[Music] General Motors has an unspoken rule no car they produce shall overshadow the almighty Corvette but that rule has been bent and even broken in brief moments in history in 1987 Buick partnered with ASC McLaren to build a Grand National experimental a Garett turbocharged 3. 8 L V6 with Cutting Edge engine management a menacing black silhouette and equal performance to the Ferrari 512 TR in a straight line it would be 3 years until the Corvette would catch up and it would take a Lotus engineered Mercury Marine built dual overhead cam small block in the ZR1 to finally eclipse the old Regal but this isn't the first instance Once Upon a Time in the late 1960s a car was so deviously conceived and bent so many rules to be created that its mere Inception was the result of an Illinois dealership checking boxes that even GM was too scared to do on their own it boasted a Sinister power plant plucked from the groundbreaking McLaren MAA race car and its exotic nature meant if the ambient temperature was near freezing it wouldn't even start just like every Ferrari of the time its most impressive attribute was its biggest hindrance and ultimately a key part in its demise at the end of the day it was just a Camaro and a fast one at that this is the story of the ZL1 a car that should have never existed if it weren't for some clever gaming of GM's internal systems and a man hellbent ongoing racing just like this legendary car from the 60s Opera browser is the wolfen sheep's clothing of internet browsers I personally use it to make these videos since it's a game changer for productivity and workflow the groundbreaking Arya AI feature provides realtime info on names and cars you may not have heard of for example if I'm reading an article and I see the name Bill grumpy Jenkins I can get a brief synopsis of how integral he was in the Pro Stock racing in the 60s and his accomplishment which helps give context to an article I'm actively reading I personally like the tab Island feature which saves me time from sorting through endless tabs as I'm building these videos and group them based on ideas which makes them effortless for research and browsing all my messages are easy to get to from Instagram Facebook WhatsApp telegram it has a built-in ad blocker for fast loading pages and a built in VPN to encrypt internet traffic and hide your location it has a lucid mode which can sharpen old footage especially if you watch vintage racing videos like me and custom wallpapers and even a battery saver for when you're working on the go and best part of all the browser and all its features are completely free so head over to the link in the description and download Opera and thanks Opera for making this video possible the year is 1968 the Apollo 8 crew were the first to see The Far Side of the Moon and more importantly the canadian-american challenge cup is in full swing led by Bruce McLaren using Chevrolet big block engines in their McLaren m8a race cars while the automobile manufacturers Association banned corporate sponsor racing it didn't mean backdoor channels of specialty equipment wouldn't find their way into the hands of smaller Privateer groups especially the likes of McLaren motor Ing and chaparo Cars Incorporated the Can-Am series raced under Fia Group 7 regulations which allowed team's freedom to create unique racing cars with no limitations on engine size and output and became the test bed for radical engine combinations first tan Championship winning Vince piggins who led Chevrolet's product performance R&D covertly fed special aluminum block 427 cubic inch V8s to Jim hall for his chaparo 2f and Bruce McLaren for his m8a these new aluminum 427s different from the readily available iron block L88 found in Corvettes with more valve lift thanks to the new cam shaft 131 static compression dry sump oiling a magnesium oil pan and intake manifold and individual throttle bodies helping feed it to 625 horsepower and later nearing 800 horsepower [Music] [Music] it would absolutely dominate in the 68 season against forg tunnel ram FP 427s as it powered every round winning McLaren and propelled Denny hum to win the title in the McLaren m8a and then someone at Chevrolet had the bright idea of stuffing these engines into a production Road car and his name was zor dunov the father of the Corvette just a month after the final round of Can-Am racing General Motors would reveal the specs of their new Can-Am derived aluminum 427 big block for public consumption under the moniker zl-1 it eliminated the dry some oiling system and added Provisions for a mechanical fuel pump steel cylinder liners that were notched to clear the enormous intake valves circular exhaust ports to use with 2 and 1/8 inch headers and redesigned intake ports and combustion chambers that promoted 30% more flow than the L88 427 thanks to less valve shrouding and increased Port volume in testing it made 523 horsepower net rating at the crankshaft with an unrestricted exhaust giving the likes of the 426 H from Chrysler a run for its money this new ZL1 engine was the most powerful production engine ever conceived through Chevrolet and one man was held bent on having them on his dealer lot and his name was Fred Gibb Fred was a seasoned ahra drag racer with all the right Connections in GM's corporate division thanks to owning his Chevrolet dealership in LARP Illinois and he wanted to go drag racing with the new ZL1 engine but there were two blatant issues ahra homologation requirements required 50 production units of an engine chassis combination be produced to qualify for stock Eliminator class racing and even worse General Motors had a corporate policy which forbid engines larger than 400 cubic Ines in non- Corvette passenger vehicles that weren't full siiz like trucks and big sedans meaning the idea of a Camaro with a Z1 engine was impossible well unless you had access to a back channel to special order fleet vehicles known as the central office production order system the Copo system allowed dealers to order special fleet vehicles let's say if a municipality wanted 20 Chevrolet biscan with 396 cubic inch Big Blocks turbo hydromatic 3-speed automatic transmissions heavyduty brakes and painted blue with white doors for use as Highway Patrol Vehicles the copal system was happily obliged Fred Gibb would use this back channel to order 50 Camaros that started as l78 SS models but retrofitted with the aluminum 427 Z1 engine a new Cold Air hood heavy duty Cooling and brakes transistor ignition and a heat treated 41 rear axle the Copo 9560 was born embed a severely underrated 430 horsepower combined with a 3,300 lb shipping weight and thanks to the 150lb weight Savings of the aluminum engine block the Copo 9560 would be competitive against Chrysler's hemmies and fors Cobra Jet powered muscle cars of the [Music] era and ahra trim it could run a 10. 29 at 132 mph which was absolutely mental for the day the Copo 9560 was promising on paper at least but there was a huge problem the price with central office production orders of the past the engineering cost to develop custom orders were absorbed by General Motors but for the Copo 9560 it was tacked onto the price of the ZL1 adding $4,160 to the sticker price or equivalent to a high option Corvette the modern interpretation of this would be a 2023 Camaro SS with a basic interior swapped with a 755 horsepower lt5 and selling for $115,000 or as much as a c86 sounds awesome as right well potential buyers didn't think so and would much rather have the flagship Corvette not only did the cars not sell the new Copo pricing structure made Fred Gibb unable to afford the allotment of 50 cars so Chevrolet agreed to return 37 of the Z1 Camaros which in transport some were stolen stripped of their aluminum racing engines and never seen again the nail in the coffin was a dealer in Canonsburg Pennsylvania owned by a esteemed racing driver named Don Yenko using his connections at Chevrolet to create Copo 9561 which was identical to the 9560 zo1 but replaced the expensive Z1 Engine with an iron l72 427 and different foil Springs and ignition system it was roughly $3,600 cheaper and still created 425 horsepower and was capable of high 11sec quarter M times with open headers and drag sling and these sold 3 to one against the ZL1 now to Gibb's defense the ZL1 wasn't meant to be a sales winner it was meant to meet minimum production requirements for ahra drag racing the first Z1 off the transport truck serial number one was race prepped by Gibb's business partner and Builder dick Harold to debut at the 1969 ahra winter nationals opener and struggled against the 426 Hemi powered competition and knocked out in the semi-finals the struggle finally ended in October 1971 when the Gibb Herold Camaro won the ahra proo championship but to a Bittersweet conclusion as dick Harold had lost his life a month prior in a funny car accident Gibbs sold his last new Copo 9560 in 1972 And as a death grip of emission standards began to tighten and fuel prices Rose the ZL1 Legend would fall by the wayside with many examples not surviving the melee's era the Z1 name would go cold for 30 years the Camaro was relegated to underpowered smog legal V8 throughout the 70s and 80s that depended on flashy paint jobs in retr Graphics to sell cars rather than spec sheets that was until General Motors would take a near billion doll gamble on a new engine architecture to replace the 1950s design of the Gen 1 and Gen 2 small block engines this new gen 3 engine used a 319 T5 aluminum block with sixbolt main bearing caps the cylinder heads were now replicated ports rather than Siamese ports for Even Flow across all cylinders the valve angle was shallower for better flow and increased volumetric efficiency and best of all the intake man fold was now made of DuPont's composite Nylon 66 or better known as [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] plastic it was called the LS1 and it debuted in the 1997 C5 Corvette and then the 1998 Camaro Z28 and SS model this new architecture would be pushed to its design limits when it Camaro Enthusiast turned entrepreneur named Matt Murphy and his company gmmg who had deep ties within General Motors would recreate the ZL1 but on the fourth gen Camaro architecture the 2002 gmmg ZL1 superar started as a b4c RPO code which designated a police package LS1 powered Z28 Maro as the basee car then they were transplanted with ktech 427 cubic in c5r engine similar to the ones used in the lar winning GT class C5 Corvettes these were similar to the LS6 Z06 blocks but included more ribbing for strength and sleeve to receive a 4.
125 in bore and 3. 42 in stroke with 12 to1 compression and 600 horsepower naturally aspirated while not a regular production order model they were sold through dealers as special order models with 69 examples to hearken back to the 1969 COPO 956 69 examples it was a six-figure catfish Camaro double the price of the 2002 Corvette z06's MSRP and just like the Copo 9560 it was a tough sale to even the most DieHard General Motors Enthusiast and with the Camaro production line on the chopping block for 2002 these cars became extremely valuable and r rarely if ever competed in exhibitions between 2003 and 2009 the Camaro was dead the king of the street became the 03 to 04 Terminator cobra with its signature supercharger wine the ' 04 to 06 holding manaro excuse me Pontiac Grand Turismo of malato filled the void for a couple of years but even it too was a Shel gt500s and SRT8 H Challengers Rose to fame throughout 2008 to 2009 but with the announcement of a new Camaro in the air and one of the best marketing moves of all time for Chevrolet the Transformers movie a fifth gen ZL1 could become reality even after a companywide bankruptcy two years after the launch of the fifth gen Camaro the zo1 was released and unlike the ' 60s Copo model and early 2000s reinterpretation this was an RPO or regular production coming straight from the Ontario Canada assembly plant the 427 cubic inch Heritage was no more it was now 376 cubic in or 6. 2 L and a company with an eaten 1.
9 L supercharger pulled from the Cadillac [Music] CTSV the LSA engine wasn't just a Camaro SS derived LS3 with a supercharger rather it had a stronger aluminum alloy block a forge crankshaft lower compression and a beefier rotating assembly with a deeper oil pan versus the LS3 to survive 8 lbs of Boost from the supercharger to withstand the 580 horsepower and 556 lbet of torque the 6l80 6speed automatic of the SS was replaced with a 6L 90e which had an additional clutch plate in every gear to withstand the torque but if you're willing to spend $55,000 on the badge you might as well get the trimic tr6060 manual transmission these fifth gen Camaro Z1S are like the years prior weren't tailored towards straight line speed rather handling and comfort using magn itic ride control suspension six piston brakes and ZR1 derived performance traction management system and it could lap the nerving norda in 7 minutes and 41 seconds which was 1 second off from the Lamborghini Gallardo super leera being an RPO car there was actual marketing and sales effort behind it and General Motors needed to recoup their investment so throughout its run from 2012 to 2015 they produced over 14,000 examples worldwide or 200 times as many as the original Z1 by 2017 the Z1 would reach ethereal status thanks to a new chassis the alpha chassis which replaced the Aging much heavier Zeta chassis of the fifth gen Camaro this new Z1 featured GM's Gen 5 engine architecture which was an LS on steroids the block was Stronger head bolts bigger and with more clamping Force higher compression even shallower valve angle and less shrouding for more intake and exhaust flow Direct in ction fueling and to top it off the lt5 variant in the Z1 was supercharged by a smaller but faster rotating 1.
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