Eckler's Camaro World

We’ve all waited patiently for the arrival of the 5th Generation Camaro and of course there are numerous speculations as to how it will look. While driving home last night I thought about how nice it would be if I, as well as hundreds of other Camaro enthusiasts, received rough drawings of ideas as to how we feel the 5th Generation Camaro should look. I’m not a stickler for outside appearances, but when it comes to the drive train I feel that if asked I could offer some insights as to what should not be used in our Camaros.



The first thing would be to make the read end heavy duty; none of this S10 stuff that plagued the 4th Generation Camaros. What an embarrassment it was to add headers to a 4th Generation Camaro for some extra horses and have the rear end break under hard acceleration. You would think that any engineer with common sense would know that Camaros were designed to be driven hard and fast and most buyers of high performance Camaros intend to modify them, as previous years have shown.



Next area of improvement would be the transmission. Once again failure after failure in both the 4L60 and the 6-speed have been reported to local Chevy dealers and most of these failures were not from abuse. This information comes from a really good source as well as previous personal observations. Chevrolet has corrected the 4L60 problem with another stronger automatic transmission, but it was created after the demise of the 4th Gen Camaros. The 6-speed transmission’s main shaft is weak and an easy fix for this has been used by Chrysler in their Viper 6-speed transmissions; they switched to a forged steel shaft.



Now we get to the good stuff, the LS1/LS6 valve train. First weak link is the stock pushrods. If the engine has been over revved, a bent push rod will almost always occur due to weak valve springs which will allow “valve float”. The biggest complaint heard from LS1 owners is bent pushrods.

Granted, most owners admit to having blown a shift forcing the engine to rev over 7000 rpm and the valve springs were not designed for this. A simple solution was to install an aftermarket rev-limiter that prevents over revving past a preset rpm. I know that everything is attached to cost, cost for parts, cost for building the Camaro, cost for selling the Camaro and cost for owning the Camaro, but a rev limiter isn’t all that expensive to include on the car.



I had the pleasure of speaking to several Corvette engineers during my visit to Bowling Green KY, while they looked over my Camaro commenting on the nice installation of the 502. After I made a few runs at the drag strip in Bowling Green, two engineers returned to the pits and inquired about how high the engine temperature got during my runs. I showed them the temp gauge that read 200 degrees and was falling as we talked. I told them my secret was a good radiator with a high output water pump and electric fans. I informed them that I drive the car in Florida and there’s not a better place to test a cooling system than the summer months in Florida. Now I’m no engineer, but I have over 30 years of vehicle experience and I also have friends that have more expertise than I who assist me when needed.



My point to all of this is, when non-engineer people such as us can figure out drive train problems and weak links, on a part time basis, wouldn’t our opinions be worth something?

Being car guys we tend to try anything and everything to gain horsepower. A friend of mine who owns a blown, alcohol-injected, big block Chevy II that is street legal decided to drive his 900 horsepower vehicle Christmas day. After visiting his family he was returning home when, without warning, his bright yellow ‘67 Chevy II stopped running. Quickly determining that the cause was a lack of alternate fuel, i.e., alcohol, he contacted me requesting that I go to his home and bring his spare jug of fuel. Now understand that this is occurring on Christmas day, when I am also having dinner and enjoying the holiday! Well, after getting a full jug of fuel and driving to my friend’s location, we filled the tanks and attempted to start the vehicle. After numerous attempts to get the engine started without success, he determined that the engine was flooded. Fearing the worst, that I would have to get my trailer which was located on the other side of town, ruining the remainder of my holiday, I waited for a hint that the motor would fire. Suddenly, with a loud roar, the motor came to life and we were back on the road and my holiday festivities continued.



Being a member of a motor club is nice, but it’s far better to have an understanding person available to lend a hand. Every car guy has experienced car problems from time to time, when the vehicles are heavily modified, so everyone should make an effort to help their fellow car club member or friend. We don’t need a stupid motor club!

Well it's that time of year when we all expect to get wonderful gifts. What gift would I like to get? How about a 572 crate motor from GM. Well I know that's not going to happen, so I will simply enjoy the holidays with family and friends and await the coming of another great year. I want to wish everyone a very special Merry Christmas and I hope that everyone uses their seat belts and avoid consuming alcoholic beverages if you drive!

I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve attended car shows and looked at cars that actually had too much chrome, or as they say in today’s world too much “bling, bling”. Many car owners feel that if “some is good more is better”, but to me that only applies to horsepower. Some guys go as far as to have the inner fenders chromed, polished firewalls and chromed everything in sight under the hood. To me, it’s nice to see an engine painted with polished or black valve covers, inner fenders painted and the entire under hood area clean.

Another area of the vehicle that has gotten completely wild is wheels. Installing twenty inch wheels on a Camaro is crazy, since this vehicle was not designed for non-performance wheels and tires. These wheels should be saved for other non-performance vehicles setup for display with extra “bling”. It seems to me to be a big waste of money to chrome suspension parts, such as shocks, tie rods and lower control arms on street driven vehicles.

Car owners who choose to simply trailer their vehicles to various car shows and never drive them, this is their thing and of course they need all that bling to get the judges attention. Now for those of us who drive our vehicles and take them to car shows to compare them to other vehicles in our class, then we should keep the bling to a minimum and enhance what the factory already provided. Don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing wrong with making changes or modifying your vehicles to satisfy your taste, just don’t over do it with the wild bling bling, that’s not appropriate for such fine vehicles like our Camaros. You’ll be glad you did!

Life is a fast moving roller coaster that seems to never slow down. We get up on Monday, prepare for work, drive in the morning traffic, arrive for work and face the daily task for which we are paid. This same routine continues throughout the week while we anxiously wait the upcoming weekend. For car guys we should never be bored since our hobby normally does not allow for idle time.

When I lived in the Midwest, during the winter months, my time away from work was occupied either chasing parts for my car or removing the motor for a rebuild in preparation for the upcoming drag racing season. The hours it took just cleaning the old rubber from the bottom of the car can consume several part-time days. If your plans for new modifications to your car include suspension component changes or other changes, then your part-time hours become boredom-free weeks.

Since I now live in Florida, we have the luxury of warm weather year ‘round and when I get a hint of boredom I visit my local drag strip on a Wednesday or Friday night. If I don’t take my car, I go with my friends and assist them with their cars. In the past I tried to have two groups of friends, car types and non-car types and I found myself spending more of my time with friends that have the same hobby as I.

It’s awful hard for me to talk about problems on the job, the stock market, or political issues unless they directly affect me or my hobby. Now I certainly would be interested if I heard that Florida was thinking about a new vehicle inspection program, since these programs have never worked and only serve to take more of our hard earned money. The price of fuel still remains a hot issue with our political leaders and this of course directly affects everyone. The cost of racing is driven by fuel cost and at $8.60 a gallon for racing fuel and $2.40 for premium fuel (necessary when towing a car) that affects me and all other racers and car hobbyists.

The issue of being bored and being a car enthusiast should not be used in the same sentence. There’s so much to do and not enough time to do it and even when we are relaxing with our families, our thoughts go back to that “to do list” taped to the windshield. Without much thought we split our time between the “honey do” list and our own “car to do” list and this keeps most of us so busy that time simply flies by. I’ve often thought about teenagers and their use of drugs and I believe that if cars occupied their time, they would be too tired to think about using drugs and would never be BORED!

Many guys claim to be car guys, but when I ask them “what modification did you make to your vehicle”, the question often goes unanswered. To me, a true car guy is one that is not afraid to make modifications to his vehicle, whether it’s installing headers, a better shifter or changing the intake. Anyone can go out and purchase a vehicle that’s completely done, then attend car shows acting like they built the vehicle themselves.

On several occasions I’ve asked owners of vehicles about their motor, or what type of transmission they had and I get that “deer in the headlights” look prior to their response. Having been around cars for more than 40 years, I’m not easily fooled by someone’s lack of knowledge about cars. One guy told me that his car has a “full race” cam in the motor, so I asked him about lift and duration and once again my question went unanswered.

Last weekend I attended a car show and a gentleman drove into the parking lot with a $200,000 Ford GT. After he parked his car, I went over to look at his vehicle and I asked him one simple question, “what size motor is it?” and once again there was no answer. Now if I were able to pay TWO HUNDERED THOUSAND DOLLARS for a car, I certainly would be able to answer a question like that!

The kids that drive tuner cars, like Hondas and other foreign cars really impress me. They can recite what type of motor is in their car, the type of exhaust, turbo, nitrous kit and more and they can keep talking about modifications they have actually made to their cars.

Being a true car guy, it’s very easy for me to answer questions about my Camaro because I’ve had the car for a long period of time and I do 90% of my own work. I, like the rest of you, have to take my car to the alignment shop for wheel alignments and I’m not a welder, so I rely on friends to weld for me. To me working on my car is a form of relaxation as well as a sense of accomplishment when the task is completed. I enjoy it when kid comes over to my car with his or her Dad and asks questions about the motor or nitrous kit on my car. These kids are our future and hopefully they won’t jump over to the foreign car craze, although the skyrocketing prices of American don’t help the situation.

I’ve heard owners of their vehicles make outrageous horsepower claims, as well as 9 second ET claims and often wanted to challenge them to a race, but I know they will never show up at the drag strip because it’s easier to “talk the talk, than walk the walk”. I know from experience how much horsepower it takes to make a 3600 pound car run 9 second ET’s. So the next time you’re at a car show and you hear talk like “my car can make 500 or 600 rear wheel horsepower, don’t be afraid to ask questions about the modifications the owner made to achieve these horsepower figures...you might be surprised at the answers.

Everyone needs a sense of belonging. People join a church to worship and belong to an organization that encourages others to help people. For these same reasons people join car clubs to help others with the same interest.

Car clubs, if done right, can really provide the ultimate getaway from a lot of life’s stresses. As an example, many years ago I joined a car club after returning from Vietnam. I don’t know why I joined the club at the time, but later I realized my reason for joining was the fact that everyone had the same car interest as I. I had a new big block Chevelle that was fast and several members in the club had really fast cars and I felt I could learn some additional speed secrets from these guys.

We had approximately 30 members and very simple rules; No drugs, no speeding or burnouts within a block of our car club building (heavy fines applied) and members were responsible for any guests they brought to club property. Our club rented a former gas station with a lifts and car wash bays for use by club members. There was an open office area with a well used TV, stereo and refrigerator to keep cold beer and soft drinks and lounge chairs to sit and relax. The best thing about our club was that someone was always working on a vehicle trying to make it go faster. I gained a lot of experience working on vehicles other than Chevy’s and this “on-the-job” training helped me perform better at my part-time jobs at service stations.

During the summer months, many club activities were planned, such as visiting other car clubs, having picnics as a group, going to the drag strip as a group and having parties. When a new person was brought into the club, he had to be voted in and his performance vehicle was checked by club officers. If the vehicle was a “rust bucket, or a hunk of junk” he was denied membership into the club and informed as to what changes must be made in order to gain membership. The reasons were simple, our club received invitations to various civic activities and we had to ensure that our cars were good representatives of the club. I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve been stopped, while wearing my club jacket, by church members and civic members requesting that our club visit their church or school for a car show, or participate in a local parade.

I’ve personally spoken on a local radio show about our club activities and since I was a Navy recruiter in my home town, I also had the opportunity to put in a plug for the U.S. Navy. After my recruiting tour of duty, I was reassigned overseas and the club continued on for several years. It disbanded after the gas prices and smog rules eliminated performance cars as we knew them at the time. I was very fortunate in that I had a car club with facilities where we could work on our cars, hang out with friends, have great activities and help the young kids who saw us as role models in the community.

Now if you can read between the lines you can easily see the reasons to belong to a local car club chapter are numerous, so get out of the house and join up, life’s too short not to!

We’re always informed through advertising about how good this part or that part works and some companies even offer data to support their claims. I prefer to hear from someone I know who has tried a particular part and how those products performed.

Over the last 30 years I’ve installed racing and street performance products and can report firsthand what works and what doesn’t. During my years of experience I’ve seen companies make tremendous improvements of their products. Products such as valve springs for big block Chevy’s now last a complete racing season, where in the past they required changing two or three times a season

Although there are far too many parts to write about individually, I can tell you firsthand about a few products that I’ve used, that work and the companies that manufactured them. Nitrous Express markets a great product; their fuel and nitrous solenoids are superb as is their technical assistance. If the user follows the company’s recommendations they can expect excellent performance without any problems. Switching to their nitrous kit from other brands made a night and day difference and their tech guys are at the race tracks to help users!

The next company I want to talk about is Mickey Thompson Tires. When I drag race my street vehicle I use Mickey Thompson ET Street DOT tires, which work extremely well and allow my car to repeatly run 10 second ET’s. Recently I spoke with a representative from Mickey Thompson during the SEMA show about the ET Street Radial Tires. I was informed that the next tire would improve my ET by about two-tenths from the ET Street non-radials. Wrong! They improved my ET by 4-tenths of a second and my trap speed by 2mph, so needless to say they work! Best of all my 60-foot times went from a 1.50 to a 1.43 so my 3600 pound car was delivering the mail!

The last product I will report on that flat works is the HVH Super Sucker carburetor spacer. This part, without a doubt, has improved my ET by two-tenths with no other modification other that bolting it on. It works by improving the signal to the carburetor, which probably makes the carburetor perform at it peak level. I’m no engineer, but all I can say is it works for me as well as many NHRA Super Stock racers. Oh, btw, none of these products were given to me. Like you, I had to purchase each of these using my hard earned dollars!

We’ve all seen the Car Crazy TV Show and the interviewer talking to some guy about his wild and crazy modified Buick, bedazzled with fringe, a bobblehead and leopardskin seat covers on the vehicle. That got me to thinking about being car crazy in general. I’ve seen guys who are really car crazy at the drag strip. In my travels to drag strips around the country and I find the same things going on; guys lying on the ground working on their race cars that are for the most part a safety tech nightmare. With these guys you’ll usually find a small grill on the pickup bed and nearby kids playing while mom hands the tools to her husband.

Let’s make one thing clear, racing is expensive and most of the grass roots guys can no longer compete with cars with sponsors. While walking around the pits I seen the low budget guy trying to make repairs, tune his car and race with two year old racing slicks. To me these guys are the real car crazy guys. You can easily tell that this same vehicle that is raced is also a daily mode of transportation for the family.

One guy that sticks in my mind was racing at a small drag strip in Florida and he actually had his hood scoop super glued to the hood. We immediately nicknamed him “super glue” and during the first round of eliminations he lost. This drag strip had what they called “a buy-back in program” which allowed the first round loser to pay another $20.00 to get back into the race. This guy, with a wife and three kids, was trying to collect enough money from his family to get back in the show. They were actually counting change together and I thought about how tragic this drag racing addiction really is. Here’s a guy with a junk car trying to compete against other racers with much better equipment hoping to win a portion of the prize money. Well “super glue” lost again and while he was loading his family into the car, I heard his little girl say, “Daddy I’m sorry you lost” and his response was, “Just get in the car!”

Unfortunately these same events occur in every part of the county. I know first hand what it is like to work on a car all week just to be able to race it on weekends. I was fortunate in that I had a sponsor, good income and a great race car, but in the end we’re all truly car crazy.

There’s talk about a new Camaro being unveiled next month and I personally feel that it’s long overdue. Camaro enthusiasts all over the world have written letters, sent e-mails and made personal phone calls regarding the 5th Generation Camaro to anyone who would listen at GM. Well after many, many months of delay, it’s finally going to happen and I like everyone else want to know how well the GM folks have listened. Most Camaro enthusiasts agree that this car must be a rear wheel drive vehicle, weigh less, have all the creature comforts and most of all perform like the Z06 Corvette. If GM decided to put the Z06 motor in the Camaro, then it’s a win, win situation for all of us.

True, performance is not measured in straight lines, although being a drag racer I think that is the best measure. It’s also true that performance is measured in the vehicle’s ability to handle, get good fuel mileage and accelerate like it was shot out of a cannon. Everyone thinks that they can design cars better than those who are being paid for design and development, but I for one would like to sit down with the engineers. One of my first questions would be, “why did you make it so hard to change spark plugs on 4th generation Camaros?” Maybe they woke up when they inserted LS1’s into Camaros since it is easier to change those spark plugs. The other question would be, “why an easier way to remove the gas tank was not in the design framework?” (you must remove the entire rear end to drop the fuel tank which is necessary to change the fuel pump). A better design would have been to simply install a trap door above the fuel pump which could be accessed from the trunk area, requiring less than thirty minutes to change instead of three hours.

Most people who purchase Camaros have a desire to perform their own maintenance rather than drop the car off at a dealership for service or repairs. I for one know that being ASE certified means little if you don’t have the common sense required to repair vehicles. The service manuals at dealerships explain removal and installation methods which not only waste your time and precious dollars, they fail to provide simple to understand solutions to repair problems, requiring the owners to return more than once to get the problem solved. Trouble codes are a prime example. Since most trouble codes won’t indicate the reasons vehicles spit and sputter, the problem may not directly relate to the fuel filter or fuel pump, but to a clogged catalytic converter. I could go on and on as I’m sure most Camaro enthusiast can, but I understand the big picture, the trade off between dealers earning repaid dollars and bodies that are attached to frames without concern as to what they will hide underneath them. My one request to the GM engineers: please make the 5th Generation Camaro easier to work on!

Well, the 18th Annual Performance Racing Industry Trade Show in Orlando Florida has ended and I personally look forward to next year’s event. Every racing performance company in the industry was on hand at the show with their parts on display. This show had something for everyone interested in performance; from blowers to full racing chassis.

I always get excited when I can speak to a person who has knowledge about the parts they manufacture, as well as future parts in the planning stages. One particular part that caught my attention was the new Eldelbrock Nitrous Controller. This product was a work of art with a clear digital screen providing the user with the pertinent information. The small size of this unit for the amount of functions that can be performed, is excellent. This will be my next toy for Christmas!

There were so many great products at this huge show I got the impression that every Camaro part manufactured was represented. The wheel and tire displays were excellent, but as with most parts of this type the prices continued to escalate.

Before the show, I made two decisions: one was not to make any purchases as the show and the other was to leave my credit cards and check book at home. I failed in my ability not to purchase any parts, since I saw a new wire stripping tool that was a “must have” for my tool box. No big deal, the price was only $20.00 so I still feel good that I didn’t commit to any major purchases.

One last note. The race cars on display were, in a word, “awesome”. Every type of NHRA Class car was on hand and it was nice to really look at these vehicles, without someone trying to work on them like they would at the track. I went home with the feeling that the racing industry is very healthy and as a reminder, there was a sign at one of the display booths that said “Racing is a 5 billion dollar industry in the state of North Carolina.