Daily Slideshow: Maiden Texas: A USCA Pro Touring Camaro

The Best Performace Streets Cars In America

The Ultimate Street Car Association (USCA) puts on various events around the US each year that sees some of the most awesome street-legal performance vehicles compete against one another to be deemed the best. Entries are judged in five different categories including Design & Engineering, a 50-100 mile Road Rally, a Sped-Stop contest, Autocross Course, and Road Course. At the end of each event, the points are tallied for each individual category as well as an overall points total. The best of the best from each event typically end up on display at SEMA in Las Vegas and subsequently compete in the Optima Ultimate Street Car Invitational. Amongst nearly 100 cars participating in this year's finale, Mike DuSold and his 1967 "Maiden Texas" Camaro won the Design & Engineering portion of the contest and finished a mere 6 points behind the overall winner to take a solid third place.

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Treading The Unbeaten Path

Mike has never been one to follow the lead of others, so instead of ditching his Pro-Touring Camaro that saw the occasional autocross event in favor of a newer Corvette that would be better suited out of the box to begin a USCA build, he decided to do what he does best and strip down the Camaro and rebuild it into something leaner and meaner. In order to create a "Corvette Killer," DuSold built an entirely new tube-frame chassis in-house at his shop, DuSold Designs. The chassis features an integrated roll-bar and weighs a svelte 364 pounds. More importantly, a new chassis would allow Mike to place powertrain, steering, and suspension components wherever he wanted to improve the balance and handling of the car. Oh yeah, and to stuff massive 18x12" wheels with 335 section tires under all four fenders.

>>Join the conversation about the USCA Pro Touring Camaro right here at the LS1 Tech Forum!

It's All In The Balance

As would be expected, the stock steering and suspension components were thrown out and new parts were fabricated. Mike explains that they designed a completely custom twin A-arm front suspension setup similar to that found on the 6th generation Corvette, but made strides in improving the camber gain when cornering and improving the scrub radius. The rear end of the car was designed to accept a Tremec TR-6060 MZ6 transaxle with an independent rear suspension system that is head and shoulders better than the old straight axle and leaf springs. An added benefit is that this also reduces the center of gravity to further improve handling. The car was expected to be fast from the get-go, but in order to reign in the horses, 14" front & 13" rear Wilwood brake rotors with 6-piston calipers at each wheel were used.

>>Join the conversation about the USCA Pro Touring Camaro right here at the LS1 Tech Forum!

Power For Takeoff

The heart of this Camaro is a fully forged 427 that utilizes an ERL Superdeck LS7 block. The engine features an intercooled pair of 56mm Precision turbochargers that force air through a stock LS3 intake manifold and into a set of LS9 ZR1 cylinder heads. The turbos sit high and tight next to the block and can be seen through small cutouts in the quarter panels. From there, the exhaust pipes route their way along the underside of the rocker panels and exit just ahead of the rear wheels. The engine on its low-boost setting makes a stout 1,100 horsepower that has been good for 149 mph trap speeds and low 10-second e.t.'s in the quarter mile. Equally important is that this powerplant is packaged much further back and lower than would otherwise be possible with a stock chassis for a now 54% rear weight biased car.

>>Join the conversation about the USCA Pro Touring Camaro right here at the LS1 Tech Forum!

Ready For A Dogfight

With such expert levels of craftsmanship and design used throughout the car, it is only fitting that the body and interior get equally special treatments. There is a healthy dose of carbon fiber used throughout the body as the only sheet metal remaining on the car is found on the roof, quarter-panels, and door jambs. The entire body is easily removed from the car for service/setup as the front clip is held in place by only a few quarter-turn Dzus fasteners and the remaining body can be lifted from the chassis by removing 6 additional bolts. The interior of the car is a custom tailored cockpit that is strikingly similar to that of a WWII fighter plane (which Mike has supposedly also wrenched on before). To finish the warbird motif, DuSold had the car painted in a beautiful design reminiscent of a vintage military aircraft and coined the car "Maiden Texas." Mike says the car does not just have a plane-themed paint job but has plane DNA used in many design elements. He is not lying because it has been proven that this car can fly!

>>Join the conversation about the USCA Pro Touring Camaro right here at the LS1 Tech Forum!

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