hope to see you on the road some day,, that is one bad ass ride !!!!

 

I have spent many, many hours getting to this point, and if anyone in the future wants to follow me (fools) here is what you need to cut on the drive shaft hump. Using the torque arm setup off the Camaro requires an extra amount of room on the drivers side of the opening. The floor has to be cut and bent up about an inch away from the original "humped-up" area. This will clear the torque arm but much re-enforcing must be done to compensate for this. I have also decided on a full roll cage in the panel. I think the stiffness a roll cage will add will be required.

I'm building the torque arm now. I'll get it powder coated Monday and install it next week.

 

At this point in your project you may not even be thinking about speed but
when all is said and done would you expect your HHR to run about like the Camero did originally? Figuring the weight difference of the v8, trans, and rear end in the HHR there will probably not be a lot of weight difference, a very few hundred pounds at best (curb weight of the Camero 3900lbs and the HHR Panel 3100 + added weight of afore mentioned items). I know I am getting ahead of myself but if you took it to a 1/4 mile track what would you expect, mid to high 12's maybe 13 flat assuming that is a stock LS1?

 

I am expecting a bit more than a stock Camaro. Since the drive train has 156k miles on it, it will all be rebuilt. The posi rear end is all new. The trans is going in for a full rebuild that will include a shift kit and a Corvette servo. The engine will get the full rebuild with machine work, pistons, rings, rods, balancing and a big Comp cam. The heads will be cnc'd and I'll probably go with a 90mm throttle body. I would guess it will produce somewhere around the very high 400 hp range.

 

Torque arm is complete, ready for powder coat. I'll take it in Monday and install it on Friday.

 

For the very first time I have the rear axle in exactly the right place. the tires are centered in the wheel wells, the track is the same inside the fenders and the third member is at the correct angle in relation to the drive shaft. Got the torque are out of powder coat today and just installed it.

Now that everything is in, tomorrow it all comes out to continue on the sheet metal work in the trans/drive shaft hump. I'll pull the engine and trans too as I will be taking them in for rebuild on Monday.

 

Wow!

So, um, where do we sign up for "Test Drives" when you're done?

 

Nice touch with the red powder coating!

 

I like the red

 

The engine and trans are loaded up and ready to go. Should take about a month for the engine and a couple weeks for the trans. It will be sweet when I pick them up, I'm really excited.

I'm also including a shot looking up from the engine bay at the mods I did on the rain trough under the cowl. This was really quite a lot of work to make this piece go straight instead of sloping down. I had some clearance problems with the right head that required this.