Chassis Development Thread for 5th Gen Camaro: In this thread we will discuss the development, testing, racing and parts we have worked with on the 5th gen Camaro. Admittedly we were a "bit late to the party" for the 5th gen, but we have our reasons. While we made our first suspension parts for the 2010-15 Camaro "Zeta" chassis back in 2012, we just never saw a whole heck of a lot of these cars at autocross or track events until the last few years.
The "track guy in a Camaro" market has been pretty small, so we didn't jump onto this chassis as early as we did with others cars. While the 5th Gen and the S197 Mustangs sold in similar numbers, we would easily see 10-30 times as many S197 Mustangs at track events and autocrosses (which makes up our customer base), so our development efforts went into the S197 chassis first.
Lately it seems that used car 5th Gen SS model prices have become more attractive, so we're seeing finally more and more of these cars on track. Admittedly these cars have some known faults - namely higher weight and poor visibility from inside, compared to the same year Mustangs. And no, we don't consider the Challenger a "challenger" to either of these pony cars. For every Challenger we've seen at a track day or autocross we've seen 300 Mustangs and 10 Camaros!
I will be the first to admit - We are still learning more and more about this Zeta platform Camaro as I write this in 2016. We know there are other shops that have more experience with this chassis, but many if not most of those are concentrated more on straight line performance. Here in this thread we will concentrate on the road course and autocross potential of the 2010-15 Camaro SS, 1LE and Z/28.
The Optima/USCA series is somewhat unique and there are a few big names really pushing the 5th gen Camaros there. I'd venture to guess that two of the most heavily funded efforts in Optima history are 5th gen Camaros. Of course it is that car's LS series V8 that makes this car popular with that crowd, but that's not at all a bad reason to like these cars! The 6.2L LS3 engine in the SS and 1LE has TONS of upgrade potential, especially when compared to the Coyote 5.0 used in the 2011-14 Mustang GT and Boss302 (those cannot gain the displacement or power of the LS series engines).
Back in 2012 we made a camber plate for the 5th gen, which was tested on the LG Motorsports GTS race car that ran in Pirelli World Challenge. Our prototype design started with an OEM 2011 Camaro strut tower, then we modeled the curvature of the tower with clay, took a bunch of measurements from the cast shape, made a 3D printed design to check fitment, then had a prototype machined in aluminum by an outside shop.
Since then we've learned that this is not exactly the most efficient way to create a prototype camber plate. And while it may seem that 3D scanning or CMM measuring the tower would be easier, the costs associated with those technologies are still in the 5 to 6 figure range for anything we can use with the level of accuracy we need.
Since late 2014 we have had our own in-house CNC machines which has helped us to dramatically shorten our development cycle - now we skip the 3D modeling phase completely, and of course do not have to wait on an outside machine shop. This has cut development time down from weeks to hours. Example: we made a new camber plate for the 2015 Mustang S550 chassis in 48 hours, from the time the car rolled into our shop to the time it we had production quality camber plates installed.
This rapid machining process was replicated in 2016 with our customer "Scottish" Joe's 2013 Camaro 1LE. There were some issues we needed to improve on our original prototype 5th gen plates we made for the LGM race car which we remedied on the pre-production set for Joe's Camaro earlier this year.
Chevrolet also added a strut tower brace on some models that wasn't present on the 2010-11 cars, so the shape of our plate was changed to fit around that. The camber plate itself is a fairly straightforward affair - two plates (with more intricate shapes than seen here) sandwich the top of the strut tower. To adjust camber our "spherical bearing holder" slides in and outboard relative to this sandwich. There is no caster adjustment in our design, and the other designs we've seen only change caster by rotating the main plate (which will change caster and camber concurrently). We made it this way for a reason - this chassis has plenty of caster and needs all of the camber adjustment (and easy track side re-adjustment) it can get.
We have a production batch of 5th gen plates being machined here later this week, along with a new OEM spring perch option to go along with the 3 coilover spring perch sizes we offer for this car now. I'll show some red anodized, production pieces in my next post.
WHAT'S NEXT?
I'm trying to keep this first post brief and will cover more of our parts development and testing in future posts. We've tested Bilstein PSS10s on these cars, made custom brake cooling backing plates and inlets, fitted 19x11" Forgestars and 305mm tires at all four corners, installed Cobra racing seats, full length headers, brake pads, and more. We've learned several tricks along the way that I will share, too.
If you are new to Vorshlag build threads you will soon realize we post a lot of pictures and videos - and almost all of my pictures here can be clicked on to see higher rez versions. Pictures speak a 1000 words, and videos even more.
We have also done a few CAM class autocross events in Joe's 1LE and had a great showing at the 2016 Texas CAM Challenge, which was held last weekend. I will talk more about these events + some upcoming track tests in my next posts.
Cheers,
The "track guy in a Camaro" market has been pretty small, so we didn't jump onto this chassis as early as we did with others cars. While the 5th Gen and the S197 Mustangs sold in similar numbers, we would easily see 10-30 times as many S197 Mustangs at track events and autocrosses (which makes up our customer base), so our development efforts went into the S197 chassis first.
Lately it seems that used car 5th Gen SS model prices have become more attractive, so we're seeing finally more and more of these cars on track. Admittedly these cars have some known faults - namely higher weight and poor visibility from inside, compared to the same year Mustangs. And no, we don't consider the Challenger a "challenger" to either of these pony cars. For every Challenger we've seen at a track day or autocross we've seen 300 Mustangs and 10 Camaros!
I will be the first to admit - We are still learning more and more about this Zeta platform Camaro as I write this in 2016. We know there are other shops that have more experience with this chassis, but many if not most of those are concentrated more on straight line performance. Here in this thread we will concentrate on the road course and autocross potential of the 2010-15 Camaro SS, 1LE and Z/28.
The Optima/USCA series is somewhat unique and there are a few big names really pushing the 5th gen Camaros there. I'd venture to guess that two of the most heavily funded efforts in Optima history are 5th gen Camaros. Of course it is that car's LS series V8 that makes this car popular with that crowd, but that's not at all a bad reason to like these cars! The 6.2L LS3 engine in the SS and 1LE has TONS of upgrade potential, especially when compared to the Coyote 5.0 used in the 2011-14 Mustang GT and Boss302 (those cannot gain the displacement or power of the LS series engines).
Back in 2012 we made a camber plate for the 5th gen, which was tested on the LG Motorsports GTS race car that ran in Pirelli World Challenge. Our prototype design started with an OEM 2011 Camaro strut tower, then we modeled the curvature of the tower with clay, took a bunch of measurements from the cast shape, made a 3D printed design to check fitment, then had a prototype machined in aluminum by an outside shop.
Since then we've learned that this is not exactly the most efficient way to create a prototype camber plate. And while it may seem that 3D scanning or CMM measuring the tower would be easier, the costs associated with those technologies are still in the 5 to 6 figure range for anything we can use with the level of accuracy we need.
Since late 2014 we have had our own in-house CNC machines which has helped us to dramatically shorten our development cycle - now we skip the 3D modeling phase completely, and of course do not have to wait on an outside machine shop. This has cut development time down from weeks to hours. Example: we made a new camber plate for the 2015 Mustang S550 chassis in 48 hours, from the time the car rolled into our shop to the time it we had production quality camber plates installed.
This rapid machining process was replicated in 2016 with our customer "Scottish" Joe's 2013 Camaro 1LE. There were some issues we needed to improve on our original prototype 5th gen plates we made for the LGM race car which we remedied on the pre-production set for Joe's Camaro earlier this year.
Chevrolet also added a strut tower brace on some models that wasn't present on the 2010-11 cars, so the shape of our plate was changed to fit around that. The camber plate itself is a fairly straightforward affair - two plates (with more intricate shapes than seen here) sandwich the top of the strut tower. To adjust camber our "spherical bearing holder" slides in and outboard relative to this sandwich. There is no caster adjustment in our design, and the other designs we've seen only change caster by rotating the main plate (which will change caster and camber concurrently). We made it this way for a reason - this chassis has plenty of caster and needs all of the camber adjustment (and easy track side re-adjustment) it can get.
We have a production batch of 5th gen plates being machined here later this week, along with a new OEM spring perch option to go along with the 3 coilover spring perch sizes we offer for this car now. I'll show some red anodized, production pieces in my next post.
WHAT'S NEXT?
I'm trying to keep this first post brief and will cover more of our parts development and testing in future posts. We've tested Bilstein PSS10s on these cars, made custom brake cooling backing plates and inlets, fitted 19x11" Forgestars and 305mm tires at all four corners, installed Cobra racing seats, full length headers, brake pads, and more. We've learned several tricks along the way that I will share, too.
If you are new to Vorshlag build threads you will soon realize we post a lot of pictures and videos - and almost all of my pictures here can be clicked on to see higher rez versions. Pictures speak a 1000 words, and videos even more.
We have also done a few CAM class autocross events in Joe's 1LE and had a great showing at the 2016 Texas CAM Challenge, which was held last weekend. I will talk more about these events + some upcoming track tests in my next posts.
Cheers,
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