LS3 1968 Pro Touring Camaro is a Daily Beater
If you're forced to make some dreadful commute every day, it might as well be in something like this.
1. Ultimate Daily
For a car enthusiast, nothing is worse than making that daily commute to work. Sitting in traffic, trying to suppress your inner road rage. So why not make your daily driver something guaranteed to cast at least a little bit of joy on that horrible grind? At least, that's the idea behind Patrick Darling's LS3-powered first-gen Camaro. But interestingly enough, Darling wasn't always what you might call a true "car guy."
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2. Hook, Line, and Sinker
At least, maybe not in the traditional sense. Instead of lusting over high-horsepower muscle cars, Darling's interests leaned more toward the precision driving of autocross and keeping his automotive fun relegated to the track. But that all changed one day when he set eyes upon a classmate's '78 Trans Am. “Right then and there,” Darling told Super Chevy, “the hobby sunk its claws into me and as time has gone by those claws have only sunk deeper. I’ve always wanted to have a classic car with a modern drivetrain and certain conveniences as a car I autocross and drive daily into work.”
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3. Stumbling Into a Donor
But things are never that easy in this hobby, not by a long shot. Darling's first attempt at obtaining the right project car didn't exactly go the way he planned. “So there I was fat, dumb, and happy in the fall of 2012 when a friend with a 1999 Z28 called saying that it hadn’t started in a year and that he wanted it gone so he could move to something newer,” Darling said. He got the car running rather easily, but the friend didn't want the car back. So now he at least had his parts donor, if nothing else.
>>Join the conversation about this LS3 1968 Pro Touring Camaro right here in LS1Tech Forum.
4. Calling on a Professional
Another friend gave Darling a tip on where he could locate the recipient of goods from his newly acquired parts car - a 1968 Camaro that had been sitting dormant for 10 years. The car obviously needed a great deal of work, so it sat for quite some time until another group of friends motivated Darling to finally take action. They got it up and running, but to take the car to the next level, professional help was needed. So Darling rang up the Restomod Store and let them get to work.
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5. Modern Where it Counts
Instead of using the donor car's LS1, Darling decided to step things up a notch with an LS3. Simply swapping out the stock cam with a Chevrolet Performance Hot Cam resulted in a 14% increase in horsepower and torque. Behind the solid motor lies a Tremec 6-speed manual and beefy 9-inch Speedway rear end. But despite this modern injection of mechanicals, Darling kept things mostly stock on the inside, houndstooth and all.
>>Join the conversation about this LS3 1968 Pro Touring Camaro right here in LS1Tech Forum.
6. Fun for the Street and the Track
Obviously, a fan of autocross isn't going to leave the suspension on an old muscle car alone. And Darling certainly didn't. The extensive parts list includes beefy Draco front springs and rear coils, beefy bars, and adjustable shock damping. A Speedtech Performance torque arm suspension was chosen over the typical four-link because it's less binding. Throw on some fat 18x11 Forgeline wheels wrapped in 315/30 Rival S tires, and you've got the makings of a real corner carver.
>>Join the conversation about this LS3 1968 Pro Touring Camaro right here in LS1Tech Forum.
7. Dual-Purpose Driver
We know it'll go, but the real question is, how does this new/old Camaro drive on real roads? Turns out, pretty good. “Even with the 4.10 gear, the T-56 from the ’99 Camaro keeps the revs down for easy driving on the highway," Darling reports. "The shocks are adjustable, and on the softest setting the ride is not harsh at all. But where is the fun in setting the shocks so that the car feels like a ’77 Cadillac, especially when you want to show someone that your car can really pull away from them on the twisties. Most of the time you don’t notice the [suspension], but over really crappy roads it can feel like my dad’s ’62 GMC half-ton.” But the fact that he doesn't have to make changes as he switches from road to track makes this old Camaro quite the dual-purpose driver!
>>Join the conversation about this LS3 1968 Pro Touring Camaro right here in LS1Tech Forum.
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