Your car is an extension of your personality, and what you do with it says a lot about you. Whether you’re into drag racing, Indy racing, drifting or just tearing up the highway, the Chevy Camaro is one of the least expensive vehicles to upgrade. You can upgrade for more power or you can add aesthetics to give your Camaro its own look—or you can do both.
Performance Upgrades
Performance upgrades range from something as simple as changing the air intake to rebuilding the engine for crazy amounts of horsepower. If you have an older Camaro that doesn’t use a computer, you are limited only by your wallet. If you have a newer Camaro that uses a computer, you are limited by the computer and, to an extent, your budget—with unlimited funds, you can upgrade to a programmable racing computer, which enables you to make some pretty drastic changes to the engine. For example, the Chevrolet Performance LS 376/525 HP engine controller kit includes a new controller, mass airflow meter and mounting boss, two oxygen sensors and two mounting bosses, engine harness and an accelerator pedal assembly. This performance kit will set you back about $1,400, according to summitracing.com.
Aesthetic Customization
You can change anything you want on the outside of the Camaro from lights to hoods and spoilers. Technostalgia created a set of LED lights that will be the envy of all your friends; they have 176 LEDs and allow you to choose RapidFire brake lights, sequential turn signals and best of all, AfterBurner LEDs, which make you look like a jet taking off from a carrier. These showy LED lights cost $399, according to Cool-leds.com.
If you want a meaner look to your Camaro, you can change out your stock hood for a GTZ Extractor Hood by Specter Werkes ($1,499), a BB-style carbon fiber hood by Seibon Carbon ($1,040) or the Stinger Hood by Nickey Camaro ($1,600). Each hood has its own look. Before you purchase a hood, make sure you’re not going to do something that increases the height of the engine. You may have to cut a hole in the hood if your plans include a supercharger.
Racing
If you want to race, the upgrades you make depend on the type of racing you want to do. For road racing or drifting, you definitely want to upgrade to tires that are capable of handling the beating you are going to put on them. Camaro drivers who want to create a sporty drifter can get Falken tires from DiscountTire.com, like Team Falken’s ’69 Camaro drift machine. The higher-end Falken Azenis RT-615K tires cost $239.95 on SummitRacing.com.
If you want to drag race, you may want to go with some street/strip tires. Mickey Thompson makes some excellent street/strip tires. You can also can opt to change tires after you drive to the track, if you need some seriously soft sidewalls to make the tires stick when the Christmas Tree tells you to put the pedal to the metal. Spinning off the line could cost you big, especially if you are racing for pink slips.
The COPO
The COPO Camaro is back! The first COPO—which stands for Central Office Production Order for Chevrolet’s special order system—was built in 1969. Dealers used this system in the 1960s to produce high-performance vehicles. The COPO Camaros of ’69 ran nine-second times at the track.
The first “new” COPO was shown at the 2011 SEMA show, and because of the response, Chevrolet decided to run a special edition production run. Chevy announced that 69 more COPO Camaros will be built in 2013. People selected by a third party were offered the COPO Camaro. Those who opted to buy the new car were able to choose the engine they wanted for the type of racing they would be doing. Like the type of tires, the type of engine you choose is critical for the application or type of racing you plan on doing.
The new COPO cannot be registered, licensed or titled, which means you can’t drive it on public roads. It is designed to meet NHRA racing specs and includes a full chrome-moly roll cage, solid axle, racing bucket seats and a safety harness for the driver. The sound-deadening material and power accessories were removed to drop the weight of the car, as weight is obviously important in drag racing. Every 100 pounds costs you a tenth of a second. The COPO Camaro’s starting price is $86,000, according to Edmunds.
Photo by Flickr user Nathan Bittinger
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