstery should have the headliner and interior panels ready soon. The Green Bastard is also figuring out the sunroof motor so we can keep that operating as factory, too. After this we’ll install the interior panels and seats. We fabbed up some filler panels out of aluminum and installed them into the rear package tray and

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original shifter openings, and Ron Laing is using a 3D printer to make a bezel to mount the Holley EFI Digital Dash into the factory Camaro dash where the original cluster would have been for a very clean look.

If you haven’t looked into the Holley EFI Digital Dash PART# 553-106, you need to. It is completely customizable with a variety of gauge and indicator screens that can be programmed to display any parameter you need. The dash also offers a virtual switch panel, user defined alarms, configurable shift lights and can control on screen playback of your EFI data logs. We’ll talk more in-depth about its features and benefits once we get it installed and operational.

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8 & 9: Our Lunati Pro Series LS crank and I-Beam rods.

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11 10 & 11: The Holley EFI Digital Dash.

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We sourced the manual brake pedal kit from MPR Race Cars in Michigan and while at it we also got the panel that the pedals attach to.

Remember, the pedal in the original Camaro is electronic and we need to convert it to mechanical. A piece of the firewall section has to be removed

and we made filler panels to cover the holes that were used for factory wiring harnesses.

We then had to modify the factory pedal by fabricating a steel arm and attaching it to the side so we could mount a throttle cable to it. Once this was all setup we installed it in the car.

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12, 13, & 14: Our Project HGC Pedal assembly was changed to a mechanical system then installed.

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RPM PROJECT CAR 15

waiting for brakes.

We have all the electrical figured out but we are waiting Finally, once the car is comfor the wiring board to come in plete it will have the paint and so we can start wiring the car. body touched up at CT Auto.

With regards to the rolling In a nutshell, the past few chassis and suspension, as months following the fire have reported over the winter, the been made up of regrouping 9-inch rear end housing along and covering a lot of the small with the pan hard bar, anti-roll items that need to be taken bar, and Afco Double Adjustcare of prior to major assemable rear shocks are installed bly. Be sure to catch us a few in the car and painted. We also months down the road as we have the mark Williams alustart to really bring minum center section installed our HOMEGROWN and it currently has a 4.86 gear COPO to life. ratio which may or may not stay in the car once we run it.

Brakes are on the way and then we will run our Optic Armor lines. Several months www.opticarmorwindows.com back we showed how we borrowed a few sets of 573.317.9066 wheels from friends to figure out the wheel offsets Lunati that worked and looked www.lunatipower.com best, and once our wheel/ 662.892.1500 tire combo comes in we’ll bolt them on to have the Holley car rolling on the real www.holley.com deals. Front suspension 866.464.6553 is complete and also just

SOURCES

15: Our completely assembled Ford 9-inch is all finish painted and installed along with suspension. We’re ready to go back here aside from brakes.

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