Jay, one of Speedtech’s key employees, grew up around race cars as his father was a race car engineer and Jay often tagged along when Dad went to work. That influence burned deep, and Jay started racing at a young age. Throughout his life he’s raced many different genres from the road course to the drag strip and plenty in between. Naturally the only way to satisfy an urge like that is to build your street car toy as though it were a track car. Well for this ’73 Z/28, it’ll see plenty of the street and track time.
When Jay first brought the Z home, what looked to be a fairly straight car turned out to be a total basket case as the Camaro got a more thorough look over. After a sand blast it was evident that between rust and incredibly poor prior panel repairs, the car was in dire need of an entire sheet metal overhaul. While in the Speedtech shop the entire inner body structure was stripped, the roof and noze being the sole remaining factory skin. New taillight panel, 1/4 panels, trunk lid, doors, and fenders were ordered, along with a totally trick carbon fiber hood and bumpers. While the body panel work was under way the car also got minitubbed and a custom smoothed firewall.
On the suspension side, naturally that department is now well covered by Speedtech’s 2nd Generation F-Body complete Track Time suspension system. This system takes advantage of the factory’s decent front geometry and improves upon it with a coilover shock conversion, high clearance tubular control arms, ATS forged tall spindles, Corvette C6 hubs, specially designed steering arms, a race inspired Lee quick ratio steering box and a matched tubular sway bar. With this combination Jay was able to fit massive 285-30-18 BFGs on 18×10″ Forgeline RBC3 Wheels. The theme for this car is dark and aggressive but Jay wanted to avoid the all too common blacked out or black and dark gray theme. Instead he chose bronze as his main accent color, as seen in the Forgeline wheels which have gloss black hoops with bronze centers. That theme is also brought into the front suspension with the same powder coat bronze Forgeline used on the wheels applied to the frame, while gloss black suspension components complete the look. These huge by huge front wheels wrap around Bear burnt orange powder coated 6 piston calipers putting the stop on 14″ slotted rotors through a custom triple master cylinder assembly.
The rear half of the Track Time suspension consists of Speedtech’s famous Torque Arm system, which also includes a coilover conversion, Articulink lower trailing arms, and adjustable panhard bar. Rather than using the factory rear, a race prepped Speedtech exclusive Chicane full floater 9″ Ford axle was custom fit to the Camaro’s dimensions. This rear axle assembly features a Nascar inspired
housing with full floating 31 spline axles, billet 3rd member mounting flange, an S Case center that contains a Track Lock Posi, Motive gears, and an aluminum pinion mount. Billet housing ends finish up the floating configuration with bolt on Corvette ZR1 hubs. 18×12 Forgelines are wrapped in super wide 335-30-18s and also rotate around 6 pistons Baer calipers and 14″ rotors. Jay carried the black and bronze theme through the rear suspension and the end result is a car that’s as beautiful underneath as it is on top.
When the ultra smooth body work was completed the car was sprayed a mirror like finish of gloss black. Smoked tail lights are right in line with the meanster look and custom stripes are on the design drawing board. So far the interior has been upgraded by a complete Tiger Cage roll cage and Cipher racing seats with carbon fiber textured accents. At this point an LS3 topped with custom Trophy Truck aluminum heads and backed by a T-56 6-speed rests dormant in the engine bay, anxiously begging for a twin turbo breath of boost. As this car is completed it is anticipated that it will replace Speedtech’s tried and proven ResurreXion Nova as our race mule with pure intentions to flog it again and again on the road course and autocross tracks around the country.
