HOMEGROWN COPO #14 - Sliding our LS into It's New Home

Sliding our LS into its new home and preparing for startup!

By jay misener 104

november 2021 | RPM Magazine

Four short months ago, in the June 2021 issue of RPM, we were able to get our bad boy naturally aspirated 440 cubic inch LS on the engine dyno at New Generation Engines. The results were impressive to say the least. We had hoped for and expected to make 2hp per cubic inch and when all was said and done it came in at 969hp, which works out to 2.2hp per cubic inch.

Now, with our LS mill completed and dynoed, it was time to shift gears (pun intended) back to the car once again, first by installing the motor into our Homegrown COPO chassis. It’s been a busy spring, summer and fall at the shop, not to mention life stuff, so finding time to work on the project has been tough. Luckily my Apprentice and son Brenden was able to help.

As anyone that has built a car knows, balancing work, family and our projects in the garage can be a difficult task at the best of times. Having a good, dependable apprentice in the shop makes the world of difference, especially when he’s your son. Brenden has been a tremendous help on our Homegrown COPO, maybe he thinks he’ll get to see the driver seat?

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glenn@boulandmotorsusa.com www.boulandmotorsusa.com

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This 5th gen Camaro chassis is actually quite easy to work on with lots of room to get at everything. At first glance under the hood of a factory car it looks crowded, but without all the OEM equipment and covers, it really is spacious. Over the years we have worked on a lot challenging cars but it seems all the late-model muscle cars of today are becoming easier to work on again, with their larger engine bays and the COPO is no exception.

With the engine dropped in, it was time to install the flywheel, clutch, QuickTime bellhousing and my personal favorite the Gforce GF5R clutchless gear box and Long V-gate shifter… oh yeah! The install of this equipment is pretty straight forward in this car, however, there were a

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couple of pieces that had to be modified and fabricated. The first item was the clutch fork. We needed to use a clutch fork from a 2000 Mustang as that’s what works best on the QuickTime bellhousing. We had to notch the fork a bit to gain clearance around the long style pressure plate that is used with the adjustable clutch and then had to brace it so it wouldn’t flex. Now, as many of you know the 5th gen Camaro actually uses a hydraulic clutch setup, but we don’t feel that is the best way to go on a drag car of this caliber, so we are using a mechanical clutch pedal and linkage kit from the fine folks at S&W Racecars. In a much earlier article we also used an S&W Racecars chromoly roll cage and over the years we have used many of their

november 2021 | RPM Magazine

After the engine was in place, next up was the flywheel, clutch, QuickTime bellhousing, the Gforce GF5R trans and Long V-gate shifter. We used a 2000 Mustang clutch fork and modified it from there by notching and bracing it.

To make our work flow much easier, we ordered a mechanical clutch pedal and linkage kit from S&W Racecars. With some minor cutting and welding we were good to go.

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products as the quality is always top notch. Their clutch linkage kit is fairly simple to use if you have even some light fab skills like I do. The advantage of the mechanical linkage is you will get a true feel for the clutch and a more accurate adjustment.

We have also mounted the battery under the hood. We mentioned this in a past article and have had a few people ask why we would do that, considering the weight of a battery. Rest assured there is method behind our madness.

With a front mounting position, you don’t have to run large heavy cable all the way to the back of the car, plus we will not have to run a disconnect switch. You might notice that we are using a large battery tray that will hold a standard large size battery, but we’re only using one of those for mock-up and we plan on running a small lightweight battery. We’ll keep the big tray though, as it will fit most anything in case we get in a pinch and need to borrow a battery.

Once that was all installed it was time to start finishing up under the hood and we turned our attention to a number of smaller items - we installed our Lokar throttle cable and bracket, got the remote oil filter mounted and lines ran to it, mounted the Moroso breathBe mindful of clearances when setting up the mechanical clutch, we were very happy with the finished product on ours. It looks tighter than it actually is.

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november 2021 | RPM Magazine

...It shouldn’t be long before we have the car running and rolling on its own, finally!

We mounted a full size battery tray that will accept the appropriate hold down hardware. This big heavy battery is just for mock up as we will be using a small lightweight unit for regular use.

er tank for our vacuum system, and we have started running some of the electrical for the starter, battery, Holley EFI etc.

As I said, it’s been busy, but even with life and business tending to slow down the process of building something for ourselves, we are still rolling along and hope to have this thing fired up in the next couple weeks. With wiring for the fuel pumps, water pump, fan etc getting attention next, it shouldn’t be long before we have the car running and rolling on its own, finally! While we might miss the last days of suitable testing weather on our part of the continent, we’re lucky to have our own in-house chassis dyno to work some bugs out.

We’re counting the days until we can say mission accomplished on Project Homegrown COPO, but we have to admit, the journey has been worth the destination as this car has surpassed what we imagined it would be.

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Next, we made a mount for our remote oil filter and trick Moroso breather tank for our vacuum system, and once we decided on final placement we ran the appropriate lines. We also mounted our Lokar throttle cable and bracket.

As you can see, the heavy lifting is pretty much over and we’ve got just a handful more items to wire after which we’ll do a complete once-over on the whole package and be able to start it and hit the chassis dyno.

The car sits perfect with the engine and trans installed. We might just make some testing this year yet, but with the Dyno in-house, we’d rather take it slow and if we have to wait until spring, well, it will make for a longer winter…after 5 years in the making, we’re itchin’ to get this amazing build to the track!

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